The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: 3 (52 page)

S:
So, I should just keep on practicing.

TR:
Keep on practicing, yes.

Based on a talk from “Conquering Ego’s Deception,” Cape Breton, 1981.

TWO

Intellect and Intuition

“The transition from knowledge to wisdom is not simply one of first acquiring knowledge and then suddenly becoming wise. The definition of wisdom is that one intuitively knows everything already; it is independent of amassing information. But we do not seem to know how to make this transition from intellect to wisdom. There seems to be a very big gap between them, and we are uncertain as to how to handle it, how to become both a scholar and a yogi. We seem to need a mediator. That mediator is compassion, or warmth: knowledge is transformed into wisdom by means of compassion.”

T
HERE SEEM TO BE
two distinct approaches to the spiritual path: the intellectual and the intuitive. In the intellectual tradition, spiritual development is viewed as a sharpening of intellectual precision, primarily through the study of theology. Whereas in the intuitive or mystical tradition, spiritual development is viewed as a deepening of awareness or devotion through practices such as meditation. However, neither the intellectual nor the intuitive approach is complete without the other. These two approaches are not in opposition to one another. Rather they are two channels which combine to form the spiritual path.

Let us examine the intellectual and intuitive traditions in more detail. In the West, the intellectual tradition has for a long time been predominant. And in some Buddhist countries the emphasis on scholasticism has grown so strong that Buddhist scholars have completely lost touch with the meditative tradition. Buddhists who emphasize the scholarly side of the teaching frequently feel that it is dangerous to begin meditating until they have mastered the theory. So they begin the spiritual path by studying very intensely and becoming extremely learned. But then, when they have discovered everything intellectually and completely mastered the theories of Buddhism, they feel they no longer need to meditate because they have all the answers already. Adherents of this approach view the Buddha as a superscholar and enlightenment as being totally informed.

Adherents of the intuitive tradition, on the other hand, regard study and analysis as obstacles to spiritual development. Seeing the irrelevance of acquiring knowledge disconnected from personal experience, they tend to react by rejecting the intellectual approach altogether. Instead they stress the practice of meditation as the only way to develop insight. From their viewpoint, in order to attain enlightenment one does not need to know anything at all. The Buddha is regarded as the perfect meditator; and the more beautifully one can sit and meditate, the closer one is to enlightenment.

By focusing on only one aspect of experience, each of these approaches to spirituality remains only partial. The contemplative traditions of Buddhism, such as the Tibetan and Zen traditions, while emphasizing meditation practice very strongly, see study as something which should go alongside it. It is felt that a student cannot rely on meditation practice alone without sharpening his intelligence. The idea is that one first needs some grounding in meditation practice. Then one can begin to work with the intellectual aspect of the tradition. In this way study becomes a confirmation of experience rather than simply the acquisition of banks of irrelevant information. Rather than becoming a stupid meditator or an absent-minded intellectual, the student can become an intelligent yogi—a scholar and a practitioner at the same time.

The notion of enlightenment transcends the limitations of both the contemplative and the scholarly traditions. As a description of human wholeness, it expresses the flavor of the Buddhist approach to spirituality. The dawn of enlightenment could be described as a form of absorption. But that does not mean it is a trancelike state in which one loses contact with the world around one. It is a sense of totality and a sense of openness which does not seem to have any beginning or end. Such a state of being is known as vajra-like samadhi. The notion of
vajra
is that of psychological indestructibility. Because that quality of sanity does not have any gaps or faults, because it is thoroughly united with its own faculties, it cannot be destroyed. And samadhi refers to the stillness of intelligence, which is self-existing rather than constantly speeding along trying to find a conclusion to everything. Vajra-like samadhi is a threefold process consisting of prajna, which is the highest form of intellect; karuna, which is the highest form of compassion; and jnana, which is the highest form of wisdom.

Prajna, or intellect, is completely intuitive as well as intellectually precise. The working of prajna is such that when we pay proper attention to persons or situations, they automatically give us answers or understanding. So we do not have to analyze or to cultivate our intelligence anymore. That quality of intelligence seems to be all-pervasive—but at the same time it is to the point. It is sharp, precise, and direct, but not in the limited manner of a chisel or a thumbtack.

Karuna, or compassion, is another attribute of the process of samadhi.
Karuna
is usually translated as “compassion.” However, the word
compassion
is filled with connotations in English which have nothing to do with karuna. So it is important to clarify what is meant by enlightened compassion and how it differs from our usual notion of compassion. Usually we think of a compassionate person as someone who is kind and gentle and who never loses his temper. Such a person is always willing to forgive our mistakes and to comfort us. But enlightened compassion is not quite as simple-minded as that notion of a kindly, well-meaning soul.

An analogy often used in the Buddhist tradition is that true compassion is like a fish and prajna is like water. That is, intellect and compassion are dependent on one another; but at the same time, each has its own life and its own functions. Compassion is a state of calmness; it also involves intelligence and enormous vitality. Without intelligence and skillfulness, compassion can degenerate into a bungling sort of charity. For instance, if we give food to someone who is extremely hungry, he will temporarily recover from his hunger. But he gets hungry every day. And if we keep giving food to that person, eventually he will learn that whenever he is hungry he can get food from us. At that point we have succeeded in turning that person into a jellyfish who is unwilling to explore the possibility of getting food for himself. Such an approach is, in fact, uncompassionate compassion, or compassion without skillful means. It is known as idiot compassion.

True compassion is spacious and wise as well as resourceful. In this type of compassion we do not just blindly launch into a project but we look into situations dispassionately. There is a sense of priorities as to which situations should be handled immediately and which are worth putting off. This type of compassion could be called intelligent love or intelligent affection. We know how to express our affection so that it does not destroy a person but instead helps him to develop. It is more like a dance than a hug. And the music behind it is that of prajna, or intellect.

