Free The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Seven by Chögyam Trungpa Page B

another in a newspaper maze in 1973. Mudra Theater Conference in Boulder, Colorado.
    PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN. FROM THE COLLECTION OF SHAMBHALA ARCHIVES.
     
    In some of his earliest talks introducing the Mudra Space Awareness exercises, Rinpoche also spoke about how they related to particular vajrayana or tantric teachings: “A lot of the exercises are sort of maha ati yoga practices. They are related to the Four Torches. Actually, the maha ati [practice I’m talking about here] doesn’t talk about space; it talks about wind or air. The first one, the wind of karma, is related with muscles, and intensification of limbs. So, in other words, your limbs are related to as kind of tools to grab things with, which is connected with karma’s volitional action. If you relate with the wind of karma, which is that creation of space within your muscles, you relate with the space or the air which is contained within the muscles. The second one is related with creating space through the eyes and has to do with the wind of emotions or kleshas. The third one is the wind of body. It is connected to the earth and the four elements. The last one is called inner luminosity. It is connected with brain and heart together, which is something very subtle.” 52
    Altogether, there is a great deal of subtlety and profundity in the theater work that Chögyam Trungpa introduced. Little has been written about this work, and for this reason, this introduction to Volume Seven has gone into considerable detail to provide information about the events that form the background to the few theater-related publications that are included in The Collected Works. Chögyam Trungpa’s work in this area put him in touch with the leading figures in the American avant-garde theater and show yet another way in which he brought together teachings from the vajrayana tradition of Buddhism in Tibet with the most modern developments in an artistic field. One hopes that in the near future more information on this fascinating aspect of his work will be published.
    In 2001, Naropa University published a book on Lee Worley’s theater work, Coming from Nothing, which includes an introduction to some of the principles of Mudra Space Awareness. Lee is planning to edit a book of Chögyam Trungpa’s plays and some of his talks on space awareness, accompanied by interviews or reflections by theater people who have been influenced by Rinpoche’s work. Joanna Rotte, a playwright and director who teaches at the Villanova University, is also interested in working on the book. Joanna never met Trungpa Rinpoche, but in the last ten years she has become familiar with his plays, and in the summer of 2000, she adapted one of Rinpoche’s best-known dramas, Prajna, for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.
    Volume Seven of The Collected Works includes the original version of Prajna, which was performed for the first time during the summer session at the Naropa Institute in 1974. Subsequently, the play was published in Loka: A Magazine of the Naropa Institute. 53 Andy Karr, who directed Prajna when it was performed at Naropa, wrote an introduction in Loka to the play. He explains that it “is based on the Heart Sutra, a distillation of the voluminous Prajnaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) literature, which is central to Mahayana Buddhism.”
    The other play included in Volume Seven is Proclamation, which was performed by the Mudra Theater Group at a Midsummer’s Day festival in 1980. This play combines elements from both the Buddhist and the Shambhala teachings. Interestingly, both Prajna and Proclamation —one of the last plays that Rinpoche wrote—include recitations of the Heart Sutra, an intriguing hint that his theater work may have had an ongoing connection to exploring the interaction between form and emptiness, which is so central to the Prajnaparamita teachings of the mahayana. It would seem that Rinpoche was not primarily interested in exploring characters or their stories in his