The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two (37 page)

33

Don’t bring things to a painful point
.

Don’t blame your sense of dissatisfaction, pain, and misery on somebody else, and do not try to lay your power trips on others. Whatever power you have—domestic power, literary power, or political power—don’t impose it on somebody else.

This slogan also means not to humiliate people. An important point of the bodhisattva idea altogether is to encourage people on their path. However, you could relate with people in such a way that you progress much faster on the path than they do. There are ways of slowing down other people’s journeys so that you can stay ahead of them. But in this slogan, instead of doing that, you develop the other way around—you come along behind the others.

34

Don’t transfer the ox’s load to the cow
.

It is very easy to say, “It’s not my fault, it’s all your fault; it’s always your fault.” It is very easy to say that, but it is questionable. One has to think about one’s problems personally, honestly, and genuinely. If there were no
you
to initiate situations, there would not be any problems at all. But since you exist, therefore there are also problems. We do not want to transfer that load.

The ox is capable of carrying burdens; the cow is less capable of carrying burdens. So the point of this slogan is that you do not transfer your heavy load to someone who is weaker than you. Transferring the ox’s load to the cow means not wanting to deal with anything on your own. You don’t want to take on any responsibilities; you just pass them on to your secretary or your friends or anybody you can order about. In English we call this “passing the buck.” Doing that is a bad idea, since we are supposed to be cutting down chaos and creating less traffic in the samsaric world altogether. We are supposed to be cutting down on administrative problems and trying to sort things out. We could invite other people to be our helpers, but we cannot pass the buck to them. So don’t transfer the ox’s load to the cow.

35

Don’t try to be the fastest
.

When practitioners begin to develop their understanding of the dharma and their appreciation of the dharma, they sometimes fall into a sort of racehorse approach. They become involved with who is the fastest: who can understand the highest meaning of mahamudra or the greatest meaning of tantra or the highest idea of ultimate bodhichitta, or who has understood any of the hidden teachings. Such practitioners are concerned with who can do their prostrations faster, who can sit better, who can eat better, who can do this and that better. They are always trying to race with other people. But if our practice is regarded purely as a race, we have a problem. The whole thing has become a game rather than actual practice, and there is no seed of benevolence and gentleness in the practitioner. So you should not use your practice as a way to get ahead of your fellow students. The point of this slogan is to not try to achieve fame, honor, or distinction through one’s practice.

36

Don’t act with a twist
.

Acting with a twist means that since you think you are going to get the best in any case, you might as well volunteer for the worst. That is very sneaky. You could act with a twist in dealing with your teacher, your students, your life situation—everything. You could pretend to be a completely benevolent person who always takes the blame, realizing all along that you are going to get the best. It is quite straightforward, I think.

Acting with a twist is a form of spiritual materialism. It is always having the ulterior motive of working for your own benefit. For instance, in order to gain good results for yourself, you may temporarily take the blame for something. Or you may practice lojong very hard in order to get something out of it or with the idea of protecting yourself from sickness. The practice of this slogan is to drop that attitude of looking for personal benefits from practice—either as an immediate or a long-term result.

37

Don’t make gods into demons
.

This slogan refers to our general tendency to dwell on pain and go through life with constant complaints. We should not make painful that which is inherently joyful.

At this point, you may have achieved a certain level of taming yourself. You may have developed the tonglen practice of exchanging yourself for others and feel that your achievement is real. But at the same time, you are so arrogant about the whole thing that your achievement begins to become an evil intention, because you think you can show off. In that way, dharma becomes adharma, or nondharma.

Although your achievement may be the right kind of achievement and you may actually have a very good experience—if you regard that as a way of proving yourself and building up your ego, it is not so good.

38

Don’t seek others’ pain as the limbs of your own happiness
.

This slogan is quite straightforward: you hope that somebody else will suffer so that you can benefit from it. Here is a very simple analogy: if a member of the sangha dies, you might inherit his or her meditation cushion, or if you are a vajrayana practitioner, you might inherit his bell and dorje. We could expand on that logic in any number of situations, but I don’t think it is necessary for us to do so.

We should not build our own happiness on the suffering of others. Although it may benefit us if someone experiences misfortune, we should not wish for that and dream about what we could get out of such a situation. Happiness that is built on pain is spurious and only leads to depression in the long run.

POINT SEVEN

Guidelines of Mind Training

P
OINT
S
EVEN AND
P
OSTMEDITATION

The guidelines of mind training have to do with how to proceed further in our everyday life. This topic seems to be connected with a general realization of how we can conduct ourselves properly in our relationships and in the general postmeditation experience.

39

All activities should be done with one intention
.

The one intention is to have a sense of gentleness toward others and a willingness to be helpful to others—always. That seems to be the essence of the bodhisattva vow. In whatever you do—sitting, walking, eating, drinking, even sleeping—you should always take the attitude of being of benefit to all sentient beings.

40

Correct all wrongs with one intention
.

When you are in the midst of perverse circumstances such as intense sickness, a bad reputation, court cases, economic or domestic crises, an increase of kleshas, or resistance to practice, you should develop compassion for all sentient beings who also suffer like this, and you should aspire to take on their suffering yourself through the practice of lojong.

