The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (67 page)

I am sure you have already heard and read a great deal about the five buddha families.

The five types of buddha principles are not a Buddhist version of astrology. They have nothing to do with fortune-telling or finding the strength of the head line in your palm. They are more a guideline to experience in relation to those reference points—or rather, non-reference points—that we have been discussing. They are connected with a realization of phenomena in the complete sense.

We know that everybody has their particular innate style and approach based on the five buddha qualities. For that matter, this is at the same time a person’s particular buddha potential in terms of emotions and confusions. But there is also another way of looking at the whole process [related to the five buddha principles]. It is a question of depth and of expansiveness from the depth, which [two factors] can also be seen as simultaneous. In this approach, there is no allegiance to a certain particular buddha principle that you cherish as your one and only style. That [kind of partial] view would tend to give us a two-dimensional experience of the buddha principles. In order to see the whole thing in terms of a three-dimensional experience, we have to approach it from depth to expansion, or concentration to expansion.

In relating to our state of being or experience at the level of transcending concepts, we can regard the five principles as various depths, various levels of depth. These are also various degrees of heaviness, or weight. If something is floating in water, part of it is going to be most prominent. Part of it is going to be floating closest to the surface, and part of it is going to be at the greatest depth in the ocean. That depends on the heaviness or lightness of the substance. In this case, it is the same approach. And from that point of view, whenever we function, we function with all five principles at once. We cannot deny this, despite our particular [predominant] characteristic that might exist.

This brings a different perspective on one-pointedness—a vertical rather than a horizontal one. You start with the buddha-family buddha principle, which is the heaviest of all. It is the most solid material, that which clings to ego or relates to a sense of all-pervasive spaciousness, the wisdom of all-pervasive space. This is the core of the matter, the core of the whole thing. It is that which brings a sense of solidity and a sense of basic being, a sense of openness and a sense of wisdom and sanity at the same time. That is the buddha buddha family, which is correlated with the skandha of form, which is the most basic.
¹

From there, you begin to move out slowly to the experience of feeling. This derives from the solidity of the awakened state of mind and brings a sense of expansiveness, intelligent expansiveness, like tentacles or antennae of all kinds. You begin to relate with areas of relationship very clearly and fully and thoroughly. This is related with the ratna buddha family.

The next one is impulse, which is connected with the padma family, because of its sharpness and quickness, and at the same time the willingness to seduce the world outside into your reference point, into relationship with you. Even in the awakened state of this principle, there is a willingness to communicate, to relate. This padma-family principle is much lighter than the previous two.

The fourth one is concept, which is connected with the karma family. This principle happens very actively and very efficiently. Any activity or efficiency that takes place in your state of being is related with the karma-family process.

We are rising out of the depths of the ocean. As we float we are slowly approaching the surface.

The fifth one is consciousness, which is the vajra family. Here there is a type of intelligence and intellect that operates with very minute precision and clarity, so the whole thing becomes extraordinarily workable. Once you are on the surface, you know how to relate with the phenomenal world and you know what the working basis of the phenomenal world is. In terms of the activity of a buddha, there are always skillful means for relating appropriately with the reference points of perceivers of the teaching. A buddha will know how to treat students, how to speak in their own terms, their own language, and relate in terms of their own style in a very sharp, penetrating, and precise fashion.

So the five skandhas are part of our basic makeup, of our being, both from the samsaric and nirvanic points of view. Therefore, we are constantly manifesting the five types of buddha nature within ourselves directly and precisely with a certain amount of style. It is very important to realize that, because of that, the five types of energy are completely available to us and workable. We can relate with them very precisely, and there are no particular problems attached to that.

Everything seems to be a matter of stepping out from depth to openness, concentration to openness. The five stages of the skandhas are always part of our basic makeup, part of our basic style. We actually operate from those grounds, from those basic styles constantly, all the time. We have a reference point, whether as part of a meditative state or a confused one. We start from that basic reference point and begin to expand toward the workabilities of reality, depending on whatever challenges or promises come up for us. That is the general pattern that is all-pervasive and prominent.

Student:
In the first lecture, you talked about the basic
BLAH,
or the alaya. The “thisness” of it seems to be related to the first skandha and the buddha family. Is there some close connection?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
The buddha buddha family as we are talking about it is beyond all, beyond alaya and beyond what might be known as nirvana. Of course, there is a reference point connected with it, just as our life is partly connected with the night and partly connected with the day.

S:
Is the buddha family one taste? Is that why it’s the heaviest—because it’s reaching the sense of “isness”?

TR:
That’s right. It’s one taste.

S:
And from there, it is a process of expansion?

TR:
Yes. It is one taste not in the sense of a monotone, but in the sense of—

S:
Yes, that’s exactly why it expands.

TR:
Yes, yes. That’s right.

Student:
Rinpoche, tonight you seemed to talk a lot about acceptance, about isness and accepting things as they are. I remember once hearing you say that life was like a straight drink without any watering down, and I wonder if the Buddhist path amounts to ever greater degrees of being able to accept what is. It seems almost like going to a horror movie where you keep wanting to run out because of the phenomena that you see. Is it just a matter of getting used to what you see so you don’t need to run out?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
“Getting used to it” meaning what?

S:
Getting used to your insight.

TR:
Well, if you go to a horror movie, you usually don’t want to run out, because you want to get your money’s worth. It’s partially entertaining even though you might detest the whole thing. We usually stick with it unless we are cowardly or sleepy or sick or something. Usually people with any sense of fun or sense of ironic vigor will stay and watch and try to finish the whole thing. The point is, one taste is like a straight drink, obviously. But at the same time, it’s not so much a matter of acceptance or yielding as such. I think the whole thing boils down to understanding that you can’t actually dictate [what happens], you can’t change your phenomena, not because you finally find it hopeless and give up trying, but because relating to the phenomenal world becomes very straightforward and direct.

