The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two (91 page)

S:
Rinpoche, if we’re dealing with friends who are not Buddhists, then how do we relate?

V:
Well, it’s just a question of their dying and your relating with them. You can relate with basic understanding—I mean, don’t try to convert them on their deathbed. [
Laughter
] There’s no point in that at all. Just tell them what’s happening; that’s why we are here. Be solid and continuous. Everything is real: your dying is real and your sickness is real and your pulse is real.

S:
Say you know someone’s dying and it goes on for several months—is there any preparation that is useful?

V:
I think so, yes. As much as you can, get through to the person that it’s a living situation that happens: “You are not only going to die into the loneliness, but you are continuing in some sense.” I think that quality is very important here.

S:
What about the person who dies without believing in anything; what happens to them.

V:
They go through the same experiences; it doesn’t have to be religious. They go through the same human situation anyway.

S:
Does it matter what happens to the body at all?

V:
Not in a bodhisattva sense; your body could be donated to the hospital. In the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
sense, it matters whether your body is burned or buried or put into the water. Personally, I will be cremated, myself.

S:
Does the presence of children interfere with the death process of their parents? In Japan it is said to do so, due to the parents’ attachment to their children.

V:
I don’t think so at all. I don’t think so at all. It would be really helpful for them to see the passage of life, which they are supposed to see when they are born.

Theism and Nontheism

A
S FAR AS
I
CAN SEE
, there is no difference between theism and nontheism, basically speaking. Declaring an involvement with any kind of “ism” turns out to be a matter of self and other. In fact, the whole question of self and other can then become very important. But if you really pursue any spiritual path, you will discover, surprisingly, that self and other are one thing. Self is other, other is self.

Spirituality is simply a means of arousing one’s spirit, of developing a kind of spiritedness. Through that you begin to have greater contact with reality. You are not afraid of discovering what reality is all about, and you are willing to explore your individual energy. You actually choose to work with the essence of your existence, which could be called genuineness. An interest in spirituality doesn’t mean that you lack something, or that you have developed a black hole in your existence which you are trying to compensate for or cover over with some sort of religious patchwork. It simply means that you are capable of dealing with reality.

Whether you worship someone else or you worship yourself, it is the same thing. Both theism and nontheism can be problematic if you are not involving yourself personally and fully. You may think you are becoming spiritual, but instead you could just be trying to camouflage yourself behind a religious framework—and still you will be more visible than you think.

Usually we say that in theistic traditions you worship an external agent, and in nontheistic traditions you do not worship an external agent. Nonetheless, in either case you might just be looking for your version of a baby-sitter. Whether you hire a baby-sitter from the outside world or from within your own family doesn’t really matter. In either case your state of being isn’t being expressed properly, thoroughly, because you are trying to use some kind of substitute. We are not trying here to sort out which tradition, or which particular type of merchandise, is better. We are talking in terms of needing to develop a personal connection with one’s body and one’s mind. That is why the contemplative traditions of both East and West are very important.

Natural Dharma

T
O BEGIN WITH
, the main point of meditation is that we need to get to know ourselves: our minds, our behavior, our being. You see, we think we know ourselves, but actually we don’t. There are all sorts of undiscovered areas of our thoughts and actions. What we find in ourselves might be quite astounding.

Meditation
often means “to meditate on” something, but in this case I am referring to a state of meditation without any contents. In order to experience this state of being, it is necessary to practice what is known as “mindfulness.” You simply pay attention to your breath, as you breathe in and out, and to every detail in your mind, whether it is a thought pattern of aggression, passion, or ignorance, or just insignificant mental chatter. Mindfulness also means paying attention to the details of every action, for example, to the way you extend your hand to reach for a glass. You see yourself lifting it, touching it to your lips, and then drinking the water. [
Rinpoche takes a sip from his glass
.] So every detail is looked at precisely—which doesn’t make you self-conscious, particularly, but it may give you quite a shock; it may be quite real. When mindfulness begins to grow and expand, you become more aware of the environment around you, of something more than just body and mind alone. And then, at some point, mindfulness and awareness are joined together, which becomes one open eye, one big precision. At that point, a person becomes much less crude. Because you have been paying attention to your thoughts and actions, you become more refined.

Out of that precision and refinement comes gentleness. You are not just paying attention, but you are also aware of your own pain and pleasure, and you develop sympathy and friendship for yourself. From that you are able to understand, or at least see, the pain and suffering of others, and you begin to develop a tremendous sense of sympathy for others. At the same time, such sympathy also helps the mindfulness-awareness process develop further. Basically, you become a gentle person. You begin to realize that you are good: totally good and totally wholesome. You have a sense of trust in yourself and in the world. There is something to grip on to, and the quality of path or journey emerges out of that. You feel you want to do something for others and something for yourself. There is a sense of universal kindness, goodness, and genuineness.

When you experience precision and gentleness, the phenomenal world is no longer seen as an obstacle—or as being particularly helpful, for that matter. It is seen and appreciated as it is. At this point, you are able to transmute the various defilements of passion, aggression, and ignorance into a state of wisdom. For example, when aggression occurs, you simply look at the aggression, rather than being carried away by it or acting it out. When you look at the aggression itself, it becomes a mirror reflecting back to your face. You realize that the aggression has no object; there is nothing to be aggressive toward. At that point, the aggression itself subsides, but its strength or energy is kept as a positive thing. It becomes wisdom. Here wisdom does not mean the usual notion of being wise. Wisdom is egolessness, or a state of being, simply being. The whole process requires a certain amount of mindfulness and awareness throughout, obviously. But you naturally develop a habit of seeing whatever defilement occurs just as it is, even if it is just for a glimpse. Then you begin to be freed from anxiety, and you begin to achieve a state of mind that need not be cultivated and which cannot be lost. You experience a natural state of delight. It is not that you are always beaming and happy, or that you just stay in a state of mystical ecstasy. You feel other people’s suffering. It has been said in the texts that the Buddha’s sensitivity to others’ pain and suffering, compared to the sensitivity of an ordinary person, is like the difference between having a hair on your eyeball and having a hair on the palm of your hand. So delight in this case means total joy, having a total sense of “isness.” Then you are able to help others, you are able to help yourself, and you are able to influence the universe with an all-pervasive sense of isness which neither comes nor goes.

