Wednesday

Out of the Frying Pan and into the Court

A Conversation with Diana Mukpo about Shambhala Household

In a world that often feels chaotic and overwhelming, finding the opportunity to incorporate meditative practices into our daily lives and homes has taken on a new importance. Today, we sit down with Diana Mukpo, wife of the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, author of Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chögyam Trungpa, and Dressage trainer to discuss her upcoming Shambhala Online course, Shambhala Household: Unlocking the Magic and Meaning of Daily Life. In this course, participants will join Diana for a series of six monthly sessions exploring the profound practice of integrating Shambhala Principles into their daily lives and homes. In this interview, Diana provides a glimpse into her life upon first marrying Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, their trials leading up to up their arrival in North America in 1970, and how he created the principles of court and Shambhala household as a vehicle to invite his students into his world of “everyday, kitchen-sink-level” sacredness.

Jillian: Would you tell us a little bit about the days before you and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche arrived in North America? What sort of household did you have?

Diana: I’ll tell you the frying pan story, which is actually where it all began.

I was very young, 16, when I married Trungpa Rinpoche. He was going through an extremely difficult period in his life, having escaped from Tibet. He had finished schooling at Oxford, things had started at Samye Ling [A Tibetan Monastery founded in 1967 located in Scotland] where we were living at the time, and he was going through a transition where he was deciding whether or not to disrobe and have the life of a layperson.

Rinpoche had become really uncomfortable with the Buddhist scene in England at that time and felt that people were more interested in the superficial aspect of the holy Tibetan monk. He wanted to take away the cultural context of the Dharma and make it applicable to Westerners, which was quite a threat to the Tibetans, and marrying a 16-year-old Westerner was probably the ultimate thing he could do to push them over the edge. So, during this time, Rinpoche was processing an awful lot and didn’t want to leave his room. He had gone through many transitions in his life and it was a huge leap to let go of all the Tibetan cultural trappings and dive into western society completely. In fact, we have a diary that he wrote during that time, and some of the things he says are quite beautiful–he didn’t want to deceive anybody by hiding behind the guise of being a holy Tibetan sage, leading people along a spiritually materialistic view of the Dharma.

Akong Rinpoche, who had left Tibet with Trungpa Rinpoche, was managing Samye Ling at that time and told Rinpoche that he wouldn’t let him eat if he didn’t leave his room and join the others at the dining table. Rinpoche still wouldn’t leave, however, because he was going through this transformative time and was very uncomfortable with the whole dynamic. So, I, a 16 year-old teenager, was left with the difficulty of figuring out how to feed him. We got an electric frying pan and I would hide and wait for Akong to unlock the pantry. It was a very long and narrow room, and I would watch for him to go all the way to the end of the pantry to gather things for the next meal. Then, I’d run in and grab an armful of food, run upstairs really fast, lock the door of our bedroom behind us, and cook for him! So, that’s how it all started.

Jillian: Wow! That must have been a wild time in your lives! I would love to hear more about the early days when you and Trungpa Rinpoche first arrived in North America. Would you tell me a little bit about that?

Diana: Obviously, it was not a good situation at Samye Ling and it made the most sense for us to come to America; however, we encountered Visa problems. Originally, we flew into New York, but they wouldn’t admit us. We were then diverted to Canada and eventually ended up in Montreal where we rented a tiny one bedroom studio. The rent was $17 a week and I used to have to go through his clothes to get small change to be able to pay it. There was a bakery in the basement of our building and sometimes the baker would give us a loaf of bread, but we mainly subsisted on rice during that time. In a way, it was bleak, but in another way, it was very exciting, because some of the students from the United States would drive up to meet with him every week or two and I think he saw tremendous potential in North America for teaching. He really perked up at that time and we began to talk about how we would develop a household.

