The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (68 page)

Student:
I am trying to understand what one flavor is about. You say that nothing is permanent but impermanence, and nothing is continuous but discontinuity. Now that might tend to give a nihilistic feeling that there is just nothing at all that has any qualities that are retained. But is the point of one flavor that actually relativity has a quality that you get to know or that discontinuity has a certain style or feeling that is always there?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Definitely. In order to be discontinuous, you have to have the strength to be one. Yes.

S:
So discontinuity has a personality in a sense, or a feeling.

TR:
Yes, there is definitely a texture—

S:
—that’s always there. That’s the one flavor?

TR:
Yes. That is why the nonexistence spheres, or realms, such as vajradhatu and dharmadhatu can be defined. They have a name and they have an experience. They are levels that are tangible in some sense. The idea of the analogy of holding a vajra is that the shunyata experience can be handled.

Student:
In your description of experience earlier, it sounded as though things get clearer and sharper the more one is able to perceive unconditional reality, and then everything is a sort of luminosity. Things become very clear, and at that point the sharp edges begin to dissolve. Is that a perceptual experience?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
The idea of luminosity is not so much a matter of seeing a great contrast in the sense of the more you see light, the more darkness you see. That approach still has a sense of there being mysterious corners there. What we are saying is that at this point there are no sharp edges anymore. There is no more division. Everything is without a shadow.

S:
What happened to the alaya experience that you started out this whole series of talks with? What is happening with that at the level you are talking about now?

TR:
I think that disappeared somewhere along the way. The situation seems to be that there is something to begin with, but there’s nothing to end up with.

Student:
In an earlier seminar, you said that art is giving a hint of an experience rather than laying out the whole thing. I have the feeling that what you have been doing here is just giving a hint. You don’t want to give us too much—the whole thing is so condensed! Is there something in that?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think that is the only way. It seems that descriptions wouldn’t be complete. Even if you described everything in great detail, it would still just be a finger painting.

Student:
Could you say something more about what you meant by reshaping, or remolding?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
We are talking about a different kind of reshaping. It is not reshaping in accordance with a model based on the reference point of ego, or “this.” In this case, reshaping is exchange. Whenever there is more exchange between this and that and that and this, then you can control the momentum, because there is no one who is controlling. There is no particular aim and object involved, therefore you can steer the energy flow in certain particular directions. The idea of shape here is a matter of direction rather than something based on a particular model.

S:
What would be the basis of that directing then?

TR:
Itself. The directions themselves. There’s no director, rather the direction is its own self-existing energy.

Student:
You said that the alaya goes away at some point. In the beginning of the seminar, you said that samsara and nirvana have the same relationship to the alaya, that it was the background for both of them. What do you mean by the alaya being the background for nirvana as well as samsara?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think it’s the same thing. They both began at the same time.

S:
That seems to make nirvana just another version of samsara.

TR:
Well, sure. If there were no samsara, then there couldn’t be any nirvana, and vice versa.

S:
Well, when you talk about awakening and coming to this state of empty-heartedness, is there any nirvana at that point?

TR:
Well, when we talk about empty-heartedness, we are not saying that the heart is hollow. We are talking about a nonexistent heart. So I don’t think any definition is possible. There’s no reference point at that level; there’s no reference point there.

S:
Well, the reason I asked you the question is because I suspected that the word
nirvana
meant something different from
bodhi
, or enlightenment. But from your answer, it seems that you’re saying that at that point the whole idea of path and there being awake and asleep no longer makes any sense, because there’s no reference point.

TR:
Yes. So be it.

S:
Then I still have this question: there is some sense of working back toward alaya, as if there’s going to be a more direct experience of the ground of confusion, and that is described as a more immediate experience of ego, if I understand correctly. So you don’t talk at that point about a more immediate experience of non-ego?

TR:
No.

S:
So it seems that the whole thing is completely ego, starting with the alaya and going through the whole five skandhas and eight consciousnesses. So from the alaya all the way up to nirvana is completely ego.

TR:
Yes. Because of that, there is still a reference point.

S:
So to put it vulgarly, nirvana is a trip.

TR:
Sure. That’s not a new discovery. I think that’s putting it very politely.

Student:
I think I read some place that you said that karma and ratna are more stable than padma and vajra, that somehow too much vajra becomes karma and too much padma becomes ratna, and too much ratna becomes buddha. There was an impression that somehow padna and vajra are more intangible than karma and ratna. I wonder if it would be helpful to get into that a little bit.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think you said it.

S:
Well, why would karma and ratna be more solid than vajra? Why are vajra and padma more intangible?

TR:
I think if you look at the descriptions we gave in the previous talk, you will see that vajra is the final blossom—consciousness—and ratna is one of the first. It is at the beginning level—feeling. It is at the level of being earthbound. I think they [the buddha principles] are necessary prerequisites for each other; they are necessary for each other. You cannot have a tree without a trunk, and you also cannot have a tree without leaves. All of them are necessary. But when the wind blows, the leaves of the tree move first, then the trunk. But you could say that the trunk of the tree is also moved by the wind, through the gesture of the leaves. And for that matter, you could also say that the whole earth shakes. It’s a relative situation.

S:
In any given situation, is there a particular way in which the energies present themselves? Or are they always just there and when we look we see them?

TR:
They present themselves in an appropriate manner, yes, naturally. They react in accordance with the energies that are there. It is very much like elements reacting.

