The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (75 page)

Vastness is an interesting point. Even when we feel that we are so cramped in our own space, and we are spaceless, when we are so locked in our particular relationship, particular mind, body, what have you—nevertheless, that is part of the pressure coming from the space of
E
that is taking place all the time with us, which is a very interesting point. I don’t think I should freak you out too much at this point, so to speak. Maybe we should have some discussion. I would like to answer your questions, if you have any questions.

Vidyadhara:
Don’t be shy! You’re in outer space. [
Siren howls.
] Young lady at the back over there.

Student:
Did you say what I think you said, that people generally, that is, people in the world, generally are getting frightened because they are getting a sense of vastness? That something is permeating constantly?

V:
Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. So?

S:
So—that’s fantastic!

V:
Well—

S:
How do we as Buddhists deal with that? It’s somehow a responsibility for us.

V:
You might get frightened as Buddhists, too—much more so than the others who are frightened by getting into vaster space.

S:
That’s true, but we have the teachings to guide us.

V:
The teachings are no longer little planets—the teachings are the space itself that you are floating in! So the teachings no longer provide you with any kind of footing, except space itself.

V:
Gentleman by the wall.

S:
Rinpoche, could you explain further how the sense of being locked into your own space is some kind of pressure from space?

V:
That’s it. Its pressure is locked in. It is in your own body trying to survive independent of space. We tend to put hundreds of paintings on our walls and we decorate our floors with multicolored carpets. We put all kinds of knickknacks, tchochkes, on our mantelpiece, and we try to entertain ourselves. But if we have none of those things at all, then we have nothing; we feel we are barren—and better we feel barren than we have too many things. The problem begins at home, as they say. Home is your body, and you are afraid of the environment.

S:
Thank you.

V:
Anybody over there? Shiny-headed one over there.

S:
Rinpoche, you used the terms big mind and vast mind. We have been working with the notions of dharmadhatu and vajradhatu. I wonder if the term big mind and the term vast mind, for that matter, have some corollaries with that, in our language?

V:
I am not completely concerned with our language. If I get trapped up in language, that’s too bad. What are you trying to say anyway, my dear gentleman? Say it again.

S:
Well, the term big mind is familiar from, for example, Suzuki Roshi’s book.

V:
Yes.

S:
It’s familiar to me.

V:
Yes. Yes, indeed.

S:
And the term vast mind is a new term to me.

V:
New term to you. Yes, indeed. [
Laughter
] So?

S:
And I’ve become familiar recently with the terms vajradhatu and dharmadhatu, and have some sense of them. Maybe there’s no correlation between big mind and some of these terms that we’ve been working with, but I was wondering if there is?

V:
Well, big mind seems to be the notion of being brave—brave and very powerful, heroic. Fundamentally, being heroic is big mind, because you can sit a lot on your zafu and all the rest of it. You have a big lung.

S:
A big what?

V:
Lungs. [
Breathes hard in and out; laughter
] And you have a good backbone to sit up. Those are all big minds. It’s somewhat good. Having a good vocation is big mind: Jesuits have good big mind; the Pope has good big mind; maybe George Washington had big mind; maybe Lincoln had big mind. On the other hand, vast mind is somewhat questionable. Can you make something out of that? I hope you will. Just sleep on it. Thank you.

S:
Thank you.

S:
Supposing that together with the feeling of fear, at one point you begin to be attracted and almost court this feeling of being lost in space. Is that the usual thing?

V:
You see, the interesting thing about fear—that you are going to lose your grasp, your magnetic field that comes from all kinds of planets—is that it is part of the entertainment, part of the passion. You don’t want to be there in that particular vast space anymore, so you have suspicion and a sense of possible boredom. Although at that particular time you are occupied, you have possible boredom taking place.

S:
But supposing you get attracted to the idea. Is it just entertainment?

V:
Well, everything is idea, everything is ideal at this point. You want to complain because you are delighted, actually. You are delighted to have something to complain about. You know, that kind of situation. There’s nothing we can hang on to there, particularly. It’s just that a little, little breeze comes along and tells you little whispering things in your ear, and you come up with all kinds of ideas. You are trying to execute them, and then they go away. So you feel, once more, vast. You have lost your space, your inner space, so you float along in outer space once more. It goes on all the time. [
Laughs.
] It’s quite exciting, but nevertheless, it is disheartening. You thought you had found something, a little butterfly coming in the middle of space, outer space—ah!—but it turns out to be a reflection from the glass window you have—phew! [
Laughter
]

You cannot win over space, it is too vast. That’s why you put little tchochkes on the wall, on the mantelpiece, to protect yourself from being lost in space. But you are not ever actually lost, you gain space—actually, you gain a lot of things, but not particularly any space.

S:
So is this
E,
this vast space, any different from the mind which perceives or experiences it?

V:
Not different. It is mind. When you experience your own mind, it is vast. But when your mind has begun to be used as a tool to understand something else, then it’s different—that is big mind, or maybe little mind. When you begin to understand, to realize your own mind, it is too vast. It is too close to home; that’s why you might freak out. It’s very close to home.

S:
It seems that when it gets that close to home, being frightened is almost like a defensive unwillingness to make friends with the space?

