The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two (95 page)

Sex

L
IKE ANYTHING ELSE
in life, sex is either based on some kind of center or is centerless. That is a very important point. And I am sure that if we know that basic argument, or basic question, the rest could be quite simple.

In connection with sex, our subject tonight, I would like to go over this question of ego again. It’s not so much a question of sex, it’s more a question of love, I think. The basic setup of ego contains ignorance, refusing to look back to its origin. From that confusion arises fear or panic. After fear and panic, that process continues through perception and impulse and the rest of the five skandhas.

The question is why: why after ignorance should there be perception, should there be impulse? It is because a tremendous, vast store of energy develops from that process. That vast store of energy is not ego’s energy at all. It is the energy of the primeval background, which permeates continuously. That primeval background or universal unconscious—whatever you would like to call it—is not just a blank state, a vacant state of nothingness at all. That background also contains tremendously powerful energy. It is completely filled with energy.

If we examine that energy, we see that it has two basic characteristics: heat and direction. That is what makes up the energy. It contains the fire quality of warmth, heat, a consuming quality, as well as the air quality of direction. The spark of energy has a direction to flow, a particular pattern. In this case, the whole process takes that same pattern: whether that pattern goes through the confused form of the filter of ego or not, the same pattern goes on and on all the time. That pattern cannot be destroyed or interrupted at all.

When we talk of this spark of energy, which contains warmth, it is very interesting to see its connection with the practice of yogic heat, or tummo. Tummo is the inner fire described in the six doctrines of Naropa, one of which is the development of inner heat. That energy has a consuming quality, ever-burning like the sun—ever-burning, continuously consuming. It consumes up to the point that it does not allow any room for doubts or manipulations at all. It is such a vast power that it goes on and on and on, without allowing room to manipulate, without allowing room for confusion or ignorance or panic or doubts.

When this heat is filtered through ignorance it becomes, in a very interesting way, instead of pure consuming, slightly stagnated—through the process of ignoring to look at its basic ground. That is, one might say, the basic twist of love. In the case of love in the ordinary way of thinking, there seems to be a basic twist, like anything else in life: that basic twist is refusing to see this vast energy of consummation.

Because of that, the filter of ego has to manage to accommodate this vibrating energy somehow, in some kind of container. What we tend to do is to accommodate it within the confusion, which is a kind of network, a wire net or container. When that particular network of confusion is created, we tend to put that energy into it, and from there, the basic twist starts. In other words, the intelligence of ego is not up to the extent of the power of that burning heat of love, but it
is
up to the point of the distortion of that burning heat—unsuccessfully, of course. So the process of unsuccessfully capturing that energy churns out a partial burning heat of love, a partial burning flame of love.

What this partial burning flame of love manages to churn out is an outward-going process; but in this case, it could be said that this going outward is pure fascination, because the flame hasn’t been completely let out, opened, let loose. So it is as if the flame managed to extend out its tongue. That is fascination, when the energy of love is filtered through confusion unsuccessfully. The reason I say unsuccessfully is because it is the ultimate wish of ego to completely control the world’s energy, so that everything can be captured, so no flame escapes through the gaps in the network. It is a partial thing; and because it is partial, the flame has to extend and it also has to come back in order to extend further. That is how our ordinary, confused passion works.

Ordinary passion extends out, but because of the network of confusion, it has no capability of extending in a limitless way, so it automatically has to come back. When it automatically comes back, it has already been sort of programmed, readjusted, because of the obstacle of confusion that runs through it. But strangely enough, this love, desire, or passion hasn’t been completely captivated by the ego. It is the one emotion that has escaped, that is completely outside the realm of ego—unlike anger, pride, envy, and the other kleshas, or emotions, which
have
been successfully captivated. Passion is a very powerful thing; it is the powerful makeup of the basic origin, so we haven’t actually managed to captivate or spoil it 100 percent. So generally, when we reflect ourselves onto external situations, we would like to extend our passion or desire, and then we would like to possess that particular thing. We extend our desire, passion, and we would like to draw something in.

