The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (55 page)

When we talk about “nothing,” it is not a matter of wishful thinking—that the confusion really does not exist. Confusion does exist because it does not exist. This needs very, very careful thinking. Things are as they are because we want them to be that way, and the reason why they are that way is because we feel possibilities of their not being that way. In other words, when we see from the point of view of ego this unconditioned space that we have been talking about, it brings the fear of losing our ground. It is primordial ground that has nothing in it whatsoever that could make it conditioned. And because of that, we find some way of distorting the truth into something that we can hang on to.

This is extremely subtle and basic. In fact, this is the whole way that we distort nirvana into samsara (rather than that samsara and nirvana stand opposed to each other as polarities). In this way, our whole approach becomes very neurotic, almost to the point of schizophrenia. The whole problem arises from looking for a handle, for crutches, for a point of reference to prove that we do exist. By doing that, we come up with our own styles: vajra-like, ratna-like, and so on. All these things that we put out are the handle that we want to hang something on. We would like to be saved. We would like to prove our existence by presenting one of those five basic principles.

So this experience of the [conditioned/unconditioned] texture is the experience of watcher, and that is the vital life force of the samsaric mandala. This experience works like this: you have projections and a projector set up, and both projections and projector work together to try to point out their own existence as a valid thing. So each situation confirms its own existence. Projections exist, because the projector has its definite ideas, and the projections prove that the projector is valid, and so forth. In this way, the whole game of the samsaric mandala is the most gigantic syndicate of hypocrisy that ever could be thought of. It has thought itself out, developed its own scheme spontaneously. It is just ape instinct, but it is on an extraordinarily large scale, so large that we can run the whole world on the basis of it—not just this globe, but the entire universe. This scheme is outrageous. It is so outrageous that it is inspiring. It is inspiring that a limited mind could extend itself into limitlessness; it is absurd, but it still does exist. And of course this limited mind is able to give birth to the nirvanic notion of mandala as well. Because of this watcher, because of this hypocrisy and deception, other alternatives begin to create themselves, which we are going to discuss later. The point now is to expose the hypocrisy, expose the game, so that at least the game becomes clear and obvious, a workable situation.

Student:
What’s the difference between the watcher and the disciplined spontaneity you spoke of in connection with the previous talk?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
In the case of watcher, there is always a sense of referring to the end result. You evaluate each step, each move. In spontaneous discipline, you do not care about the end result; it exists because of its own basic situation.

Student:
You talked about very careful thinking going into creating the confusion. Could you say more about what that careful thinking is?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes, it is true that confusion is made up of wellthought-out patterns. Confusion is well thought out in order to hypnotize itself. You don’t get confused just because your plan is chaotic. You mean to bring about chaos. It is a political move. The purpose is for confusion to perpetuate its own mentality, its own identity. You put out certain ideas in a deliberate attempt to shield yourself from the embarrassment of your own hypocrisy, which has become very comfortable. You develop a pattern of doing continual double takes with regard to the productions of that hypocrisy. You say, “Oh, that’s not a good one,” or “That is a good one; let’s get into it further.” Then the hypocrisy or confusion becomes very solid and definite, and because of that definiteness, you begin to find it very homey. Whenever there is a doubt, you can always go back to that original game. By reflecting back to the original game, you get complete security out of it, you get completely hypnotized by it. Then you can “spontaneously” go on perpetually that way.

S:
Why do we create this hypocrisy? So that we can give birth to the mandala?

TR:
It’s like a mother who doesn’t want to go through the pain of giving birth. Each time there is a labor pain, she decides to try not to give birth, to keep the baby inside her womb. She would rather maintain that state constantly, because it is more self-snug, more comfortable. We do it purely for the sake of pleasure, because we don’t want to give anything out. It is holding back in that sense. Consequently, we keep continuing on with this baby of ours. It makes us feel secure; it means a lot to us. It makes us feel important, because we are holding another person’s life. At the same time, we feel threatened, because another labor pain might come along at any time. Because of that panic, again and again we try to maintain ourselves. We do our best not to give birth to enlightened mind, which is very terrifying and painful. We would have to pass something from us, really give something, and we don’t really want to surrender to that degree. We don’t really want to have to accept giving something. We don’t want to let the product of our work become something outside of us; we don’t want to cut the umbilical cord. We would rather preserve it.

S:
I don’t really see that this is comfortable. It seems uncomfortable.

TR:
Well, that depends on how you look at it.

Student:
Rinpoche, in the first lecture, you discussed establishing a boundary to a space that we solidify by calling it mine. Is that boundary the rim of the mandala?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Any kind of doubt could be said to be the rim. But the question is whether you want to have the rim, or boundary, as space or freeze it into something solid. In the analogy of hesitating to give birth, in the moment of that hesitation, you are freezing the boundary into something solid so that you get perpetual protection from giving birth.

S:
So the boundary of the samsaric mandala is where it fails or falls apart.

TR:
Yes.

S:
It’s its limits.

TR:
It is the point of hypocrisy.

Student:
How do you deal with the pain of giving birth?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
You see, at this point we are not discussing how to deal with the pain, but we are trying to emphasize that the pain does exist. We cannot deal with the pain at all unless we know the nature of the pain and are familiar with its horrific aspect, the imprisonment aspect of the pain. How to deal with it seems to be unnecessary or unimportant. In fact, the problem all along in the past has been that too many ideas have been presented on how you can save yourself rather than on why you should save yourself or what the problem actually is. So at this point, we are discussing the heavy-handedness of the whole thing, rather than how we can be saved, which comes spontaneously. Once you know the nature of the heavy-handedness, the rest is obvious. We have no trouble getting out of it at all. That happens spontaneously.

