The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: 3 (84 page)

We never thought of the possibility of approaching it from an entirely new angle. Let us say that there is another way of approaching enlightenment, the spiritual search, some other way than ego’s gain, the pattern that we’re used to. There’s a self-denying tendency that everybody knows of. At least they’ve read or heard that to gain a higher state of consciousness, to pursue the spiritual quest, you have to lose your selfishness, your egohood. However, that tends to become a strategy, a plot. Ego is pretending to itself it doesn’t exist; and then ego says, “Okay, now you got rid of me, now let’s both look toward our mutual happiness.” So if the approach to deeper spirituality is basically not being concerned with any experiences, then it has to be a funeral, a burial service in which
you
can’t take part.

It seems that spiritual searching is a schizophrenic kind of situation. For one thing, you want to get rid of the bad things you have. On the other hand, you love yourself so much that you want to see yourself as being a glorious person. You have never made up your mind in that area. You have a self-existing love-and-hate relationship toward yourself, constantly not knowing which area should be developed and which area should be cut down. You might have vague conceptualized ideas. But you’re lacking certain things, you’re egotistical; still, a certain aspect of your egomania is lovable. You would like to keep it.

We try all kinds of angles and approaches, all the ways: Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, psychology. We try to find a way to get around it, so we don’t actually have to sacrifice at all. Which particular trip is the safest, the most secure to get into, so that we could identify with it and not have to sacrifice anything, give anything away? Hopefully we won’t have to die at all; we will exist eternally. We hope to achieve immortality. So there’s a conclusion there again, an angle. Spiritual practice is surrendering, opening, sacrificing, giving something. By doing so we can become immortal. At last we will gain everlasting life; we can go on existing eternally.

Particularly the talk about reincarnation in Eastern religions is exciting to a lot of people. They regard it as the ultimate good news. We could go on after all! We could be ourselves all the time, eternally. Such an approach seems to be utterly simple-minded. We haven’t solved the problem of giving, dissolving into nothingness. A lot of people tend to have the conviction that they are the reincarnation of somebody or other, which gives tremendous hope, identifying ourselves with those heroes in the past who have achieved some immortality and become eternal. If we are incarnations of them, then we are going to do the same thing. Such an approach is known as
spiritual materialism.
It’s another version of Madison Avenue. On a higher level, of course. I feel that this is a worthwhile thing to know. As far as my work of teaching is concerned, the least I can do is not to encourage spiritual materialism. So these warnings are valid, and necessary.

Giving, opening, sacrificing ego is necessary. It is like performing an operation. It might be painful because finally we realize that we cannot take part in our own burial. Very painful. It’s an operation, an organic operation. We lose our grip on the wishful-thinking world of pleasure and goodness. We have to give up trying to associate ourselves with goodness. The experience of our day-to-day living situation consists of dissatisfaction, questioning, pain, depression, aggression, passion. All these are real, and we have to relate with them. Having a relationship with this is maybe extremely difficult. It’s an organic operation without any anesthetics. If we really want to get into it, we should be completely prepared to take a chance and get nothing but tremendous disappointment, tremendous hopelessness.

Hope is the source of pain, and hope operates on the level of something other than what there is. We hope, dwelling in the future, that things might turn out right. We do not experience the present, do not face the pain or neurosis as it is. So the only way that is feasible is developing an attitude of hopelessness, something other than future orientation. The present is worth looking at. Whether we are irritated or blissful, the present situation is a point of reference. Often we find the present state of being is not particularly appealing or valuable. Even a state of bliss that happens in the present needs to be maintained, and there’s a certain amount of hassle involved with that. So we constantly feel that we have to run, keep going to organizations, to maintain our pleasure, potential pleasure.

The only way to deal with spiritual materialism as such is to develop an ultimately cynical or critical attitude toward the teachings and the teachers and the practices that we’re involved with. We shouldn’t let ourselves be sucked in, but question twice, thrice, from the point of view, “Is this spiritual materialism to me, or isn’t it?” Once we develop that kind of paranoia, which is intelligence, or scientific mind, then we are in a situation of resourcefulness, tremendous wealth. We then have the authority to judge the teachers and the teachings rather than being poverty-stricken, absolutely wretched and helpless. We are so stupid, our only hope is that somebody else might be able to save us. That approach of poverty is blind faith or a materialistic approach. So question all the time, develop a critical attitude.

A critical attitude doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be hateful of yourself. The critical attitude can be accompanied by compassion and warmth. All your polarities are equally valid, whether weakness or strength. Nothing is regarded as irrelevant. Whatever happens in your life, both your neurosis and your enlightened state of being are functioning simultaneously all the time. There’s no allegiance toward goodness particularly, or enlightenment. The sense of an enlightened state was developed out of the intensity of the confusion, simultaneously with it, so there’s no point in picking and choosing. There’s no point in splitting your basic being into several parts and trying to suppress certain parts and cultivating others. That’s the attitude of poverty.

Practice in meditation plays an important part in this. The meditation practice is not a way of entering into a manufactured state of tranquillity or equanimity, but a samyak samadhi, the perfect meditation, perfect absorption, as it is called in the Buddhist tradition. It is referred to as perfect because perfection in this case has no allegiance toward samsara or nirvana. That’s why it’s perfect. Samyak samadhi. So if we don’t have allegiance toward samsara or nirvana, then we free ourselves from any of the dogma, any bondage. Some sense of ultimate relaxation begins to occur. All the hidden neurosis which we didn’t really want to look at, and didn’t really want to experience, begins to come up on the surface. Finally we are exposed. We hoped that we wouldn’t have to go through the embarrassment of exposing ourselves; we hoped to have bypassed that particular area and become enlightened. You might just talk about how bad you
used
to be and so on. But
then
it is okay to talk about it because you are already a better person. The practice of meditation is the complete opposite of this. It’s not exactly getting a certain state of being at all, artificial being or artificial good vibration. Meditation practice is a way of making friends with ourselves. Whether we are worthy or unworthy, that’s not the point. It’s developing a friendly attitude to ourselves, accepting the hidden neurosis coming through.