V:
Absolutely. Yes. Tell everybody about that. [
Laughter
]

S:
But it doesn’t—

V:
They may not understand, but tell them.

S:
It seems to be stuck.

V:
No, lost in space. You can’t get stuck in space. [
Laughter
]

V:
That young lady over there.

S:
Two questions, Rinpoche.

V:
Yes, indeed.

S:
First, did you say that
VAM
is contained by
E?

V:
What, bomb? [
Laughter
]

S:
V
AM.

V:
We are going to discuss that later, tomorrow maybe.

S:
Okay. Then the other question: in vast mind, is there an experience, or an awareness of self, in vast mind?

V:
That is part of the whole thing. If there is an experience of self as such, usually you create a little pouch like a kangaroo—you could put your little babies in your little pocket.

S:
That wouldn’t be vast mind.

V:
Not having that—that is why the whole thing turns out to be so challenging and freaky and impossible. The personal experience of recording anything back is not happening, so you might think your system has broken down or something. Then you freak out. That’s one of those things that happens. You see what I mean?

S:
It sounds like a shame.

V:
Shame? Well, of course. Then what do you want to do?

S:
It is a shame that you would freak out at that point.

V:
What’s the opposite of shame? Please.

S:
Joy.

V:
Joy. Joy is the opposite of shame? [
Laughter
]

S:
I don’t know. What’s the opposite of shame? Pride.

V:
Yeah, more likely pride, actually.

S:
Arrogance.

V:
Arrogance. Yes. Absolutely. [
Laughter
] So you see, the opposite of shame is arrogance, which is equally shameful.

S:
[
Laughs
]

V:
Even joy is shameful. We do not actually want to relate with anything that’s going on. We want to hang on to this, to that, that little trinket, this little tchochke, this little image—which are called theistic problems, on the whole.

S:
Hanging on like that, then there can’t be the experience of vast space.

V:
It is amazing that America was actually able to take the journey, that American astronauts were able to take a journey into outer space. It’s quite magnificent, but they did. And the reason they did was because they regarded themselves as human beings rather than religious people. Because of that, they had some kind of buddha nature in them that could actually relate with that kind of space. I heard reports that afterward they became spiritual this’s and that’s and all kinds of things happened. But there was some kind of sanity experience of the actual demonstration, or visualization, of outer space—how that could actually manifest your mind in real living, which is a very interesting point. Maybe we missed the point of your question. Have we? In outer space somewhere?

S:
Thank you.

V:
Would you like to say something more?

S:
I was wondering, I wanted you to confirm my own idea [
laughter
] of whether there could be those two things at the same time: the hanging on and the experience of vast space. You say the result of that is freaking out, and I can understand that.

V:
Well, let’s sit and practice and find out that way, rather than me fortune-telling you at this point. Okay?

S:
Thank you.

V:
You’re welcome.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think at this particular time and space [
laughs
] we should stop. It is getting earlier already so we might be ahead of time tomorrow. Thank you.

And, once more, welcome to this particular seminar. I would like to encourage you people to sit a lot, practice a lot. Without that, we cannot actually communicate, we become foreigners to each other. So if you don’t work with that basic discipline, there is nothing happening between us. Let us not regard this seminar as a circus scene, but a real working practice situation. I’m sure you can do that. Thank you very much for being very patient tonight.

1
. This sourcebook contains lightly edited transcripts of the seminar “The Feminine Principle,” which appears here as part one.—Editor

TALK 2

Vajra Question Mark

G
OOD EVENING.
Where did we leave off last night? Somewhere. No reference point. You might find that it is very difficult to pick up—but somewhat, very interestingly, when you leave things without a reference point, that is much more precise. Because there is no reference point to pick up, the next situation is not conditioned by anything at all. You just come out and launch in, so to speak, which is tonight’s issue. And that issue will go on during our entire seminar.

The interesting point about what happens in that particular type of outer space we were talking about last night is what? That seems to be it—it is what. There are a lot of different ways to say what. You could say it from the point of view of panic; you could say it from the point of view of satisfaction; you could also say it from the point of view of hunger or uncertainty. But with this kind of what, if there is no space, you cannot say what anymore. Once the space is provided to say what, what is that? Some kind of clear perception begins to dawn in the midst of that gigantic vast space. It becomes very real, very powerful and open, but at the same time, dynamic, equally. That is what we are talking about as the second principle,
VAM.

Unconditional space gives birth to unconditional question—what? Somewhat you could say you couldn’t care less what that is all about—but still you will say what. It is like the traditional idea of mantra—first utterance. There is a vajra carved out of a diamond floating in this gigantic space, outer space, glinting lights all over. Or, for that matter, you could say there is a question mark carved out of diamond floating in the midst of space. But whatever it is, it is made out of diamond, indestructible.

In order to cope and work with such situations as the vastness and openness of that particular space, one has to develop—one has to have rather than develop—a greater sense of indestructibility. The notion of indestructibility is not so much that you actually asked the question, “What?” It takes the form of a question, but it becomes a statement rather than a question. But it still has the essence of yearning, openness, possibilities—open possibilities of course—that which we call compassion. Indestructibility and a sense of softness, or warmth, put together is the essence of
VAM.
We have a sense of directness and indestructibility, and a sense of openness that doesn’t stand for any kind of germs or dirt.