The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two (46 page)

Question:
One of the six virtues of a bodhisattva is energy, exertion, virya. It is hard to relate this virtue to the idea of a waiting intelligence.

Rinpoche:
Well, I don’t see any problem, particularly. You see, hardworkingness or exertion does not necessarily mean doing a lot of things. Waiting in itself could be very hard work, being is very hard work, and there are so many temptations not to do it.

Question:
Is there some kind of recognizable psychological event which particularly reinstigates the process of the five skandhas and of karma?

Rinpoche:
Yes, that is what is called “immediate cause.” It is the immediate occasion of getting into a further series of events, a sort of stepping-stone. Each transition has to have that intermediary moment. Even in sleep, things function that way. It allows you to fall asleep from being awake and in dreams pushes you from one moment to the next and then makes it possible to wake up again. Karma is dependent on that state, that immediate cause. It cannot function without it. The whole idea of the practice of meditation is that in the meditative state you do not have that impulse. That suddenness or the restlessness is automatically freed; that sudden impulse has been transmuted into a flowing process through the use of a meditation technique. That is how the process of meditation can be a way of preventing planting the seed of karma.

Question:
It seems from what you’ve been saying that meditation in action has something to do with going very much into detail. You know something and then something else comes along. And if you could just go along with the new detail—

Rinpoche:
Well, you see, awareness meditation, meditation in action, is a process of providing fundamental space. If you are talking or you are doing things, you are acting within that open space, so that no sudden jolt can happen, no sudden confusion or slothfulness. That abrupt clicking-in of confusion can only take place if the ground, the basic space, has been solidified or frozen. The karmic process operates against that kind of solidified background. Whereas once that solidity has been transformed by acknowledging there is another aspect to it, which is open space, openness, then any kind of sudden, impulsive movement is accommodated. Still the same rhythm goes on, but that rhythm now becomes a creative movement. The rhythm of events goes on, but you appreciate that that rhythm can happen on space, on open ground, and this brings back the message of meditation happening.

So you do not have to force yourself to remember; you do not have to try to maintain your awareness all the time. Once you are open to the challenges of the moment, somehow, as you go along, the situation flashes back the awareness to you. So a perpetually creative process develops and a highly precise one as well.

Question:
If the situation doesn’t flash back that awareness, then you forget it?

Rinpoche:
Well, you disown whatever comes up. If you try to keep up and maintain something, then it does not work. It becomes your product. You are solidifying space again.

Question:
Getting back to that transitional moment in karma where it picks up impetus. Do I understand that as you advance in your meditation you notice this happening, and by noticing it you can prevent it from happening and control the situation? Once you notice what leads to the karma, do the steps become much easier to deal with?

Rinpoche:
Well, that is rather tricky. Theoretically you might know the whole thing, but once you have the idea in mind that what you are doing is trying to escape from karma, to step out of it, then you are already double-crossed. The probability then is that you are automatically not in the right state of mind. That is why is it important in meditation practice that at the time of practice everything is just based on a simple technique, but with no aim or object at all, none whatsoever. You give up everything and go along with the practice entirely and fully.

Question:
Yes, but in daily situations I think it’s helpful to deliberately notice things happening.

Rinpoche:
You see, in daily situations if you have a certain understanding of the continuous quality of the meditation experience happening all the time, then, without trying to meditate deliberately, you automatically know the daily situation, because the daily situation comes to you as a reminder, rather than your trying to go to it. It becomes a personal creative process.

Question:
You have talked about creation at times as though it were an ego process and now as though it is more egoless. Could you clarify?

Rinpoche:
I suppose you could say there is ego creation and true creation. I think here again it is a question of whether or not the notion of competitive achievement, of an ideal or a goal, is present. With ego’s notion of creation you have a concept that you want to achieve something, and you try to match your situation with your idea of the actual achievement. You compare the dream and the actual reality. That is not the ultimate creative process but a one-way creation which can wear out. You build a thing and it is finished; you have no further place to go. It is a very limited inspiration.

Whereas in the other approach without aim and object, without a goal in mind, each situation acts as an end in itself. You go along with that situation and that situation brings another, it opens another possibility. So you go along and along. That is like the experience of the bodhisattva developing through the bhumis, or stages of development. When one bhumi is accomplished, he goes on to the next. Without ambition, he goes on and on. He had no desire for enlightenment, but one situation leads to another until he finds himself enlightened one day. This is because he relates to things on their own merits rather than in terms of a goal of his own.

So the ambition type of a creation is that of ego. The alternative is to have natural appreciation of creation itself rather than being fascinated by what
you
are doing. If you tune in to the actual creativity itself, the delight of it, it becomes an inexhaustible source of creativity.

Meditation

P
ERHAPS AT THIS POINT
there is a sense of being bombarded with the classifications of the abhidharma—the process of the development of the skandhas and the various aspects of form, feeling, perception, and samskara. At this point I think it would be good to talk about the practice of meditation very practically and how it fits in with the psychological development we have been talking about. Meditation is a way of scientifically looking at our basic situation and seeing what is important in dealing with it. But maybe we think we do not have to deal with anything at all. Maybe we should just let everything happen and abandon the idea of meditating. That is another possibility, of course, a very tempting one. But the reason for getting into meditation is a very tempting one as well. If we get into meditation, we begin to see our psychological situation very precisely and directly.

