The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (84 page)

That kind of continuity of situations is the actual meaning of
tantra. Tantra
means “thread” or “continuity.” For instance, you could unify 108 beads with one thread. Everything could be unified into one situation. We may be talking about these different qualities and so on, but they are not really separate qualities. They have some basic continuity. The Great Wrathful One is the unmoving, invincible quality of space, that oneness.

When one experiences the background of all these, nothing can shake your experience; nothing can change your experience; the experience remains as it is. Wrathful doesn’t necessarily mean angry, but retaining overwhelming power. I mean, the same thing could apply to fire: we could say fire is a wrathful thing because it has its own quality of overwhelming power.

There is a natural state of completeness in the state of meditation where there are no cracks, so to speak. Everything is completely secured and there’s no gap or crack that you can get into in order to create chaos. That’s the wrathful or invincible quality of the experience of the different textures of the emotions of the five elements.

S:
I’d like to hear just a little bit more about tradition. I had understood it as being not just custom or the handing down of outward forms, costumes, and all that, but the transmission of ancient wisdom, which seems to be the phrase you used. And that is really connected with the idea of tradition, because it doesn’t depend only on someone’s individual fantasy or invention. There’s something that’s been passed on in a sacred kind of way, so to speak, orally, properly spoken, so that it can be thoroughly communicated.

V:
Yes.

S:
I wouldn’t cast that aside, would you? [
Laughter
]

V:
[
Laughs.
] Well, I think what you are saying is the same as what I am saying: that tradition is wisdom rather than purely based on custom. But wisdom is living, a living experience which isn’t actually handed down necessarily, at all. The inspiration of a chain reaction takes place, but each person awakes in accordance with his own wisdom. Therefore it is not old wisdom, but it’s young wisdom. [
Laughs.
] And a certain way, or a certain style of doing things or of behaving, a certain style of conducting life, also seems to be a part of that. It isn’t that an old thing is handed down, exactly, but because a person is inspired in his own wisdom, and he or she behaves in accordance with his own wisdom; then somehow—strangely enough, ironically—his behavior becomes similar to those others who behaved that way. [
Laughs.
] That’s good.

S:
Rinpoche, could you say that the effect of hallucinogenic drugs is born entirely through the realm of mind phenomena?

V:
I think so, yes.

S:
Yes, that’s what I understood.

V:
Good. [
Laughter
]

S:
How do you distinguish the intelligence and the thoughts?

V:
I don’t think there’s any difference at all. Heart has a notion of being a center; intelligence seems to have a notion of being sharp and enlightened. But this notion of being in the center is not a physical center or physical chakra. It is a question of being right there. That is the idea of chitta, or heart—being there on the spot. And if you are being there on the spot, then there’s also intelligence with it, as well.

S:
Now most people equate intelligence with brains or mind. But intelligence is more than just reason, because your reason can be used to prove anything.

V:
Mmm.

S:
It is purely the logical faculty, which demands examining.

V:
That’s true, yes. I mean, in order really to feel these subtleties of earth and form and speech and gunas and everything, you can’t rely just purely on reasoning mind. In fact, reasoning mind is a very weak thing, and logicians could prove right things wrong and wrong things right. But this kind of intelligence is very efficient. It seems like a very efficient radar system, so to speak, that could always feel what is there and what is not there. It doesn’t depend on speculation at all; it’s purely just seeing what is, directly. That is why there’s the notion of awake, budh.
Budh
means “awake,” and the word
buddha
is derived from that. That’s why they use the notion of awake, rather than learned or clever. It is a kind of natural instinct without any conditions at all.

S:
Does that operate only in a state of meditation or when you’ve reached the state of liberation? I find that I understand what you are saying intellectually, but in terms of it really being an operating force in my daily life, it’s not. Is it that I’m not liberated?

V:
I don’t think so. It’s that you are not practicing it. But if you do practice it, if you really put it into practice, there will be a glimpse of all these situations. You will see it, you’ll feel it. I mean, what we are doing at the moment here is that we are talking about it, we are not doing anything about it. That’s quite obvious. And if we begin to relate to ourselves, then we don’t have to be highly evolved persons necessarily at all. I mean, the things that we talked about are very primeval, and very primary things, really. It is the experience you get through the practice of meditation, as well as the experience you get through everyday life.

As long as you are willing to learn, willing to open yourself toward it, then just so, experience comes to you. It’s a question of really putting it into effect. You might understand it intellectually, to start with, but then you have to put in more effort than that, and really be willing to commit yourself into it properly. And once you’ve made a real commitment, a real opening toward it, then you can’t avoid it. Even if you wanted not to experience it, you couldn’t block it away. These experiences just come. There’s no need for magic in order to experience it, but just simply, one has to allow oneself to be in that situation of openness.

S:
You started off by saying that spirituality is trying to relate the imagination to the earth. Where does the imagination come into the five principles?

V:
It seems the imagination, in this particular case, is confusion rather than inspiration, that which causes conflict between space and earth. It is confusion. So in order to see these, in order to feel these, one really has to come down to earth, to start with. That is to say, one has to see the foolishness of the imagination, the dream. You might say that later on there would be the potential of imagination transforming and dissolving into the realm of speech and the realm of heart. But somehow, to begin with, that’s too dangerous. It is premature, because there’s quite a likelihood that you will bypass understanding the principle of earth and get directly to the principles of speech and heart, which is quite a dangerous thing. So like anything else, to begin with, no fantasy, no imagination, no expectation of magic. Just work on earth.

