Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

This modern spiritual classic highlights a trick we play on ourselves and offers a brighter reality: liberation by letting go of the self rather than working to improve it

The Tibetan meditation master Ch�gyam Trungpa calls attention to the commonest pitfall to which every aspirant on the spiritual path falls prey: what he calls spiritual materialism. "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use," he says, "even spirituality." The universal tendency is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement--the impulse to develop and refine the ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty.

Trungpa's incisive, compassionate teachings serve to wake us up from these false comforts. Featuring a new foreward by his son and lineage holder, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism has resonated with students for nearly thirty years--and remains as fresh as ever today.