The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two (16 page)

S:
If you say so.

TR:
I do say so.

S:
Okay. Now tell me why I don’t exist. I have this belief that I exist. It’s very real. And when you tell me that I don’t exist, I get upset and frightened, and it really gives me a stomachache.

TR:
That’s it, that’s it.

S:
What’s it?

TR:
You are very threatened, right?

S:
Very threatened. It’s a terribly threatening idea.

TR:
That’s right. If you really did exist, you wouldn’t feel threatened.

S:
I’m threatened because you’re supposed to know something that I don’t know. And if you state that we don’t exist, then, who knows, maybe you’re right.

TR:
Well, that’s it.

S:
You’re the one that knows. As far as I’m concerned, I exist.

TR:
Not necessarily. There are some possibilities that you don’t. Look, that you came here, took the trouble to come here, is an expression of your nonexistence. Your listening to my crap and getting upset and threatened is an expression of your nonexistence.

S:
Because I don’t understand it. It’s very hard to understand.

TR:
That’s right. There’s nobody to understand, therefore you can’t understand.

S:
Well, it’s very scary to think you don’t exist. Then what the hell is going on?

TR:
Good luck, madam.

S:
I have good luck.

TR:
With my compliments.

S:
Thank you.

Student:
In abhidharma studies and other writings, it seems to be indicated that the point of shamatha practice is to develop jhana states. Without those, the literature seems to say, it is impossible to go on to the analytical processes involved in vipashyana. But you always caution us not to get involved in the concentration or absorption that leads to the jhana states, but to start out with mindfulness and go straight into panoramic awareness. Are these two different approaches that will both work, or will we have to get into jhana states eventually?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
If I may be so bold as to say so, this approach is superior to the one that encourages jhana states. If you become involved with jhana states, you are still looking for reassurance—the reassurance that you can experience the bliss of the jhana states—before you get into precision. I present it this way partly because that is the way I learned it myself from my teachers. My teachers trusted me. They thought I was an intelligent person, a smart kid, and that I could handle myself all right if they presented the teaching that way.

That is the same way I feel about relating with North American audiences. Every one of you people has done some kind of homework or other, though for the most part very painfully. You have some sort of ground that makes it possible to communicate things very freely to you, in the same way I was taught myself. So I have enormous trust in the audience at this point. People can grasp the point of view behind the basic training being given to them, so there is no need to reassure them through the experience of jhana states. Jhana states are pleasurable states in which they could feel something definite and therefore conclude that the spiritual path really does exist, that everything is true after all. That approach is not necessary. You don’t need the proof, which is a waste of time. Everybody is here, and they have already proved to themselves, maybe negatively, what’s wrong with life, and they are looking for what might be right with it. In that sense, people have done their homework already, so they don’t need further proof.

Jhana states are part of what is called the common path, which is shared by both Buddhists and Hindus. The application is that if somebody wants to get into a religious trip, theistic or nontheistic, they could be reassured through the jhana states that the religious trip does give you something definite to experience right at the beginning. It’s a kind of insurance policy, which we do not particularly need. I think we are more educated than that. Nobody here is a stupid peasant. Everybody is a somewhat intelligent person. Every one of you knows how to sign your name. So we are approaching things with some sophistication.

S:
So as one proceeds on the path through the yanas, and gets into the tantric yogas and everything, there is still no need to work on the jhana states?

TR:
From the vipashyana level onward, it’s no longer the common path, it’s the uncommon path. You are getting into enlightenment territory rather than godhead territory. So jhana states are unnecessary.

They are similar in a way to what people in this country have gone through in taking LSD. Through that they began to realize that their life had something subtler to it than they expected. They felt that something was happening underneath. People took LSD and they felt very special. They felt there was something behind all this, something subtler than this. This is exactly the same thing that jhana states provide—the understanding that life isn’t all that cheap, that it has subtleties. But in order to get into the vajrayana, you don’t just keep taking LSD, which is obsolete from that point of view. That was just an opener, and you were exposed to a different way of seeing your life. You saw it from a different angle than you usually do. So in a way, taking LSD could be said to bring about an instant jhana state. In a way, it’s much neater. Maybe LSD pills should be called jhana pills.

Student:
I’m interested in the point where you are self-conscious in the mindfulness of shamatha and then you switch into becoming panoramically aware. Does that switch happen in flips, in flashes? How does it work?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
What are you trying to find out, really?

S:
I’m trying to classify my experience more, so I know when it’s shamatha and when it’s vipashyana.

TR:
I don’t see any problems there. When you experience shamatha, it’s very literal, very direct, concise and precise. When you experience vipashyana, things begin to expand. Your mindfulness becomes more grown-up. You have a multifaceted awareness taking place, everything all at once. That is possible. It works. It has been done in the past, and we are doing it now. It’s very simple. It’s just like switching on a light switch—there’s no problem, particularly.

But there are side effects, obviously. You start thinking, “What is this about to be? What should happen now?” and all kinds of things like that, which is unnecessary garbage. As far as that’s concerned, when you meditate every day, it’s like shaving every day. You shave off unnecessary little pieces of hair by meditating. So shave every day.

FOUR

Boredom—Full or Empty?

O
NE OF THE POINTS
of basic vipashyana practice is developing what is known as the knowledge of egolessness. That is to say that the awareness that develops through the vipashyana experience brings nonexistence of yourself. And because you develop an understanding of the nonexistence of yourself, therefore you are freer to relate with the phenomenal world—the climate, atmosphere, or environment we have been talking about.

