The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: 3 (44 page)

Then we are ready to leap on to the bodhisattva path, to open to the joy of working with sentient beings, including oneself. The bodhisattva makes friends with himself as well as with others. There are no mysterious, dark corners left of which to be suspicious; no surprises can occur to destroy the bodhisattva’s spiritual intelligence, his dignity and heroism. This is the first step, the first bhumi
¹
or spiritual level.

The word
bhumi
in Sanskrit, or the word
sa
in Tibetan, means “earth” or “level” or “ground,” the ground where you can relate with yourself and others. There is no mystification, no confusion; it is obviously solid earth. In other words, it is the equivalent of the basic sanity, fundamentally being
there.
Since the bodhissattva knows his body and his mind and how to relate with the two, the whole process becomes “skillful means” because of such transcendental security. Which is more like being
in
security rather than being secured, rather than watching yourself to make sure everything is okay. That fundamental security comes from realizing that you have broken through something. You reflect back and realize that you used to be extraordinarily paranoid and neurotic, watching each step you made, thinking you might lose your sanity, that situations were always threatening in some way. Now you are free of all those fears and preconceptions. You discover that you have something to give rather than having to demand from others, having to grasp all the time. For the first time, you are a rich person, you contain basic sanity. You have something to offer, you are able to work with your fellow sentient beings, you do not have to reassure yourself anymore. Reassurance implies a mentality of poverty—you are checking yourself, “Do I have it? How could I do it?” But the bodhisattva’s delight in his richness is based upon experience rather than theory or wishful thinking. It is
so,
directly, fundamentally. He is fundamentally rich and so can delight in generosity.

Thus the bodhisattva at the level of the first bhumi develops generosity. He is not acting generously in order to get something in return, but he is just being generous and warm. If you are acting kindly to someone in the conventional sense, it has the connotation of looking down upon someone lower, less fortunate than you. “I am rich and you need help because you are not like me.” The bodhisattva’s generosity need not be gentle and soothing; it could be very violent or sharp because he gives you what you need rather than what will please you superficially. He does not expect anything in return at all. He can be generous physically, giving food, wealth, clothes, and shelter, or spiritually, giving food for the mind, restoring your mental health. The best kind of generosity according to the scriptures is that of working with another person’s state of mind. But the bodhisattva does not go beyond his own understanding; he regards himself as a student rather than as a teacher. Nor does he try to seduce the object of his generosity. He is aware not only of “me and them” but also of the space that both the giver and the receiver are sharing. The perception of the shared space is the operation of the sharp intelligence of prajna.

The joyous generosity of the first bhumi is accompanied by prajna, transcendental knowledge. This knowledge is the result of vipashyana practice, the basic training you inherited from your hinayana practice. Opening to the joyous richness of the first bhumi automatically brings transcendental knowledge as well. Prajna is often translated as “wisdom,” but it is preferable to translate it as “transcendental knowledge” and to use the word wisdom to refer to jnana, the meditative state at the level of trantra which is more advanced than prajna.

At the level of the first bhumi, prajna involves cutting through, dissolving the boundary between meditation and nonmeditation. The sense of someone being there, someone being “aware” does not occur. The bodhisattva might still practice his discipline of sitting meditation, but he begins to find it irrelevant in some sense; it is just a disciplinary act. In actual fact his arising from meditation and participating in daily life does not change his mental state at all. His acts of generosity go on all the time. In other words, the bodhisattva already has the sharpness, the intelligence of the awakened state of mind. That is why his generosity becomes dana paramita.
Dana
means “generosity,”
para
means “other,”
mita
means “shore.” It is generosity that transcends, that goes to the other shore. You go beyond the river of samsara, the river of confusion, the continual chain reaction pattern of karma in which each flow initiates the next flow like an electric current in which each spark of electricity is independent but initiates the next.

Prajna is transcendence, cutting through the volitional chain reaction of karma. But the act of cutting through the karmic chain might itself generate some chain reaction, because you are cutting something and acknowledging the cutting through. It becomes very subtle. Until the bodhisattva reaches the tenth bhumi he cannot completely cut the chain of karmic bondage because he is acknowledging the very act of cutting through. Prajna is knowledge in the sense that you still regard the dharma or the knowledge as external to yourself; there is still confirmation of the experience, one still experiences cutting through as an event that gives you information, an event from which you learn. The bodhisattva must go through ten stages of development to cut through the watcher, the acknowledger. The rejoicing process of the first bhumi is celebrating getting away from samsara rather than getting beyond it, so the bodhisattva still carries elements of samsara with him constantly.

The first bhumi is described in the scriptures as a state in which you have drunk half a cup of tea and still have half left. You have selected the tea, brewed it, tasted it, and begun to drink it, but you still have not drunk the whole cup of tea. You are stuck, though not in the sense of being trapped, but you still have to work through the drinking of the other half of the cup, which takes ten steps to complete. Then you must clean your cup and put it back where it belongs.

T
HE
S
ANITY OF
E
ARTH

The second bhumi is called the “spotless” bhumi, and it involves the shila paramita of “morality” or “discipline.” The purity of the bodhisattva referred to by the shila paramita is based upon making friends with oneself, loving oneself. You are not a nuisance to yourself anymore; you are good company, an inspiration to yourself. You do not have to control yourself so as to avoid temptations or follow rules or laws. You find temptations less relevant and guidelines less necessary, because you naturally follow the appropriate patterns. There is no need to try to be pure, to painfully discipline yourself to be pure, to apply detergent to your natural condition. The spotlessness or purity of the second bhumi is realized when you acknowledge your natural purity.

