T h e d r a l a p r i n c i p l e (1):
u n l i m i t e d f i e l d o f p e r c e p t i o n
Bill Scheffel
Photo: Bill Scheffel
I had the great good fortune to be Chögyam Trungpa’s Kusung during the two dharma art installations he created with his students in California. At the first installation in Los Angeles, I helped him from the automobile into a circle of attentive students standing in an empty, dusty warehouse. Rinpoche seemed to have no plan, no anxiety, no hesitation and an enormous quotient of playfulness. Instruction by instruction and over two-week period, his and these students turned an empty warehouse into a hall of flowers and enlightened design.
Each day, Trungpa Rinpoche was taken on field trips, places where he might find a pine tree bough or fresh chrysanthamums. He would take great delight in asking me to find in advance out how long each drive would take, since no matter the distance or tangle of traffic, the habitual L.A. response was always, “About twenty mintutes.”
During this same visit, Rinpoche was informed, as we walked from curb to front door, that John Lennon had been assassinated. I can almost see the suit Rinpoche was wearing but I cannot remember what he said. That shared but I’m still searching for that memory. I guess I think I should supplicate for its return. — Bill Scheffel, November 2009
Introduction to the drala principle
We may have been interested in our world when we were little children, but then we were taught how to handle it by our parents who had already developed a system to deal with the world and to shield themselves from it at the same time. As we accepted that system, we lost contact with the freshness and curiosity of experience. — Chögyam Trungpa
The “drala principle” refers to a body of teachings the Tibetan Buddhist meditation master Chögyam Trungpa presented in the last decade of his life, from 1978 to 1986. The roots of the drala principle precede the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet and are found in the indigenous traditions of that country — as they are in all countries. The drala principle is applicable, not to Buddhist practitioners alone, but to anyone. These teachings speak to the heart, whether one is, so to speak, religiously, artistically or politically motivated.
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