Basic Goodness

Chogyam Trungpa created a spiritual school in 1975 that he termed “Shambhala.” The school is a “secular discipline,” not tied to any specific religion.[1] In Tibetan thought, Shambhala was a kingdom, either real or legendary, that existed in the ancient past, and that represented “the ideal of an enlightened society.”[2] In the present day, there are practice centers that continue Trungpa’s Shambhala teachings in Canada, Europe, and the United States.

A student who follows these teachings is encouraged to experience “the complete primordial realization of [his or her] basic goodness.”[3] “Basic goodness” is known as “buddhanature” within Soto Zen and other Buddhist schools. Presumably Trungpa avoids the term because of the secular nature of Shambhala.  

The training of a Shambhala student, Trungpa says, is “learning to rest in basic goodness.” He adds, “. . .That state of being is called egolessness.”[4] Egolessness is “letting go of any vestiges of doubt or hesitation or embarrassment about being you as you are.”[5] The complete acceptance and affirmation of “you as you are” is the realization of one’s basic goodness.

In Trungpa’s thought, meditation, which in his description is essentially zazen, is a powerful tool in realizing one’s basic goodness. He says,

In meditation you are neither ‘for’ nor ‘against’ your experience.  
That is, you don’t praise some thoughts and condemn others, but 
you take an unbiased approach. You let things be as they are, 
without judgment, and in that way you yourself learn to be, to 
express your existence directly, nonconceptually.[6]

Except in rare cases, the egoless realization of one’s basic goodness may not be a condition that is attained permanently. However, if one makes a mistake, through meditation, Trungpa says, “There is no problem with cleaning things up if we realize that we are just returning them to their natural, original state.”[7] He continues, basic goodness is “the pure ground that is always there, waiting to be cleaned by us.”[8]  

The subtitle of the book of talks from which these quotes are taken is The Sacred Path of the Warrior. Achieving, to some degree, egoless realization of basic goodness, the “warrior” of Shambhala “renounces anything in his or her experience that is a barrier between himself and others.”[9] He flows out in service to others and the great world.

Footnotes