The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two (99 page)

If you have any questions, you’re welcome. Please don’t hesitate.

Question:
Rinpoche, it seems that in many traditional academic contexts, study actually increases aggression. Yet in many different places you talk about study as increasing one’s sense of gentleness. Could you comment on the difference between the kind of study that leads to gentleness versus the kind that leads to aggressiveness?

Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think it’s probably a question of motivation and also of style. In the basic educational system that exists presently, there’s always the emphasis that you should try to overcome your schooling, so that after you finish school you can then relax and maybe get married, have a good job, and become rich. The traditional wisdom that’s taught by our parents, your grandfather, grandmother, and everyone says that the educational system is something that is somewhat dirty but necessary to go through, which you afterward overcome. In the enlightened approach that we are talking about, the learning process is fun. It is no longer an insult to you. If you didn’t know anything about anything, the teacher wouldn’t come along and say, “Look how stupid you are.” The teacher would say, “Well, there’s more than that. You should find it out”—which is not an insult, but a suggestion of possibilities, unfolding possibilities taking place. If knowledge is presented that way, then you begin to feel ambitious in a very positive sense. It’s like being very hungry, then being offered a ten-course meal: the first course tastes fine, and you realize there are yet more courses coming, and that dessert is included as well.

So I think we can replace aggression with inquisitiveness and some notion of virya, or exertion, which is connected with joy. As long as we are able to whet the student’s appetite, he or she will feel hungry rather than insulted. I think that’s the key to it. In the Western educational systems, particularly in America, in order to make students work harder, you push them into a corner and tell them how bad they have been. If they’re aggressive enough, they’ll say, “All right, I’m going to come out. I’m going to get back at this teacher. I’m going to be better than he or she is”—and sometimes that works. I’m sure a lot of people have done that in the past. But the general psychological state of that educational world is not very healthy. It is somewhat devastating, in fact, and our future students will suffer from that.

Q:
I have another question related to that. Do you think there is any relationship between the content of what you’re studying, the subject matter, and this kind of excitement you’re talking about? Are some subjects more important to study than others?

VCTR:
Not necessarily. I don’t think so. Any subject you pick up can have a connection with your sense of building yourself up in the positive sense, and that is what makes the learning situation become very good. For instance, you might be studying automobile mechanics, or something like that, and become a good person in that way. You could have a sense of humor about how to fix motorcars, and you could develop tremendous sanity. You could become a very beautiful person who fixes up motorcars. That’s not necessarily the peak of ambition from the point of view of the rest of the world, you know. It may not be like becoming a statesman, an enlightened person, a professor, or anything like that. But if you are enough in contact with a sense of education or learning, if you have enough inquisitiveness, then your own wisdom and your own sanity are built in. That is why we call it enlightened society. From the so-called top level to the bottom, all the different kinds of labor and knowledge that exist have the experience of sanity in common. So we don’t develop anything like the four caste levels which exist in the Hindu tradition. We simply say that whatever a person’s discipline may be, there’s always the seed of enlightenment within it—always. So I don’t see any particular problems at all.

Q:
Thank you.

VCTR:
Thank you!

Q:
Which is more sane and more enlightened, a socialist society or a capitalist society?

VCTR:
Neither.

Q:
What do you propose as an alternative for those?

VCTR:
Well, enlightened society. [
Laughter and applause
]

Q:
Will that dissolve the class struggle? Will there no longer be exploiters and the exploited?

VCTR:
I think so. That is why it’s called enlightened society. It is possible, you know, sir. It is highly possible. We might have to conform with some of the educational systems that have been set up by the socialists or the capitalists. We might have to use their case histories, so to speak. But on the other hand, we don’t have to stick to one or the other. They both have some wisdom, and they both also have failures. So it is possible to develop enlightened society, independent of those two. Welcome to the enlightened society.