Eventually we got our visas and we were able to come into North America, but shortly after, I had to go back to England for several months, because we couldn’t get the Sakyong [Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche] out of the system for a number of reasons. When I came back to the US,  Rinpoche was in Colorado teaching Tibetan studies part-time at the University of Colorado. There were students that had gone ahead of him and found Trungpa Rinpoche a little house way up in the mountains, but he didn’t feel like it was accessible. This was the beginning of how he started to operate in terms of household. His view of household was always portal with the household becoming a portal for students and others. So, by the time I arrived in Colorado, we had rented a house in Four Mile Canyon that was just above Boulder. Our funds were very limited, but Rinpoche and I began to explore how we could create a beautiful household that would be a portal for people to enter. It was a very exciting time and with very little money, we were able to create a very beautiful situation. Rinpoche was very attracted to some of the English forms, as well as the Tibetan and Japanese forms, so it was a blend of all three and is quite beautiful when you think about it–how you can take those forms and create dignity and beauty with limited resources. He would buy inexpensive wine, and we would put it in a crystal decanter and he would set the table and pay attention to all of the small details. Then he started to invite his students in. Household became a portal for inviting in others as well as for creating a healthy situation for his family.

I visited Tibet in 2002 and one thing I noticed was the accessibility of the Rinpoches to the local people. People would come into the bedroom as if the door wasn’t closed. It was slightly horrifying, because I would wake up in the morning and find all these faces glued to the window looking at me getting dressed–he was 100% accessible and maintained that view towards his students. For me personally, it wasn’t easy living like that for many years.

Jillian: I bet that was difficult. How did the transition to Kalapa Court take place, and what was your understanding of Chöygam Trungpa’s intention in creating such a household?

Diana: I think in terms of looking at all the cultural pieces, it became very clear that one can create a beautiful, wakeful situation without a lot of financial resources. It’s not a problem to spend money, if one wants to, but for instance, the Japanese art of Ikebana is about noticing. You notice the beauty of a flower or flowers, and notice how you can create an arrangement. That was the premise that he created our households on—how one could notice every detail in the environment and create an appreciation of that environment. It’s a gift for our senses. That trajectory followed through various different iterations, and obviously ended up with the Kalapa Court, which I think is very misunderstood in this era.

I think there’s no way to explain what happened in Trungpa Rinpoche’s Kalapa Court if one wasn’t in it, but I’ll do my very best. The reason he created all of these different forms was to find a way to allow people in. It was always about accessibility to him. One can take the view  that he had all of these people serving him, but actually, in some ways, he was serving them. I often noticed how he would relate with the attendants and it wasn’t just about Trungpa Rinpoche, he wanted to know about what was happening in their life, too. The notion of Kalapa court was about, I use the analogy, creating bridges, not building a wall.

The Kalapa Court was a very magical place. There were all sorts of different reasons or roles for people to join, and pay attention to, different forms. In our day-to-day life, forms can change, but they keep a basic premise–caring for others. My four-year-old grandson asked me recently when talking about manners at the dinner table, “What are manners?” I replied, “Manners are something that makes other people feel good. It’s about noticing other people.” Many of the forms, if we dissect them, are about appreciation for others and finding a way to communicate and notice what other people are feeling and accommodate.

Jillian: I really like that! So, how would you describe Kalapa Court to someone new to the Shambhala culture who is taking the misunderstood viewpoint of the Court operating more like royalty with servants, rather than both parties serving each other in terms of compassion and veneration?

Diana: It’s difficult to explain if you weren’t there, but it was about creating a reason for people to be in his presence. It was about creating forms that notice everything that’s happening in the world. For example, the particular way people would bring him tea was not so much that he expected his tea to be brought to him in that particular way, but more so how they would go through the practice of noticing the teapot, noticing the cup, how it’s poured, and so on. It was a way for students to work with themselves and with the teacher in that context. Trungpa Rinpoche was always brilliant at transforming situations in that way.

The foundation we learn with Buddhism is that nothing is particularly solid. Trungpa Rinpoche was very brave. He created a completely insane situation not bound by the laws of humanity, and it worked within that context. In this day and age, if he was alive, it would need to be a completely different situation, but during that era he was working with people who were coming out of the “hippie phase.” He took many of the forms that people were resistant to and looked at the other side of the coin. How could you infuse wakefulness into those forms? The Kalapa Court was a vehicle for people to be in his presence and to have various practices, because what is spirituality, what is dharma, if you’re not actually living it? Dharma is about your home, how you treat your spouse, the environment you create for your children, etc. He created a living situation people were invited into and then trained with a sense of discipline in terms of inhabiting the world well by utilizing their senses of awareness on every level. This was why we created particular forms and they could be changed in a heartbeat if necessary. That was, in fact, a little bit of the hallmark of Trungpa Rinpoche–as soon as one became comfortable with one thing, he changed it.

