The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two (34 page)

Like the last, this slogan is connected with the paramita of exertion. Exertion is a sense of joy in your practice. If you have practiced as much as you can in this life and are about to die, then if somebody says, “Look here, it is going to be very difficult for you to go beyond; may I pull the plug for you?” you should have learned to be able to say, “Yes, of course” and “Have a nice time.” Plug pulled out.

After all, death is not that grim. It’s just that we are actually embarrassed talking about it. Nowadays people have no problem talking about sex, or going to porno movies, but they have difficulty dealing with death. We are so embarrassed. It is a big deal to us, yet we have never actually wanted to reflect on death. We disregard the whole thing. We prefer to celebrate life rather than to prepare for death, or even to celebrate death.

In Shambhala terms, refusing to relate with death is connected with what is called setting-sun logic. The whole philosophy of setting sun is to prevent the message of death altogether. It is about how to beautify ourselves, our bodies, so that we could become living corpses. The idea of a living corpse is contradictory in some sense, but it makes sense in terms of setting-sun vision: if we don’t want to die, our corpse has to live a long time; it has to become a living corpse.

Unlike that logic, or the many points of view like that, this slogan tells us that it is important for us to realize that death is an important part of our practice, since we are all going to die and since we are all going to relate with our death anyway. It is about how to die from the basic point of view of our own practice.

The instruction for how to die in mahayana is the five strengths. So we have the five strengths, or the five powers, once again. Because these practices are very simple, and because this is the same list we just discussed, we don’t have to go into them in great detail. Applying the five strengths in this connection is very simple and straightforward.

Strong determination
, number one, is connected with taking a very strong stand: “I will maintain my basic egolessness, my basic sanity, even in my death.” You should concentrate on twofold bodhichitta, repeating to yourself, “Before death and during the bardo, in all my births may I not be separated from twofold bodhichitta.”

Familiarization
is developing a general sense of mindfulness and awareness so that you do not panic because you are dying. You should develop the strength of familiarization, reminding yourself repeatedly of twofold bodhichitta.

The
seed of virtue
is connected with not resting, not taking any kind of break from your fear of death. It also has to do with overcoming your attachment to your belongings.

Reproach
means realizing that this so-called ego does not actually exist. Therefore, you can say, “What am I afraid of, anyway? Go away, ego.” Recognizing that all problems come from ego, all death is caused by ego, you develop revulsion for ego and vow to overcome it.

And the last one,
aspiration
, is realizing that you have tremendous strength and desire to continue and to open yourself up. Therefore, you have nothing to regret when you die. You have already accomplished everything that you can accomplish. You have done everything: you have become a good practitioner and developed your basic practice completely; you have realized the meaning of shamatha and vipashyana, and you have realized the meaning of bodhichitta. If possible you should practice the sevenfold service, or puja.
²
But if you cannot do that, you should think: “Through all my lives may I practice the precious bodhichitta. May I meet a guru who will teach me that. Please, three jewels, bless me so that I may do that.”

Beyond all that, there is an interesting twist. The ultimate instruction on death is simply to try to rest your mind in the nature of ultimate bodhichitta. That is to say, you rest your mind in the nature of alaya and try to pass your breath in that way until you are actually dead.

POINT FIVE

Evaluation of Mind Training

P
OINT
F
IVE AND THE
P
ARAMITA OF
M
EDITATION

The fifth category of mind training is connected with the paramita of meditation. The idea of the paramita of meditation is basically that you are beginning to catch some possibility of the fever of knowledge, or prajna, already. Therefore, you begin to develop a tremendous sense of awareness and mindfulness. It has been said that the practice of meditation, that kind of mindfulness and awareness, is like protecting yourself from the lethal fangs of wild animals. These wild animals are related to the kleshas, the neurosis we experience. If there is not the mindfulness and awareness practice of the paramita of meditation, then we have no way of protecting ourselves from those attacks, and we also have no facilities to teach others or to work for the liberation of other sentient beings. That particular concept of meditation permeates this next section of lojong.

19

All dharma agrees at one point
.

In this case, dharma has nothing to do with the philosophical term
dharma
, or “things as they are”
dharma
here simply means “teachings.” We could say that all teachings are basically a way of subjugating or shedding our ego. And depending on how much the lesson of the subjugation of ego is taking hold in us, that much reality is presented to us. All dharmas that have been taught are connected with that. There is no other dharma. No other teachings exist, particularly in the teachings of Buddha.

In this particular journey the practitioner can be put on a scale, and his or her commitment can be measured. It is like the scale of justice: if your ego is very heavy, you go down; if your ego is light, you go up. So giving up our personal project of ego-aggrandizement and attaining the impersonal project of enlightenment depends on how heavy-handed or how open you are.

Whether teachings are hinayana or mahayana, they all agree. The purpose of all of them is simply to overcome ego. Otherwise, there is no purpose at all. Whatever sutras, scriptures, or commentaries on the teachings of Buddhism you read, they should all connect with your being and be understood as ways of taming your ego. This is one of the main differences between theism and nontheism. Theistic traditions tend to build up an individual substance of some kind, so that you can then step out and do your own version of so-called bodhisattvic actions. But in the nontheistic Buddhist tradition, we talk in terms of having no being, no characteristics of egohood, and therefore being able to perform a much broader version of bodhisattva activity altogether.

The hinayana version of taming ego is to cut through sloppiness and wandering mind by the application of shamatha discipline, or mindfulness. Shamatha practice cuts through the fundamental mechanism of ego, which is that ego has to maintain itself by providing lots of subconscious gossip and discursive thoughts. Beyond that, the vipashyana principle of awareness also allows us to cut through our ego. Being aware of the whole environment and bringing that into our basic discipline allows us to become less self-centered and more in contact with the world around us, so there is less reference point to me- and my-ness.