Q:
Rinpoche, when you were describing the third stage of learning, you said that some part of your field of study could be used as the subject of meditation. Could you say something more about that?

VCTR:
No. [
Laughter
] We just sit. That’s all.

Q:
That’s quite clear, but why does education come into the picture?

VCTR:
Well, you are working with your basic state of mind, which is a product of education, and also what is being educated. It’s very simple.

Q:
So the basic mind is the product of education—

VCTR:
As well as the producer of education. That’s where the term
self-liberated
comes from. The idea is that the liberator, the liberated, and liberation become one thing.

Q:
Do you feel that it is necessary to have a sense of purpose to go from poverty to the sense of richness that you spoke of?

VCTR:
No. It takes a sense of trust in oneself rather than purpose. Usually when somebody is rich, his wealth, as you said, is based on his sense of purpose in declaring his existence. But in our case, in an enlightened society, richness is self-existing. It is our natural state of being, in which we have good posture and a dignified look, but it is not a product of anything. It is free from socialism and capitalism.

Q:
So we remain in a state of richness, but we don’t have a sense of goal. Is that right?

VCTR:
We are there already, so we don’t need a goal. If we had a goal, we would become like the others, the communists or the capitalists. So we don’t have a goal, but we do have a positive, healthy pride in our existence as an enlightened society. It’s very natural, just a way of being rather than an exertion. Do you see what I mean? We are just
there
, on the spot, and we feel good and sufficient. We don’t have to borrow anything from anyone else. We don’t have to take aspirin.

Q:
Thank you.

APPENDIX

Space Therapy and the Maitri Project

M
ARVIN
C
ASPER

T
HE
M
AITRI
P
ROJECT
is an application of Tibetan Buddhist psychology and meditation practice to the problem of mental disorder. It has been developed by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation master who has founded several Buddhist centers in the United States.

The therapy involves living in a small, closely interacting residential community. For the first few years, there will be a maximum of twenty residents, twelve of whom will be staff members trained in Buddhist psychology and meditation practice. The patients will be highly neurotic but capable of at least marginal functioning in society. In addition to the discipline of communal living, the patients also practice a specific therapeutic discipline adopted from Buddhist meditation practice termed “space therapy.”

In order to understand the dynamics of the communal and space therapies, it is necessary to review the basic principles of Buddhist psychology upon which the therapies are based.

According to Buddhist psychology, the basis of neurosis is the tendency to solidify energy into a barrier that separates space into two entities, “I” and “other,” the space in here and the space out there. This process is technically termed “dualistic fixation.” First there is the initial creation of the barrier, the sensing of other, and then the inference of inner or I. This is the birth of ego. We identify with what is in here and struggle to relate to what is out there. The barrier causes an imbalance between inside and outside. The struggle to redress the imbalance further solidifies the wall. The irony of the barrier-creating process is that we lose track of the fact that we have created the barrier and, instead, act as if it was always there.

After the initial creation of I and other, I feels the territory outside itself, determining if it is threatening, attractive, or uninteresting. Feeling the environment is followed by: impulsive action—passion, aggression, or ignoring—pulling in what is seductive, pushing away what is threatening or repelling, ignoring what is uninteresting or irritating. But feeling and impulse action are crude ways of defending and enhancing ego. The next response is conceptual discrimination, fitting phenomena into categories, which makes the world much more manageable and intelligible. Finally, whole fantasy worlds are created to shield and entertain ego. Emotions are the highlights of the fantasies while discursive thoughts, images, and memories sustain the story line. A story of ego’s hopes and fears, victories and defeats, virtues and vices is developed. In highly neurotic people, elaborate subplots or “problems” then develop from the initial drama. The subplots become very complicated and compelling, often overshadowing the main drama. In psychotic people, the subplots completely overshadow the main drama. The different stages of ego development—the initial split of I and other, feeling, impulse, conceptualization, and the various fantasy worlds are technically referred to as the five
skandhas
. From moment to moment the five skandhas are recreated in such a manner that it seems like the ego drama is continuous. Clinging to the apparent continuity and solidity of ego, ceaselessly trying to maintain I and mine, is the root of neurosis. This effort clashes with the inevitability of change, with the ever-recurring death and birth of ego, and, therefore, causes suffering.