S:
Is that because of the egolessness that is derived from being able to perceive the world?

TR:
I think so, yes. It is like nobody, really at the bottom of their heart, complains that there is day and night. Accepting that transcends giving up, because it is already such a daily occurrence.

Student:
In
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
, you describe the five buddha families as in the center and in the east, south, west, and north. Your description just now was much more like concentric circles, and the families seemed much more one with each other than here and there. It doesn’t seem like the same thing.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
This approach is not exactly the same, but it arrives at the same principle. It’s like a tree. You study the roots underground, and then above the ground you have the trunk, then slowly you get to the top and you study the branches and fruit and blossoms and all the kinds of leaves. It’s that kind of approach, rather than having everything divided into quarters or provinces.

Student:
It sounds like the buddha buddha family has more depth to it. You said it was weightier. And then as you talked about the buddha families, the vajra family sounded more surfacy, as though there’s less to it, less quality to it.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes. The vajra is more expansive, and the buddha is very deep, concentrated.

S:
Is that like with the five skandhas: you start with the grain of sand and by the time you reach the fifth skandha, it’s a total deterioration? And here, by the time you get to the vajra family, it’s like a deterioration from the buddha family, which has more depth to it?
²

TR:
From the samsaric point of view, that is the case, I think. But you can’t completely rely on that outlook, because you would be trying to regroup yourself every minute. There is a constant expanding and contracting, expanding and contracting—the game goes on all the time.

SIX

Sambhogakaya Buddha

T
HERE ARE TWO BASIC POINTS
I would like to touch on by way of conclusion. Those two points are the state of awareness that comes through sitting meditation and the sense of appreciation that goes with it. That awareness is able to perceive the workings of the phenomenal world as the five buddha principles and the mandala setup, and the appreciation brings an understanding of the magical aspect of that.

This awareness is the unconditional awareness that we have discussed already. It is awareness without purpose or goal, without aim. From that awareness, a state of fearlessness arises, and through that fearlessness, the workings of phenomena become self-existing magic. In this case, magic is not conjuring up demons or playing tricks. It is magic in the sense that the phenomenal world possesses a sense of enormous health and strength—wholesomeness. From that sense of strength and wholesomeness, a person is able to nourish himself. And a person is also able to contribute further nourishment to the phemonenal world at the same time. So it is not a one-way journey but a two-way exchange.

That exchange of nourishment, which is basic sanity, and the sense of fearlessness bring the state of awareness back. So a constant circle of exchange takes place. And it becomes enjoyable. It is not that one enters into a state of euphoria or anything like that, but still, it is basically enjoyable, because the sharp edges, which are doubt and uncertainty, begin to dissolve. This brings an almost supernatural quality, an unexpected excitement. One is able to mold such a world into a pattern, not from the point of view of desire and attachment and anxiety, but from the point of view of life and fearlessness of death.

The whole thing takes place, as we said earlier, on the basis of emptyheartedness. You don’t exist and the energy doesn’t exist and the phenomenal world doesn’t exist, therefore everything
does
exist. And there is an enormous magical quality about that. It is completely lucid, but at the same time tangible in some sense, because there is texture and the absence of texture. There is a sense of journey and a sense of discrimination, and there is a sense of passion and aggression and everything. But it seems that everything operates on the level of no-ground, which makes the whole operation ideal, so to speak.

The traditional term that applies here is
sambhogakaya buddha.
The sambhogakaya buddha is a manifestation of energy that operates on the level of joy, enjoyment. We could say in some sense that it is the level of transcendental indulgence. This makes life continuous, but not eternal like a brick wall that has been extended from one end of the world to the other. It would not be as solid as that. There would be continuity like that of a flowing brook. The discontinuity becomes continuity and the flow sort of dances as it goes along.

So that is the basic way to view the mandala and the five buddha principles. It is a positive world, not in the sense of a simple-minded love-and-light approach, but in the sense that the world is workable. One can relate with such a world, because everything is visible and very vivid. That dispels hesitation and fear, and you can remold things. You can reshape the clouds and ride on the rainbow. Impossibilities can be achieved by not achieving.

The point is not so much that in reaching such a point we have made progress or made a switch from something else. Rather, it is that we have made the discovery that such experience does exist, such a setup exists all the time. Therefore, it is matter of discovery rather than progress.

Student:
What you were saying about the tantrikas making the whole thing boundary and also the tantric idea of continuity or indestructible energy that is always there—those things seem to me to undermine the basic Buddhist idea of impermanence and rising and falling. Is there some change of perception there that goes further than the rising and falling?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, at the beginning, at the hinayana level, you become homeless, anagarika. You give up your home, you give up your possessions, power, wealth, and so on. You renounce everything. Naropa even gave up his intellect. Then in tantric practice, the tantrikas repossess what has been given up in an entirely different way. Homelessness becomes being a householder and giving up power becomes the acquisition of greater power. From that point of view, giving up or transcending the flow and setting one’s boundary at discriminating awareness is another kind of freedom, but freedom with guts, so to speak. We are more involved with realities, rather than purely dwelling on motivation alone, which seems to be the approach of the earlier yanas. In the earlier yanas your motivation is more important than what you actually experience; and what you experience is often looked upon as something fishy or untrustworthy. One is constantly coming back, pulling oneself back to the motivation and working to purify from that angle. But in tantra, there is a further twist. From the tantric point of view, motivation is just a concept, just a shadow, and what you actually experience apart from the motivation becomes more important. So it is a different twist, repossessing the same thing in a more daring way. And somehow the boundaries seem to be necessary. In order to extend your boundary, you have to have a boundary.