In the mahayana, when we begin to realize the bodhisattva principle through practicing bodhichitta, our concern is more with warmth and skillfulness. We realize we have nothing to hang on to in ourselves, so we can give away each time. The basis of such compassion is nonterritoriality, non-ego, no ego
at all
. If you have that, then you have compassion. Then further warmth and workability and gentleness take place as well. “All dharma agrees at one point” means that if there is no ego-clinging, then all dharmas are one, all teachings are one. That is compassion.

In order to have an affectionate attitude to somebody else, you have to be without ground to begin with. Otherwise you become an egomaniac, trying to attract people out of your seduction and passion alone, or your arrogance. Compassion develops from shunyata, or nonground, because you have nothing to hold on to, nothing to word
with
, no project, no personal gain, no ulterior motives. Therefore, whatever you do is a clean job, so to speak. So compassion and shunyata work together. It is like sunning yourself at the beach: for one thing you have a beautiful view of the sea and ocean and sky and everything, and there is also sunlight and heat and the ocean coming toward you.

In the hinayana, our ego begins to get a haircut; its beard is shaved. In the mahayana, the limbs of ego are cut, so there are no longer any arms and legs. We even begin to open up the torso of ego. By developing ultimate bodhichitta, we take away the heart so that nothing exists at all. Then we try to utilize the leftover mess of cut-off arms and legs and heads and hearts, along with lots of blood. Applying the bodhisattva approach, we make use of them, we don’t throw them away. We don’t want to pollute our world with lots of leftover egos. Instead we bring them onto the path of dharma by examining them and making use of them. So whatever happens in your life becomes a way of measuring your progress on the path—how much you have been able to shed your limbs, your torso, and your heart. That is why this slogan goes along with another saying of the Kadam teachers, which is “The shedding of ego is the scale that measures the practitioner.” If you have more ego, you will be heavier on that scale; if you have less ego, you will be lighter. That is the measure of how much meditation and awareness have developed, and how much mindlessness has been overcome.

20

Of the two witnesses, hold the principal one
.

In any situation there are two witnesses: other people’s view of you and your own view of yourself. Of those, the principal witness is your own insight. You should not just go along with other people’s opinion of you. The practice of this slogan is always to be true to yourself. Usually when you do something, you would like to get some kind of feedback from your world. You have your own opinions of how well you have done, and you also have other people’s opinions of how well you have done. Usually you keep your own opinion of yourself to yourself. First you have your own opinions about something, and then you begin to branch out and ask somebody else, “Was that all right? How do you think I’m doing?” That is one of the traditional questions that comes up in meetings between teacher and student.

In many cases, people are very impressed by you because you look fit and you are cheerful a great deal and you seem to know what you are doing. A lot of compliments take place. On the other hand, a lot of criticism could come to you from others who do not properly and fully know what is actually happening within you. This slogan says that of the two witnesses, hold the principal one as the actual, authentic one. That authentic witness is you.

You are the only person who knows yourself. You are the only person who has been with yourself since you were born. And even before that, you carried your own great baggage of karma with you. You decided to enter the womb of somebody or other; you were born in somebody’s stomach and you came out of it and you still carry your baggage along with you. You feel your own pain and pleasure and everything. You are the one who experienced your infancy, the pain and pleasure of it; you have gone through your teenagehood, the pain and pleasure of it; you are the one experiencing your adulthood, the pain and pleasure of it. You are beginning to experience your middle-age years, the pain and pleasure of it; and finally, you will experience getting old and dying, the pain and pleasure of it. You have never been away from yourself for even a minute. You know yourself so well. Therefore, you are the best judge of yourself. You know how naughty you are, you know how you try to be sensible, and you know how you sometimes try to sneak things in.

Usually “I” is talking to “am.” “Am I to do this? Am I to do something naughty? If I do, nobody will know.” Only
we
know. We could do it and we might get away with it. There are lots of tricks or projects you and yourself always do together, hoping that nobody will actually find out. If you had to lay the whole thing out in the open, it would be so embarrassing. You would feel so strange. On the other hand, of course, there is the other possibility. You could try to be very good so that somebody would be so impressed with you and with how much effort you put into yourself. You might try to be a good boy or a good girl. But if you have to spell the whole thing out, nobody will actually believe how good you are trying to be. People would think it was just a joke.

Only you really know yourself. You know at every moment. You know the way you do things: the way you brush your teeth, the way you comb your hair, the way you take your shower, the way you put on your clothes, the way you talk to somebody else, the way you eat, even if you are not terribly hungry. During all of those things, “I” and “am” are still carrying on a conversation about everything else. So there are a lot of unsaid things happening to you all the time. Therefore, the principal witness, or the principal judge, is yourself. The judgment of how you are progressing in your lojong practice is yours.

You know best about yourself, so you should work with yourself constantly. This is based on trusting your intelligence rather than trusting yourself, which could be very selfish. It is trusting your intelligence by knowing who you are and what you are. You know yourself so well, therefore any deception could be cut through. If someone congratulates or compliments you, they may not know your entire existence. So you should come back to your own judgment, to your own sense of your expressions and the tricks you play on others and on yourself. That is not self-centered; it is self-inspired from the point of view of the nonexistence of ego. You just witness what you are. You are simply witnessing and evaluating the merit, rather than going back over it in a Jungian or Freudian way.