The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Five (38 page)

S:
What’s the other twenty-five percent?

TR:
Self-consciousness about having solved your problem.

S:
What do you do about that?

TR:
You don’t do anything about that. It just falls apart.

THREE

Choiceless Awareness

P
RAJNA SEEMS TO BE
a way of opening many gates. Through prajna one discovers the real meaning of shunyata. Discovering shunyata is very powerful, and it is also frightening. Prajna could be described as a way of opening up the shunyata experience—that is, a way of being cornered. You get cornered into “this” to the extent that finally you have to escape through the walls. That is, you have to see the walls as empty; otherwise, you cannot escape.

Shunyata is more of a meditative experience than intellect is. It is often referred to as choiceless awareness—you do not develop an understanding of shunyata, but rather it comes to you. When a person has developed his intellect—clarity and sharpness—to a certain level, that provides a kind of ground that makes it possible for him to see the nonexistence of shunyata—and the fullness of shunyata at the same time.

You might say, “But what’s left after prajna has done its cutting through?” There is lots left. The process of cutting through also has to be exposed, to the point where the journey no longer exists, the process doesn’t exist anymore, the effort doesn’t exist anymore. Shunyata is truly choiceless and does not compromise. Once you realize that you have no ground at all, none whatsoever, you are suspended in midair. When you cry for help, nobody is around you, and your voice itself becomes shunyata, so you can’t even shout. Your actions to save yourself become nonexistent, which is the result of cutting through. Because you have cut through so much, finally your own ground has been cut through completely. Then the process of cutting through no longer exists. There is no occupation of any kind at all.

We should understand as a general principle the logic of subject and object and their duality, which I mentioned in the previous talk. Duality is not composed of two separate entities. Subject and object are not two different entities. They are one. By creating a wall within the one, we produce duality. Thus, shunyata is simply an expansion of “this.” That is why it is called choiceless awareness. “This” pushes the walls out; “this” expands.

You might ask, “If only ‘this’ exists, does that conflict with the general idea of egolessness?” Absolutely not. Ego and egolessness have nothing to do with “this.” Actually ego is based on “that”; failing to realize “this” is what created ego. So the more you realize “this” or “here,” the more groundless you become.

You don’t have to have ground, but as I mentioned already, at the beginning this is rather frightening. There was an analogous moment in Naropa’s life. He had been training for eight years in the monastery and had passed his oral examination, which took the form of logical debates, and he had become the head of Nalanda. At that point, he had a vision of an ugly woman, which was a shock, a sudden shock. According to traditional interpretations, this woman was Vajrayogini, who is a symbol of shunyata. The sudden shock of shunyata was overwhelming. Her shadow fell on the book he was reading—this was the terrifying experience of shunyata. After being through lots and lots of cutting through, so much prajna, you finally realize you have no choice but to seek the guru. This is the result of prajna, intellect. But at the same time, you might say that shunyata itself is also a form of intellect, the highest form. The ugly woman’s intellect was much sharper and more powerful than Naropa’s was at the time. But at the level of shunyata, intellect is really no longer regarded as prajna. At that level, there is an awareness that is an expression of further compassion. The aspect of softness or nonaggression becomes very intelligent, but not intellectual, not sharp in the style of prajna in action. It is sharp in the manner of prajna as a state of being, so to speak.

Of course, things don’t happen as linearly as that. We could have an experience of prajna and a glimpse of shunyata happening simultaneously within ourselves. We could have that. We cut our ground and have a frightening—terrifying—sudden glimpse of groundlessness. Then we try to latch back onto our ground. This sort of thing happens constantly to us if we have any awareness of a journey taking place on the spiritual path. You might make the pretense or actually think that you are freaking out, losing your grip on reality, but it is a mere glimpse of shunyata taking place.

Shunyata is also described in terms of the feminine principle—as the consort of all the buddhas. Prajna is described in terms of the feminine principle, too—as the mother of all the buddhas, she who gives birth to the very idea of enlightenment. This very notion was started by her, by prajna. But she who made the buddhas speak, communicate, is shunyata. Because with shunyata there is a lot of room, openness, groundlessness; therefore, there is no fear of communicating with students as Buddha communicated with his disciples. In the situation of groundlessness, no one is standing on any ground, so communication can take place quite freely.

In Naropa’s song after he meets the ugly woman [pp. 25-26 in Guenther’s translation], each line is connected with a different attribute of samsara. It shows that somehow his sense of imprisonment has been sharpened. He realizes his inadequacy in being unable to see the reality of shunyata. He has enough prajna, but that doesn’t help him anymore. He remains in a state of limbo. Prajna without shunyata is a body without arms, as is traditionally said, like a body without arms trying to climb a rock.

I suppose in order to simplify matters, we could say the real definition of shunyata is awareness without choice, or awareness that contains no experience. That is why shunyata is described as full and empty at the same time. Emptiness here does not mean seeing everything as just energy, so that you could walk through tables and chairs. Rather, you begin to see yourself as tables and chairs or rocks and sky and water. You begin to identify with the phenomenal world completely. Your existence is one of those phenomena, so everything is transparent or fluid. There is a sense of uniformity, sameness. At the same time, there is a sense of difference.

Student:
Is shunyata like mindfulness in that you identify with phenomena?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
No, I wouldn’t say its like mindfulness practice. In the usual approach to mindfulness practice, you project onto “that,” onto the tables and chairs. You are the instigator. In the case of shunyata, to a certain extent, the tables and chairs become the instigator. They become the reminder.

S:
I thought mindfulness was just seeing things as they are, observing but not reflecting. So, in that sense, I thought mindfulness and shunyata would be the same.

