The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: 3 (87 page)

R:
Sure, that seems to be happening.

S4:
And what we’re doing is looking at the fact that we’re here.

R:
Yes, I mean it’s very simple. We have to use some more of these phenomena, and mind, and neurosis, or whatever.

S4:
If we see things as they are, then there is no more to do. And if we aren’t seeing things as they are, then what’s to be done?

R:
We have to see things as they are!

S4:
How?

R:
By not trying to see things as they are, but by relying on your ignorance, knowing that you can’t see things as they are. Maybe you are seeing things as they are somewhat, because you have some point of reference. Not seeing things as they are, if you are aware of it, means that there are some possibilities that you
might
be seeing things as they are. Reliance on your confusion seems to be the way. The whole thing has to be realistic. Otherwise, what do you do if you have fallen off a construction platform? Is it pure accident or a message?

S4:
Depends on what you mean.

R:
No, it depends on what it is.

S4:
Okay, what is it?

R:
Well, if you’re drunk and you fall down, you’ve been drinking too much.

S4:
That’s the message?

R:
And if you are freaked out too much, that’s why you fall down—it’s very simple.

S4:
What if you’re not drunk and you fall down?

R:
Then maybe you’re freaked out. You’re not paying attention to what’s happening; that’s why you fall down.

S4:
You really have a lot of faith in cause and effect. It’s a very ordered universe that you’re talking about in your chaos.

R:
Well, sure, chaos is orderly, that’s why it’s chaotic.

S4:
But it has order.

R:
Order because there is chaos.

S4:
But what you’re saying is, if you fall down, there’s a reason. You must have a lot of faith.

R:
You have to fall down some way, even if it’s not an act of faith. How can you fall down?

S4:
I don’t know. You fell down. That’s the only fact that we know. The rest is a kind of speculation. I’m trying to understand the universe that you have created right here.

R:
I haven’t created it.

S4:
Well, somebody has.

R:
Sure, naturally, we are here because Steve Durkee has built his cabin here.

S4:
Well, then, we have just an infinite chain of causes, and he built his cabin here because . . . So we still haven’t gotten to why we’re here.

R:
We are here because of those things.

S4:
You really have a lot of faith.

R:
The facts become prominent. If you had a crash running through a traffic light, what do you tell them when you go to court?

S4:
The facts. Do you think that’s where we are, in a traffic court?

R:
All the time. That’s why we call it
dharma,
it’s the facts. What we’re saying is things constantly exist in their
isness.

S3:
What you’ve been saying is that most of what we’re doing is trying to get ourselves out of this particular cause and effect, that we are right here, whether it’s by religion or anything else that seems to divert us.

R:
We are constantly trying to skip away from the facts of life. That’s spiritual materialism; trying to bend the law, sort of a tax dodger.

Student 6:
When you gave that analogy of the guy falling off the scaffold, you weren’t so much talking about looking for a reason why it happened, but saying that falling off a scaffold is itself a message that you weren’t in the moment.

R:
Yes, you might try to get rid of the moment; then that alternative is the source of the accident. That’s what usually happens. Going through the red light, I might have passed through this car. There’s an alternative, that’s why we do it. Then we get hit by the choicelessness of it. The nonalternative begins to hit us, punish us.

S6:
You’re saying that if you’re standing on a scaffold and you’re thinking about how you’d like to be in Miami Beach instead of working on this building, that’s the alternative, the cause of your accident. All Rinpoche is saying is that accidents like that are messages bringing you back to the present moment.

S4:
But there is no present moment. If you’re falling, you’re falling and that’s the present moment.

R:
That’s the problem, that’s the reality.

Student 5:
You’re not supposed to fall off the scaffold.

R:
Not only not supposed to, but you don’t. You’re occupied with some other future or past, that’s why you fall.

Student 1:
What happens if you’re standing on the scaffold and there’s another guy on it; then he steps off, pushing it accidentally and you fall—suddenly you’re falling.

R:
But you share his confusion at the same time, and you’re not certain if he’s going to do the same thing again. You can’t really blame anybody.

S1:
No, there’s no blame; it’s just that I’m questioning about when you are in an apparently causeless situation.

R:
Things are never causeless situations.

S1:
I can hear you, but I’ve been in this situation. I was house-painting on a scaffold, and I was just reaching up, painting the eaves of this house. Then suddenly I’m falling because this guy who was working with me—.

R:
But you weren’t paying attention to your neighbor. You were so concerned with what you were going to do.

S1:
Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be concerned with?

R:
No, you’re supposed to be awake in all directions.

S1:
You’re saying that as I was reaching up—to be aware that he was stepping off the scaffold and that the scaffold only had—

R:
Well, you’re supposed to be able to tell him, “Don’t do that because I’m going to fall off. . . .”

S1:
It seems to me that the awareness you’re talking about extends to the future.

R:
No, no, no, the really present moment, extremely present moment. If your neighbor is being unaware of what you are trying to do, then you should be able to relate with that.

S1:
Superhuman awareness.

R:
No, it just means a sense of you are where you are at, not that you particularly like laying heavy trips on other people. They can only assimilate your lessons by knowing where you are at. It’s very simple. “There’s too much draft from your front window; I feel cold.” Go and tell him. Sometimes that’s the point of view of neurotics and psychotics.

S5:
What is the point?

