The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Eight (59 page)

Our topic is, therefore, fearlessness: how to conduct fearlessness, how to manifest fearlessness in our lives altogether. In this course, the logic we would like to present is, first, the ground of fearlessness; secondly, the path of fearlessness; and, finally, the fruition of fearlessness. So fearlessness falls into three categories: ground, path, and fruition.

To begin with, we could talk about the ground of fearlessness, which is fear. In order to be fearless, we have to find out first what fear is. Fear is nervousness; fear is anxiety; fear is some sense of inadequacy, some feeling that we may not have the possibility of dealing with everyday living situations at all. We feel that our life is overwhelming. People often try tranquilizers or yoga; they just try to float. They may take occasional breaks for a Dairy Queen. We have all sorts of gimmicks and gadgets that we use in the hope that we might experience fearlessness simply by taking our mind off of our fear.

Where does fear come from? It comes from basic bewilderment. Where does basic bewilderment come from? It comes from being unable to synchronize mind and body. How is it possible that mind and body cannot be synchronized? It is because you have a bad seat: you can’t hold your sitting position. And what does that do? When you have a bad seat, when you are unable to synchronize your mind and body, you have a bad seat plus bad head and shoulders. Why is having bad head and shoulders problematic? It is because you begin to feel that you cannot relate with your world; you begin to feel that you are a primordial idiot, an ape. Such a primordial idiot cannot talk with the rest of the world. You are a clown; you are a caricature of yourself. You cannot relate with the rest of the world.

So the problem begins in a very simple way. You have regressed. You have gone back to your apehood, and you don’t have any Shambhala vision at all. You’re just a mere ape, maybe even an exaggerated ape. Such an ape might try to figure out how to earn his living by dancing on the street, dressed up as a lady or a gentleman, with a little apron around his waist or a little bow tie around his neck, asking for quarters and pennies, or what have you—peanuts, begging right and left.

That’s a very simplified version of what is known as setting-sun people. We will discuss that particular topic as we go on. The idea of setting sun is that the sun has already set in your world; you cannot rise above it. Beyond that there is only darkness, misery, clouds, pervertedness, the dungeon, the gutter. A favorite way to compensate for that setting-sun situation is to go to a very dark dungeon with bad lighting, where you drink alcohol and get drunk. That is called—what do you think? A discotheque. You get lost and you get loose, and you dance like a monkey—a drunken monkey, even—one who has forgotten a long time ago the possibility of eating bananas. So it feasts on Coca-Cola, wiggles its tail, and . . . [
Vidyhadhara makes an apelike grunting noise
] It’s quite sad. You might laugh, but at the same time, it’s very sad. It is so sad that we can’t even talk about it; it’s too painful. That is what we call setting sun. A drunken ape dancing around in a dimly lit room, trying to scratch itself in the form of a dance. Setting sun. It’s a dead end, a very dead end.

We will also be talking about something else: what is known as the Great Eastern Sun principle, which is the main theme of Shambhala vision altogether. Great Eastern Sun does not mean anything like the rising sun flag of Japan or have anything to do with Japan’s demonstration in the Second World War, just in case you wondered about that whole thing. Great Eastern Sun is something other than the rising sun principle.

The Great Eastern Sun is “Great” because there is some sense of upliftedness; you have a tremendous sense of head and shoulders, and some sense of openness and gentleness. It is “East” because along with your straightforward head and shoulders, you have a smile on your face. East is dawn, the concept of dawn. When you look at the East first thing in the morning, you see white light coming outward before the sun rises. That is the color of East: white. And East is a smile, not a grin but a smile. You have woken up. When you finish washing your face with crisp, cool Rocky Mountain water, splashing water on your face several times, you comb your hair, you brush your teeth, you put on your dressing gown, and you walk out onto your porch. You see—ah!—there is the dawn. It is bluish white. The sun is about to rise. Fresh air is coming with the dawn. So the sun is East and it is great.