We need to correct, or to overcome, all the wrongs or bad circumstances that we experience. Instead of having a negative attitude toward practice and not wanting to practice any longer—whenever such perversions and problems occur, they should be overcome. In other words, if your practice becomes good when things are good for you but becomes nonexistent when the situation is bad, that is not the way. Instead, whether situations are good or bad, you continue your practice.

To correct all wrongs means to stamp on the kleshas. Whenever you don’t want to practice—stamp on that, and then practice. Whenever any bad circumstance comes up that might put you off—stamp on it. In this slogan you are deliberately, immediately, and very abruptly suppressing the kleshas.

41

Two activities: one at the beginning, one at the end
.

The point of this slogan is to begin and end each day with twofold bodhichitta. In the morning you should remember bodhichitta and take the attitude of not separating yourself from it, and at the end of the day, you should examine what you have done. If you have not separated yourself from twofold bodhichitta, you should be delighted and vow to take the same attitude again the next day. And if you were separated from bodhichitta, you should vow to reconnect with it the next day.

This slogan is a very simple one. It means that your life is sandwiched by your vow to put others before yourself and by your sense of commitment to twofold bodhichitta. When you get up in the morning, as soon as you wake up, to start off your day you promise yourself that you will work on twofold bodhichitta and develop a sense of gentleness toward yourself and others. You promise not to blame the world and other sentient beings and to take their pain on yourself. When you go to bed, you do the same thing. In that way both your sleep and the day that follows are influenced by that commitment. It is quite straightforward.

42

Whichever of the two occurs, be patient
.

Whether a joyful or a painful situation occurs, whatever happens to you, your practice is not swayed by it, but you maintain continual patience and continual practice. Whether you are in the midst of extreme happiness or extreme suffering, you should be patient. You should regard extreme suffering as the result of previous karma. Therefore, there is no need to feel remorseful. Instead you should simply try to purify any evil deeds and obscurations. Extreme happiness is also the result of previous karma, so there is no reason to indulge in it. You should donate any riches to virtuous causes, and your sense of personal authenticity and power should be resolved into virtue.

Quite often, when things are disturbing or problematic for students, they lose their sense of perspective and try to find some kind of scapegoat within the dharma. For instance, in order to justify their own inability to practice, they come up with all sorts of ideas: the environment is not right, their brothers and sisters in the practice situation are not right, the organization of the dharmic environment is not right. All sorts of complaints begin to come up. In extreme cases, people begin to take refuge in nondharmic people again and go back to situations in which their existence might be acknowledged. The idea in this slogan is to develop and maintain discipline so that whether situations are good or bad, you still maintain patience in your practice. The point is to be patient, which means taking more time and being forbearing.

43

Observe these two, even at the risk of your life
.

You should maintain the disciplines you have committed yourself to: in particular, [1] the refuge vow and [2] the bodhisattva vow. You should maintain the general livelihood of being a decent Buddhist and, beyond that, the special discipline of the practice of lojong, or mind training. This practice should become a very important part of your life.

For tantric practitioners, this slogan means that in this life and in any future lives, you should keep the three-yana discipline. This applies to dharmic principles in general and to the practice of lojong in particular. You should always keep that bond, or samaya, even at the risk of your life.

44

Train in the three difficulties
.

The three difficulties have to do with how we relate to our own kleshas, or neuroses. The first difficulty is to realize the point at which you are tricked by your own emotions, or kleshas. You must look and understand that trick, which is very difficult. The second difficulty is to dispel or to exorcise our emotionalism. And the third difficulty is to cut the continuity of that emotionalism. In other words, in the beginning it is very hard to recognize your neuroses; then it is very difficult to overcome them; and thirdly, it is very difficult to cut through them. Those are the three difficulties.

When neurosis arises, you first have to recognize it as neurosis. Then you have to apply a technique or antidote to overcome it. Since neurosis basically comes from selfishness, from placing too much importance on yourself, the antidote is that you have to cut through your ego. Finally, you have to have the determination not to follow the neurosis or continue to be attracted to it. There is a sense of abruptly overcoming neurosis.

All together we have six categories. The difficulties are: first, it is difficult to recognize our kleshas; second, it is difficult to overcome them; third, it is difficult to cut through them. What you should do is: first, recognize them; second, try to overcome them; third, take a vow never to re-create such things again.

It is very difficult to relate with the bodhisattva principle, or for that matter, any monumental concept. Therefore, the slogan says, “Train in the three difficulties.” But if you are willing to practice lojong, your mind will be completely trained and indoctrinated into the bodhisattva’s way of thinking. In fact,
lojong
literally means “indoctrination”:
lo
means “intelligence,” and
jong
means “cleaning up” or “training.” The idea is to indoctrinate yourself so that you cannot get away from that monolithic principle called buddha nature, bodhichitta, tathagatagarbha.

45

Take on the three principal causes
.

“Cause” refers to that which causes you to be a good dharmic person or bodhisattva. The first cause is having a good teacher. The second cause is applying your mind and basic demeanor to the dharma. The third cause is having food and housing so that it is possible for you to practice the dharma. You should try to maintain those three situations and take delight that you have such opportunities.

To take on the first principal cause is to realize the necessity of the teacher, who actually allows you to get into situations.