Crazy Wisdom: The Life & Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Name: Crazy Wisdom: The Life & Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Genre: Documentary
Released: November 25, 2011
Duration: 86 min
Rating: 48

2011

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Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Critic Reviews

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Crazy Wisdom

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Movie Details & Credits

Crazy Wisdom Films | Release Date: November 25, 2011 | Not Rated

Summary: Chogyam Trungpa, renowned Tibetan Buddhist leader, shattered notions about how an enlightened teacher should behave when he renounced his monk's vows & eloped with a sixteen year-old aristocrat. Twenty years after his death, Trungpa's name still evokes admiration and outrage. What made him tick? And just what is enlightenment, anyway?Chogyam Trungpa, renowned Tibetan Buddhist leader, shattered notions about how an enlightened teacher should behave when he renounced his monk's vows & eloped with a sixteen year-old aristocrat. Twenty years after his death, Trungpa's name still evokes admiration and outrage. What made him tick? And just what is enlightenment, anyway? (Crazy Wisdom Productions)… Expand

Director: Johanna Demetrakas

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 86 min

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Critic Reviews

Dennis Harvey

Dec 1, 2011

The late Chogyam Trungpa's very colorful life makes for a most engaging narrative here. Read full review

Justin Lowe

Dec 1, 2011

Crazy Wisdom offers a perceptive, if one-sided, perspective on Trungpa's impact on American spirituality and the arts. Read full review

Joseph Jon Lanthier

Nov 22, 2011

Part of the issue here may be the nature of the talking heads themselves, most of whom are culled from Trungpa's inner circle and lack the objectivity needed to properly judge his philosophy or make it accessible. Read full review

Nick Pinkerton

Nov 22, 2011

Rachel Saltz

Nov 25, 2011

The movie goes mushy when it should be critical, and leaves you with questions that it's not prepared to answer. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

Dec 1, 2011

Director Johanna Demetrakas has decided to simply present the man in all his demanding complexities and let him and his encounters with associates speak for themselves. Her only rubric is the one visible in her title: "Crazy Wisdom." Read full review

V.A. Musetto

Dec 1, 2011

A documentary hardly anybody has been waiting for. Read full review

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handjive

Jul 9, 2013

The documentary is a retrospective on the unusual life and teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche, a high-profile author and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. The film hinges on interviews with his former students, and it suffers greatly from their lack of objectivity. Obviously these folks admire theThe documentary is a retrospective on the unusual life and teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche, a high-profile author and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. The film hinges on interviews with his former students, and it suffers greatly from their lack of objectivity. Obviously these folks admire the man, as they have devoted a lot of time and energy to his teachings and generally hanging around his community for many years. The potentially interesting topics here are completely missed because the subjects seem unable to criticize the human failings of their master (and by extension, themselves). The Master sat on a throne and selected a steady stream of young women (married or not) for special private lessons. Meanwhile his wife kept her mouth shut and the devoted throng dutifully sat there on their meditation cushions for hours, longing for enlightenment. How did Trungpa get a way with it?? The film never asks this crucial question, let alone answer it. But the answer is provided by the film's title: at the core of the saga is an allegedly powerful teaching technique known as "Crazy Wisdom". Unfortunately the film holds the concept in high esteem, failing to bring any of the skepticism it deserves, so the project is doomed to being a wistful, biased, nostalgic love letter. What is Crazy Wisdom? According to the surviving students, it was their master's ingenious method of awakening his students by behaving wildly out of character, and shocking his students with confusing psychological challenges. Okay, maybe that is a real psychological technique with some beneficial utility, but that's only one way of looking at it. Another way to see it is as a method of convincing a large group of gullible 1970's hippies that their guru's alcoholic philandering and his basket full of exotic Tibetan mumbo-jumbo is all part of a clever master plan aimed at guiding them to enlightenment. Why was Trungpa's disrespectful behavior (that must have smelled funny) reflexively deemed acceptable? Well, "it's just more of Trungpa's Crazy Wisdom, of course!" Basically, Crazy Wisdom is an example of the kind of free pass that too many gurus have granted themselves since the beginnings of the cult racket. It was a heavenly sweet deal for the horny master, and all too easy in the free love era, when young "seekers" were hungry for any kind of the exotic teachings that had begun to filter in "from The East". It was not such a sweet deal for the vulnerable students. Glaringly absent are the interviews with the hundreds or thousands of students who got burned by Trungpa's selfish, manipulative behavior. Anyone who did find enlightenment in that milieu probably packed up and hit the road before the next sunrise sitting.… Expand

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