The “Sun” concept is that of a completely mature sun. You see it in the East at ten o’clock in the morning—roughly that time—and it is a mature sun altogether. That notion is entirely different from that of the drunken ape scratching itself at midnight, or at twilight, in the light of half-dead electric bulbs. The contrast is so astounding, so extraordinary! The Shambhala vision we will be talking about throughout this course is based on that particular contrast—if you can see it. It is so uplifted and so awake and so fresh and so precise; you feel that something is right.

But there is more to go beyond that. Throughout our whole discussion, we would like to talk about the basic notion of goodness, goodness that you have, that you can provide for yourselves. From the point of view of Great Eastern Sun logic, that notion of goodness is not fake. You have it; you possess it. The notion of bravery,
pawo,
is always there. Whenever you see a bright and beautiful color, you are witnessing your own inherent goodness. And whenever you hear a sweet and beautiful sound, you are hearing your own basic goodness. Whenever you taste something sweet or sour, any basic good taste, you are experiencing your own basic goodness.

Let’s take an example. You have washed your hair with shampoo, and then you begin to dry and comb your hair. It is a very unusual experience: You have washed your hair, you feel clean, you feel that you are full of head and shoulders. There is a sense of freshness. Little insignificant experiences, little things like that, make sense. Why should you experience that when you wash your hair, you feel good? You feel you have good hair, you are washed, you are clean, you smell like your shampoo. Maybe it is simply because you have shampooed your hair and taken your shower, but there is something more to it than that. There is some experience in washing your hair which makes you feel so good. You feel good in a very modest and maybe even a very domestic sense, but at the same time there is a tinge of basic goodness in that experience. And that experience of basic goodness goes along throughout the whole of your life.

Without expanding further, I think that is a point you should understand. You should understand what you are trying to do with your life and your journey in terms of the Shambhala principle altogether. This is obviously inspired by the buddhadharma, but at the same time, there is some notion that any one of you, all of you, usually pick up: there is a tinge of goodness happening here and there. If you are in a room, and you open your door and walk outside, there is a sudden whiff of fresh air. That experience of freshness takes only a fraction of a second, but at the same time, that whiff of fresh air is the smell of basic goodness. Things like that are always happening to you, but you have been ignoring them, thinking that they are mundane and ordinary, purely coincidences of an ordinary nature. This course is based on the idea that it is worthwhile taking advantage of anything that happens to you, anything with that particular nature of goodness. You begin to realize that there is nonaggression happening, and you are able to feel the freshness of realizing your goodness, again and again.

So that seems to be the basic point of this particular course, to begin with—without going further, which we can’t actually do at this point. The Vajra Regent and I would like to discuss the details of everything, every aspect of what we have been talking about tonight. Throughout our course, we would like to do that. Tonight maybe we could have some general questions. If anybody would like to ask questions, you are more than welcome.

Student:
I was thinking that for every instance of goodness and freshness, there’s going to be one of badness. You wash your hair because you have to wash it, because it is dirty. If you smell good aromas, you also smell bad odors. If you hear something pleasant, you also hear something unpleasant. So there’s a balance.

The Dorje Dradül:
That’s right. There has to be a balance, obviously, as you said. But on one side of that balance, you do have to wash your hair. Otherwise you wouldn’t have any reference point. The inspiration to wash your hair comes from how dirty your hair is. You are inspired by the potential whiff of how your hair would smell if it were clean, so you wash your hair. There is always that possibility of having clean hair. The idea is that grossness could be a vanguard of gentility. So from that point of view, there’s no particular problem at all. We need stepping-stones in any case; that is one of the reasons why basic goodness is unconditional. Basic goodness does not particularly mean conditional goodness alone. Having the intelligence and the instinct to wash your hair at all
is
basic goodness, otherwise you would never have heard of such things as shampoo or water. This very fact that you have heard about the possibilities of shower, shampoo, water, and cleaning your hair is the vanguard of basic goodness altogether—whether you do it or not. What we are trying to say here is that you have to do it. Pretty good!