Student:
Would you say something about the relationship between the five buddha families and the six realms?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That would require another seminar. Let’s save it for next time.

Student:
I sometimes hear the ratna family referred to in terms of pride. Is this being proud of your own ignorance and stupidity? Is it a stubborn quality, whereby you can see yourself doing this, but you’re so proud of who you are or the way you relate with the world that you actually compliment your own ignorance?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think you could say that, definitely. The point is that when you create a world of your own, you begin to be very proud of your extension, your offshoot, and that tends to feed you back. And at the same time, there is a slight hesitation and embarrassment. You try to avoid looking at the root of the projection, of that offshoot, and the way to cover it up is further arrogance.

Student:
Could you equate the alaya with the gap?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
It is a somewhat manufactured gap.

S:
So the alaya is manufactured then? Is this the alaya that is after the split of duality, this and that?

TR:
It is the sympathetic environment for the split.

S:
So the alaya is like an ego version of the dharmakaya.

TR:
Something like that. In fact, it could be an ego version of vajradhatu.

Student:
Rinpoche, if there is nothing to begin with and nothing to end with, what is happening in between?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, it works a little differently than that. It seems there is something to begin with and there is nothing to end with, so I suppose in between, there is the dissipation of something into nothing, which is called “the path.”

Student:
In our discussion group, we were discussing a possible correlation between your vertical description of the buddha families and the breathing during sitting practice. There is the most solid basic factor, which is the sitting posture, and that would be correlated with the buddha family. And the gradual movement toward dissolution into space with the breath would correlate with the vajra family. Is that so? Is there that kind of macrocosm-microcosm relationship between sitting practice and what are you presenting?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I hope so.

S:
In the previous talk, you talked about the movement from the depths of the ocean toward the surface, from which point the phenomenal world is best observed. That’s the vajra family. But it seems to me that one is most in touch in the buddha family and that it would be from that position that things would be best observed.

TR:
That’s the root, and it is a question of how much the root can experience the branches. So if there is an intelligent root, then it ceases to be a root, because it begins to be busy being intelligent and is unable to hold on to its earthiness.

Notes

P
ART
O
NE

Chapter 1. Orderly Chaos

1
. Samsara is the round of birth and death and rebirth, characterized by suffering, impermanence, and ignorance. Nirvana is the extinguishing of the causes for samsaric existence—enlightenment.

2
. These are the twelve nidanas, the causal links that perpetuate karmic existence. They are conventionally enumerated: ignorance (Sanskrit
avidya
, Tibetan
ma rikpa
), impulsive accumulation (Skt.
samskara
, Tib.
duje
), consciousness (Skt.
vijnana
, Tib.
nampar shepa
), name and form (Skt.
nama-rupa
, Tib.
ming dang suk
), sensation or sense consciousness (Skt.
shad-ayatana
, Tib.
kyeche druk
), contact (Skt.
sparsha
, Tib.
rekpa
), feeling (Skt.
vedana
, Tib.
tsorwa
), craving (Skt.
trishna
, Tib.
sepa
), grasping (Skt.
upadana
, Tib.
nyewar lenpa
), becoming (Skt.
bhava
, Tib.
sipa
), birth (Skt.
jati
, Tib.
kyewa
), and old age and death (Skt.
jara-marana
, Tib.
gashi
).

3
. A mandala is usually represented by a diagram with a central deity, a personification of the basic sanity of buddha nature. The constructed form of a mandala has as its basic structure a palace with a center and four gates in the cardinal directions.

4
. Kriyayoga emphasizes purity and the understanding that all phenomena are inherently pure, naturally sacred, and beyond fixation.

5
. Madhyamaka is a mahayana school that emphasizes the doctrine of shunyata. This doctrine stresses that all conceptual frameworks are empty of any “reality.”

6
. A bodhisattva is one who has committed himself to the mahayana path of compassion and the practice of the six paramitas: generosity (Skt.
dana
, Tib.
jinpa
), discipline (Skt.
shila
, Tib.
tsültrim
), patience (Skt.
kshanti
, Tib.
sopa
), exertion (Skt.
virya
, Tib.
tsöndrü
), meditation (Skt.
dhyana
, Tib.
samten
), and knowledge (Skt.
prajna
, Tib.
sherab
). Taking the responsibility of a bodhisattva begins with taking a vow, in the presence of one’s teacher, to relinquish—or to attain—one’s personal enlightenment in order to work for all sentient beings.

Chapter 5.
The Lubrication of Samsara

1
. Dakinis (“sky-goers”) are tricky and playful female deities, representing the basic space of fertility out of which the play of samsara and nirvana arises.

2
. Dharmadhatu is all-encompassing space, unconditional totality—unoriginating and unchanging—in which all phenomena arise, dwell, and cease. Dharmakaya is enlightenment itself, wisdom beyond any reference point—unoriginated, primordial mind, devoid of content.

Chapter 6.
Totality

1
. For this sense of lineal, see the Vidyadhara’s reference to a “lineal journey.” Lineal here seems to refer to a sequence in which one thing follows the other, an ordinary process. As watcher checks backward and forward in the sequence of a conceptualized process, the sense of maintaining one’s solid ground vis-à-vis a spacious boundary could develop. Little “checkings” back and forth to confirm the ground would be cigarettes exchanged at the border.