The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: 3 (79 page)

C
HAPTER
11  Practice and Basic Goodness: A Talk for Children

“Talk by the Vajracarya to the Children’s Program,”
Vajradhatu Sun
1, no. 5 (June–July 1979)

C
HAPTER
12  Dharma Poetics

“Vajracarya on Dharma Poetics,”
Vajradhatu Sun
5, no. 2 (December 1982–January 1983)

C
HAPTER
13  Green Energy

Harper’s Magazine
(November 1973)

C
HAPTER
14  Manifesting Enlightenment

Vajradhatu Sun
6, no. 1 (October–November 1983)

The Bön Way of Life

Vajradhatu Sun
7, no. 2 (December 1984–January 1985)

The Vajrayogini Shrine

“Sacred Outlook: The Vajrayogini Shrine and Practice,” in Deborah Klimburg-Salter, ed.,
The Silk Route and the Diamond Path: Esoteric Buddhist Art on the Trade Routes of the Trans-Himalayan Region
(Los Angeles: UCLA Art Council Press, 1977)

S
ELECTED
W
RITINGS

The Wisdom of Tibetan Teachings

B
UDDHISM WAS
first introduced into Tibet from India in the seventh century when King Songtsen Gampo commissioned the translation of Indian Buddhist sutras into Tibetan and reformed his governmental structure in the light of Buddha’s teachings of compassion and nonviolence. King Songtsen Gampo, beleaguered by constant civil strife and disillusioned with the national cult of Bön—which consisted of war rituals, sacrificial ceremonies, and ancestral worship—was inspired by the example of the great Buddhist emperor Ashoka of India.

Several generations later, at a time when Buddhist influence had declined in Tibet, King Trisong Detsen was inspired to follow the example of Songtsen Gampo and invited the great Indian Buddhist teachers Shantarakshita, Padmasambhava, Vimalamitra, and many others to restore and deepen Buddhist practice. Shantarakshita introduced the hinayana and mahayana traditions, while Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra introduced the vajrayana tradition. Thus Tibet inherited the complete Buddhist tradition of India. A follower of the school of Buddhism developed at this time is known as a Nyingmapa. Later the study and practice of this school was revitalized by Longchen Rabjam and other great teachers.

One of the great Indian influences came at the time of Marpa Lotsa, who journeyed to India and returned to Tibet with the oral teachings of the four orders of tantra as well as the hinayana and mahayana teachings. These he received from the renowned Indian siddha Naropa and other great pandits and siddhas. Marpa began the New Translation Era, which restored the pure teachings of the tantra after they had become diluted during a period of social disorder.

Marpa transmitted his teachings to his chief disciple, Milarepa, who became known as “Tibet’s Great Yogi.” Milarepa in turn transmitted the teachings of the six doctrines of Naropa and other mahamudra transmissions to Gampopa, a Kadam monk in the tradition of Atisha. Gampopa combined the monastic and yogic traditions into what came to be known as the Kagyü or practicing lineage.

The Geluk tradition stems from the lineage of the Kadam teaching founded by Tsongkapa in the fourteenth century. This combines strict monastic discipline with both intellectual understanding of Buddhist philosophy and meditation. The Geluk tradition also embodies the New Translation tantra.

The fourth school of Tibetan Buddhism is Sakya, which follows the mahamudra teachings of the Indian sage Virvapa. Sakya involves monastic discipline, highly developed philosophic thought, and yogic practice.

Following the pattern of all these schools, it is quite clear that the basic principle is to work on the paths of hinayana with its monastic rules, the mahayana practice of the bodhisattva ideal, and the vajrayana practice of Buddhist yoga.

To begin with, the monastic rules of the hinayana order of Sarvastivadin consist of a framework of discipline quite similar to that of the Theravadin order in Burma, Ceylon, and Thailand. As Buddha said, monastic discipline is both teaching and teacher. This enables students to work beyond the inquisitive and fascinated ego and its seductions.

As Tibetan monasticism developed centers for learning and meditation, more opportunities were created for followers to study. Each school was self-contained and its practices were part of the daily lives of its followers. There was practically no emphasis on creating an efficient, hierarchical organization such as one finds in the church of the Catholic tradition, even though some monasteries had as many as 7,700 monks and the smaller monasteries had approximately a hundred members. Each of these monasteries was regarded as an island unto itself—not in the sense of being a fortress or, for that matter, with any attitude of becoming an empire. Nevertheless, there was a natural tendency for the presence of the monasteries to influence the surrounding community.

Within this framework of discipline, the mahayana approach of developing the Buddhist attitude of compassion became important not only for the monks but for the lay followers as well, who found tremendous strength in it for their daily work. Compassion from the Buddhist point of view is without motivation, even without the motivation to become buddha. One simply devotes one’s life to the welfare of all sentient beings. Having a goal is part of ego’s expression and its struggle to achieve and become continually more self-oriented. As soon as the ambition of ego is used as part of the path, the path itself becomes another tool to benefit ego. Ego in this case consists of the basic neurosis, which automatically sets up a psychological blockage and doesn’t allow one to see the primordial deception which creates self-ignoring ignorance. In order to ignore, one has to create a manufactured occupation—“Let’s find a place, and name this place. We’ll call it
me
or
I
or atman, whatever.” Having developed this concept, one has to defend it. This aggressively defending chemical is anger.

Destroying the enemy involves conquering his territory and is regarded as: “It belongs to me.” One tends to grasp that territory, and this is passion.

These three constituents of ego—ignorance, aggression, and passion—are not the qualities of an awakened state; there is a constant involvement within the self. Thus it is impossible to see reality as it is. This is not to suggest an attitude of regarding the ego as a villain; rather it is the unwillingness to take part in ego’s games, but instead to transmute the energy into compassion.

