Re: Chogyam Trungpa--departed from Ri-Med Tradition

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Some of the observations and critiques offered were very bold, fearlessly honest, and insightful. One such was the critique of Al-Anon workers being unnecessarily condescending and haughty toward Nancy at some point. She insisted on being real, and relentlessly refused to treat her husband as a disposable person, and yet she also learned to take care of herself and not sacrifice herself to the whims of alcoholic/addicts.

She describes how she learned to develop and enforce boundaries to protect herself and her children against her husband's continued misbehavior, but also let him back in after compelling him to realize she was not going to enable his misbehavior anymore. These processes and her rationale is explained clearly.

One such incident is when she goes to pick him up from a rehab center in Sebastopol, and scolds him for trying to manipulate her. They also detail how they both eventually deplore the excesses of the Tibetan lama & guru, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and Nancy explains how a support and survivors group forms in Boulder, Colorado, which continues to offer support and perspective, and the excesses are compared to the Catholic priesthood scandals, which seems an apt parallel.

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This is one gem of a story, in fact, several stories. In flipbook-style, this book by John Steinbeck 1V, the famous author's son, and his wife, Nancy, deftly walks the line between memoir and expose.

From growing up in an alcoholic home to growing up as adults inside a cult guru's enlightenment racket, the authors' dual recollections provide a number of deflating revelations, about the famous Steinbeck as well as the famous guru.

I found especially interesting the dynamics between the Tibetan lama, Trungpa Rinpoche, and his American students, all brimming with devotion and lacking in personal authority, and the parallel with dysfunctional family systems.

Trungpa Rinpoche appears as a drunken, crazy surrogate for the dysfunctional families of the authors. The ploys used to keep the power differential operating in the community of Rinpoche's followers mimic the betrayal and required secrets in the alcoholic family.

At the time of the Steinbecks' involvement, the American zeitgeist was ripe with Eastern gurus telling psychologically vulnerable hippies, then yuppies what to do and how to live their lives. To the authors' credit, they eventually wake up to the pretense of waking up and embark on their own journey of deconditioning from familial ghosts and spiritual authoritarianism, but not before they hit bottom multiple times, wounded by alcoholism, codependence, and post-traumatic stress, and suffering the ostracism of their guru-adulating peers.

The stories of emotional, physical, and spiritual recovery are compelling enough to maintain the reader's interest and stimulate consciousness. Well worth the read!