Unless there is no basic center, one cannot develop the vipashyana experience. On the practical level, this means that vipashyana is experiencing a sense of the environment, a sense of space, as the meditator practices. This is called awareness as opposed to mindfulness. Mindfulness is very detailed and very direct, but awareness is something panoramic, open. Even in following the breathing techniques of mindfulness of breathing, you are aware not only of the breathing but also of the environment you have created around the breath.

As far as dealing with heavy-handed thoughts, emotions, is concerned, there is no way of destroying or getting over them unless you see the reference point that is with them. To begin with, seeing this takes the form of awareness of the atmosphere or environment. If you are already aware of the atmosphere beforehand, then there is a possibility that you might have a less intense relationship with your heavy-handed thoughts. That is one of the basic points.

Once you are aware of the atmosphere, you begin to realize that thoughts are no big deal. Thoughts can just be allowed to diffuse into the atmosphere. This kind of atmosphere that we are talking about is, in any case, an ongoing experience that happens to us in our lives. But sometimes we find we are so wrapped up in our little game, our little manipulation, that we miss the totality. That is why it is necessary for students to begin with shamatha—so that they can see the details of such an eruption, such a manipulation, the details of the game that goes on. Then beyond that, having established some kind of relationship with that already, they begin to see the basic totality.

Thus vipashyana is understanding the whole thing. You might ask, “What is this ‘whole thing’?” Well, it’s not particularly anything, really. This “whole thing” is the accommodator of all the activities that are taking place. It is the basic accommodation, which usually comes in the form of boredom, as far as the practitioner is concerned. The practitioner is looking for something to fill the gap, particularly in the sitting practice of vipashyana meditation, where the quality of nonhappening becomes very boring. Then you might get agitated by the boredom, which is the way of filling it up with some activities.

So in this case, the background is boredom. There are different types of boredom that we usually experience. Insecurity, lack of excitement, being idle, nothing happening. In this case, in vipashyana, the boredom we are talking about is a sense of being idle, and this is unconditional boredom. The experience of vipashyana awareness has a quality of all-pervasive thick cream. It has body, at the same time it is fluid, and it is somewhat challenging. Therefore, as one’s development of awareness is taking place, one doesn’t become spaced out particularly, not at all.

When we talk about being spaced out, we are talking about being empty-hearted. When we are empty-hearted, then the dazzling light of emotions begins to irritate us. We can’t grasp anything and we are ready to completely freak out. Whereas the vipashyana awareness is something much more tangible, in some sense, than this empty-heartedness. It is something very personal that exists. It usually accompanies any kind of activity, not only in sitting practice alone.

For example, sitting and listening to this talk, you have developed or created a certain type of attitude. You are directing your attention toward the speaker; but also you know at the same time that you and the speaker are not the only people in this tent, so there is the sense that you are sitting in the middle of the inside of this space—underneath the ocean, so to speak. And awareness brings about your relating with that particular experience, which is tangible, real, experiential.

When awareness relates to that type of experience, it is called insight. Sometimes this is spoken of in terms of light, luminosity. But this doesn’t mean something fluorescent. It refers to the sense of clarity that exists in this experience. Once you feel that basic all-pervasiveness, then there is nothing else but
that
(the other), and
this
(oneself) is long forgotten.

Maybe at the beginning
this
tried to struggle, to fight with
that
, the all-pervasiveness. But though
this
might struggle, at some point the all-pervasiveness is all over the place, and a sense of suffocation begins to develop. And that subtle suffocation turns into boredom. That is the point when you are actually getting into the all-pervasiveness of the vipashyana experience.

This is just the beginning stage of vipashyana that we have been describing. And I would like to emphasize once more that we are not talking about hypothetical possibilities. You can actually experience this in your life, in your being. And in fact, potentialities of vipashyana are already prominent in our experience; they take place all the time. But we have not actually acknowledged them or perhaps even seen them.

Student:
There are experiences in meditation where a certain openness takes place. But this openness seems to be different from boredom. It seems to punctuate the boredom. It is more exciting. It seems to be the opposite of boredom.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
At the introductory level, when you first have such experiences, obviously you feel excited. You feel that this is something new you’ve gotten. But as you use such experiences as part of your practice, you wear out the novelty of them very quickly—particularly in this case—and it all turns into a very powerful boredom.

When you are in a sauna, you like it at the beginning, and you like the idea, the implication, of being in a sauna. You like the sense of cleaning up and loosening up your muscles, and so on. But if you are stuck there, if somebody put a lock on your sauna-bath door, then you would begin to feel the heavy-handedness of it. You would get bored and frightened at the same time.

Student:
You spoke of suffocation turning into boredom, and boredom then moving into some kind of openness. It sounds to me as though boredom is in fact a gut response to the fear of losing oneself, or losing selfhood. Is that the correct way of seeing it?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I see it that way too, yes. The boredom is the atmosphere. While you are bored, you are not aware of
this
, but you’re aware of the atmosphere, which creates boredom. That is a very interesting twist that takes place there, which doesn’t usually happen in your ordinary life.

S:
Instead of being afraid that the self is disappearing directly, you turn that outward, toward the situation.

TR:
That’s right, yes. That’s the awareness experience that happens. Well said, sir.

Student:
When you’re meditating and all of a sudden there’s a sound in the room, like somebody coughs, sometimes you feel so susceptible to it that you feel very shattered. It’s very magnified, very physical, electric. Is that an example of openness?