The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: 3 (59 page)

We cannot tread the path of mahayana without a spiritual friend—absolutely not—because we have to receive the good news of the bodhisattva’s wide-open path. The spiritual friend both is and conveys that good news. He makes it possible to know the teachings and the practice as real, rather than purely as a myth to accept on the basis of blind faith. We have a tendency to look for miracles and magic as solutions to our problems. One reason for this is that we do not believe what we have been told concerning the hard facts of spirituality, and we actually regard the whole thing as a fable. We are so bored with living on this earth, we would like to go to the moon or to Mars, or to explore other solar systems. We do not want to believe that dealing with our situation happens right here; this place seems to be too small, too unexciting, too polluted and unclean. But the spiritual friend does not offer us any magical solution, any escape from our boredom. He relates to us on a very mundane level, right here on earth. While he does not perform miracles or magic, we see that he belongs to a lineage of generations and generations of teachers who have achieved complete openness. He provides proof of the teachings by acting as an example.

In this sense the spiritual friend is like a good baker in a lineage of bakers. The earliest bakers passed on their secrets for making good bread, from generation to generation. The present baker also bakes good bread and feeds it to us. The loaf he gives us to sample was not preserved through the generations as an antique; it is not a museum piece. This loaf has been baked fresh and is now hot, wholesome, and nourishing. It is an example of what freshness can be. The knowledge that has been handed down to us through the spiritual lineage has the same qualities. We can make an immediate connection with the spiritual friend and understand that in the past, generations of teachers and students also experienced such a fresh and direct relationship.

The spiritual friend has real, living teachings, and we can relate with him thoroughly and completely. If we are simple and straightforward with him, neither condemning nor aggrandizing ourselves, then instead of blind faith, we begin to develop real devotion. We are convinced that something is happening—something that could make life completely workable—but at the same time we are not expecting anything extraordinary. So the relationship with the spiritual friend is very ordinary; it is communication on the level of our day-to-day living situation.

Our relationship with a spiritual friend tends to become even more demanding and much more energy consuming as we develop on the path. From the standpoint of fundamental devotion the sense of friendship is simply an appetizer. The true meaning of devotion manifests on the vajrayana level alone.

At the hinayana level our devotion was conditioned by our sense of desperation, and at the mahayana level it was conditioned by our loneliness. Only at the vajrayana level is there unconditioned devotion. At this level the relationship between student and teacher is very dangerous—but also extremely powerful. Finally, at this level, it could be described as a magical relationship.

When we reach the third stage of the Buddhist path—the vajrayana, or the stage of tantra—devotion brings with it an increased sense of its appropriate expression through action, particularly through what is known as surrendering, or offering. Such surrendering takes a great deal of effort and energy. Before discussing the vajrayana, we need to understand this notion of surrendering.

Usually we do not give merely for the sake of giving. We may give because we want to get rid of something, in which case it is like throwing it into a garbage pail. Or we may give at required times, such as at Christmas or on birthdays. Sometimes we give to express our appreciation to someone who has given us something, such as love, education, or support. Or we may use a gift to try to win somebody over. But we never seem to give in the absence of some purpose or scheme. We do not just give things—just like that.

Even at the mahayana level, generosity has a scheme to it, in that it is regarded as an act of letting go and has the purpose of learning the generosity that does not expect anything in return. Only at the vajrayana level does even that kind of scheme disappear and the total simplicity of just giving become possible. That type of giving may not seem to be very practical. From an ordinary business point of view, it is like throwing money down the drain; we could go so far as to say that it is insane to do such a thing. In this type of generosity we are not giving to prove how wealthy we are, or how visionary, but we are just giving everything—body, speech, and mind. In other words, we are giving the giver, so there ceases even to be a gift. It is just letting go.

Naturally, we would always like to watch the receiver of the gift appreciating what has been received. If we give our whole being and somebody thanks us for it, then we have not actually given it completely; we have gotten it back. We thrive on such confirmation. We do not want to just give, not knowing whether or not we will have ourselves with us any more. That is a terrible thought: if we give completely and hold nothing back we cannot even watch the process of giving; we cannot take part in that ritual. Losing ourselves is such a terrible idea that we would not even like to give up our anger or passion, because even such neuroses produce some kind of security. They may be painful, but they still serve to make the statement, “I do exist.”

We might say that just giving is asking too much; it definitely is. That is why it is important. Giving without concept is what makes room for the awakened state to be experienced. This cannot take place as a business deal. We cannot possess the dharma and deposit it in the bank. When we actually receive the teachings properly, there is nobody home to receive anything; there is no one to reap a profit. The teachings simply become a part of us, part of our basic being. The dharma cannot be owned as property or adornment.

The approach of ego at this level is to collect initiations and teachers as ornaments: “I received millions of ordinations and trillions of initiations. I am completely soaked in blessings.” That is the most decadent way of relating to the teachings, the most blatant form of spiritual materialism. In that approach we use the teaching and the teachers as part of ego’s conspiracy to adorn itself, and thus we fall deeper and deeper asleep rather than opening up to anything. We become beggarly mystical egomaniacs.

Such attempts to strategize giving or to use the teachings for personal gain have to be given up completely at the vajrayana level. There is no longer room for the conditioned devotion of the hinayana and mahayana. At this level total generosity, or surrendering, is required; otherwise the meeting of minds between the teacher and student through which transmission takes place is impossible.

