Quick Take
- Narration: Samuel Bercholz brings an intimate, unhurried quality appropriate for teachings on awareness and non-ego, the right temperament for Trungpa’s deceptively simple language.
- Themes: Meditation beyond the cushion, the six paramitas as lived practice, ego as the obstacle to genuine wisdom
- Mood: Still and demanding, requires active listening, rewards it slowly
- Verdict: A foundational Tibetan Buddhist text delivered with care, essential for practitioners ready to move beyond technique, though it will challenge listeners expecting a how-to guide.
I listened to Meditation in Action on a weekend morning, the kind where the world is quiet enough that you can actually hear yourself think. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s teaching recorded here is short, three hours and eighteen minutes, but it is not easy listening. This is a book that asks something of you, and what it asks is the one thing our current moment makes hardest: the willingness to sit with uncertainty and not reach for a framework.
Trungpa’s central argument is both simple and radical. Meditation does not end when you stand up from the cushion. The formal practice of sitting is a training ground for six activities, generosity, discipline, patience, energy, clarity, and wisdom, that are meant to extend into every corner of daily life. These are the six paramitas of Mahayana Buddhism, and Trungpa’s treatment of them is neither academic nor prescriptive. He is not giving instructions. He is pointing at something and asking the listener to look.
Our Take on Meditation in Action
This text dates originally from Trungpa’s early teachings delivered to Western audiences in the 1960s and 70s, when he was among the first Tibetan teachers to bring these practices into the English-speaking world. Reviewer Miss Melody captures the historical significance precisely: at a time when there were only a handful of books on Buddhist meditation available in English, this was one of them. The fact that it remains relevant and in print more than five decades later is not a marketing claim, it reflects a genuine durability of insight.
What makes this difficult for some listeners is exactly what makes it valuable. Reviewer Ivan Alfredo described arriving expecting “an instruction manual, step-by-step ingredients and mixing and cooking instructions on how-to-meditate almost as if it were a recipe book” and finding instead something that defied that expectation. This is not a meditation technique book. It does not tell you how long to sit, what to do with your hands, or how to count your breath. It addresses the orientation out of which meditation either becomes a genuine practice or remains a performance. The difference between those two things is enormous, and Trungpa is unusually direct about naming it.
Why Listen to Meditation in Action
Samuel Bercholz’s narration is well chosen. Bercholz has a long history with Shambhala Publications, the press most closely associated with Trungpa’s legacy in the West, and he brings a genuine familiarity with the material that prevents the kind of flat, indifferent delivery that can plague recordings of spiritual texts. His pacing is unhurried without being soporific, an important calibration for teachings that require the listener to sit with each paragraph rather than rush to the next.
The audio format suits this material particularly well. Reviewer L. Mansur noted that Trungpa “had a short but prolific life”, he created the Shambhala Centers and was the founding figure behind Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and this text captures the directness and accessibility of his teaching style at its most distilled. At under four hours, it is a text you can return to multiple times, hearing different layers as your practice develops. One reviewer’s observation, “if I could have fully understood and embraced the teachings in this little book, I would never have had to read all the others”, is hyperbolic but contains a truth.
What to Watch For in Meditation in Action
Reviewer ReneeI, a relative newcomer to meditation, found the text challenging and wished for a glossary of terms. This is worth noting honestly. Trungpa uses Sanskrit and Tibetan terminology without always defining it, and he assumes a degree of familiarity with Buddhist conceptual frameworks that beginners may lack. The book is accessible in tone but not in depth, it opens onto territory that requires some prior orientation to navigate fully.
If you are coming to this as a complete newcomer to meditation or Buddhism, you may find it illuminating in parts and confusing in others. That is not necessarily a failure, sometimes the most useful function of a text like this is to show you where the edges of your current understanding are. But if you need practical instruction before philosophical orientation, this is not where to start.
Who Should Listen to Meditation in Action
Practitioners with an existing meditation practice who are ready to examine what they are actually doing when they sit, and what it has or has not changed about how they live, will find this essential. Students of Tibetan Buddhism, or anyone exploring Shambhala teachings specifically, will recognize this as core curriculum. Skip it if you are brand new to meditation and need basic technique instruction; come back to it once you have a foundation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Meditation in Action suitable for complete beginners to Buddhist meditation?
It is accessible in language but assumes some prior exposure to Buddhist ideas. Complete beginners may find certain passages confusing without a glossary. Reviewer ReneeI noted this directly. You will get more from this text if you have at least some familiarity with basic meditation concepts.
What are the six activities Trungpa discusses in Meditation in Action?
He explores generosity, discipline, patience, energy, clarity, and wisdom, the six paramitas of Mahayana Buddhism, and argues that each is a form of meditation in action when practiced with awareness, extending practice from formal sitting into daily life.
How does Samuel Bercholz’s narration compare to a reading by Trungpa himself?
No recorded version of Trungpa reading this text appears to be commercially available. Bercholz, with his deep connection to Shambhala Publications, brings genuine familiarity and appropriate reverence to the material, his pacing and tone serve the contemplative quality of the teachings.
Is this the best starting point for someone new to Chogyam Trungpa’s work?
Many longtime practitioners recommend it as a first Trungpa text precisely because of its brevity and accessibility. That said, his Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism is often cited as the more complete entry point. Both are worth your time, this one can be revisited in a single sitting.