S:
The pain is not wanting to let go?

TR:
Yes. You don’t want to give birth or go as far as cutting the umbilical cord. The fear is that in giving birth and cutting the umbilical cord, you will become an insignificant person. From the point of cutting the umbilical cord, your child will grow up and become independent of you, another entity. Later on, you will become an insignificant person. We don’t want to go through that; in fact, we become resentful about it.

S:
It seems to be exactly the same as not wanting to die.

TR:
That’s right, precisely. Creating another entity means that you become an insignificant person. One day people will refer to your son or daughter as somebody else having nothing to do with you. At the most, they might be kind enough to say his father or mother is so-and-so, rather than speaking about your son. So there is that fear that you will become something insignificant in the background.

Student:
Is there anything that can be said about the incredible power of samsara? There are all those things that make it difficult to give birth, which make it difficult to see the hypocrisy, accept the hypocrisy, maybe work with the hypocrisy. Why is it so horrible, so incredibly . . .

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think you are beginning to speak sense. You are quite right. Why? Why on earth? That’s like a mantra. It’s like Ramana Maharshi’s teaching of “Who am I?” If you regard that as a question, then you miss the point. “Who am I?” in your practice of meditation should be regarded as a statement. If we regard “Who am I” as a statement, then we begin to open something. Why, why, why. Then you are not starved, but have already become rich.

There are two kinds of approaches. “Why” as a question is an expression of starvation. “Why” as a statement expresses the mentality of richness. In other words, if you regard it as an embryonic question concerning how the whole thing begins, it provides a lot of space rather than hunger. Space is not hungry; space is self-contained. It is rich already, because it has its own space. It has the space to afford to be space, spaciousness.

That is a very good point, which we can expand on as we continue.

FIVE

The Lubrication of Samsara

I
FEEL THAT WE HAVE
not yet discussed the samsaric aspect of mandala enough to get the general feel of it. In spite of not having much time left, we might still have to go into it further. It is worthwhile spending more time on confusion. Talking about confusion is much more helpful than talking about how to save ourselves. Once we know what to be saved from and what not to be saved from, then the rest becomes obvious. The general pattern of American karma as well as of the American approach to spirituality is another element that causes us to emphasize our confusion rather than purely making promises. Making promises tends to encourage spiritual materialism, which is an involvement with wanting to be saved rather than an understanding of what there is to be saved from. The tendency toward spiritual materialism is by far the most powerful one at hand, and we do not want to encourage an already aggravated situation such as that.

In terms of the samsaric mandala, there is something further that we have not yet discussed that lubricates the confusion and makes it functional and flowing. The basic nature of the samsaric mandala is composed of anger, pride, passion, jealousy, and ignorance. But looking at the totality of samsara in those terms alone is very crude. There’s something far more subtle than that.

We have already discussed experiencing the texture of situations and the deceptive way of looking at things that is connected with that. There are also mixed feelings involved with this—a sense of sanity and insanity at the same time. But what we want to discuss now is more fundamental. It goes back to the basic area we discussed right at the beginning of the seminar when we talked about solid space and spacious boundary and spacious space and solid boundary. Somehow that is what provides the fundamental situation.

What is it that causes the samsaric communication of aggression to passion, passion to ignorance, ignorance to pride, and so forth? What is it that causes that to keep communicating itself to itself? What causes the survival of those five principles that we have discussed, including the experiencing of the texture? Why do they keep surviving? If they are solid blocks of neurosis, why don’t they self-destruct? A state of anger and aggression feeds itself and destroys itself. Ignorance feeds itself by ignoring everything, but in the end there’s no outlet, no way of relating to anything in the world outside, so it should diminish by itself. So what is it that keeps these emotions functioning as they seem to in the real world of samsara that we live in?

The pattern that develops that keeps up and maintains the whole environment of samsaric confusion has something to do with totality. There is something total happening. There is a totality of frivolousness, a totality of looking for entertainment, and a totality comprised of seeking survival through all-pervasive aggression. Those three principles seem to function simultaneously on the level of the totality to keep the individual qualities of confused mind alive. The individual characteristics of confused mind can be kept alive because there is a sympathetic environment functioning, which could be composed of two, three, four, or five of the confused states of mind that exist. So what we are pointing to here is the sympathetic environment that we tend to create rather than just to the five heavy-handed emotions as such. That sympathetic environment could be based on frivolousness, to take as an example one situation that is very prevalent right now.

Frivolousness is an area in which there is a sense of all-pervasiveness, but there are little particles jumping back and forth within that all-pervasive space. The space is uncertainty, and the particles are inquisitive mind. Those two form the totality of frivolousness, the totality of the frivolous sympathetic environment.

Frivolousness in this case is quite different from the ordinary popular idea of being silly or childish. There can be sophisticated frivolousness, frivolousness that is based on a cynical attitude toward traditions that have developed, toward the patterns that have formed in our society. With this attitude, we feel up-to-date. We feel we are justified in criticizing or being cynical toward the existing pattern.

We have telephone poles with wires strung between them; we have the pattern of breakfast, lunch, and dinner that we have to conform with; people keep their front lawns neat with lawn mowers—these are broad basic patterns. Society functions in a certain way based on inspirations of the past. Certain patterns have been passed down by people from generation to generation that make it possible to keep society alive, to keep it neat and tidy and clean and functional. These things have nothing at all to do with philosophy or ecology. They take place on a simple, straightforward level—there’s a rock, there’s a tree, there’s grass growing, there’s a sky, there’s a sunset.