ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱ་མཚོ་

Bards of the bardo, hear my lay;
ye glacial Himalayas, sway.
Raise a warming toast in sake,
while my mystic muse gets cocky.

You who seek enlightenment
unto whom these lines are sent
open wide your spirit’s portal
(you – who are not yet immortal)

as we weigh a departed soul
and hurl a vajra – let it roll
with tantric thunderclap appeal
while startled Bodhisattvas reel.

Turn from the heights with sober eyes
and under less celestial skies
let us scrutinize the preacher,
pop-star and Tibetan teacher:

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
(born in a manger – so they say)
grew up deep in Eastern mountains,
fed by esoteric fountains.

Soon he became a monkish abbot
painting thankas, chanting sutra
in a saffron-colored habit
high above the Brahmaputra.

Later, the teacher headed west
suckling Maya‘s milky breast
selling used mantras on the way
to devas who came out to play.

Eventually, in Colorado
he rocked the Rockies, thrilled the Beats
Bringing to his own weird bardo
bolder moves and tipsy feats.

Crazy wisdom’s drunken master
clothed in smartly elegant style,
steered disciples toward disaster –
partying gleefully all the while.

He tantalized the Tantric flirts
by seeking Buddhahood up their skirts;
preaching, as their morals sunk
from The Tibetan Book of the Drunk

Meditating, glass in hand
life of the party (of the ******)
the master mingled with dakinis
deep in the bardo of red bikinis.

Leaving behind a score of tulkus
empty bottles, broken parts
books of empty words that fools choose
after charlatans steal their hearts,

Trungpa Rinpoche went down
shaman of shame, hung-over clown
and tried to mend his Karmic puncture
where the left-hand paths make juncture:

Axis of the All, he spoke
a massive Himalayan joke.
Chogyam’s sacred shambala
brought last laughs to the last hurrah.

When his Dharma-dream was ended
Trungpa woke in hell, a snowball;
karmic punctures still unmended
prisoner of the Bardo Thodol

Should you doubt the truths I tell,
the facts are documented well.
Crazy, isnt it? What we’ll take
from vajra-vendors on the make.