TR:
Yes, in that sense, but it’s rather tricky. You see, mindfulness contains the idea that you are the original instigator. You thought of the idea of mindfulness rather than having a sense of becoming one of the phenomena. Shunyata is all-pervasive; awareness becomes ubiquitous.

Student:
What did you mean when you said that in shunyata there’s awareness but no experience?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Experience is a process like eating food. You pick it up, you put it in your mouth, you chew it, and you swallow it. Experience is a process like that if we look at it in slow motion. It may happen very fast, but if we look at it in slow motion, it contains those steps. The content of the experience has to be adapted to one’s own being. In this case, no adaptation is needed. It’s a one-shot deal, so to speak.

Student:
You describe shunyata in terms of nonduality and everything becoming “this,” and you talk about pushing out the walls of “this.” That all sounds as though there is some maintenance involved, which doesn’t really fit.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I suppose it is the opposite of maintenance. Pushing out the walls is a kind of transcendental vandalism.

S:
Still, there’s the idea of the wall being pushed out. And what’s on the other side of the wall?

TR:
Nothing. Just the other side.

S:
Is that a painful experience?

TR:
It’s shocking.

Student:
Presumably it’s not self-conscious enough to be exactly painful.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes, it’s not exactly painful. Pain is conditional on one’s maintaining oneself, and this is just an experience of expanding “this,” so there’s a certain amount of confidence in the needlessness of maintaining oneself. So it’s a surprise. There is a sense of the needlessness of maintaining oneself, but still there is an ongoing process of naiveté. This experience cuts through the naiveté, and suddenly you’re seeing something extraordinary arising out of a very ordinary thing. When one is naive, one expects things to stay as they are; one doesn’t expect any surprises. The shunyata experience cuts through that naiveté.

Student:
You said that prajna’s cutting through to shunyata didn’t involve pain. But didn’t the visions that Naropa had when he was looking for Tilopa express different aspects of his pain?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
We are talking about a different level. We haven’t got to that level yet. That’s something much more subtle and also much more painful. This is just sort of a rehabilitation process that’s taking place now.

S:
Well, didn’t he find it rather painful when the woman implied he didn’t understand the sense of what he was reading?

TR:
Not really. If Naropa were to have experienced pain at that point, it would have been because he resented his greatness as a pandit being undermined and insulted. But somehow his state of mind was so sharp that there wasn’t any room for that. He took in the message immediately, very clearly, very simply. That’s because of the sharpness of prajna. If he had had the slightest involvement with spiritual materialism, he would have been very hurt. But since he didn’t, the whole thing was very clear.

Student:
If, in the shunyata experience, there’s no ground, no subconscious thing going on, does that mean that everything feels extremely fresh and new?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I would say that the first experience would feel new because you haven’t had it before. You’re still wearing out your hangups, so it seems to be new. But once you’ve become an adult in shunyata, a professional with it, so to speak, instead of seeing things as new, you see them as very ordinary and full of details. Ordinary things full of details. It might feel fresh, not on account of its newness, but rather on account of its ordinariness.

S:
Then there’s nothing exciting about it.

TR:
The details are very exciting, constantly. And there is a potential of mahamudra in seeing the details in their fullness, in their energy aspect. The emptiness is the meditative aspect.

Student:
If, in shunyata, there’s no process and no experiencer, what’s the relationship to the teachings? Ordinarily we would relate to the teachings as a reference point in a process, and it seems that in shunyata that too would dissolve.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
You see, this is precisely the point where the teachings become part of you. You are completely identified with the teachings. You yourself become a living teaching; you yourself become living dharma. That’s the way it is from this point on up to the highest level of vajrayana. There is constant identification with the teaching. It becomes more and more part of your body, part of your brain, part of your heart. The more you identify with the teachings, the more the reference point takes the form of awareness that constantly reminds you. That’s why shunyata is called choiceless awareness. Because you have identified with the teachings, awareness comes to you.

Student:
You often speak of aloneness and of the spiritual path as a lonely journey. It sounds like shunyata is the first real experience of aloneness.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Very much so. Yes, there’s no ground. But it feels very tough at the same time. We have an expression—“hard fact”—that seems to fit.

Student:
Does discipline become more relaxed at this point, more self-initiating?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Very much so. The idea is that when you become more identified with the teachings, discipline becomes a natural habit. On the level of shunyata, discipline becomes very organic, ordinary, spontaneous.

Student:
Is the satori experience of Zen an experience of shunyata?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes. I think the peak of the shunyata experience is what satori is. The peak of shunyata, a real glimpse of shunyata. Your logic wears out. You have no logic, no reference point of logic, and you become completely exposed to nothingness, or fullness. That is the satori experience of a sudden glimpse of aloneness.

Student:
That seems to have a very different taste from Naropa’s meeting with the old woman.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Not so different, actually. The only difference is that there are tantric overtones in the images in his life, like meeting the old woman. In the Zen tradition, you don’t have a dialogue with Zen. You might have a dialogue with a buddha or somebody else. Nobody has a dialogue with Zen. But here, Naropa is having a dialogue with Zen. That’s just a tantric way of looking at the situation.

Student:
Is there some reason Naropa doesn’t look for a teacher until he’s had the experience of shunyata?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
He never thought of a teacher from that angle. Obviously he did have a lot of masters, professors, and so forth—teachers but not gurus. The idea of a guru never occurred to him before. He was satisfied that he was being taught, that he was learning, that he was a good student. He never thought in terms of a real teacher who could lead him beyond the technical, theoretical, prajna level.