The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: 3 (75 page)

Allen Ginsberg:
I sometimes find it difficult to conceive of enjoying myself when I’m ill or in pain. I wonder what it would be like to be very old and on the road in Jordan with shrapnel and cluster bombs flying around, feeling the end of family, the end of home. I wonder what possibility there would be of writing appreciative poetry under extremely painful situations and conditions, such as old age, sickness, and death.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, pain goes with pleasure, always. That’s a classic remark. When you feel pain, it is because you feel joyful at the same time. Why do you wear sunglasses, which are black? You wear them because there is lots of light coming toward you. Do you understand the logic? The notion of frustration also goes along with that. You feel a sense of both alternatives, always. When you are in the worst pain, you sometimes feel the best happiness. Have you ever experienced that? We read about that in the stories of Milarepa and Marpa—all the Kagyü lineage poets.

AG:
Well, is it the steadiness of mind cultivated by meditation practice that keeps you from total disillusion, depression, and physical pain?

TR:
I think there has to be some kind of spark, some kind of explosion of joy, happening in the midst of pain. It usually happens
more
in the midst of pain.

AG:
Do you think that’s actually happening to people who are under really horrible circumstances, for example in Lebanon?

TR:
Yes, I think so. Because there is so much chaos, therefore there is so much tranquillity. Tranquillity is relative to chaos. It’s Einstein’s philosophy.

Student:
Do you feel there’s something lacking in American poetry because we don’t have a meditative tradition?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, I think American poets are getting there, basically speaking. But I must say American poets do need some kind of meditative discipline in order to appreciate the phenomenal world, in order to appreciate that the greenness of green is beautiful, the blueness of the sky is lovely, and the whiteness of the clouds is so fantastic. Maybe poets spend too much time writing poetry. They have to see the vividness of the world.

America is a wonderful place. You have the highest mountains, beautiful lakes, and extraordinary greenery and fruit. You have everything in this country. You should be proud of your country, then you’ll see the beauty of America—if you become a poet.

Student:
Rinpoche, I’ve heard the saying that “suffering is the broom that sweeps away the cause of suffering.” When you speak about sparks of pleasure in pain, is that the quality you’re referring to?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well said. You must be studying Buddhism! [
Laughter.
] You must be studying vajrayana.

S:
It was Situ Rinpoche who said that.

TR:
Oh yes, that’s good. Thank you very much.

Based on discussion with Naropa Institute poetics students, 1982.

THIRTEEN

Green Energy

“When we relate to money properly, it is no longer a mere token of exchange or of abstract energy; it is also a discipline. No longer hooked by it as a medicine that has become a drug, we can deal with it in a practical, earthy way as a master deals with his tools.”

I
N DEALING WITH MONEY,
we are constantly involved in a kind of chaos. This results from a break in the relationship between the earth and oneself. Relating to the earth means knowing when to act practically and directly; it means actually feeling a kinship with whatever work is being done. We rarely have this feeling when it comes to money matters.

Money is basically a very simple thing. But our attitude toward it is overloaded, full of preconceived ideas that stem from the development of a self-aggrandizing ego and its manipulative processes. The mere act of handling money—just pieces of paper—is viewed as a very serious game. It is almost like building a sand castle and then selling tickets for admission to it. The difference between playing as a child and playing as an adult is that in the adult’s case, money is involved. Children don’t think about money, whereas adults would like to charge admission to their solemn construction.

Even when we try to regard money as insignificant—as merely a credential or a token of our creative capacity or our practicality—because money is connected with the energy arising from our preconceptions, it takes on great significance. We may even feel embarrassment about money—it is somewhat too close to the heart. We try to call it something else—“bread” or “bucks”—to relieve that feeling. Or, we choose to think of money as our lifeline, as a source of security: its abstract quality represents some unspeakable aspect of our personality. We may say, for example: “I have gone bankrupt and lost heart”; “I’m a solid citizen with a steady bank account”; “I have so much money that there is no room for simplicity in my life.”

The energy money takes on makes a tremendous difference in the process of communication and relationship. If a friend suddenly refuses to pay his check at a restaurant, a feeling of resentment or separation automatically arises in relation to him. If one buys a friend a cup of tea—which is just a cup, hot water, and tea—somehow a factor of meaningfulness gets added.

It seems to me that it is worthwhile to work with the negative aspects of money in order to gain some understanding about ourselves. We must try to discover how to view this embarrassing and potent commodity as a part of ourselves that we cannot ignore. When we relate to money properly, it is no longer a mere token of exchange or of our abstract energy; it is also a discipline. No longer hooked by it as a medicine that has become a drug, we can deal with it in a practical, earthy way, as a master deals with his tools.

Originally composed in 1976 for
Harper’s
special edition on money.

FOURTEEN

Manifesting Enlightenment

“If you wait too long, in the Christian tradition, as well as in the Buddhist tradition, nothing happens. For example, the concept of ‘Holy Ghost’ and the concept of ‘first thought, best thought’ simply pounce on you, rather than you having to wait for them. This requires a certain sense of bravery: you have to be willing to jump in right away. Whenever there is any inspiration, you just jump in. That is why it is said that ‘first thought is best thought.’ Just jump in!”

E
NLIGHTENMENT
IS A RATHER
tall subject, and I would like to keep my discussion of it rather simple. The word for enlightenment in Sanskrit is
bodhi,
which means “awake.” When the word
bodhi
is made into a noun it becomes
buddha.
Buddha refers to someone who has developed an awake state of being. When we talk about awake here, it has nothing to do with being physically awake as opposed to sleeping. Rather, awake means being basically realized, being able to see the pain of the world and being able to see the way out of the world of suffering.