If we do that unsuccessfully, we tend to feel very frustrated; whereas if we
could
possess it, we feel we would have conquered something. It is rather like the analogy of two people who set out and decide to take a walk on the High Street. One person is slowly walking among the shops, admiring the displays in the shop windows. In the other case, also window shopping, he admires them and he wants to get them for himself. He would like to buy but he realizes he hasn’t got enough money, so each time he sees something he admires, he feels terribly painful. But he stills does it because he enjoys the first glimpse. And that is the contrast between the two types of seeing: the possessing way of seeing and the admiring way of seeing.

That applies to relationships as well, much more than to objects, because relationships between people are very sophisticated, extremely sophisticated, for the very fact that you have the ability to extend your flame and consume it, and the other person also has the same thing. So that kind of process is very powerful. The whole process of relationship becomes a kind of game, very much so. Particularly when one person would like to possess the other, another person, it becomes very powerful—to the extent that whoever has the most powerful, overwhelming personality, then the other person would be subdued under it.

That is the general way of looking at the situation of possessing somebody else. Whether that possession takes on the very apelike quality that you would like to possess somebody because of their physical beauty, purely because they are handsome or pretty, or because they have particular subtleties in their psychological setup you would like to possess—in both cases, it is an extension of a very apelike quality. In either case, the relationship of sex is very much an ape quality, driven from the basic structure of ego. You see the other purely as a kind of juicy steak. You would like to gulp it down, and when you are finished, nothing continues except that sort of animal instinct.

But I’m not suggesting that people should be more sophisticated in that particular art, if we have that setup already. The more we try to be sophisticated, the more we make fools of ourselves because everybody knows everybody’s tricks. In this case, everybody is a professional, as we know very well. If you try to be subtle, it is rather like the Chinese story of a man trying to steal a bell. A fool wanted to steal this beautiful bell, a very expensive one that made a beautiful noise, a beautiful ringing sound. So he set out to the house to get the bell. He walked very quietly into the house and picked up the bell and he heard a sound. As he picked up the bell very quickly, in a panicking way, he heard a sound. When he heard the sound of the bell, he tried to close his ears with one hand and to grab hold of the bell with the other hand. He kept on saying, “I don’t hear it. I don’t hear it!” It’s very interesting—not only in the case of sex, but in any situation, we play the same kind of game. Although we are quite sure that the other person realizes the game we are playing, we still won’t give in; we continue playing it as though we know nothing about it.

The other case, in which relationships are associated with the subtlety of the basic background, takes on the same pattern of passion as in the ordinary sense. Just ordinary. This kind of pure passion doesn’t have to be pious passion, if there is such a thing at all, and it doesn’t have to be articulated passion. It is just ordinary passion in this case as well, but it is called vajra passion.

In some strange way it is
vajra
, “indestructible nature,” because it is wild passion. Because it has no network or wire around it, it is free passion, wild passion, unleashed passion. Such passion has not been directed by the work of some particular switchboard, so it is more powerful. It does not only contain the ape quality. It contains the qualities of spark and light, or the wisdom quality, and it also shows the tremendous energy, or consuming quality, without going through any filters or networks. That kind of passion, whether it is connected with sex or with any desirable subject, is wild passion.

There are two ways of presenting this passion. The first one is very traditional, sort of pious, and very disciplined. It is like the basic discipline work you find in the old orthodox schools of thought: to acknowledge the existence of this passion, but also to control it. It is interesting that in the beginning, controlling this passion doesn’t decrease its intensity at all. In fact, as one learns to live with it more and more, it increases more and more—until you realize the passionlessness quality in which putting passion into action and not putting passion into action are both the same.

