The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (82 page)

V:
What do you think? [
Laughter
]

S:
Well, I think the second one.

V:
I think so. You see, it’s too bad. I’m afraid this whole thing is too bad, it’s too bad that we didn’t come up with a new gadget. That’s one of the beauties of Buddhism, that new jargon could develop, or seemingly could develop, but it is based on old hat—therefore, it is new jargon. Old hat could be sold as an antique . . . ship?

S:
What do you mean, identify with the space?

V:
Float, but not float. If you are space already, you cannot float. It is it.
Comme çi, comme ça.

V:
Bald-headed guy there? [
Laughter
]

S:
What about sickness and total pain? Is there such a state of complete total pain that there is no sukha and no way out but pain itself? Then what happens? Or does the pain become one taste, too?

V:
My dear sir, vajrayana is not Judaism.

S:
Yeah, well, that’s why I’m asking. [
Laughter
] That’s why I’m asking.

V:
Everything is sukha—in fact, mahasukha rather than just mere sukha. No circumcision is necessary.

S:
Circumcision is necessary or no circumcision?

V:
No circumcision.

S:
Yeah, well, sure.

V:
No circumcision!

S:
Yeah, sure. Oh sure. Yeah, on that.

V:
Come as you are, as they say. [
Laughter
]

S:
Would you say something about the dakini playful aspect of
E?

V:
Well, it’s atmosphere. In terms of practice, theoretically what should happen to a student of vajrayana is that the minute you wake up you are supposed to be able to create a new pun. [
Laughter
] In spite of the fact that you might have a hangover or had a depressed night or didn’t get any sleep—still you are able to join in along with the cosmos. That’s it!

Well, friends I think it is getting already early. Sorry that you have more things that you wanted to discuss, but we could hold off until later on. I’m sure we will be together for a long time.

I would like to make some closing remarks on this particular seminar, which has happened very beautifully. Your existence and the particular studies that you have done actually helped me a lot, so that I could freely present what we were going to discuss, what we were going to talk about. At the same time, auspiciously, the whole thing coincided with the visit of Khyentse Rinpoche here, so the whole thing has been brought together much more powerfully and beautifully. And now we are faced with a new challenge, which is how to relate with the energy and wisdom that you have already taken part in. Sitting practice is obviously very important. I hope you will be able to work on these things. Maybe what we have discussed needs further digesting and further work. So please don’t jump the gun immediately, but study and think and practice. And also, once more, I would like to thank all of you for being very patient and gentle, and creating a fantastic atmosphere here. Thank you.

S
ECRET
B
EYOND
T
HOUGHT

The Five Chakras and the Four Karmas

EDITED BY

J
UDITH
L. L
IEF

The Five Chakras

T
HE PRACTICE OF MEDITATION
is also concerned with everyday life, the meditation-in-action principle. Everyday life, in this case, means to feel the textures of life and to experience particular styles of life in terms of energies generally or by relating to psychic centers such as the different chakras in the body. But somehow that isn’t purely meditation practice alone at all; it’s more of an everyday feeling—the sensitivity of everyday feeling, the subtleties of everyday movement, and the qualities of earth, air, water, fire, and so on. And like the practice of meditation itself, that experience of everyday life and the feeling of these centers should not be particularly centralized in the physical body as such, but it should be related to their essence in the universe, in the cosmos. Sorry to be so long-winded. It just comes out like that. [
Laughs.
] But let us get back to the kitchen-sink level.

There are form, speech, consciousness, quality, and activity in everything. These five principles have been mentioned, particularly in the tantric teachings, by the expression
sangwa samgyi mi khyappa
, which means “the secret which is beyond the measure of thoughts” [lit. “inconceivable secret”]—and such a secret lies hidden in everyday life.

F
ORM

Let’s start with form. The form that we experience is the only spirituality, the only spiritual essence. In other words, this life or this experience of the universe, is the only thing; there is nothing beyond this at all, such as another plane of existence or whatever you would like to say. It is quite certain that it would be much easier to make a mysterious myth or a mystical experience out of it, rather than seeing things as they are. But if we face the fact of the reality of life as it is, then this world, this physical manifestation,
is
the world. There is no mystery. But that depends on the the subtlety of our experience of this world, how we see it. That’s the interesting thing about it: that this world is the the only world; this plane is the only plane there is. It is the world of form, the world of the five elements. But
how
we perceive it—that’s more interesting.

This world does not just include what we see alone, but it also includes what we feel and how we perceive this form, existence, physical body; these tangible objects, sounds, feelings, mountains, stars, sun, moon, trees, flowers, rivers, oceans, and so on. In the Buddhist scriptures, the
Heart Sutra
talks about form as empty, emptiness as form, and so on. But that’s somehow trying to relate with this experience, one’s experience of isness, what is. The earth-bounding quality, the quality which is connected with the earth and solidity—that is the basic essence of spirituality.

People often ask me about the experience of LSD, pot, marijuana, and all the rest of it. I think this question becomes very important, particularly in talking about the manifestation of the physical world and the physical quality of spirituality, as opposed to the emotional and imaginary quality of spirituality. The experience that you get out of any drugs seems to have this quality of space devoid of earth, a tremendous quality of space. Quite rightly people talk in terms of “spacing out.” It is a process of spacing out—not on anything, but on space itself, which is the very rich bank of imaginations, memories, frustrations, dreams, hopes and fears and everything. It seems what we experience under such drugs, the drug experience, is pure experience devoid of earth. And universally—in all traditions, schools of thought, religions, philosophies, political theories—there’s always conflict as to how to relate the imaginary world to the physical world. Somehow that imaginary world is a very proud one, a very self-contained one. When it is at its highest peak point—either you get high on drugs or you get high on your own self, whatever it may be—there is a tremendous imaginary quality. In other words, there is a quality that could carry you away—you’ve lost control of it, to your surprise.