In vajrayana Buddhism the process of surrendering is catalyzed through what are known as the four preliminary practices: one hundred thousand prostrations; one hundred thousand repetitions of the refuge formula; one hundred thousand repetitions of a purifying mantra; and one hundred thousand symbolic offerings of one’s body, speech, and mind and the whole universe to the guru. It should be noted that we cannot embark immediately on the vajrayana approach without first going through the hinayana and mahayana. Without that preparation, these preliminary practices tend to be ineffectual, because we do not actually give up anything through them. We merely go through the motions of surrendering, performing the gymnastics of a hundred thousand prostrations and playing with our spiritual gadgets. So unless we have started from the beginning with the disciplined meditation practice of the hinayana and the expansiveness and openness of the mahayana, we are unable to receive real empowerment and real transmission through the vajrayana tradition.

We initially related to the teacher as our rescuer; later he became a spiritual friend who engaged us in very intense communication. Now, in the vajrayana, the guru, or vajra master, begins to demand this further surrendering. At first we feel we have already done our giving away and trusting, and that we do not have anything more to surrender. We have already paid our dues and therefore we are worthy of the vajrayana teachings. At the beginning of the path we were in bad shape, and we surrendered ourselves to the physician in the emergency room; later, when we began to recover, we felt lonely and sought companionship. Now we feel we have already done everything we wanted to do: we have thrown everything overboard and surrendered our egos. But there is still something that needs to be surrendered, which is our collection of pride in the pain that we have already gone through. We have surrendered, but in the process of surrendering we have collected credentials, which are an obstacle. We have become respectable surrenderers who have carefully donated a certain chunk of their body, speech, mind, and energy. But something more is needed: complete surrender, complete humiliation, so to speak. And such devotion is possible only with the aid of a real friend.

In the beginning of the vajrayana one takes what is known as the samaya vow. A samaya vow is a bond that one establishes with one’s teacher—a bond between oneself, one’s teacher, and the teacher’s lineage. To create a samaya bond it is not enough just to get up and do it. If we wanted to get married we could run off and have a quick ceremony before a justice of the peace, without having our parents’ acknowledgment or even a good wedding feast, but the meaning and purpose of the marriage would be lost because there was no big deal. We just wanted to glue ourselves to somebody else. In the case of the samaya vow, a real marriage takes place between oneself, one’s teacher, and the lineage. That is why there is a tremendous need for surrendering and opening. It is absolutely necessary because of the demand that that marriage makes on us.

As soon as the student drinks the water of the samaya oath the water turns into the elixir of life, or amrita, which sustains the student’s conviction and remains in his heart. But the surrendering process can also have deathly consequences. If the student has any trace of doubt or confusion or deceit, the water turns into molten iron and destroys him, carrying him to what is known as vajra hell. So samaya is a very heavy commitment. It is extremely potent and powerful. I personally feel that introducing the vajrayana outright, in a country whose citizens have no idea of how dangerous a step it is, is taking advantage of people’s weakness. Collecting hundreds of thousands of candidates for vajra hell seems to be uncompassionate, even if there are all kinds of gadgets and excitement for them along the way.

In order to prepare suitable tantric students, we must start with all sorts of warnings. Such warnings are absolutely necessary. There is a traditional story about Indian merchants who sailed out onto the ocean to collect pearls. One merchant who had a large ship gathered together a number of people who wanted to go along on the venture. Attached to the ship were four anchors. When it came time to sail each day he would cut away one anchor with a warning: “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Only on the fourth day did he set sail. Similarly, in order to launch vajrayana in America, we must give repeated warnings about the dangers of tantric practice. Of course, if we get out on the ocean and collect beautiful pearls, it will be a fantastic thing, an extraordinary situation. But suppose we are unable to do that; suppose the participants are just blindly latching on to the big businessman who owns the ship? That would be disastrous, so there must be constant warnings.

In tantra, the guru is regarded as absolutely essential. He is the central figure for all the teachings. Without the guru we cannot transmute the water of the oath into elixir. To relate to the guru we need a tremendous amount of openness and surrendering—real surrendering, not surrendering with an ulterior motive, like that of the shopper who butters up the salesman because he wants his merchandise.

At first, this surrendering involves the body; we surrender the feeling that our body is a cozy nest—that if we go mad at least we will have something to relate to, which is our body. When we surrender our body to the guru we are surrendering our primal reference point. One’s body becomes the possession of the lineage; it is not ours anymore. I am not talking here of becoming hysterical and losing sense consciousness; I mean that, surrendering one’s body, psychologically one’s dear life is turned over to somebody else. We do not have our dear life to hold on to any more. At the second stage of tantra, speech, which is the emotional level, is also surrendered. Our emotional security is no longer regarded as necessary or relevant. That need also is surrendered to the teachings and to the lineage as represented by the guru. The third stage involves the mind, the registering mechanism that exists in one’s state of consciousness. The mind is also surrendered, so that we no longer have our logical intellectual games to cling to.

Finally everything is surrendered: body, speech, and mind. However, this does not mean that we become zombies or jellyfish. Such surrendering is a continual process rather than a one-shot suicidal affair, and the uncompromising intelligence that has emerged through our surrendering remains active and, through the surrendering process, becomes progressively more free.

Such a surrendering process and the demands that the tantric lineage make on the student might be described as outrageous, unlawful, or criminal. From the viewpoint of maintaining ego’s kingdom, it is criminal. It is the final and ultimate way to uproot this thing that we try so hard to hold on to. It is absolutely terrible, even deathly. But such surrendering is a necessary part of opening.

At this point it could be said that we worship the guru—but not as a purely chauvinistic person to whom we have to surrender. That is the wrong frame of reference completely. He is not a dharma chauvinist: there is no chauvinism involved. Rather, the guru is a spokesman, ambassador, executioner, and policeman of openness, and he is a donor with tremendous wealth to give us. The guru is also in some way like a mirage of a lake in the desert. When we feel very thirsty in the desert we may think we see a lake or a brook, but really there is no brook or lake at all. In the same way, by holding out the fulfillment of our desires, the guru tantalizes us and inspires us to walk further into the desert of egolessness.