The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two (79 page)

The main point is that we’re not trying to make you into monumental, monolithic robots of Buddhism—but good Buddhist persons who could actually tame their minds or are willing to tame their minds and attitudes fully to the practice of the dharma. So this is our only chance actually to present the possibilities of a Buddhist evangelical approach. It is an evangelical approach, if you would like to look at it that way. But please don’t regard that particular term in a negative way, a pejorative way. In this case, to your surprise, we actually do need Buddhist evangelical people—not so much for converting others, but for converting ourselves. So we do need a Buddhist evangelical approach. And I would actually like to see a difference in you after our seminary is over. I would like basically to see your individuality transformed, changed, into the gentleness of the bodhisattva’s approach. You might think that hearing about vajrayana will help you to get off on something. But if you don’t have that mahayana outlook, it doesn’t help. So I want you to understand the mahayanist’s approach of taming one’s ego. That is very important, very, very important—extremely important. I think you can do it, but it is a matter of giving in. You actually can do so. If that does not take place properly and fully in all of us, I will have greater difficulty in presenting the vajrayana. It would be very sad, in some sense, if I could not tell you the whole truth fully and completely. That whole truth comes from what we have discussed already. Our understanding of the mahayana depends on hinayana—everybody knows that, right? Similarly, our understanding of the mahayana brings us a lot closer to understanding the vajrayana. Very much so—absolutely a lot.

I would like you to understand that as your problem and my problem at the same time. My problem is that I have difficulty presenting teachings without saying too much, that is, before anybody has any kind of understanding. And your problem is being told too much before you can understand it. I think, for example, that your understanding of the hinayana and its transition to mahayana has worked beautifully. It has worked very beautifully. You understood hinayana and you understood mahayana. Very good. We have to work harder on the transition from the mahayana to the vajrayana, very wholeheartedly, since we’re going to share that transition together. Personally, I would be very delighted to tell you the secrets of vajrayana—whatever they are. [
Laughter
] They are known as open secrets, anyway. However, it would be good if you could work harder on the mahayana, the essence of mahayana, of course—which is taming one’s ego. That does apply to oneself. And also I would like to see something happening, not only theoretically, but individually—something happening in that we are all becoming tamed people, genuine people. You can’t teach vajrayana to somebody who is not genuine, somebody who is a fake.

If you have any questions, you are welcome.

Question:
I feel as though there is actually a lot of sincerity in people wanting to do these things, to be cheerful about everything, drive all blames into one, be grateful to everybody, et cetera. But there is still confusion about how clumsy you can afford to get with that whole process, how self-conscious you can get. In other words, if you could do it with complete conviction, then automatically it would become real. But a lot of times you get stuck halfway through and—

Rinpoche:
It’s okay. You must know that already. You’re asking such an idiotic question. [
Laughter
]

Q:
That’s right.

R:
Well, do you remember? We did it together in our office. We pretended at the beginning—we did it afterward. So the same kind of approach goes with everything. And in the end we had a great celebration; and, in fact, we didn’t have to talk to each other. You just understood what I meant. That could happen.

Q:
Yes. thank you.

R:
You’re welcome.

Q:
I didn’t understand exactly what you meant about the kernel of insanity being buddha nature?

R:
Is there a problem?

Q:
I don’t understand it.

R:
Well, the kernel of insanity is a kernel of insanity and realization. And she is afraid of that, afraid that something else might be inside it, which is buddha nature. Actually, there is something more than just a kernel of insanity there. Something more than that is happening. You felt that kernel of insanity, but you have no idea whether it is true or not. And there is actually something more provocative than that taking place. And the particular friend of mine is afraid that that kernel of insanity may turn out actually to be a kernel of sanity. She is afraid of it a lot.

Q:
Is that egolessness?

R:
Yes. She’s ripe for it. It’s as if you are having cramps, about to give birth to a baby.

Q:
They say in the books that there is some point in the yogi’s progress when there is the possibility of insanity. Is that the same thing?

R:
I think so. What do you mean by that? I don’t know exactly, but just let it go. This one sounds like a vajrayana question. So let it go, part of your collection from India.

Q:
In the list of the forty-six unskillful actions of the bodhisattva, there is one that goes something like “Not fearlessly destroying heretics.” Personally, I have difficulty with that. And also, I see a lot of fearlessly stepping out toward other scenes, which seems to be inspired by that idea of wanting to destroy heresy. But it is very hard to see how that relates to gentleness and driving all blames into one.

R:
It doesn’t make any difference. Gentleness is aggression at that point. You’re supposed to save people by the neck, pull them back. It actually means that. Simply saying, “What you are doing is terrible; you’re going down in the samsaric whirlpool,” [may not be enough]. The point is to save them in whatever way that one can. It’s very simple.

Q:
It seems that you would have to be awfully clear to be able to do that.

R:
Well, you have your good state of mind to begin with. Then you act with the bodhisattva’s mentality of benevolence. You are trying to save somebody’s life. It’s very simple.

Q:
Rinpoche, it seems that at some point you are inspired a lot by sentient beings and there is a sense that, in working with them, you are discovering a lot about yourself. But there is an awful amount of pain out there.

R:
Out where? Sentient beings?

Q:
Yes.

R:
How about yourself?

Q:
Well, yeah, too. But—

R:
Yes. So what’s the problem?

Q:
In the sense of being joyful all the time, I mean . . .

R:
Well, the joyfulness is because you get into the dharma to deal with those situations. “Thank God [
laughter
] we have lights, we have bright lights.

