The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two (58 page)

Student:
But the historical Buddha was not buddha, because the historical Buddha was working—forty-nine years.

Vidyadhara:
Well, he wasn’t buddha until the end of his life; until he was twenty-nine he wasn’t a buddha, he was a bodhisattva. But the historical Buddha was never buddha, because he was the historical one. [
Laughter
] If you say that, we will be regarded as renegades. But it is so.

Student:
At first we were talking about ground, which is everywhere. When we talk about path, it seems to set up a kind of narrowness or possibility of going off the path. And then there is the question of discipline. Is the analogy of the path kind of like computing, because either you are on it or off it? But if both are shunyata?

Vidyadhara:
Well, when we talk about the shunyata path, in the beginning, we had a solid path, a narrow path, giving up hope and fear both. It is extremely austere, really. You have no way of venturing about at all; it is very austere. You only have one step to work with, which is without hope, without fear, just straight on the true path, absolute path. Beyond that, the path becomes an open path. It depends on how open you are. It is not a question of the nature of the path, but it is a question of how open you are. Depending on how open you are, that much freedom there is.

Student:
Rinpoche, I don’t understand projection. Did you say that compassion is a projection?

Vidyadhara:
Compassion is a
conditioned
projection. And projections are what exists between the chaos of that and this. In other words, we could say that projections are the chaos, and compassion is the intermediary between projection and projector.

S:
You don’t mean projection in the sense that psychology uses projection, as a fantasy, something you made up. You don’t mean it like that?

V:
Your enemy or your lover is a projection in this case.

S:
Mm-hmm. Oh, I see.

Student:
Would the bodhisattva be in communication with emotions then?

Vidyadhara:
What else? That is his path? That’s the only path, that the bodhisattva can exist with his emotions.

S:
How do you go about communicating with those noncommunicative things?

V:
It has nothing to do with that, not communicating with the situation at all. Anything that exists beyond radiation communicates with the situation.

S:
It seems they are pretty one-way. I mean, my emotions seem to be communicating with me, but I am not clear enough on whatever I’ve got to say to them.

V:
Oy vey.

S:
Yeah. I can be angry now or embarrassed now, but the emotion is coming toward me; whereas any communication coming to them is not—

V:
I don’t know what you are talking about, what you are asking.

S:
Is the path out of hopelessness?

V:
It is
within
hopelessness.

S:
Why not just remain in the so-called hopelessness which is what
is
, completely true?

V:
When you lose hope, you lose hope. Then true hope begins to arise, when you begin to realize hopelessness. It’s the same thing when you begin to give up the clouds which cover the sun, which is the hopelessness of the sun. When there are no clouds, the hopelessness is gone—the sun is right there! I shouldn’t have said that. [
Laughter
] Too much love and light. [
Laughter
] However—that is what we teach.

Student:
In the early stages of the path, when you’re communicating, would there be a greater tendency for the communication to be energetic in the sense of surprise?

Vidyadhara:
I think so, yes. There are constant surprises all the time, that you didn’t believe it but it is so. What you thought turns out to be [inaudible]. All kinds of things go on outrageously. The confusion before the realization is regarded as the realization before the confusion. All kinds of confusion take place, which is realization and so forth.

We should stop at that point. I would like to have a good discussion, maybe tomorrow. The whole idea of the shunyata seminar is not to present further stuff so that you get more confused, but to find some way out of confusion because confusion does exist. So it would be good if you had a really solid, good discussion tomorrow. That would be good. And quite possibly we might have a discussion period before the talk, and then have the talk, and then have further discussion afterward. That would be good.

I feel personally responsible. Talking about shunyata is a very heavy subject. I might do a disservice to the audience by getting bogged down in the confusion of shunyata. And on the whole, this particular seminar does not provide promises of any kind of enlightenment—no promises, none whatsoever. You could say that it promises more confusion. However, that confusion could be intelligent confusion as opposed to confused confusion. [
Laughter
]

TALK FOUR

Fruition

H
AVING DISCUSSED
the path of shunyata, the path itself becomes the goal in some sense. But at the same time, we realize that the goal is not a place one finds permanency or permanent security to dwell on or dwell in. The concept of shunyata is ceaseless space, like the analogy of outer space which never ends. In some sense, the shunyata principle could be called a goal: in the sense of going from imperfection to perfection, it could be called a goal. But it is not really a definite goal in the sense of achievement or a peak experience in which the student stops. In other words, the all-pervading quality of shunyata provides tremendous room to expand constantly. From that point of view, achievement is the beginning point of another odyssey. The energy of compassion and of prajna, or knowledge, constantly goes on. But metaphorically, if we discuss the idea of a goal, then that goal is twofold kaya: the kaya of form and the kaya of formlessness.
Kaya
is a Sanskrit word meaning “form,” “body.” Twofold kaya comes from the experience of transcending the twofold barriers of ego: conflicting emotions and primitive beliefs about reality.

You might call conflicting emotions anti-shunyata, because they do not allow or experience any space or lubrication to develop things. They are solid and definite. It is like the analogy of the pig in the symbol of ignorance which just follows its nose and never sees directions of any kind at all. It just keeps following, constantly guided by impulse. And whatever comes in front of its nose, it just consumes it and looks for the next one. That is conflicted emotions. In this case we are talking about emotions as primitive emotions. Take the example of anger, for instance. There is the primitive, conflicted quality of anger and there is also the energetic quality of the anger, which is quite different. Conflicting emotions are those that are purely trying to secure ego’s aim and object, trying to fulfill ego’s demand. They are based on constantly looking for security, maintaining the identity of “I am.” Conflicting emotions also contain energy, which is the compassionate nature, the basic warmth and basic creative process. But somehow in that situation of primitive emotions, there is very little generosity of letting energy function by itself.