S:
Rinpoche, could you tell us how guna is connected with spaciousness and how all that is connected with the chakras?

V:
Guna, well guna is another type of intelligence, seems to be. It is similar to the intelligence or the feeling of earth, at the beginning, because guna is connected with earth as well as space. The color is yellow, a gold color. In other words, in regard to the sharpness of the chitta and the intelligence—in order not to get carried away with the excitement of the intelligence, guna brings it down, regulates the whole thing together, and then transfers its process to action, or karma. So guna, in this case, acts as a scale. It has all the qualities of the other elements. It has the intelligence as well as the particular qualities of sanity.

According to the yoga tradition as well, in the visualization of chandali and in kundalini practice, when the chandali flame is raised up in the navel chakra, that’s the most dangerous time because it’s the junction of all the nadis. It’s the most dangerous point, how to relate to it. So one must develop guna in this case to even out and work with everything in a very even principle, because there’s the likelihood of losing ground.

Guna is the space quality. In other words, guna is the space of earth itself. It is not space space, which is the intelligence in this case, but the space of earth. Guna is the regulator which evens out and balances the whole situation. It seems to be quite dangerous, this process of working with energy, like chandali practice. You’re playing with the energy. If you don’t work properly with the guna principle, then there’s the possibility of distorting all the nadi systems into imperfection. So guna is, therefore, space—space which fills every gap, space which divides the relationship of this to that, like the space in our everyday life. There are a lot of things that we could go into details about, but we don’t seem to have enough time.

S:
Rinpoche, could you say a little bit more about the nature of that fifth quality of action? Somehow the analogy came down to me this morning of breaking through the bureaucracy in your mind. And I thought that last quality of breaking through all conceptualizations or leaping over them was somehow connected to action.

V:
Yes, it is connected with action. Such action is not particularly dependent on reactions, but it is just continual action. It is like the principle of [the moon reflecting in] one hundred bowls of water. It doesn’t make any difference to the moon at all; the moon doesn’t care, but that kind of action still happens. Generally, in the case of our ordinary ego-style of working with situations, our actions very much depend on the reactions of other things. We cannot act if there’s no demand, so it is very limited. But in this case, action doesn’t require any demand at all. It could be demanding or it could also be not demanding—but in both cases action is applied. So it is not dependent on any particularly fixed thing.

In other words, this action does not need to be inspired. It could be a critical situation or it could be an inspiring situation, but in both cases action still happens. It is the concept of spontaneity. There is an analogy used in the sutras, in which the Buddha says, supposing the whole world is a big curtain, and that big curtain just happens in its own way. Because it is such a gigantic curtain, no one has any possible way of reacting to it. This is similar to the idea of a landslide. When a landslide comes down, it goes through everything—trees and houses, rivers and everything, without any hesitation. It just rolls down very slowly, gently, in a dignified way, like the steps of an elephant, it has been said. Sure and definite.

Action takes place like that because action has the earthbound quality which doesn’t allow any frivolousness. It has the knowledge of body; it has the sharp qualities of speech; it has the intelligence of consciousness; and it has the balance of guna. It has all the qualities in it, so it just happens. In the case of the spiritual adviser principle in the ego, its function is purely dependent on the other, because the spiritual adviser is playing a game. It will probably say one thing at one time, but it might say something quite the opposite another time in order to survive. Such action is very frivolous; it depends on reactions.

Perhaps we should stop there and let you meditate. Thank you.

The Four Karmas

R
EVIEW OF THE
F
IVE
C
HAKRAS

I
T SEEMS THAT THE LEADING POINT
we have been working on is this particular subtlety of dealing with form. I hope that you understand the basic meaning of all these different things. If not, perhaps it would be worthwhile clearing that up before we go on to next subject, so please ask questions.

Student:
I hope not beyond speech.

Vidyadhara:
[
Laughs.
] Well, speech is the energy associated with form. In other words, it is the vibrations of the earth. For instance, if we visit a particular place, let’s say, or home; when we pay a visit to our friend or friends, our first impression would be form—the texture or basic quality of solidity in meeting them, their presence, their whole being, their psyche. But the next thing would be something connected with the emotions and energies. Supposing they had a quarrel before you arrived, then that would suggest a very repelling quality, something negative. Or if the friends were in a very positive situation, there would be a flow in their process of communication among themselves, and you would feel this particular aliveness and flowing quality of vibrations and emotions.

So [form] is something like that first feeling, when we first experience our friends. And then [speech] is when we experience the characteristics that they put out, their particular aspects. It is the exchange of energy, which is prana or life force, wind, breath, or air. It’s the air they put out, the vibrations they put out. And this could apply to every situation of vibrations. In many cases, the vibrations could be very extraordinarily powerful or outrageous ones in which you could save yourself, work with it. It is not only the texture of the solidity but it is something like theater lights. Form is like the stage in a theater and speech seems to be like the light show, or arrangement of lights in the theater, because the texture of the basic solidity of the scene in a theater could be changed by varying the lighting. Any other questions?

S:
I don’t quite understand quality or guna.

V:
Guna, as I’ve already said in the last talk, is the principle of scale, sensitivity, the speedometer principle which balances the whole thing and which distributes all the energy around—how fast you are going and how slow you are going. It is connected with the basic principles of balance: how much earth quality of solidity, how much speech quality of movement, how much intelligence quality of the heart chakra, or chitta, there is. It’s the balancing quality, feeling the whole ground and balancing it. It could be said to be like a natural metabolism which could distribute and solve whole problems.