This seems to be the ultimate samsara—which doesn’t mean bad, of course not. It is another reality, but a reality which is very repetitive and has the pretense of a hypnotic effect. It makes you dizzy. That’s why samsara means circle, continual circle. It is like an ocean churning out into the form of rivers and lakes and dissolving back into the ocean. But the ocean churns it all out again, so it’s continual repetition. And that repetition is very painful because it is familiar and it is not based on inspiration of any kind, but it is continually going on and on without control. When we lose control of it, then it becomes painful—painful because it begins to overcrowd us. It begins to create a claustrophobic effect. And then there’s the yearning for the countryside, the yearning for the beach, the mountains, ventilation, fresh air—which is also a spiritual problem.

It seems that a lot of people tend to leave cities and go out into the country to be with nature, yearning for openness, trying to avoid claustrophobia. That kind of physical claustrophobia has spiritual implications in it as well. So that is a spiritual problem. If you look into the physical world as it is—now I’m talking about form, dealing with the physical side of the world—people who take holidays, vacations, instead of finding luxury within the city, are facing spiritual problems. So the physical world is the spiritual world, and all the problems of the world are therefore spiritual problems of not being able to relate ourselves properly with earth. We seem to be concerned with environment: when we talk in terms of searching for spirituality, we talk of giving up our jobs, our lives in the city, and going to remote areas of the mountainside. But somehow that doesn’t solve the problem at all, because we haven’t actually come to any kind of reconciliation. We have simply made a shift from one kind of physical situation to another.

So the spiritual essence of form or body, rupakaya, is feeling the textures of situations, of form and the physical side, as they are. That doesn’t mean that you have to change your external form as you get into different scenes. And that doesn’t mean that you have to dress up in robes or turbans. [
Laughter; Vidyadhara laughs.
] That doesn’t mean you have to wear Mandarin nails and that you have to get into the external scene—because that’s a very cowardly gesture which means that we haven’t reconciled ourselves with what we are, but we are simply playing a quick, very cunning trick on ourselves, very shifty, very clever. We are still dealing with form, and the fact that form, the exterior quality, hasn’t actually manifested to us as spiritual form properly. So [rupakaya] is experiencing forms as they are, the acceptance of the whole universality situation in terms of mandala principle.

Mandala
is a Sanskrit word which means “society” or “group.” That is to say, once you stand in the middle you could see the panoramic view of all the directions. It is connected with unique or alone—loneliness. Only you can see this vision, rather than anybody else. So the problem somehow boils down to the form of spirituality; it boils down to this question of aloneness or loneliness. If we stop making further ingratiating gestures to please the world and if we just centralize in what is—that I am alone and my spiritual journey is my experience, which is the experience of freedom and independence—then we begin to see that being alone is a very beautiful thing. Nobody is obstructing our vision. We have complete panoramic vision of the whole thing.

So you don’t particularly have to dress up in fancy costumes, and you don’t have to involve yourself in a particular institution in order to reinforce your argument. You don’t have to have someone behind you to prove that what you are doing is right, or a whole organization—“They have their own philosophy, logic, religion, insurance policy, financial statement; they are successful people and they have found out. They have gone as far as to establish an institution!” That seems to be a problem of form. A tremendous conflict with form goes along with that.

On the other hand, somebody might raise the question, how about tradition? What about tradition? We have lost such beauty and tradition in the West, and in the East people begin to corrupt it by Westernization. How about the beauty of wearing robes, and how about leading a life of simplicity of the Middle Ages? There’s another problem with form in that. What are we going to do? How are we going to deal with it? What we have been talking about seems to be too good to be true. It seems to be too “with it,” too swinging, too up-to-date. There is something suspicious about that, always. How are we going to work with that particular style, that particular problem?

Tradition, in this case, the ancient tradition, has no comparison. It has a really living quality. The wisdom comes out of committing yourself to a particular lifestyle. It is complete action, the completeness of it. It is loneliness as well, but it is complete. But we seem to have gone beyond that particular era. And if now we are going to re-create such a tradition in minute detail, it becomes a game, because the rest of the world flows in a different direction. If you are trying to hold on to a tradition, there seems to be something artificial about it.

At the same time, there are people who come from ancient traditions suddenly, like the Tibetans. The Tibetans virtually lived in the Middle Ages, the civilization of the Middle Ages, and when they were thrust out by the communist invasion, they were forced to see twentieth-century life. To them it is a novelty to lead the life of the twentieth century. But on the other hand, for people who live in the twentieth century, going back to such a Middle Age culture, Old Testament culture, is also living a novelty, rather than leading a really real life.

So the question becomes: Is spirituality a game, trying to be extraordinary, or is it really something? Spirituality to a lot of people is a game, fascination, product of fascination. But to a lot of people, serious people, it’s an honest search, because they themselves suffer in the samsaric style of confusion. They really got themselves into a situation where everything is very depressing, penetrating, painful. To those people, spirituality is not a game. It’s a real commitment. And therefore their vision is a more honest one. Those people are not concerned with traditions or dates, or with any kind of facts and figures of the past. But they want: they’re hungry people; they want food, they’re really hungry. The only thing they care about is that they want something to eat, to survive. I think that is a more compassionate attitude, basically, than that of those associated with sort of a dreamy quality of spirituality as something exotic and colorful, something extremely mystical. Therefore, we put ourselves into this situation of reality, living a life of form, dealing with form, dealing with life, the texture of life, which is form.