The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (73 page)

So the point we are talking about here is the mind’s world, the various perspectives and tones, the various emotions that take place—which is actually the texture of the world, the kind of textures we have created around ourselves. The general assumptions of that particular texture are known, or categorized, into three principles in the Buddhist world. This is not particularly pejorative, necessarily, but in terms of pure energy it is known as the world of ignorance, the world of passion, and the world of aggression.

Those three worlds are somehow manifestations from space. Space in this case becomes more like sky, because very few of us have been to outer space, except one or two people. Our version of outer space is the sky. As we look up, we see the moon and the sun and stars. It is traditionally called sky, which sits on top of this earth. Mistakenly, we begin to see a blue color, and there is the rising and falling of the sun and moon. You can fly closest to it in an airplane, or if you are a bird, but you cannot cover it completely. You have to land again because of the problem of a shortage of fuel and energy—and food, if you are a bird.

So our notion of space is the sky, as far as we know, except what is theoretically written in books or what we might see through a telescope. But even then, if we are looking at the sky from a telescope, that is our version of the world of space. Traditionally space is known as like the sky, therefore; and it is the counterpart of the earth, needless to say. That particular space tends to bring some sense of sympathy, or a sympathetic atmosphere, to the earth. It encourages the earth to exist by providing all kinds of spacious activities—sponsoring rain and snow and the growth of plants. It sponsors all kinds of spaces: the potter’s wheel and the pot on it. It sponsors pots to break and water to boil and it sponsors all the other elements to take place, which is very sympathetic. Similarly, we can say that is the feminine principle’s compassion or love—which is, again, the same principle as the physical world of space.

That particular space, that particular compassion or love, has different functions. Sometimes its function is to create harmony and relationship; sometimes it creates destruction, which is another form of harmony, in some sense. The process is developed, and because the processes begin to relate with each other, the end product is destruction. Harmony, so called, is purely a conventional idea. If we look at general and basic energy activities, there is some kind of mutual basis of things working together in a particular situation. When energies occur, they begin to project onto situations, and situations begin to move through space and manufacture all kinds of events. That is the destructive one and the creative one together.

Similarly, the enlightenment level of compassion is described as that which contains shunyata, or emptiness, and maitri, a sympathetic attitude: together they become karuna, compassion. In other words, we could say that compassion is made out of the constituents of emptiness, or spaciousness, and at the same time an element of softness, or warmth. The spaciousness creates the destructive, the sort of vacant realm in which things cannot be latched on to and you cannot make a nest out of it. The element of maitri, or loving-kindness, begins to produce a sense of texture and solid reality. It seems that in some sense we all possess that kind of feminine principle in us, in all our states of being. We all have that feminine aspect. Whether we are men or women, we have that quality of basic accommodation without trying.

Out of that accommodation without trying, without effort, very deliberate effort begins to arise because we feel that we can make decisions. If no decision has been made, then it becomes easy to make decisions; or if decisions have been made and fall apart, we can remake decisions again. So we can execute activities in this particular world, which is the fertility aspect of the feminine principle. This encourages us to execute various activities—whether it’s in the realm of confusion or in the realm of unconfusion, nonconfusion, whatever.

So the idea of the dakini principle is sometimes regarded as cunning and tricky and helpful and terrible. It also is a part of, or in fact represents in our state of being, the thought process, which acts in the midst of the process of nonthought—which is also another form of thought. So out of nonthinking, or the absence of thinking in which energy activity is building up like a vacuum—out of that, thought occurred. And thought begins to work itself out and begins to sprout arms and legs and to execute various decisions. In fact, it begins to be very fast and very speedy. And it begins to achieve some kind of purposes, whether they are absurd ones or absolutely good or solid ones—whatever—who cares at that point? Something is achieved. So that is the dakini principle, or the feminine active principle that exists in our state of being: the nonthinking process has produced a seed, and the seed sprouts arms and legs and begins to make a cup of tea.

It seems that the practice of meditation in this whole connection is developing another form of intelligence, or prajna as it is traditionally known. Prajna is another form of feminine principle, which is a very specific one, an acquisition of sharp perception. That can be achieved through the practice of meditation. Popularly, meditation is known as purely the development of steadiness and openness and intuition, the level of intuitiveness. But if you relate with the practice of meditation in connection with the feminine principle, the practice of meditation is somehow also regarded as, and becomes, an acquisition of intelligent perception. The reason is that in the practice of meditation, when a person first begins to sit and meditate, you don’t get into the stream of activities, speed, business, or whatever. Somewhat you learn to step back and view it again: it is as if instead of being in the movie, you see the footage of it.

The difference is that meditation allows you to step back and watch what is going on in the world. You do not particularly try to cultivate a learning, analytical mind; but at the same time, you learn to see how things work, without a particular analytical way but purely from perception. Then you gain some logic. You begin to get some logic and a sense of understanding how things work, the way things work. You also are able to see through the play of that particular feminine principle that exists; you begin to see through the jokes that have been played on you. You also could see that it has been helpful to you and destructive to you, and everything.

You begin to see through that by stepping back and looking at it. That is another method of the feminine principle, which is known as “she who gives birth to all the buddhas,” the prajnaparamita. That is how she gave birth to all the buddhas, to the attainment of enlightenment. In this case, it is quite simply keen perception. We will be able to see the world without misunderstanding, without confusion. We will see clearly and fully the apparent phenomena play of principles, the feminine principle in particular. That seems to be the basic point. So meditation is the only way of subjugating the uncontrollable energies of the feminine principle. Meditation in itself is an act of prajna, from that point of view. Therefore it is in itself the feminine principle. Therefore the whole process here is not so much that the masculine principle and the feminine principle are having a war, but it is the feminine principle seeing itself as it is. It is as if you are looking at your hand and reading your own palm: it is part of you, therefore you can see it.