I think a fundamental problem that we all have is that we are very critical of ourselves to the point where we are even our own enemies. Meditation is a way of making up that quarrel, of accepting ourselves, making friends with ourselves. We may find we are not as bad as we have been told we are. We will also find that meditation practice is not something exotic and high and out of reach so that we cannot grasp it. Meditation practice is something that takes place on a personal level. It involves an intimate relationship with ourselves. Great intimacy is involved. It has nothing to do with achieving perfection, achieving some absolute state or other. It is purely getting into what we are, really examining our actual psychological process without being ashamed of it. It is getting into what we are properly and thoroughly. It is just friendship with ourselves.

Unless we are able to make friends with ourselves there is no hope at all. If we abandon ourselves as hopeless, as villains, then there is no stepping-stone. If we take that attitude then we must constantly be looking for something much better than ourselves. And that attempt to out-race ourselves on the spot can continue perpetually, on and on and on. And in fact that is just what we do.

So meditation is coming into contact with the actual situation of ourselves, the raw and rugged, painful, irritating, disgusting things going on within our state of being. But even if our state of being is disgusting we should look into it. It is beautiful to see it. To discover that such things exist in the natural situation is very beautiful. It is another dimension of natural beauty. People talk about appreciating natural beauty—climbing mountains, seeing giraffes and tigers in Africa, and all sorts of things; but nobody seems to appreciate this kind of natural beauty of ourselves. This is actually far more beautiful than flora and fauna, far more fantastic, far more painful and colorful and delightful and all the rest.

Meditation is getting into this kind of natural situation, the organic natural situation of what we are, directly, thoroughly, properly. In order to do this, we cannot just rent a helicopter and fly to the heart of the matter without any inconvenience. We do not have the money to buy such a fantastic machine. So what shall we do? The obvious thing to do is walk, just to walk on our own feet, just walk. We have to get into the countryside of this intimate natural beauty and walk. This is exactly what the first step of meditation is, going into our natural psychological situation without trying to find some fancy touristic vehicle. There is no point dreaming about trying to get some exotic Land Rover or fantastic helicopter. It is a very pleasant thing, to begin with, to just walk.

The Buddhist tradition brings us the discoveries of the great teachers who have gone through this process in the past. It recommends to us straightforward meditation techniques, such as anapanasati, identification with breathing, and certain types of mindfulness practices. These practices are valid for our actual psychological situation. They are not millionaires’ games. We cannot afford to get into exotic visualizations, magical practices, conjuring tricks of any kind. These are rich men’s games—fancy Land Rovers, helicopters, and jets. We have to work with what resources we have, we have to begin small, in an ordinary and simple way. Our actual present situation of what we are is our stepping-stone. And we start from a simple technique such as walking or breathing. This is by no means expensive. It is a natural thing. We can breathe and walk—we have to breathe anyway; we have to walk anyway. That seems to be the starting point of meditation.

The relationship of meditation in this sense to the skandhas is quite interesting. The more we get into the gross, undisguised basic elements of what we really are, the more we relate to the skandhas. We cannot relate with the skandhas with masks on or dressed up in commentaries. We can only relate with the skandhas as they are in their naked and rugged state. We are meditating in a way that emphasizes form and the eight types of consciousness because we are trying to bypass the ignoring aspect of ignorance, which is the fundamental pain or the fundamental duality. We are trying to relate with the available bodily situation of breathing or walking. Doing this is very direct and very natural. The pain and pleasure of feeling need not be involved in breathing and walking. Those activities are just a simple source of ultimate natural beauty. And as far as perception is concerned, breathing and walking do not have to involve us in comparative criteria or relative notions of any kind, in logic, or any mind games at all. It is just simply breathing, walking, identifying with the simple process of being. And on the level of samskara, breathing and walking do not require us to associate with any type of thoughts. We do not have to connect ourselves with this type of thought or that type of thought. Thoughts present all sorts of fascinating possibilities: “Why don’t we try to get into this virtuous thought of patience? Why don’t I get into this virtuous thought of nonviolence? Why don’t I just get angry, carried away by passion? Why don’t I get smug and stay comfortable in my ignorance?” In the simple meditation practice of just breathing and walking these temptations do not apply because they are not really precise. They do not really have the precision that meditation presents—the sharp and awake and absolute precise quality of dealing with the actual situation as it is. If we are relating with this, we do not need anything further.

So consideration of the five skandhas has brought us to the point where we understand there is nothing else to do but meditate. And this particular picture of human psychology in terms of the five skandhas sees to be the only picture there could be. It convinces us that the only thing to do is just deal with something immediate and fresh. Meditating is just like collecting fresh vegetables from one’s home garden instead of going to the supermarket and buying packaged things. We just walk out into the garden and collect fresh vegetables and cook them. That seems to be an exact analogy for meditation. Any questions?

Question:
It seems to me you are saying that meditation for us at this stage of the game should be basic, at the kitchen-sink level, which would mean more bodily. I wonder if more subtle activities like talking or reading can be seen as basic bodily practices too.

Rinpoche:
I think so, because you have to use your body. You have to read with your eyes, you have to hold your book in your hands; talking, you have to use your mouth.

Question:
But then isn’t awareness of the hands holding the book or the mouth making the words being unfair to the author or the person you are talking with? Isn’t that overly self-centered?

Rinpoche:
Well it depends on whether you are completely one with what you are doing or whether you are playing games. It is quite simple.

Question:
You mention meditation as being a way of making friends with oneself; it seems to me more like making enemies with oneself, in that it seems to be a more painful process than the usual process of making friends. I wonder if you could clarify that a little bit.