The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two (57 page)

Compassion is not being kind and loving necessarily; it is more openness. You are willing to relate with the whole process. Generally the experience of compassion is that somebody is rich and willing to give something away because of their charity. It is the idea of being charitable. You are healthy and you are going to save somebody else from an unhealthy situation. You know much more than other people do, you have more information, so you are trying to save those people from trouble. That is idiot compassion. Such compassion is based on levels: something is better than that, therefore I have the complete opportunity to do it.

The same thing could apply to dharma: somebody doesn’t know about studying dharma and I do understand the dharma. Therefore I tell somebody about the dharma and I figure I’m saving them from their confusion and ignorance. Or I have lots of money and those people don’t. Still they are good people, worth giving that money to, and because of their condition I give them money. That particular process of compassion is idiot compassion, as we mentioned. People who receive compassionate gestures from such one-sided compassionate persons should help them again in reverse because
they
are confused. They are distorted because their belief in one-sidedness is too strong, too overwhelming.

The idea of compassion in this case, on the path, is that you feel or see the situation directly, fundamentally, fully. Because of that you could help others. It is not that you want to see them be happy, good, or healthy, but that people need help in the sense of realizing healthiness within themselves. They are already healthy people, they are already wealthy people. The basic idea of compassion from that point of view is an open situation, which is based on the shunyata principle, not on comparison.

Once you begin to see the hopelessness of the whole thing, you give up any kind of expectations. Because you give up expectations, you become more generous. Therefore you are willing to relate with what is there without your expectations. And because of that nonexpectation, you are more equipped when you are relating with other situations. That is the path of compassion.

We could say that the path of shunyata consists of compassion and wisdom, or knowledge. The knowledge that things need to be done according to what things are, as well as things are so because you can’t escape from that particular situation. That things are as they are is knowledge. That things are so in a given situation is skillful means, that we are going to work with that situation without any hesitation. So the path of compassion and shunyata consists of the union of compassion and knowledge, karuna and prajna. Because you see things as they are, you act accordingly, in accord with the given situation. Those two situations become prominent in terms of the path of compassion.

We could have a discussion.

Student:
In the state of hopelessness, one has compassion, one reaches the state of the true path of compassion?

Vidyadhara:
Yes, precisely. Because you feel hopeless, therefore you feel compassion—because you don’t feel better than anybody else. You are completely in contact with things as they are.

Student:
Where does skillful means enter into compassion?

Vidyadhara:
If you are fully compassionate, you can’t miss the point. If you don’t miss the point, then you act accordingly. That is skillful means. Very simple.

Student:
If you become open and act compassionately, is that because by being open you experience the situation of the person who is before you in the same way as you experience yourself?

Vidyadhara:
Not necessarily. There could be a person who is quite different, compared to your nature, but at the same time you see their basic qualities.

S:
When you’re at the beginning stage, obviously you can’t be right on the point, since you are only beginning. So your openness and compassion, your actions, will be off the point slightly. Does that mean you should go back and meditate some more, or just keep on and take the risk of irritation or tension in the space? Should you allow yourself to go into it, with the risk that you might not be on or get on the point? In other words, I guess that space is a lot like a mirror and will tell you whether you are not doing it right. Then you go back and meditate, I suppose. Or is it the kind of thing where you just sort of stumble along for a while and your actions sort of get on the point at the various stages of the path?

V:
The idea of compassion in this case is straightforward. You can’t strategize, you can’t steer around. Therefore I suppose what you say is true, that you just have to accept the given situation. You just have to get into it. Mistakes become part of the creative process automatically.

Student:
You mentioned “basic qualities” in the other person. Is that seeing the ground of the other person as being your own ground, that basic quality you see in the other person? What is that basic quality?

Vidyadhara:
It is a mutual understanding in terms of projection and projector. That you don’t see a distinction between what ought to be, or what should be, and what things are, as it is. That other person or other situation is unmistakable; it is so. It is like the sun shines tomorrow, maybe overcast, and sets tomorrow as well. One can’t argue about that. That’s the basic quality. The situation shows that as it is; you can’t argue about that.

S:
In other words, if we were free we would see that basic quality, if we were free in ourselves to see it.

V:
If you are not free, you are going to be shaken by it. You are going to be awakened by it, reminded by it.

Student:
Do you think compassion is projection as well?

Vidyadhara:
Both, theater and projector.

S:
But that is something that is really not looking outward, there’s no space—

V:
That’s right, yeah.

Student:
You talked about how compassion arises out of hopelessness. That has a very somber kind of feel to it. Somehow the whole seminar has a very somber feel to it, at least for me; whereas in the “Bodhisattva Path” seminar [March 1972 at Karmê-Chöling] you talked about compassion as arising out of generosity, in the sense of one’s own richness and that the first stage of the bodhisattva path is called the joyful one. I’m a little confused as to why in that case it comes off sounding positive and in this case it comes off sounding so somber.

Vidyadhara:
Well, if we are discussing the five paths, what we are discussing in this case is the first path, the layman’s path, before you come to the bodhisattva’s path. It is the path of accumulation. In terms of the path of accumulation, you must be concerned with the ten virtuous actions. There are three of the body (bodily skillful ways of dealing with situations), four of speech, and three of mind. So the whole process is a skillful one at this point.

