The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two (22 page)

Trungpa Rinpoche stressed the importance of the oral tradition, in which practices are transmitted personally and directly from teacher to student. In that way students participate directly in an unbroken wisdom tradition, going back many generations to the time of the Buddha himself. The essential living quality of practice being conveyed is a very human one and cannot be acquired simply from books. Therefore, it is recommended that before embarking on the formal practice of sending and taking, if at all possible, one should meet with an experienced practitioner to discuss the practice and receive formal instruction.

The postmeditation practice is based upon the spontaneous recall of appropriate slogans in the thick of daily life. Rather than making a heavy-handed or deliberate effort to guide your actions in accordance with the slogans, a quality of spontaneous reminder is evoked through the study of these traditional aphorisms. If you study these seven points of mind training and memorize the slogans, you will find that they arise effortlessly in your mind at the oddest times. They have a haunting quality, and in their recurrence they can lead you gradually to a more and more subtle understanding of the nature of kindness and compassion.

The slogans have a way of continually turning in on themselves, so that any attempt to rely on these sayings as crutches to support a particular moral view is undermined. The approach to moral action here is one of removing obstacles of limited vision, fear and self-clinging, so that one’s actions are not burdened by the weight of self-concern, projections, and expectations. The slogans are meant to be “practiced.” That is, they need to be studied and memorized. At the same time, they need to be “let go.” They are merely conceptual tools pointing to nonconceptual realization.

As is usual in Buddhist teachings, there is an element of playfulness and irony in the way one slogan often undermines its predecessor and thereby enlarges one’s view. They form a loop in which nothing is excluded. Whatever arises in one’s mind or experience is let go into the greater space of awareness that slogan practice generates. It is this openness of mind that becomes the basis for the cultivation of compassion.

The view of morality presented through the Kadampa slogans is similar to that of Shakespeare’s famous lines, “The quality of mercy is not strained, it falleth as the gentle rain from heaven.” There is no notion of moral battlefield in which we ward off evil and fight for the right. The traditional Buddhist image for compassion is that of the sun, which shines beneficently and equally on all. It is the sun’s nature to shine; there is no struggle. Likewise, compassion is a natural human activity, once the veils and obstacles to its expression are removed.

The Vidyadhara encouraged his students to include tonglen in their daily meditation practice and to memorize the slogans. He would have individual slogans beautifully calligraphed and posted at Vajradhatu seminaries. You never knew when you might come across one. For instance, you might find “Be grateful to everyone” posted in the kitchen or “Drive all blames into one” hanging from a tree. The slogans are meant to be contemplated—one by one. For that reason the Vidyadhara encouraged students to use printed slogan cards as daily reminders and provocateurs.
*

In their earthiness and simplicity, may these teachings inspire us to cultivate kindness and compassion, and not to give up on ourselves or others. May they provoke fearlessness in overcoming the tenacious grip of ego. May they enable us to put into practice our most heartfelt aspirations to benefit all sentient beings on the path of awakening.

*
See note 3 at the end of the Introduction to Volume Two for information on obtaining slogan cards.

Introduction

I
N THE MAHAYANA
tradition
¹
we experience a sense of gentleness toward ourselves, and a sense of friendliness to others begins to arise. That friendliness or compassion is known in Tibetan as
nyingje
, which literally means “noble heart.” We are willing to commit ourselves to working with all sentient beings. But before we actually launch into that project, we first need a lot of training.

The obstacle to becoming a mahayanist is not having enough sympathy for others and for oneself—that is the basic point. And that problem can be dealt with by practical training, which is known as lojong practice, “training the mind.” That training gives us a path, a way to work with our crude and literal and raw and rugged styles, a way to become good mahayanists. Ignorant or stupid students of the mahayana sometimes think that they have to glorify themselves; they want to become leaders or guides. We have a technique or practice for overcoming that problem. That practice is the development of humility, which is connected with training the mind.

The basic mahayana vision is to work for the benefit of others and create a situation that will benefit others. Therefore, you take the attitude that you are willing to dedicate yourself to others. When you take that attitude, you begin to realize that others are more important than yourself. Because of that vision of mahayana, because you adopt that attitude, and because you actually find that others are more important—with all three of those together, you develop the mahayana practice of training the mind.

Hinayana discipline is fundamentally one of
taming
the mind. By working with the various forms of unmindfulness, we begin to become thorough and precise, and our discipline becomes good. When we are thoroughly tamed by the practice of shamatha discipline, or mindfulness practice, as well as trained by vipashyana, or awareness, in how to hear the teachings, we begin to develop a complete understanding of the dharma. After that, we also begin to develop a complete understanding of how, in our particular state of being tamed, we can relate with others.

In the mahayana we talk more in terms of
training
the mind. That is the next step. The mind is already tamed, therefore it can be trained. In other words, we have been able to domesticate our mind by practicing hinayana discipline according to the principles of the buddhadharma. Having domesticated our mind, then we can use it further. It’s like the story of capturing a wild cow in the old days. Having captured the wild cow, having domesticated it, you find that the cow becomes completely willing to relate with its tamers. In fact, the cow likes being domesticated. So at this point the cow is part of our household. Once upon a time it wasn’t that way—I’m sure cows were wild and ferocious before we domesticated them.

Training the mind is known as lojong in Tibetan:
lo
means “intelligence,” “mind,” “that which can perceive things”;
jong
means “training” or “processing.” The teachings of lojong consist of several steps or points of mahayana discipline. The basic discipline of mind training or lojong is a sevenfold cleaning or processing of one’s mind.