We follow these stages of meditation methodically, with tremendous diligence and the help of a teacher. When one reaches a state of no question [
Startled laughter erupts among the audience, as a loud thunderclap occurs nearby
] the natural dharma is proclaimed. [
Rinpoche indicates environment with his fan
.] Therefore one begins to feel, without egotism, that one is the king of the universe. Because you have achieved an understanding of impersonality, you can become a person. It takes a journey. First you have to become nothing, and then you can become somebody. One begins to develop tremendous conviction and doubtlessness, without pretense. This stage is called enlightenment, or wakefulness in the ultimate sense. From the beginning, wakefulness has been cultivated through mindfulness, awareness, and sympathy toward oneself and others. Finally one reaches the state where there is no question whatsoever. One becomes part of the universe. [
More loud thunder, accompanied by tumultuous rain
.]

I think that is probably enough at this point. There are various details and technicalities regarding the types and stages of meditation, but since time is short, and also since it would be futile to talk about this and that too much. I would like to stop here. Thank you.

Noble Heart

I
N THE VAJRAYANA
Buddhist tradition, we talk about how we can discover wisdom behind our passions and delusions. If you simply cut out your passion or your desire, you can’t work with the world of non-compassion. It would be equivalent to going through surgery and removing your eyeballs, tongue, heart, and sexual organs. Some people might think that is the way to become a monk or nun, but I’m afraid such an approach doesn’t quite work. Compassion is not so much a matter of removing the organs of passion, aggression, and delusion; compassion means working with what you have. If you are hungry, you need your tongue and teeth to eat with. It is a natural thing. We don’t punish ourselves because we have a tongue and teeth. Instead, we work with them. When we have a problem, we don’t throw it away as if it were a piece of garbage. We pick it up and work with it. Then we find that we have a working basis.

According to the Buddhist teachings, the practice of sitting meditation is a way to work with what we have. Meditation is very practical: we learn how to wash the dishes, how to iron our clothes, how to be. That is compassion. When we know how to be, we don’t create chaos for ourselves, to begin with, and subsequently we don’t create chaos for others. As it is said in Christianity, “Charity begins at home.” Perhaps we could also say, “Compassion begins at home.”

Basic virtue comes from learning how to be. If we have no idea of how to be, then we commit sin and crimes of all kinds. When we know how to be, our hearts are softened, and compassion naturally comes along with that. We learn how to cry, how to smile, and how to experience other people’s wounds. We also begin to appreciate joy and pleasure. Perhaps we haven’t ever really explored pain and pleasure in our whole lives. When our hearts are softened and we feel pain, it is excruciating. And when we experience pleasure, it is wonderful. Compassion means exploring pain and pleasure properly, thoroughly, completely. The Sanskrit word for compassion is
karuna
, which means “noble heart.” It is not just a matter of feeling sorry for someone: when we experience noble heart, we are able to have a good time, and we are able to identify with others’ pain and pleasure.

We need to learn how to be decent human beings. That is the basis for what we call “religion.” A decent human society brings about spirituality. It brings about blessings and what could be called the gift of God. This is an extremely simple-minded approach. I’m sorry if I disappoint you, but it is as simple as that. We have to be just as we are. This is not necessarily a Buddhist message; for that matter, it is not even a particularly spiritual message. Compassion is simply a matter of experiencing reality properly.

Obedience

I
T SEEMS THAT THE
main point of having a teacher is that we need to develop a sense of humbleness. Usually we hold on to our egotism as a way of displaying our strength, beauty, knowledge, or wealth. Such egotism is a kind of blockage: we don’t hear other people’s messages, and we become deaf and dumb. We only hear and see what we want to, rather than opening ourselves. On the spiritual journey, it is important to overcome this deaf and dumb quality. We need to develop a connection with the world, the world other than ourselves. Therefore, devotion is very important.

When I was a child I used to think I was an important person, a specially chosen lama. That particular blockage was slowly and thoroughly broken down by my teacher. Sometimes he criticized me, and sometimes he joked with me. Humor is actually one of the most powerful aspects of such a relationship. I think whether we are in a Christian, Buddhist, or Hindu tradition, it is necessary for us to have a spiritual teacher we can talk to, someone who will relate to us directly. Otherwise there is no chance of a real journey taking place. Sometimes you might feel great love for him or her. Nonetheless, such a relationship based on devotion is always important.

Devotion to a spiritual teacher is different from relating to your college professor. You are not simply trying to snatch for yourself whatever he or she knows, with the hope that you will become better than your teacher someday. In this case, you become continually more humble. The teacher represents the whole lineage of spiritual teachers of whichever tradition you belong to. Once you begin to be devoted to such a teacher, a sense of grace or blessings descends on you, so that you become softer and softer. You become a more decent person. In fact, you become much happier, because you don’t have to hold on to yourself so tightly. There is less strain involved, and you can afford to relax. Then you begin to grow beautiful flowers of wisdom in your heart.