Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to explore the contemporary postmodern appropriation and reinvention of the practice of “crazy holiness” in Russian Orthodoxy and Tibetan Buddhism, highlighting points of contact and discontinuities between the traditions. The first section of the essay will discuss the Russian phenomenon of yurodstvo, a term used to indicate radical ascetics known for their idiosyncratic behavior and their outspoken criticism of religious and political authorities. The recent phenomenon of the punk group Pussy Riot will then be presented as a contemporary rendition of yurodstvo, in a post-theological context where religious rituals and practices are devoid of their metaphysical import. The second section of the essay will introduce the Tibetan phenomenon of the smyon pa, crazy yogins known for their erratic speech and behavior, but also for their readiness to criticize institutional hypocrisy and corruption. The figure of Chögyam Trungpa (1939–1987), a former Tibetan monastic who started the Shambala tradition of Buddhism, is then presented as a contemporary version of smyon pa; his behavior—despite unfortunate and unjustifiable instances of abuse—similarly enabled practitioners to access the truth of the dharma. This paper presents Pussy Riot and Chögyam Trungpa as postmodern instantiations of crazy holiness—for a post-metaphysical and post-religious world where the divine no longer indwells traditional practices but can be still accessed and displayed through performative subversion.
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Notes
For an introduction to the life of Chögyam Trungpa, see Fabrice Midal, Chögyam Trungpa: His Life and Vision (Boston: Shambala, 2012). The best introduction to the Pussy Riot phenomenon is Massha Gessen, Words break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot (London: Riverhead Press, 2014); see also Maria Alyokhina, Riot Days (Dallas, Tx.: Metropolitan Press, 2017), which recounts the group’s history from the perspective of one of its members.
The literature on Russian crazy saints is extensive; see for instance Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets (eds.), Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives (Bloomington, Ind.: Slavica Publishers, 2011). Possibly the best recent study on smyon pa is David M. Di Valerio, The Holy Madmen of Tibet (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2015).
See timurnechaev77, “Pussy Riot gig at Christ the Savior Cathedral,” YouTube video, 1,34. posted (July 2, 2012). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grEBLskpDWQ (accessed on January 4, 2020).
For the text of the moleben’ to the Mother of God, see Fr. Seraphim Dedes, The Service of the Small Supplicatory Canon (otherwise known as the Small Paraklesis) to the Most Holy Theotokos (Perrysville/Hayesville, OH: St. Gregory Palamas Monastery, 2000).
See Sean Michael, “Russian Punks Pussy Riot arrested over Putin protest” March 6, 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/mar/06/russian-punks-pussy-riot-putin-protest (accessed on January 4, 2020).
See Alexei Anishchuk and Steve Gutterman, “Pussy Riot Band Members to be freed from Russian Jail”, December 19, 2013, https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1219/Pussy-Riot-band-members-to-be-freed-from-Russian-jail (accessed on January 4, 2020).
See New Musical Express, “Who are Pussy Riot? A guide to the Russian activist group who crashed the World Cup Final,” September 13, 2018, https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/who-are-pussy-riot-russia-activist-group-world-cup-final-pitch-invasion-2354987 (accessed on January 4, 2020).
See Masha Lipman, “The Absurd and Outrageous Trial of Pussy Riot,” August 7, 2012, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-absurd-and-outrageous-trial-of-pussy-riot?verso=true (accessed on January 4, 2020).
The term comes from the Old Slavonic term yurod, insane or foolish, a term used in the Matt 25:2 to refer to the wise and foolish virgins: Piat’ zhe be ot nich mudry, u pyat yurodivy (“Five of them were wise, and five foolish”)
See Priscilla Hunt’s narrative of the arrival of this concept from Byzantium in her “The Fool and the King: The Vita of Saint Andrew of Constantinople and Russian Urban Holy Foolishness,” in Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets (eds.), Holy Foolishness in Russia, 149-225.
See Orthodox Church of America (n.d.-a), “Blessed Nicholas (Salos) of Pskov The Fool for Christ” (Commemoration on February 28), https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2009/02/28/100616-blessed-nicholas-salos-of-pskov-the-fool-for-christ (accessed on January 4, 2020).
See Orthodox Church of America (n.d.-b), “Blessed Basil of Moscow the Fool for Christ” (Commemoration on August 2nd), https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2019/08/02/102185-blessed-basil-of-moscow-the-fool-for-christ (accessed on January 4, 2020).
See Orthodox Church of America (n.d.-c), “Blessed John of Moscow the Fool for Christ” (Commemoration on July 3), https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2018/07/03/101881-blessed-john-of-moscow-the-fool-for-christ (accessed on January 4, 2020).
Tat’iana Goricheva, Pravoslavie i postmodernism (Leningrad: Izdavstvo Leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1991).
Tat’iana Goricheva, Pravoslavie i postmodernism, 48.
Per-Arne Bodin, “Holy Foolishness and Postmodern Culture,” in Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets (eds.), Holy Foolishness in Russia, 353–72 (esp. 359–61).
The literature on the two transmissions of Buddhism to Tibet is vast; for an introduction, Matthew Kapstein, The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation and Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); for a more popular approach, see also Reginald Ray, Secrets of the Dharma World, 28–66. On Padmasambhava, see Yeshe Tsogyal, The lotus-born: the life story of Padmasambhava (Hong Kong: Rangjung Yeshe ed., 1998)
See David DiValerio, The Holy Madmen of Tibet, 4–6.
Ibid., 39–77.
Ibid., 193–219.
Cited in Di Valerio, ibid., 39–40.
Ibid., 210.
Ibid., 172–86.
For more information about Trungpa’s life and works, apart from Fabrice Midal’s already mentioned biography, see also Fabrice Midal (ed.), Recalling Chögyam Trungpa (Boston: Shambala, 2005); Grant MacLean, From Lion’s Jaws: Chögyam Trungpa’s Epic Escape To The West (Missoula, Mont.: Mountain Pub., 2016); and Chögyam Trungpa’s own autobiography Born in Tibet (Boston: Shambala, 2000)
Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams (eds.), Meeting the Shadow: Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature (New York: Jeremy Tarcher Books, 1991), 141.
See Ari L. Goldman, “2000 attend Buddhist Cremation Rite in Vermont,” New York Times, May 27, 1987, https://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/27/us/2000-attend-buddhist-cremation-rite-in-vermont.html (January 4, 2020).
From Pema Chodron’s interview in the 2011 biopic of Chögyam Trungpa, available at Unknown, ‘Crazy Wisdom’ The Life & Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Youtube video, 1.24′06″ (posted on March 22, 2018), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UW0AC74KDc (accessed January 6, 2020), starting at 54′.
See Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, “Pussy Riot Closing Statement”, in N + 1 Magazine, August 13, 2012, https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/pussy-riot-closing-statements/ (accessed on January 4, 2020).
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Cattoi, T. Pussy Riot and Chögyam Trungpa: Reinventing Crazy Holiness for Post-Modernity. DHARM 3, 59–70 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42240-020-00067-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42240-020-00067-x