This book is based on the basic Kadampa text,
The Root Text of the Seven Points of Training the Mind
, and on the commentary by Jamgön Kongtrül. In Tibetan the commentary is called
Changchup Shunglam. Shung
is the word used for “government” and also for “main body.” So
shung
means “main governing body.” For instance, we could call the Tibetan government
pö shung
—
pö
meaning “Tibet,”
shung
meaning “government.” The government that is supposed to run a country is a wide administration rather than a narrow administration: it takes care of the psychology of the country, the economics, politics, and domestic situations.
Shung
is actually the working basis, the main working stream.
Lam
means “path.” So shunglam is a general highway, so to speak, a basic process of working toward enlightenment. In other words, it is the mahayana approach. It is the highway that everybody goes on, a wide way, extraordinarily wide and extraordinarily open.
Changchup
means “enlightenment,”
shung
means “wide” or “basic,” and
lam
means “path.” So the title of the commentary is
The Basic Path Toward Enlightenment
.

The main text is based on Atisha’s teachings on lojong and comes from the Kadam school of Tibetan Buddhism, which developed around the time of Marpa and Milarepa, when Tibetan monasticism had begun to take place and become deep-rooted. The Kagyüpas received these instructions on the proper practice of mahayana Buddhism through Gampopa, who studied with Milarepa as well as with Kadam teachers. There is what is known as the contemplative Kadam school and the intellectual Kadam school. What we are doing here is related to the Kadam school’s contemplative tradition. The Gelukpas specialized in dialectics and took a more philosophical approach to understanding the Kadam tradition.

The word
kadam
has an interesting meaning for us.
Ka
means “command,” as when a general gives a pep talk to his or her troops or a king gives a command to his ministers. Or we could say “Logos,” or “Word,” as in the Christian tradition: “In the beginning was the Word.” That kind of Word is a fundamental sacred command, the first that was uttered at all! In this case,
ka
refers to a sense of absolute truth and a sense of practicality or workability from the individual’s point of view.
Dam
is “oral teaching,” “personal teaching,” that is, a manual on how to handle our life properly. So
ka
and
dam
mixed together means that all the
ka
, all the commands or messages, are regarded as practical and workable oral teachings. They are regarded as a practical working basis for students who are involved with contemplative and meditative disciplines. That is the basic meaning of
kadam
.

The few lists presented here are very simple ones, nothing particularly philosophical. It is purely what one of the great Kagyü teachers regarded as a “grandmother’s finger-point.” When a grandmother says, “This is the place where I used to go and pick corn, collect wild vegetables,” she usually uses her finger rather than writing on paper or using a map. So it is a grandmother’s approach at this point.

In my own case, having studied philosophy a lot, the first time Jamgön Kongtrül suggested that I read and study this book,
Changchup Shunglam
, I was relieved that Buddhism was so simple and that you could actually do something about it. You can actually practice. You can just follow the book and do as it says, which is extraordinarily powerful and such a relief. And that sense of simplicity still continues. It is so precious and so direct. I do not know what kind of words to use to describe it. It is somewhat rugged, but at the same time it is so soothing to read such writing. That is one of the characteristics of Jamgön Kongtrül—he can change his tone completely, as if he were a different author altogether. Whenever he writes on a particular subject, he changes his approach accordingly, and his basic awareness to relate with the audience becomes entirely different.

Jamgön Kongtrül’s commentary on the Kadampa slogans is one of the best books I studied in the early stages of my monastic kick. I was going to become a simple little monk. I was going to study these things and become a good little Buddhist and a contemplative-type person. Such a thread still holds throughout my life. In spite of complications in my life and organizational problems, I still feel that I am basically a simple, romantic Buddhist who has immense feeling toward the teachers and the teaching.

What has been said is a drop of golden liquid. Each time you read such a book it confirms again and again that there is something about it which makes everything very simple and direct. That makes me immensely happy. I sleep well, too. There is a hard-edged quality of cutting down preconceptions and other ego battles that might be involved in presenting the teaching. But at the same time there is always a soft spot of devotion and simplicity in mahayana Buddhism which you can never forget. That is very important. I am not particularly trying to be dramatic. If it comes through that way, it’s too bad. But I really do feel extraordinarily positive about Jamgön Kongtrül and his approach to this teaching.

POINT ONE

The Preliminaries, Which Are a Basis for Dharma Practice

1

First, train in the preliminaries
.

In practicing the slogans and in your daily life, you should maintain an awareness of [1] the preciousness of human life and the particular good fortune of life in an environment in which you can hear the teachings of buddhadharma; [2] the reality of death, that it comes suddenly and without warning; [3] the entrapment of karma—that whatever you do, whether virtuous or not, only further entraps you in the chain of cause and effect; and [4] the intensity and inevitability of suffering for yourself and for all sentient beings. This is called “taking an attitude of the four reminders.”

With that attitude as a base, you should call upon your guru with devotion, inviting into yourself the atmosphere of sanity inspired by his or her example, and vowing to cut the roots of further ignorance and suffering. This ties in very closely with the notion of maitri, or loving-kindness. In the traditional analogy of one’s spiritual path, the only pure loving object seems to be somebody who can show you the path. You could have a loving relationship with your parents, relatives, and so forth, but there are still problems with that: your neurosis goes along with it. A pure love affair can only take place with one’s teacher. So that ideal sympathetic object is used as a starting point, a way of developing a relationship beyond your own neurosis. Particularly in the mahayana, you relate to the teacher as someone who cheers you up from depression and brings you down from excitement, a kind of moderator principle. The teacher is regarded as important from that point of view.