Conflicting emotions try to hold on to emotions as obligatory emotions that should maintain some function, maintain ego. Of course there is constant conflict with that particular style. Such a one-sided point of view brings discomfort, dissatisfaction, frustration, and so forth. The operating style of conflicting emotions is that narrow-minded point of view. In some sense we could say it is a one-track-mind style. There is concern that there is a particular thing to fulfill, so the emotion goes directly to that peak point and never considers the situations around it. That is why we speak of conflicting emotions, or primitive emotions, as opposed to compassionate emotions.

We could say the compassionate aspect of emotions is quite different. It has more space and it has panoramic qualities. At the same time, the compassionate aspect of emotions still has a sense of duality, we might say, because compassion also contains prajna, or knowledge. In order to have a perception or knowledge, you have to have dualistic awareness, dualistic consciousness. But that is not particularly dualistic
fixation
, as in the primitive emotions. [Simply] seeing two situations is not regarded as dualistic fixation in the pejorative sense. But seeing two in terms of goal orientation or security orientation is primitive; there is no element of openness at all.

So the quality of primitive emotional conflict, conflicting emotions, is like color or paint. Primitive emotion is definite and solid—it can’t be interpreted, can’t be changed. Whether it is just blue, just green, or just yellow, it has to be a definite thing. [Primitive] emotions have different expectations to fulfill their desire, fulfill their function. But in order to be fulfilled, strangely enough, their particular color or paint has to have some medium, oil or water. And that oil or water is the sophisticated emotions of compassion, or the liberated emotions, whatever you would like to call them. In other words, the primitive quality of the emotions goes along with the advanced emotions of compassion or understanding. That is the only point where the conflicting emotions could be transformed into something else, for the very reason that conflicting emotions are dependent on that medium.

And quite possibly, the more concentrated the medium, the weaker the intensity of the colors. They would be just faint colors of blue, faint colors of yellow, in which the other colors could be introduced because basically that color is not a particularly solid color. The whole thing is that much more accommodating. So from that point of view conflicting emotions contain the weakness of maintaining their conflicted emotionness. They have the potential of changing and developing into something else. And the medium in which the color is carried could be said to be the shunyata experience. That is the fundamental lubrication in which emotions could be developed into a different style, could be made more transparent.

The other aspect, the second veil or bondage of ego, is primitive belief about reality. Primitive belief about reality is, again, not necessarily based on emotions as such, but on conflict. It is based on subconscious emotions rather than conscious emotions, that undercurrent which inclines toward goals, toward achieving, toward directions, toward security. It is more of a tendency rather than living emotions, as solid and powerful as the conflicting emotions were. But it also needs some lubrication in order to function. In other words, without oxygen we cannot breathe, we cannot function. So there is a basic environment or climate in which primitive belief about reality functions. The reason it is primitive is because it is dependent on something else; it is not a self-sufficient concept or idea.

Of the two veils of ego, conflicting emotions could be said to be that of psychological materialism, the literalness of it. The other veil, primitive belief about reality, is spiritual materialism. In some sense, it is highly sophisticated, but there is still belief in being saved or being helped. There is permanent promise. The achievement or attainment of enlightenment is regarded as one permanent situation in which you can function, you can relax. You can live in it, make a home of it too. And also, because it contains philosophical speculation in terms of a way to exist, there is a sense of survival. We are trying to survive, therefore we are searching for spiritual practice. But that spiritual practice is to attain immortality. The reason we search for a spiritual path is that we feel that we might not survive, might not be able to exist as an independent entity and being. So we have two kinds of misunderstandings. We have the childlike primitive mind, that you just want to get what you want, and if you don’t get what you want you get frustrated. And we have the other one, that you think you could strategize the whole thing and then you will get what you want. Two types of struggle or bondage.

Those two types of bondage are related to the two-kaya principle, the two bodies or forms of buddha that we were talking about in terms of the goal of shunyata, the achievement of shunyata, metaphorically speaking. The body of form transcends conflicting emotions, and the body of formlessness transcends primitive belief about reality. The body of formlessness is the dharmakaya, and the body of form is the nirmanakaya and sambhogakaya. The body of form is based on a direct relationship with reality [nirmanakaya] and a direct relationship with energy [sambhogakaya], which is an earthy situation. Both are earthy situations. In other words, we could say that there is visual perception and there is audial perception. The visual perceptions could be said to be the nirmanakaya of the solid textures of life, and the audial perceptions to be the sambhogakaya of energy, vibrations, speech, and so on. And none of these final stages of buddha, the experience of buddhahood, can exist without the background of shunyata. You cannot perceive form and you cannot attain enlightenment unless you are able to see that form also contains space. And you cannot attain an ultimate understanding of energy or vibration or musical sound unless you begin to see that music also contains silence. Energy contains action as well as nonaction, both are energy levels. Otherwise there is a tendency to become self-destructive.

So in this case, the state of form in the final experience of shunyata is that of basic existence in which there is no distortion of any kind whatsoever. It is not influenced by primitive emotions or primitive belief. Everything is seen clearly, precisely, right to the point. Form is seen as form because we also see the formlessness of it. It is based on the form as well as the emptiness around the form. And sound is heard, energy is felt, because sound contains silence as well, and energy contains nonaction as well.