It seems that the principle of the masculine side is quite an interesting one, again. It is the accommodation of everything that allows the feminine principle to act. This masculine principle is somewhat stubborn and solid and may be slow. It is not necessarily slow as such, but the feminine principle begins to create a contrast. When somebody is going faster, then there is somebody slower, so that kind of natural contrast takes place. It also lends another kind of energy, which is that of the earth rather than that of the sky. It has a journey-upward quality rather than a journey-downward quality. At the same time, instead of the sympathy and softness of the maitri principle that we discussed, the masculine principle seems to have a very angry state of being. It is highly complaining and resentful that you have to go through the space in order to achieve something. The masculine principle is somewhat resentful. At the same time, it gives in and accepts orders from the space—from the mother, so to speak.

In some sense the feminine principle cannot survive if, in fact, there’s no one to play with—therefore, both processes are interchangeable in some sense and complementary to each other. We don’t have much time to discuss the masculine principle, since we seem to be particularly highly interested in the feminine principle these days. We could discuss the details some other time. There is more to come, obviously. I would like to open this to questions.

Student:
Before we were talking about the nature of the attributes of the mother principle. Does that come into the category of the masculine principle? Is that what you were referring to, is that what it is playing with?

Vidyadhara:
The attributes? No, I think that has been happening with some purpose, obviously. Embellishment cannot take place without purpose, and the purpose is to subjugate or seduce the critical energy, which is the masculine energy, to seduce that. In fact, the makeup is more likely the way to intimidate the masculine principle. It is like Africans painting their faces before they have a fight, or something.

S:
So the embellishment is in some way relating to the masculine principle?

V:
Yes, it has been instigated through that principle.

S:
But originally when you were talking about the mother principle, it seemed like that was alone, that was first, or that was it—that there was nothing else around to be related to.

V:
Sure, if you look at it from that point of view, as being alone. But you have to be alone somewhere. You cannot just be alone; otherwise you wouldn’t be alone.

S:
That just seems to go to the same old question: the feminine principle is not alone because it is somewhere, which is the masculine principle—so then what’s the masculine principle?

V:
No, that is not the point. The feminine principle is alone.

S:
In other words, what serves as its contrast to being alone is the masculine principle?

V:
Yes. Very much so.

S:
Could you say something about the relationship between dharmadhatu and shunyata? They are obviously not the same thing, and it doesn’t seem like shunyata is an embellishment or a manifestation of dharmadhatu. I find that a little bit confusing.

V:
Dharmadhatu is space free from relative reference point. It’s just space. Shunyata is the study of things from the point of view of overcrowdedness. Consequently the discovery is that you find everything apparently empty, because things are very crowded—which is the somewhat acute perception of contrast transcending contrast itself. You see through the trips of the contrast, therefore you see the reference points and contrast filling the whole universe, and you begin to see through that. You don’t try to get rid of that particularly, you take the whole thing in. The result is that you find your mind is empty, which is the shunyata principle. Whereas in the case of dharmadhatu, there is no journey involved, no collecting of information, no studies—it is just a state.

S:
Is there a relationship between the buddha families mandala and both masculine and feminine energies?

V:
Well, the mandala is built on a ground, which is provided by both feminine and masculine principles. The ground is partially masculine and partially feminine. The activities of the buddha families are also masculine and feminine equally, at the same time.

S:
Does that mean that each family has both masculine and feminine aspects?

V:
Naturally, yes. I think that any kind of rules like that we might have—understanding the five buddha principles, understanding compassion, understanding shunyata, and all these big steps that one makes to discover further things, further subtleties through the inspiration of enlightenment and enlightened mind—all contain two parts within themselves. There is nothing isolated from each other particularly at all.

S:
When we were talking about dharmadhatu as the feminine principle, everything was sort of lovely and alone. It was just the mother who cannot ever be had or be a lover—but by the time we get to the dakini principle, the attributes are disease, war, famine, good, birth, and death. Were these the embellishments of dharmadhatu, or something further down the line? At one point it is just pie in the sky, and the next point it’s tricky.

V:
I think it depends on how you take it. Whether you regard the embellishment or makeup as a threat or an invitation. It depends on how you take the whole thing. I mean, things do exist that way, and it depends on how we take it. It’s up to you, from that point of view.

S:
I have a question about the unborn and bornness. Would that be anything like: if there is always now, is now always in motion? If we are always in the now, is now somehow always moving? If that is so, now is always the unbornness of the next movement of now. I can’t say it—do you know what I mean?

V:
Yes.

S:
Is that so?

V:
Well, I think that’s a very tricky one, actually. Now has actually happened—or is happening, whatever. Now is happening, it is there. It is more than embryonic, it is complete—from the point of view of the first flash of perception of now. Then you begin to dwell on it, and it becomes embryonic. So we cannot really pinpoint what is now—it’s both. Now is like you caught the train—and at the same time you missed the train.

S:
Yeah. And for that reason it is just unbornness. Thank you.

V:
Well, friends, maybe we should tentatively end here. I would like to link this study with further exploration that should take place, in terms of what we discussed becoming more experiential instead of purely metaphysical speculation. As I have already mentioned in my talk, the realization of the feminine principle can take place only through prajna and the sitting practice of meditation, which is what everything seems to boil down to.