When somebody commits himself to a certain practice and decides to become a spokesman of that particular teaching, then he becomes a total stranger to himself as well as to his old friends. He’s very harsh on himself and doesn’t relate the same way as he used to. If you are an old friend of his, there’s something aggressive about his approach in that he doesn’t want to talk about the past. There is a certain black-and-white quality in being completely converted into a new trip, or a trip that you have invented yourself. There’s something very sad about that. Such a person is so lonely. He becomes such a stranger to his own friends, parents, relatives, dharma brothers and sisters of the past, having gotten into a new kind of trip. He doesn’t even look after himself. Totally miserable.

Now, we can paint a more complete picture of that person by saying that he is into total absorption. He doesn’t care about his past or his own loneliness. He has found a new something. But if he has found a new something, why has he become so hostile, become such a stranger? This applies not only to a leader alone, but to individuals, ourselves, as well. When we want to get into something without warmth and compassion, without fundamental softness and fundamental generosity, then the teachings become an act of aggression. “Because the book says so, therefore you should be this way or that way. Because I say so, therefore you should be this way or that way.” There’s no sense of communication in that. You are a potential egomaniac, if not one already.

So fundamentally one should be cynical and critical as well as making friends with oneself. Being cynical or critical doesn’t mean that you have to punish yourself, but you just attack the areas of indulgence of ego. But at the same time you continue the friendship with yourself. That seems to be the general pattern. Meditation plays an important part in this by letting things come to the surface, so you have inexhaustible wealth to work with. So basic sanity and basic richness and basic openness become prominent parts of the path.

Question:
The samadhi that you mentioned, you said was just nonattachment to nirvana or samsara? Could you elaborate on that?

Rinpoche:
Samadhi is a state of total compassion in which the goal doesn’t become the prominent part, but the path becomes the goal in itself. That is, the daily living situation becomes the goal as we go along. It becomes a self-improvised kind of situation.

Q:
Would you say that guilt has no survival value?

R:
Guilt is a very vague term. It may come from indoctrination into certain fixed philosophical, metaphysical patterns, consisting of shoulds and shouldn’ts. This conceptualized, prefabricated guilt becomes very stuffy, without any fresh air. Or, we might feel guilt in the sense of some general paranoia, having an extremely sensitive antenna, which is okay because that protects us from being frivolous or egomaniacs.

Q:
Would you say, then, that the process is one of forgiving yourself and just being yourself?

R:
Not even forgiving, you see. Forgiving implies you were wrong, but that now it’s okay. Instead, the mistakes or the neuroses becomes adornments, bridges to work with yourself rather than something to forgive yourself for. So then ultimately each mistake, each unskillful action, becomes another brick in your wall, which you can build higher and higher.

Q:
I find that the line between spirituality and spiritual materialism is elusive. Would you say a few words about that?

R:
Spiritual materialism is using every practice to further your own power and pleasure. True spirituality is relating with the day-to-day living situation rather then hoping for or seeing your dreams coming true. That’s a very crude description.

Q:
Would you deny hope?

R:
Deny? For what purpose?

Q:
As part of delusion?

R:
Hope is often regarded as a villain, but hope could be regarded as simply unrealistic. You see, any kind of approach to this area has to be scientific rather than just according to some prescription.

Q:
What is worth anything?

R:
Are you serious? Well, that’s saying the same thing. Nothing’s worth anything, period. Then you’re trying to make everything worth everything. But you still have something, some solid thing to hang on to, the worthlessness, which is the worth.

Q:
What is the nature of the cynicism and the self-critical attitude?

R:
Well, cynicism is a self-critical attitude in some sense, but it is not self-punishment. A self-critical attitude could be taken as an intelligent measure. Cynicism is knowing that nothing can con you, that everything functions with a relative point of view, relative reference. That seems to be the cynical approach, that the truth hasn’t been set forth without a point of reference, rather than taking the negative approach and trying to find a falsehood as such.

Q:
Doesn’t cynicism destroy faith?

R:
Well, that seems to be the source of the faith. If you have ultimate cynicism in an intelligent way, then your faith is founded on very solid ground, because your faith can’t be shaken.

Q:
I sometimes feel that I have spiritual blocks. . . . What do you suggest I do? There are periods when I feel I’m not making any spiritual progress. My understanding of cynicism is that you could just say, “Well, block from what?”

R:
Well, there seems to be a problem of thinking you are supposed to be advancing all the time. You don’t have to be constantly on the road, necessarily. In other words, if you have a flat tire, that is also part of the journey. You are getting close to your goal. So I suppose it’s a certain ambition that makes you feel that you are not doing anything. There seems to be a hypnotic quality of the ambition and speed, so that you feel you are standing still just because you want to go so fast.

Q:
How do you relate the teaching of not having ambition and not having hope and not striving for a goal? How does that relate to teachings which refer to this human lifetime as a unique and special occasion which ought not to be wasted?

R:
I don’t see any contradiction. In discovering certain means of working with the teachings, the idea of giving up hope becomes a more and more valuable message. You realize this teaching can only be heard in a certain situation. That doesn’t mean to say that you have to speed along. In other words, if you have some practice to do like prostrations, it will be better to do it slowly and properly, considering the hopelessness of it, rather than at sixty miles an hour, missing the best point of reference. You have no chance to appreciate the teachings, in that case, and you haven’t actually related with the hopelessness either.