The degree of neurosis and suffering that a person experiences is related to the amount of inner space and clarity available to him. If a person feels that his inner resources for coping with and appreciating life are very limited, then the world outside seems highly alien, seductive, and threatening. He feels compelled to struggle to remove threats and draw in what is valuable. But the struggle is self-defeating. It intensifies the solidity of the barrier and results in feelings of inner poverty and restricted space. Thus to a highly neurotic person, the outer world is extremely claustrophobic and confusing. The level of psychosis is reached when the fear of outside is so great that we panic and become absorbed in a fantasy world that has little connection with our surroundings.

The goal of Maitri therapy is to give a patient a sense of more inner space, more strength and intelligence, more acceptance of himself and the world. The clarity and calm possible with such an inner space is the first step toward sanity. The relationship of inner and outer spaces is stabilized sufficiently so that the struggle with the world is relaxed. Further psychological development involves clearly seeing how the emotions and fantasies develop, and how they are used as entertainment and defense. But before we can fundamentally question the dramas in which we are involved, there must be some calmness and clarity, some spaciousness in our outer world. Only then, after the turbulent waters become gently flowing and clear, can the outline of the barrier itself be seen. So, in a sense, the goal of Maitri therapy is to have the patient become more familiar and comfortable with ego, to make friends with his neurotic ways. At this level we are not so much cutting through a person’s drama as we are cutting through the subplots that obscure the main story line: thus, clearly seeing the transparency of the subplots, then the dramas, then the concepts, and finally the barrier itself. One works with more and more refined levels of dualistic fixation.

The subplots and dramas are neurotic distortions of basic styles of relating to space. The therapeutic process is not to eliminate these styles of relationship but to cut through the ego game of territoriality associated with each style. The whole idea of Buddhist therapy or meditation is therefore to work with the core of neurosis, clinging to territory, rather than try to change a person’s style of relating to the world. Individual differences in energy flow, and in cultural and historical circumstances, are not problems. Released from the distortions caused by territorial clinging, the styles manifest as sane expressions of intelligence. Thus, we need not build up positive or sane qualities. If we part the clouds of confusion, the sun of sanity will shine through.

The basic styles of relating to space are classified in terms of the “Buddha families”—
vajra, ratna, padma, karma, buddha
. According to Tibetan Buddhist tantra, the Buddha families are fundamental patterns of energy which manifest in all phenomenal experience. Thus landscapes, colors, sounds, foods, and climates, as well as personality types, can all be classified in terms of the Buddha families. In the following descriptions of the basic styles of relating to space, the neurotic aspect will be emphasized.

Vajra
movement involves sweeping over and surveying the entire area facing you, clearly mirroring the field of vision. It is like clear water freely flowing over a surface. It fills all the space but the surface underneath it can be seen clearly. Vajra neurosis involves fear of being surprised, confused, or overwhelmed by the outside, so one continually monitors the environment for threats. When a threat is detected, we respond by cold or hot anger—pushing the world away by creating a cold wall the holds phenomena at a distance or a hot front that repels them. Vajra is associated with abstract intellect, with mapping relationships so as to have a clear, comprehensive view of a situation. In the neurotic state, the abstracting process becomes compulsive and loses contact with phenomena. One becomes self-righteous, justifying everything in terms of one’s “system” and filtering out inconvenient facts. It also leads to intellectual frivolousness, getting caught up in word games divorced from experience, or compulsively figuring out how things fit together and what rule of conduct applies to a situation. On a bodily level it involves excessive visual and head orientation, always trying to see around the corner or behind your back, watching every corner.