Jillian: He must’ve liked to keep folks on their toes! Expanding on how Trungpa Rinpoche created access to himself for his students, I can understand where the divide might be for folks newer to Shambhala, seeing him as being served, instead of the Kalapa Court creating an opportunity for practitioners and students to learn about bringing meditation into their daily lives. Almost like training with Trungpa Rinpoche to be able to take the lessons back to their own homes.

Diana: Oh, absolutely. If you are developing that kind of awareness, noticing, and seeing of your environment, it is organically going to be translated into your home.

Jillian: Would you speak more on, and give examples of, bringing in the five-senses?

Diana: Take a look at the room you’re in. Have you noticed what the chairs look like? What does your carpet look like? What do the walls look like? Do they need to be painted? See it with different eyes. It’s about noticing all of those details. When we created the Court originally, Trungpa Rinpoche bought all these second hand chairs and painted them. The place looked absolutely amazing, but with very little money. That comes from noticing your world. That is the essence of dharma–how we live our lives.

Jillian: I’m interested in speaking about the Shambhala Household as a form of connection outside of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his students. How does a Shambhala Household foster connection in terms of opening up your home to others?

Diana: It starts with your own family. That’s really important. One of my children said to me once, “We’re the last family on Earth that has dinner together every night.” And I said, “Well, then we are the last family on Earth, because we’re still going to do it.” It’s about noticing your family, creating rituals, and having appreciation. Then possibly creating a beautiful meal when everyone can eat together: paying attention as the table is set, involving the children–if one is at that stage in life, letting them help so they learn to appreciate and create lovely situations in their home. There are many ways one can become proud of one’s own home, which is one’s own palace. Then, from there, we create hospitality for other people. It becomes a dharmic society.

Jillian: It’s a good reminder that having a clean home and paying attention to its details, whether you have a lot of material possessions or not, is really about the level of intention and the outlook you have surrounding your home. It seems to be the feeling that emanates, rather than the actual items, that helps to create a beautiful space.

Diana: Absolutely, literally looking through fresh eyes. I think we have such a gift in our five senses and we will explore that when I teach the Household program, but in a way, I think we ignore this incredible gift that we have–the beauty that we are able to perceive through our senses. If we can look at our lives through that lens, it opens up all sorts of possibilities.

Jillian:  I was reading an article about how folks often will use their homes like a cave or a place to hide. I very much use my home as my sanctuary, as a place to rejuvenate and recoup. What would you say to someone who has a hard time opening up their home to others and may be prone to isolation?

Diana: There has to be a balance. Your home should be a comfortable place for you to let down and to relax and you have to value yourself by creating an environment you deserve. It’s very  important to notice once you have created an environment that you deserve, that’s beautiful for you, where you’re comfortable, then when you have the resources, both time and financial, it’s very organic to bring somebody into that. I find it fun to find that balance.

You know, when Rinpoche first created the Kalapa Court, I realized that I would have no personal space at all, because I had to allow people access to him. Let me say, if anybody says how great it was to have people serving all the time, it was actually very difficult. I would run to the bathroom in the middle of the night and there’d be a kasung standing outside your bedroom door–and it was like that 24/7. I had to tolerate that, because I think we knew that his time on this planet was going to be limited, and people needed sort of unbridled access to him. In this sense, the court was a very unique situation, but I think we can take some of the pieces from that, and we can find a way to translate it, like you were talking about–how to work with the forms within your own home and when to invite others in. One may look at the (Kalapa Court) situation and say that it was unique, but there’s still a lot of aspects that we can learn from it and apply to our living environment today.

Shambhala Online would like to deeply thank Diana Mukpo for joining us in conversation and offering insights into the early days of her and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s life in North America. While underscoring the importance of creating a mindful home during any and every stage of life, we learned how Shambhala Household all began with one electric frying-pan and a sneaky, quick teenager. To learn more about Shambhala Household, Shambhala principles, and Kalapa Court, join Diana Mukpo for Shambhala Household: Unlocking the Magic and Meaning of Daily Life beginning April 12, 2025. Thank you again to Diana for sharing her valuable perspective, and thank you for reading.

Shambhala Household: Unlocking the Magic and Meaning of Daily Life

Diana Mukpo

Saturdays: May 3 / Jun 14 / Jul 19 / Sept 20 / Oct 11 / TBD

3:00-4:30 p.m. ET

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