You have to achieve that passionless quality before you get to the point of learning to live with the passion; otherwise, you cannot do it. So by acknowledging the existence of this passion, mentally one could develop. But by physically not putting this passion into effect, controlling it by tremendous discipline, this passion could then develop into passionlessness—not because you suppress it, but because you have learned to live with it.

If you try to suppress the passion, this orthodox approach could go wrong. If you try to suppress it, that means you are not acknowledging the existence of such passion anymore at all. Whatever comes up, you suddenly sort of automatically shut down, because you feel guilty that you are committing a sin or whatever. Then, because you refuse to look into it, it tends to bottle up. It collects like air in a balloon and one day, sooner or later, it will tend to burst out.

So that seems to be an unskillful way of looking at it. There is nothing wrong with the tradition or the teaching, but if you panic, if you feel terribly shy and you panic, then the process of panicking doesn’t let you see it, doesn’t let you examine it. It doesn’t matter whether the physical application is important or not; that seems to be a secondary thing. It is a question of the passion itself. Such orthodox discipline seems only to be applicable to certain types of people. But there still will be a desire to put passion into physical application. I’m talking about vajra passion in particular. When we don’t go through this basic traditional discipline, or shila, if we’re not fit to follow this particular orthodoxy, then the next important point is how then are we going to manage it?

When we hear “wild” and “free,” we still tend to think in terms of neurotic and erratic. That isn’t so, strangely enough. If we let vajra passion loose, this primeval passion, it does not become at all neurotic. By the very fact that you let it loose, there is no boundary to resist anything at all. Such passion acts with wisdom, with intelligence; intelligence automatically sorts its way through.

Then one will be able to set up proper communication, real communication, because that is its basic nature. When we talk of “wildness” and “freedom,” we tend to think always in terms of ape quality, as though a gorilla were let loose from the zoo. But I suppose that is a natural thing: if we are gorillas ourselves, we cannot think the other way around. But if we really let that passion loose—at the stage when gorillas were in jungles, before they were captured in the zoo cages, that kind of primeval state—it is not going to destroy anyone at all, because that passion contains a natural instinct for a balanced state of being.

In this case, in the case of sex or anything else in our lives, passion also contains wonderful, skillful communication. At the beginning of such communication, we wouldn’t feel self-conscious as we did in the other case. That is the starting point: we feel completely natural and open. And the secondary process is that because you don’t feel any kind of self-conscious inhibition, the process of communication, of meeting, of seeing the qualities of your partner or other person, is quite extraordinary, because you are not judging them in terms of their rugged and juicy quality alone. You are seeing in terms of the whole setup, the whole quality. Like pure gold, it is beautiful, solid, and majestic from the outside; and it will also be solid and beautiful inside. It is like pure gold because you don’t see only the surface; you see the whole way through.

That is the open and skillful way of seeing and applying passion. Applying passion with wisdom, you could see the whole process and not only be fascinated and overwhelmed by the exterior alone. Instead, when you see the exterior, that simultaneously also puts you through to the interior as well. You go through the whole way, completely and thoroughly, so you reach right to the heart of the situation. Then, if there is a meeting of two people, that relationship also will be very enlightening. You don’t only see that person as pure physical attraction or pure habitual pattern, but you see the outside along with the inside. This applies to any form of communication, not only sex. Such communication is whole-way-through communication.

Now we’ve got another problem, quite a grave problem. That is, supposing you see right through somebody, and that other person doesn’t want you to see right through—then that person will be horrified of you and run away. Then what do you do? Well, since you have made your communication completely and thoroughly, there is communication from the other side as well. If that person runs away from you, that is that person’s way of communicating to you. So you wouldn’t pursue a further investigation, because if you did pursue a further investigation and chase after that person, then sooner or later you are going to turn out to be a demon from that person’s point of view—a vampire, in fact. As far as that person’s point of view, you saw the whole way through their body—they have such juicy fat and meat inside them that you would like to eat it up—and the more you try to pursue them, the more you are going to fail.