It is like feeling naturally at home in a clean, orderly place. You do not have to fit yourself into it; if you try to fit yourself in, you become rigid and create chaos. So the morality of the bodhisattva is a natural process. Unskillful action becomes irrelevant. The bodhisattva delights in working with people rather than regarding compassionate action as a duty. He has no dogma about how he should act or how other people should be. He does not try to reform or transform anyone because they do not fit his model. If people are determined to convert others into their mold, then they are attempting to reassure themselves by using the convert to relieve their doubt. The bodhisattva is not concerned with conversion; he respects others’ lifestyles, speaks their language, and allows them to evolve according to their nature rather than making them into a replica of himself. It requires tremendous discipline to avoid converting people. The bodhisattva will experience strong impulses to tell people how things ought to be. But instead of acting on these impulses, the bodhisattva regards them as mature to work through, an expression of his insecurity. He no longer needs that kind of reinforcement.

One type of discipline known as the “gathering of virtue” is connected with relating to physical things. Because the bodhisattva has been well trained in shamatha and vipashyana meditation, he does not relate to a cup of tea by knocking it over. He picks it up, drinks it, and puts it down properly. There is no frivolousness involved. The
Bodhicharyavatara
notes that, when the bodhisattva decides to relax and sit on the ground, he does not make doodles with the dust on the ground. He does not need to entertain himself restlessly. He is just sitting there. Making doodles would seem an effort to him. I hope you do not take it too seriously, that if you make doodles you are not a potential bodhisattva. The idea is that, if you are respectful of your environment, you will take care of it, not treat it frivolously. As a cameraman respects his cameras or a professor his books, so the bodhisattva respects the earth. Frivolousness is arduous to him. There is an “old dog” quality, a “sitting bull” quality; he is just being there, precisely, properly. Making an additional move is frivolous. Of course he may be very active as well as peaceful, but he would not give in to a sudden outburst of energy; his action is deliberate and sane, deliberate in the sense of not being impulsive.

The bodhisattva’s discipline is to relate to earth properly, to relate to his senses and mind properly. He is not concerned with psychic phenomena or other worlds. Ignoring earth to chase after psychic phenomena is like the play of children trying to find gold at the end of a rainbow. We do not have to concern ourselves with the cosmic world, the world of gods, psychic powers, angels, and devils. To do so may be to lose track of the physical world in which we live, and this results in madness. The test of the bodhisattva’s sanity is how directly he relates to earth. Anything else is a sidetrack.

P
ATIENCE

Before we discuss the third bhumi, I would like to point out that the ten stages of the bodhisattva’s path toward enlightenment should be regarded as landmarks, points of reference on a map, rather than as events to be celebrated, such as birthdays or graduations. There are no medals for achievement along the bodhisattva path. Each stage, even enlightenment itself, is like the different stages in the growth of a tree. The first bhumi is an extremely spectacular experience, a sudden explosion of joy, realizing that you could be generous, you could open, but beyond that the other bhumis are less spectacular. One bhumi develops to a peak point, and then gradually the next bhumi suggests itself and you cross the border very gently and arrive at the beginning of the next bhumi. It is frivolous to ask what bhumi you are in or to develop courses aimed at achieving the various levels. It is a very gentle, very gradual process.

Patience, the paramita connected with the third bhumi, is particularly related with the idea that the bodhisattva does not desire to be a buddha but would rather work with sentient beings to save them from their confusion. Patience also implies heroism in the sense of having nothing to lose. The meditation practice connected with patience is working with territory. There is no territory that is yours or that is others’; everyone is in no-man’s land. Not seeking enlightenment for ego’s personal benefit, you have no need for territory so your space becomes a public park, a common ground, no-man’s-land. No-man’s-land is free ground, not subject to the laws of any government. You are free to do anything there, no one can make any demands upon you, so you can afford to wait, to be patient. Because there are no obligations you are free from time, not in the sense of being oblivious to what time it might be, but in the sense of not being compulsively driven by obligations to keep within time limits.

Patience does not mean forbearance in the sense of enduring pain, allowing someone to torture you at his leisure. The bodhisattva would strike down his torturer and defend himself, which is commonsense sanity. In fact the bodhisattva’s blow would be more powerful because it would not be impulsive or frivolous. The bodhisattva has great power because nothing can shake him; his action is calm, deliberate, and persevering. Since there is space between himself and others, he does not feel threatened, but he is very careful. He scans the whole environment for things which need to be dealt with. Both patience and intelligent caution are operating in no-man’s-land. So the bodhisattva can spring out like a tiger and claw you, bit you, crush you. He is not inhibited by conventional morality or idiot compassion. He is not afraid to subjugate what needs to be subjugated, to destroy what needs to be destroyed, and to welcome that which needs to be welcomed.

The conventional notion of patience is to be very kind and wait and hold your temper, repressing your restlessness. If we are waiting for someone, we smoke cigarettes, read, pace back and forth to keep ourselves cool. When they say, “I’m sorry I’m late,” we say, “Don’t mention it. I’ve been enjoying myself, looking at the scenery, talking to strangers. Let’s get to our business, I’m glad you’re here.” Although we pretend that we are not concerned about the time, actually we are compulsively caught up in living by the clock so our denial of concern and the hiding of our anger is hypocritical. The bodhisattva, on the other hand, free from the compulsive concern with time, can just sit patiently without feeling that he is “waiting” for something else to happen. Although there is a sense of timelessness in the bodhisattva’s action, this does not mean that he does everything so slowly that his action is inefficient. In fact, he is very efficient because his action is direct and persevering. Nothing sidetracks him, nothing scares him. He does not complain in the conventional sense, but he does point out discrepancies in organization or in the neurosis of workers. He does not complain about them, but he just relates to them as facts, as things that need correction. This sounds like a good strategy for a businessman to adopt, but unless a person has surrendered to the whole process of treading the path, it is not possible to be patient in this way.