R:
That if the person is not aware of the totality and is purely concerned about himself—

S4:
Last night you said that there was a war, and who is not your neighbor? Now you described a situation where all that was required was that you be aware of what your neighbor was experiencing so you wouldn’t get pushed off the scaffold. So who’s not your neighbor, and how does that relate to the war?

R:
It depends on how friendly you are with yourself, who’s your neighbor, who’s your friend. If you’re not friendly enough with yourself, then anybody is the enemy. If you’re friendly with yourself, then your next-door neighbor is a friend. But if you’re very friendly with yourself, then most people become your friends. Schizophrenics can deal with that.

Report from Outside the Closet

H
E ROSE FROM
his chair. He walked toward the closet. I watched him. He opened the closet door and shut himself in the closet. It was turning five o’clock and he had had his tea, but I’m not sure why he shut himself in the closet. Me or the chair or the atmosphere might have been disturbing to him; but on the other hand it might have been inspiring to him in some way.

There was an occasional sound from the closet. But the closet door seemed functionally all right. It was doing its job. Although the room was dark owing to overcast weather, the inside of the closet must have been still darker.

What would happen next? Maybe he didn’t want me to be here to watch him come out of the closet. It might embarrass him. But on the other hand, he might regard this as a victory of some kind which he
wanted
me to witness.

I wonder how
he
would write this story, perhaps approaching it from an entirely different perspective. He might think that
I
would be embarrassed if he came out. On the other hand, he might feel it would be some kind of victory for
me.
Not only that, but he would be able to witness my victory.

I became increasingly impatient. I felt I should do
something.
I reviewed in my mind all sorts of things I might do with regard to his being in the closet. I thought of opening the closet door, quite casually of course, and asking him if he might need something. . . . How could he do this to me, using me in this way, making a fool of me? Then I realized with sudden relief that in fact he was making a fool of
himself.

As I was lost in these thoughts, abruptly the closet door opened. Still munching his tea biscuits, he came out of the closet and sat down in his chair. Slowly he reached for the teapot and filled his cup. I wasn’t quite sure how to relate to him. The tense silence of those few seconds was almost too much. For some reason I felt I had to defend myself. But defend what? I wracked my mind. Trying to be as nonchalant as possible, I decided to address him. I poured myself a cup of tea.

“Well?” I said.

“Well, what?” he said, as though nothing had happened.

Freedom Is a Kind of Gyp

A
N
I
NTERVIEW WITH
C
HÖGYAM
T
RUNGPA
by
S
HERMAN
G
OLDMAN

East West Journal:
First of all, thank you very much for your work and for your coming to America. At the Nalanda Festival, there was a spirit of tolerance between different religions—Tibetan Buddhism, Judaism, Zen, etc.—that seems new. If that openness isn’t just “shopping,” a sort of spiritual supermarket or fair, if it is really something different, what is it?

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche:
I suppose there’s some sense of inspiration that people are beginning to feel, that they can work in a certain discipline, and there’s a conviction that goes with that. In the case of “shopping,” there are people sort of without culture, still refusing to stick with a culture. I think that in this case, various people have come from very definite disciplines and traditions and backgrounds, and because of that there is a mutual interest and unity.

EWJ:
Your own students seem to show more common sense, good humor, and judgment on their own than many of the other spiritual groups who come to us at the
Journal,
asking for publicity. Does that independent intelligence flow from your teaching of the situation as the guru?

CTR:
Anyone want to comment?

First Student:
I’d say that having seen Rinpoche’s intelligence in action, that sparks my own willingness to deal with things.

Second Student:
Ironically, I think it comes from a lot of contact with the guru; that’s a challenge to the intelligence.

EWJ:
At your lecture last night, someone in the audience asked you about the effects of technology on the future of humanity, and if I remember correctly you said, “What’s the problem?” I can understand that, intellectually: if you take the largest view, everything is fine. But there’s also the question of compassion. Being macrobiotic, I mean in particular the importance of good food. What is the relationship between the current interest in ecology, social consciousness, and spiritual awareness—if we want to play the full game, rather than taking spirituality as just a way of getting high.

CTR:
Well, there’s a constant battle which goes on between not paying attention to the details of what goes on in the world and paying too much attention to the world and consequently losing your mind. Finding that line is a problem that goes on all the time.

Ecology, basically, is not a regulation or law; it’s just a simple straightforward thing. It becomes a problem only when it becomes a doctrine. So peace marchers may become as warlike as the war people. Where there’s an awareness, a general sense of dignity and humor, then there’s no room to start behaving frantically, throwing things around, polluting, you know, just grab a hamburger from somewhere, or a piece of junk.

EWJ:
The denial that intelligence, or liberation, is within ourselves is a form of dualism that seems characteristic of the Western dogmatic religions rather than many of the Eastern traditions, like Buddhism. What is the origin of than dualistic approach which sees God as something radically other than ourselves?

CTR:
I suppose fundamentally the cause is a kind of achievement orientation. Buddhism with it’s nontheistic approach is automatically not achievement-oriented, since you don’t extend yourself out to a Divine Principle as such. It’s not impractical. It doesn’t let you become fascinated by the potentialities rather than the way you are.

Dualism is a feeling of separation, so you have to make connection with “that,” to make peace with “that,” whatever “that” may be. Then you begin to yearn, and consequently there are a lot of things in the way so you have to fight them, destroy them, condemn them, or whatever. It’s a sign of ultimate frustration in which you are not really fully as you are.