So the stage is set by the dance of compassion and the music of prajna. And the setting in which this dance takes place is known as jnana, or wisdom, which is the whole perspective, the entire panorama.

Let us examine in greater detail how these three qualities of enlightenment—knowledge, compassion, and wisdom—are interrelated. We begin with prajna, or knowledge: we need to know where we are; we have to explore our environment, our particular location in time and space. So knowledge comes first, and wisdom comes later. Once we have knowledge as to where we are, then we can become wise because we do not have to struggle with our bearings. We do not have to fight for our position. So, in a sense, wisdom is an expression of nonviolence: we do not have to fight for it because we are already wise.

The transition from knowledge to wisdom is not simply one of first acquiring knowledge and then suddenly becoming wise. The definition of wisdom is that one intuitively knows everything already; it is independent of amassing information. But we do not seem to know how to make this transition from intellect to wisdom. There seems to be a very big gap between them, and we are uncertain as to how to handle it, how to become both a scholar and a yogi. We seem to need a mediator. That mediator is compassion, or warmth: knowledge is transformed into wisdom by means of compassion.

We may begin by collecting all kinds of information, trying to become great scholars or walking books. In fact, prajna is a very scholarly process in which we acquire enormous amounts of information and logic. At this level we can handle our experience logically, even mathematically. But how do we make that knowledge part of ourselves rather than purely an assortment of lists of information?

When we develop prajna in its fullest sense, psychologically and spiritually, then we may begin to develop a sense of friendliness or warmth not only toward ourselves but also toward the world. This does not mean boosting our egos—patting ourselves on the back for all the Ph.D.’s we have earned. Instead, friendliness is a kind of fascination for our collection of ideas and knowledge; we have become fascinated by the world and extremely curious as to what it is all about. For instance, in the West great scientists like Einstein have been known to become rather eccentric. They seem to transcend ordinary logic and to become extremely individualistic. As they become absorbed by their knowledge, or prajna, they begin to develop a quality of softness or eccentricity. That eccentricity seems to be the area of compassion, in which there is room to journey back and forth between being wise and being knowledgeable. In this state of mind, there is no gap between intellect and intuition. Instead, there is simply a further development of energy, which is called compassion.

As the energy of compassion develops, we begin to celebrate what we have discovered. We begin to like the knowledge we have acquired. We have seen the way things work, and now we begin to take that understanding personally. We would like to share it with everyone. There is an enormous celebration taking place. We do not need to prove our ideas to anybody, and we do not feel that we are under attack. There is a sense of joy in being part of this knowledge, and that sense of joy, which triggers the transition from knowledge to wisdom, is compassion, or unconditional love.

It seems to take a long time for us to get to the point of being wise, where we no longer need external reinforcement or encouragement—or, in fact, any external reference point at all. Such wisdom is extremely inventive; rather than needing to study each detail of a particular area, we simply sense the whole area intuitively and very precisely. We are very much in tune with things. That is why the Buddha is known as the Omniscient One. It is not because he was a great scholar who read all the books and therefore had all the information, but because he had an accurate general sense of everything. At the level of wisdom, or jnana, all the conceptual master plans of the world or the universe have been seen through, so facts and figures do not play a particularly important part.

As individuals on the spiritual path, we experience more and more glimpses of this enlightened state. To give a somewhat negative analogy, if we develop a terminal illness, at first we may feel an attack of sickness just once a month. But as we go on, our sickness becomes worse and the attacks become more frequent, maybe once a day. Then the attacks of sickness come every day—in fact, several times a day. And finally we face death because the attacks of sickness are constant; the sickness has become overwhelming. The death of ego, or the development of enlightenment, happens in the same way. We do not consciously have to create the experience of enlightenment—it just happens. It comes to us as our life situation evolves.

Opening talk, 1973 Vajradhatu Seminary, Teton Village, Wyoming.

THREE

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness

“As far as meditation practice is concerned, in meditation we work on
this
thing, rather than on trying to sort out the problem from the outside. We work on the projector rather than the projection. We turn inward, instead of trying to sort out external problems of
A, B,
and
C.
We work on the creator of duality rather than the creation. That is beginning at the beginning.”

F
OR THE FOLLOWER
of the buddhadharma, the teachings of Buddhism, there is a need for great emphasis on the practice of meditation. One must see the straightforward logic that mind is the cause of confusion and that by transcending confusion one attains the enlightened state. This can only take place through the practice of meditation. The Buddha himself experienced this, by working on his own mind; and what he learned has been handed down to us.

Mindfulness is a basic approach to the spiritual journey that is common to all traditions of Buddhism. But before we begin to look closely at that approach, we should have some idea of what is meant by spirituality itself. Some say that spirituality is a way of attaining a better kind of happiness, transcendental happiness. Others see it as a benevolent way to develop power over others. Still others say the point of spirituality is to acquire magical powers so we can change our bad world into a good world or purify the world through miracles. It seems that all of these points of view are irrelevant to the Buddhist approach. According to the buddhadharma, spirituality means relating with the working basis of one’s existence, which is one’s state of mind.

There is a problem with one’s basic life, one’s basic being. This problem is that we are involved in a continual struggle to survive, to maintain our position. We are continually trying to grasp onto some solid image of ourselves. And then we have to defend that particular fixed conception. So there is warfare, there is confusion, and there is passion and aggression; there are all kinds of conflicts. From the Buddhist point of view, the development of true spirituality is cutting through our basic fixation, that clinging, that stronghold of something-or-other, which is known as ego.