When a layman begins on the path, he or she should relate with the path as choicelessness. There is no choice once you commit to the path. Laymen usually begin on the path by taking refuge. “I am part of the dharma. I take refuge in the dharma and the Buddha and the sangha. I have no choice.” Because of its choicelessness, you have already escaped. Because you have already escaped, therefore the path presented to you is obvious. There is no way out, no way of giving in to dependencies of any kind at all. So it seems that we are discussing different levels.

S:
Because of that, would you say it is important to have a rather clear idea of the levels on the path, without getting hung up on it, because of the confusion it will engender if you mistake the highlights of one level for something else on a different level? Or is that something that would happen anyway?

V:
There are no levels. That is an important point. Absolutely no levels. That’s what confuses us always. When spiritual teachings are presented to people, there are so many levels presented to you—etheric body, spiritual body, physical body, whatever. Those levels are nonsense, they don’t happen that way.

S:
No, by levels I meant the bhumis and the two—

V:
They are not regarded as levels, they are regarded as steppingstones, a staircase.

S:
That’s what I meant.

V:
I mean the bhumis are not really levels. They are staircases, so to speak. They are not regarded as levels as such. What we are discussing is body and mind, physical and mental, both situations. As far as the physical mind/body, psychophysical body, is concerned, there are no levels. It is a cooperating situation.

S:
I’m not quite sure. Should you have a fair idea of the steps?

V:
It’s not particularly should you or shouldn’t you, but it happens.

S:
Mm-hmm.

V:
For instance, should you be one or two years old? That is a matter of whether you
are
one year old or two years old. You are going to be two years or three years old and you are going to your own birthdays in any case. You can’t escape that. It’s not planned.

Student:
Just before my question, someone had asked something about generosity, confusing that level with the layman’s level. That kind of thing could create certain confusions in whatever you are doing, perhaps.

Vidyadhara:
I don’t think so.

S:
You don’t think it would?

V:
I don’t think so at all. It has been said that laymen should not act like bodhisattvas and bodhisattvas should not act like yogins. Yogins should not act as buddhas. Buddhas should not act as herukas. It’s quite definite.

S:
Yeah, but do you have to know where the buddha is that you’re not, that you shouldn’t act as?

V:
That doesn’t apply, that’s just a formula.

S:
Just a formula?

V:
It doesn’t apply anymore—whether you are a yogin or yogini, whether you are a bodhisattva, you can’t act like that. You’ll be caught.

Student:
Are the refuges also supposed to be taken with hopelessness?

Vidyadhara:
Definitely! [
Laughter
] That is a very good question, actually. You have no other alternatives, you give up hopes and sidetracks of any kind. Therefore you take refuge in the Buddha, dharma, and sangha. You are finally giving in to the main road, you give up sidetracks. It is a final gesture of hopelessness. That’s why it is called taking refuge. You have no other resources. It is an extremely healthy thing to do and very sensible.

Generosity begins at the level when you give up hope. There is no other choice. Because there is no other choice, therefore you become more generous. You are willing to admit whatever. At that point, one also begins to realize that ego has no other choice but to give itself up. Discovering this is a further spiritual adventure involved in generosity.

Student:
I was wondering about attachment to compassion and if compassion is the product of greed. You said that the bodhisattva was attached to compassion—how is that possible?

Vidyadhara:
Better make something up. [
Laughter
]

S:
One time you said that you agreed that a bodhisattva does have an attachment to compassion and it seems to fit this basic description in any case. That’s why he or she is not a buddha. But if compassion is not a projection, how is it possible to be attached to it? You can only be attached to a projection.

V:
It is a projection; compassion is a projection. In many cases, it starts at the bodhisattva level of the different bhumis because of your objective of generosity, discipline, patience, energy, meditation, and prajna. Your object is to be related with all that. That is why they are called different levels, or bhumis. The bodhisattva path has levels to communicate, levels to be related with. It is levels automatically.

S:
In this case then, is it an attachment to something that is both a projection and not a projection?

V:
Whether it is a projection or not, bodhisattvas are concerned with their work. It is a question of their duty rather than convention or having to relate with their credentials. They just become serious, honest workers. That’s what bodhisattvas are.

S:
Then why aren’t they buddhas?

V:
Buddhas do not experience hopelessness. [
Laughter
] You might say they are
being
, they are not workers. The sun is not regarded as a worker. Although you could say that it fulfills the fertility of the earth, you can’t say that the sun is working hard to fulfill the ground, to grow plants and produce light and things. That’s why there is the analogy of one moon in thirteen hundred bowls of water. Buddhas don’t work hard, they are just
being
. And by being, they work hard automatically. Their work fulfills for them.

Student:
In one of the sutras the Buddha said that for beings there is rest, but for me there is no rest. I forgot the sutra, but he said, “As for me there is no rest.”

Vidyadhara:
Precisely! The sun has no rest either.

S:
It’s not working either.

V:
Not working. Being the sun is working hard—at the same time, it is resting.

Student:
And the bodhisattva is just a guy with—

Vidyadhara:
A certain intention or direction is involved. It’s more like a torch than the sun, as far as a bodhisattva is concerned. A torch has to survive on oil, but the buddha’s standard does not need oil.

S:
What is the oil, then?

V:
For bodhisattvas? The energy is prajna, and shunyata is the oil. Shunyata is the oil on which they survive, and the flame is upaya, skillful means. So they work with the combination of shunyata and upaya.