Q:
Yeah. But . . .

R:
One doesn’t have to be all that philosophical particularly. It’s just a common situation: it is good that we have light; it is good that I have energy to work on. It’s very simple. Absolutely simple.

Q:
I understand, but it seems like you can almost get tripped out on it.

R:
I don’t think so. If you philosophize, you could get tripped out. But if you do it, you’ll find there is no problem. As I told you, I myself feel good about the whole thing. And I didn’t trip out at all. Thank God. [
Laughter
]

Q:
Rinpoche, the way you spoke of your experience as being so sad and depressed and lonely, it sounded as if you experienced as deep a wretchedness as we do. [
Laughter
] Didn’t being born a tulku and being trained and disciplined from such an early age help you to avoid all that wretchedness? Isn’t that so?

R:
Well, I’ve been saved—I’ve been saved from having to go through a kind of therapist training. And I found out that I didn’t need to go through that. [
Laughter. Student is a therapist
.]

Q:
That’s nasty. [
Laughter
.]

R:
Yes. That’s good. I’m sorry, but it’s good. That’s it, my dear fellow. Anybody else, here?

Q:
This kernel of insanity sounds somehow like a cancer, or like something that could kill you.

R:
It does. It does.

Q:
It could kill you?

R:
Yes. It does kill you. It’s called samsara. But the discovery of something beyond the kernel of insanity is the cure of cancer, which is called enlightenment.

Q:
What about all the waves of fear that you go through?

R:
It doesn’t matter. They are just coincidental.

Q:
What about all the weeping?

R:
Weeping?

Q:
Such as the weeping you went through.

R:
Oh. I felt great about that.

Q:
You loved that?

R:
I didn’t regard it as cancer, particularly. I just thought of my yearning toward [my guru]. And my discovery was so great that therefore I wept. I didn’t weep because I was deprived; I was weeping just at my discovery of a new good thing. That’s all.

Q:
Mm-hmm. What about deprivation? You described shunyata in terms of the contrast between loss and gain.

R:
What do you mean by that?

Q:
Well, I have to look at my notes, but it’s like when you have your wallet and then it is stolen. You gave a number of examples and in each one you had something and then you were deprived of it. So there was some feeling of something being taken away from you.

R:
That feels okay.

Q:
It feels okay?

R:
I think so.

Q:
Does wretchedness feel okay?

R:
It’s part of the celebration.

Q:
Yes. So poverty is part of the celebration?

R:
Poverty is part of the richness.

Q:
Okay.

R:
One difference is that I was not born a Jew, but born a Tibetan.

Q:
Well, can you prescribe something for the Jews? [
Laughter
]

R:
No.

Q:
Okay.

R:
No. I was born as a king. I’m afraid it’s difficult to explain that. Americans have difficulty understanding even a bodhisattva king, let alone a vajrayana king—which is completely unacceptable. I suppose. [
Gasps as in shock. Laughter
.] “Nothing to worry. Everything is going to be okay.” [
Laughter
]

Okay. Maybe we should stop at this point. Okay? [
Would-be questioner puts up hand. Questioner is a poet
.] There is no poetic license here. When we stop, we stop.

The Lion’s Roar

H
AVING PROBLEMS
come up is a way of destroying our credentials as well as our comfort and security. Then we can begin relating with the emotions and accepting our life situation, accepting all the chaos that happens. So the chaos, and relating to the chaos, should be regarded as “good news, extremely good news, utterly good news.” Enlightened experience is not exclusively for pacifists. Enlightened experience also means relating with energy, how to handle this eruption of tremendous energy, waves and waves of energy.

In the third turning of the wheel of dharma, the Buddha speaks of the Lion’s Roar. The Lion’s Roar is the fearless proclamation that anything that happens in our state of mind, including emotions, is manure. Whatever comes up is a workable situation; it is a reminder of practice, and it acts as a speedometer. It is a way to proceed further into the practice of meditation.

In this way we begin to realize that all kinds of chaotic situations that might occur in life are opportune situations. They are workable situations that we mustn’t reject and mustn’t regard as purely a regression or going back to confusion at all. Instead, we must develop some kind of respect for those situations that happen in our state of mind.

There are several stages in relating with energy and emotions. There is seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and transmuting.

Seeing refers to a general awareness that emotion has its own space, its own development, so that at least you accept it as part of the pattern—without question, without reference back to the scriptures or whatever. Without the help of credentials, we experience directly that those things are happening.

Then hearing is the experience of the pulsation of such energy, of the energy upsurge coming toward you.

Smelling is the experience that energy is somewhat workable—the way you smell food, and that smell becomes the appetizer before you eat. It smells like a good meal, smells delicious, although you haven’t yet eaten it. And somehow that makes the whole thing more workable.

Then touching is feeling the nitty-gritty of the emotional energy. You can touch it, relate with it, and realize that, after all, emotions are not particularly either destructive or creative. Rather, they are just a self-existing situation, just upsurges of energy—whatever particular forms they might take: aggression or passion or depression.

Finally there is transmutation. This does not mean rejecting the basic qualities of emotions, but it is like the alchemical practice of changing lead into gold. Basically, in that practice you don’t reject the metallic qualities, but you change the appearance and substance somewhat. Similarly, you can experience emotional upheaval as it is but still work with it, become one with it.

The usual problem we have when emotions arise is that we feel we are being challenged by them. We think that emotions will take over our self-existence, our credential of existence. We are afraid that, if we become the embodiment of hatred or passion, then we won’t have any personal credentials anymore.