S:
I was wondering if you could restate the three basic principles of Shambhala. The first one was seeing our basic goodness—I think that’s what it was.

DD:
Mm-hmm. Yes, keep going.

S:
And the last one was actually realizing it and putting it into practice.

DD:
Yes. Anybody else? Well, you see, the thing is that we can do it, therefore we can experience the possibility of that particular action, and then finally we do it. Those are the three principles of this particular logic, which is very simple and actually very ordinary. It’s like eating in a restaurant: first of all you look at the menu and decide whether you can afford such a meal and whether the food looks good. Then you decide to do it, and you communicate that to your waiter. Finally you eat your meal. The fourth principle of this logic, which we haven’t discussed yet (toward the end maybe we will talk about it), is that you have to pay the bill.

S:
If we use “bad” as a reference point, that’s not a real—

DD:
It’s problematic. It’s [
Vidyadhara pants rapidly
]—which we should understand quite vividly. Before we can begin to understand why and how it is possible to have Great Eastern Sun vision at all, we have to have a good understanding of the perversion of the other side. It is very, very important for us to do that. Maybe we should have a longer discussion on that particular problem. We can’t quite call it a problem as such; it’s an intrinsic sickness. We could discuss how that can be cured.

S:
And how we could not be overwhelmed by it?

DD:
Not be overwhelmed by it, and how we have not acknowledged it, as well.

S:
Okay, thanks.

S:
Hello, Rinpoche. I’d like to know if dancing, getting loose, and drinking alcohol are means to the setting-sun mentality and to being an ape?

DD:
I think so. They are means of degrading yourself.

SS:
Thank you.

DD:
Thank you. Don’t do it.

S:
I’ve noticed that in most cultures, dancing has been part of the culture. I don’t understand the connection between dancing and setting sun.

DD:
Well, I am talking about a degraded level of dancing, which is just a way to release your energy because you can’t contain yourself. It’s already sunset, therefore you think you might as well dance. Since there is no light, and you have to resort to artificial lighting, you think you can dance anytime you want.

S:
I have two questions. About dancing: isn’t it sort of a good thing to give yourself a break and let your energy loose?

DD:
Not in a setting-sun atmosphere. You can dance here; we could have a good time. In fact, we could do lots of things. We could have waltzing—that would be fine here. There is no problem with that. I’m not saying that dancing is a problem; I’m saying that the atmosphere in which you do those things can be problematic.

S:
I have one other question. I was wondering if the good is also a reference point, just as a way to get to your basic goodness.

DD:
What do you mean by that?

S:
Well, you were talking about how something bad, like having dirty hair, gives you the reference point of washing your hair, which is good—

DD:
Well, we have two types of goodness. The first type is crude goodness, at the level of cleaning up, beyond dirt, beyond the black light level. The second type of goodness is unconditional goodness, which we will discuss later on. (I’m sure the Regent will also discuss that particular concept.) Unconditional goodness means that you can transcend both good and bad altogether. So you should stay in this course and find out about that.

S:
Thank you.

DD:
You’re welcome.

S:
I wonder if you could give us a little more information about the origin and history of Shambhala in Tibet.

DD:
Shambhala is our way of life. The Shambhala principle is our way of life. Shambhala is the Central Asian kingdom that developed in the countries of the Middle East, Russia, China, and Tibet altogether. The basic idea of Shambhala vision is that a sane society developed out of that culture, and we are trying to emulate that vision. That particular system broke down into the Taoist tradition and the Bön tradition of Tibet, the Islamic tradition of the Middle East, and whatever tradition Russia might have. It has broken into various factions.

What we are trying to present here is that there is a comprehensive philosophy and wisdom which is not necessarily that of the West or the East. We are trying to present the possibility that we can actually bring together, out of those different factions, the warrior tradition of basic goodness.