The mahayana practice of working with life consists of generosity, discipline, patience, energy, concentration, and knowledge. These are known as paramitas, which means “arriving at the other shore.” In other words, extraordinary vision as well as its application will lead us to reach beyond ego’s shore.

Such egoless application to life brings one to the discovery of reality as it is. The tantric way of life is to live in the vivid world of non-ego where there is no obscurity or confusion. Tantric teaching is the discovery of the mahamudra principle.
Maha
means “great”;
mudra
means “symbol.”
Symbol
is used not in the sense of analogy but in the meaning of things as they are. For example, water is water because there are neither conceptualizations nor the hope and fear of the ego imposed upon it. The nakedness of seeing things truly is vivid and colorful, and this is the true sense of
symbol
or
mudra.

From this experience of seeing things as part of the mandala spectrum of a “divine realm,” there are endless iconographical details that are shown in the Tibetan tradition as expressions of mahamudra. A tantric practitioner will visualize and repeat mantras, but the inspiration is more vivid than merely such exotic practices in themselves.

In many cases the Tibetan way of practicing buddhadharma is extremely influenced by the tantra. Tantra is regarded as a self-secret teaching in that, if students are not ready for the experience, it is not comprehensible to them. Most of the ritual ceremonies, such as the use of musical instruments and monastic dance, are examples of this kind of experience. This seems to create a lot of difficulties for foreign visitors, since these highlights are more spectacular than the preparatory training that is required for understanding them. It is impossible to develop a comprehensive understanding of the tradition without going into the background. In other words, mystical experience, in the Buddhist tradition, is not a matter of being mysterious—it is direct comprehension of things as they are.

This direct, ultimately simple understanding is the essence of the Buddhist teachings. Thus, it is said in the scriptures that the path is the goal and the goal is the path.

Transcending Materialism

Night without sun,

Dark without a moon,

Cloudy without stars,

Then the sudden flash of lightning illuminates

As once in a hundred times, Buddha activity sparks knowledge to the merit of the world.

T
HIS QUOTATION FROM
Shantideva’s work is always applicable to what happens in the world generally, as it is now to the atmosphere of the United States at the height of materialism. When we speak of materialism, it is as a psychological term describing the reign of the three lords of materialism: the lord of form, the lord of speech, and the lord of mind.

The lord of form
refers to the seductive quality of the apparent psychological comfort which comes from the impersonal, predictable efficiency of mass production. It is the attitude expressed in the attempt to remove all irritation from our physical surroundings, trying to reach a total comfort by controlling situations absolutely. It is an antinature attitude of refusing to see the evolutionary aspect of everything. By a scientific, mechanical approach to things, one manipulates them to shield oneself from irritation, from the raw and rugged quality of life.

The lord of speech
refers to the extension of the technological aspect of materialism into the realm of philosophy. Thus one sees trust in and reliance upon sophisticated conceptualized systems, such as the selling approaches of Madison Avenue or the complicated ideologies of many nation-states. Temporary and illusory success in manipulating the world toward the fulfillment of these intellectual systems confirms our trust in them, until we begin to see the world almost completely through the filter of ideology or dogma.

The lord of mind
refers to the extension of the materialism of form and speech into the realm of spiritual matters, and it is once again characterized by the attempt to establish control for the benefit of ego. One can even convince oneself that one is stepping out of ego. One has developed a logical style of rationalizing situations, so much so that this familiar method is applied to the spiritual realm as well. Thus theology is born and one uses yogic practices in the service of ego. (“I want to be ‘high’ or ‘spiritual.’”) But the logic of materialism cannot be applied to the realm of spirit.

The process America is going through is not exclusive. It is happening here first, but the rest of the world will go through the cycle, for as we can see, the materialism of form is already rampant.

As Shantideva describes, this surfeit of materialism provokes the underlying buddha nature or instinctive intelligence, particularly where the concentration of materialism has the highest energy. And so we see here in America a search for something beyond diagrams or mathematical calculations, a surge toward Eastern religions, tribal structures, dropouts from the system, from school and jobs—even involvement with drugs is a movement in this direction. Many of these alternatives are by no means perfect.

It is not coincidental that the Chinese Communists invaded Tibet and forced the exodus of great teachers at the very time that people in the West had experienced a surfeit of materialism and had begun searching for a spiritual life. One is reminded of the time of Buddha, which was also a time of materialism and social disorganization. The Buddha dropped out of his aristocratic life situation and became an ascetic renunciant in search of answers to basic life questions. For seven years he followed the practices of the Indian Hindu ascetic tradition until, finally, seeing its futility, he renounced it. At this point he began to discover a third way, independently working on his mental processes. Similarly, American youth has found that the continual attempt to solve the problems of life—always trying to remove unpleasant situations and replace them with sophisticated solutions—only further complicates the patterns of our striving. These methods of escaping somehow provoke the same thing again, because we try to put down wall after wall, aggression after aggression, and it is seen very much in terms of a battle. So one seems mainly to exchange one dogma for another.

Then, having built in such an extreme way, questions begin to arise in one’s mind, breaking the pattern of speeding and striving. And they are kind of pregnant questions, in that they contain the answers as well. This is the instinct coming out, the instinct of one mind or egolessness rather than the duality of mind and its projections. The simplicity is most apparent by contrast. Once you begin to see this contrast, you begin to step out of the force of psychological materialism. It is seen as competition and ambition, always striving to secure the future, in contrast to the simplicity of nowness, which is down to earth and direct.

The nowness is not just purely the meditative state, but it is seeing things as they are. You have to stop running in order to ask questions, and this cuts the chain reaction of karmic energy, and another kind of motion sets into the wheel of karma from then on.