After the Buddha’s attainment of enlightenment, he spent seven weeks contemplating how he could communicate such an experience of wakefulness to others. I suppose we could correlate that with Christ spending such an extensive time in the desert—some people even say Christ went to Tibet, or at least to Kashmir.

The Buddha discovered and taught that human beings are in fact capable of being woken up. The state of being awake has two main qualities: the first,
karuna
in Sanskrit, is softness, gentleness, which we call “compassion”; the other,
upaya
in Sanskrit, is called “skillful means.” The compassion aspect is connected with oneself, and the skillful means aspect is connected with how to deal with others. Compassion and skillful means put together is what is known as egolessness. Non-ego means being free from any kind of bondage, free from any fixed motivation to hold on to one’s basic being.

We have a tendency to hold on to concepts and perceptions of all kinds. We must admit that tendency and realize that such situations bind us to the lower realms: the hell realm, the hungry ghost realm, and the animal realm. I suppose in the Christian tradition these realms are connected with the idea of sin. In the Buddhist tradition we don’t talk about punishment as such, and the concept of original sin does not exist. Instead, Buddhism speaks about habitual patterns. For example, when a dog sees a person, it wants to bite, it wants to bark; when a flea jumps on your body, it wants to bite; when a human being sees another human being, he wants to kiss, and so forth. That kind of instinctual response is the definition of habitual patterns. When a person gets stuck in habitual patterns, then he exists in the lower realms of his passion, aggression, and delusion.

There are all kinds of habitual tendencies that are connected with holding on to what we are. People get divorced because they think they might find a better mate. People change restaurants because they think they might get cheaper and better food. The habitual patterns of ego work that way. The notion of enlightenment is a sense of freedom from those patterns. And the way to attain that freedom is by means of the sitting practice of meditation.

In sitting practice, we look at our minds, and we maintain good posture. When we combine body and mind that way, we find ourselves emulating the Buddha—the way to
be
properly. Then we begin to develop sympathy toward ourselves rather than just holding on. We begin to develop a sense of softness. We can see this in the way that Buddhists talk softly and walk mindfully.

Beyond sitting meditation itself, we begin to expand our experience of softness and mindfulness to other activities, such as shopping, cooking, cleaning, and any activities that we do. We begin to find that things are workable rather than hassles or problems. We find that life is worth living. And we begin to treat ourselves better; we wear good clothes, eat good food, and constantly smile. We cheer up, and we realize there is something good about life. And we also realize that others can be brought into our society, our world.

We can conduct ourselves mindfully and appreciate the phenomenal world. We can realize that the hassles in our lives are not created by others; rather, we create these hassles for ourselves. Therefore, we can remove them and appreciate our world. I would suggest to everybody: let us be aware of our being, let us celebrate as we experience our lives, and smile at least three times a day. Thank you.

I apologize if this sounds like a sermon. If you would like to ask questions, you are more than welcome.

Question:
I am so delighted to be here as a Christian, with your hospitality making it all possible. My heart is full of love of the spirit that makes this possible. We have so much to learn from each other. I have so much to learn. I am told that this meeting at Naropa has been made possible by you because of a meeting that you had with Thomas Merton. If you care to share them, I would be delighted to hear your impressions of that meeting, since we bear the fruits here today.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Thank you. Father Merton’s visit to Southeast Asia took place when I was in Calcutta. He was invited by a group that had a philosophy of spiritual shopping, and he was the only person who felt that it was full of confusion. He felt there was a sense of ignorance there, but nonetheless he joined them. We had dinner together, and we talked about spiritual materialism a lot. We drank many gin and tonics. I had the feeling that I was meeting an old friend, a genuine friend.

In fact, we planned to work on a book containing selections from the sacred writings of Christianity and Buddhism. We planned to meet either in Great Britain or in North America. He was the first genuine person I met from the West.

After meeting Father Merton, I visited several monasteries and nunneries in Great Britain, and at some of them I was asked to give talks on meditation, which I did. I was very impressed.

When I was studying at Oxford, I had a tutor who was a Belgian priest, a Jesuit priest, who had studied in Sri Lanka. He knew Sanskrit and he read a lot of the Buddhist sutras and the commentaries that go with them. I was very impressed and moved by the contemplative aspect of Christianity and by the monasteries themselves. Their lifestyles and the way they conducted themselves convinced me that the only way to join the Christian tradition and the Buddhist tradition together would be by bringing together Christian contemplative practice with Buddhist meditative practice.

Question:
Sir, Tenshin Anderson Sensei spoke the other day about a still place in the center where the buddhas live—where one experiences the pain of all sentient beings, the suffering of all sentient beings. And he said that from there arise outcroppings, or clouds that begin to form and rise. He said that this is the essence of compassion and skillful means, and that from this arising you can go out into the world and do good for all sentient beings. This made me think about “first thought, best thought.” Could you say something about “first thought, best thought,” and compassionate action in the world.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think it is a question of not waiting. If you wait too long, in the Christian tradition, as well as in the Buddhist tradition, nothing happens. For example, the concept of “Holy Ghost” and the concept of “first thought, best thought” simply pounce on you, rather than you having to wait for them. This requires a certain sense of bravery: you have to be willing to jump in right away. Whenever there is any inspiration, you just jump in. That is why it is said that “first thought is best thought.” Just jump in!

Question:
In relation to that, we have talked about being compulsive in wanting to help, about jumping out too soon and wanting to change someone. If someone is suffering, you want to
stop
that suffering, but that might be compulsive and could just cause more harm. Could you say more about the distinction between true compassionate action and compulsive behavior?