The Sakyong has designated May 7, 2013 — the day of the release of [his latest book] The Shambhala Principle — as Basic Goodness Day. This will be an opportunity for each of us to celebrate our understanding and manifestation of basic goodness.
Rinpoche passed on April 04, 1987, 19h00 EST. A number of dharma students —and some who never met him — have had so-called “mystical” experiences vis-a-vis Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
I’d like to share this story with you as an example of how I received a very clear instruction thirteen years after Rinpoche had died on how to manifest basic goodness at its most simple level in April 1990. This is exactly how I wrote about the experience in my journal.
It is 23h03, April 11, 1990, Toronto, Canada.
I put my head on the pillow.
Immediately, I am in the guestroom at my childhood home in Forest Hill Village, Toronto, Canada. Same yellow-gold bedspread that used to be there when I was a child. I prepare to die.Try to remember a mantra to say — I repeat the Padmasambhava mantra several times, and remind myself about the lights one sees in the bardo after death [see Tibetan Book of the Dead].
I shoot out of my body on a channel of energy in the northwest corner of the ceiling. There are flashing lights. People I know welcome me.
There are other people in the area who had not died. They are still in the bardo of this life. [In other words, we all share the same “space.”] They are not aware of those of us who have died. We move among them freely but they do not see us. Two women sit on a park bench talking; they do not see me — I am dead. I am standing behind them. They are chatting. I listen to their discussion. But not for long. It bores me.
So I turn away.
And there is Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche! Sitting at a 45-inch floor Nilus LeClerc loom — the very loom I have in my recreation room — surrounded by two women with long dark hair — dakinis. I have never seen such black hair. Nor so straight. Blacker than black.[Do you remember the elocution lessons we had in the 1980’s? One of Trungpa’s examples was the sentence “Cathy’s hair is black.”] And straighter than straight.
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche tells me “Be nice.” I was somewhat baffled. Just “be nice”? Is that all? No more message? Just…. “be nice”???
{Turns out that our present Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche had a similar reaction when his father [Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche] told him decades ago that he [Sakyong] would become a sakyong:
“When I asked my father what the sakyong did, he replied “The sakyong wakes people up to their own basic goodness.”
That’s it? I thought. <Please click here for source>}
That’s it.
I then move back “out” of the experience and into my body. Whereas at the beginning of the experience, I shot out to “the other side” in an extremely fast way through what I can only describe as a column of energy, I return to the bardo of this life in “stages.” In other words, I am in control of how quickly I re-enter the bardo of this life.
I realize that I’ve just had a monumental experience. Felt some sort of freedom altogether. Once fully back in the body, I am in a state of bliss, and I realize that I will will not fear anything anymore. I have a totaly new perspective on life now.
I had just had my first direct exposure to the Shambhala principle of basic goodness in Plain English. “Be nice.” Be kind. Be wise. Be brave. Do no harm.
Went to sleep in a state of bliss and peace.
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