Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche composed “The Music of Great Bliss” at the age of 19. In this provocative doha Trungpa Rinpoche presents Mahamudra as a girlfriend or lover. He thus explains the view, path, and fruition of Mahamudra in a direct and intimate way. Thrangu Rinpoche’s commentary on this text provides insight into the circumstances surrounding this doha and teaches the meaning of it with clarity and precision.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was born in in eastern Tibet in 1939 and when he was 19 years old, he spent many harrowing months trekking over the Himalayas (described in his book, Born in Tibet). After narrowly escaping capture by the Chinese, he reached India in 1960. It was during this escape that Trungpa Rinpoche wrote A Symphony of Great Bliss which was an explanation of the Mahamudra approach to meditation based on Ju Mipham’s The Music of the Lute which presented the Dzogchen view.
Trungpa Rinpoche was a close dharma brother of Thrangu Rinpoche, and that long close friendship was the inspiration for Thrangu Rinpoche’s search for this lost spiritual song found in 2006. This teaching of four talks was translated by David Karma Choephel. The complete teaching in book form will be published by Shambhala Publications in August or 2020 as The Harmony of the View which includes two more teachings of Thrangu Rinpoche.