The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 4 (26 page)

Hopelessness. There’s no hope, absolutely none whatsoever, to be saved. Hopelessness. Let me define the word
hopelessness
.

Hope is a promise. It is a visionary idea of some kind of glory, some kind of victory, something colorful. There are trumpets and flags, declarations of independence, all kinds of things that are hopeful. Nevertheless, we want to find out the truth here. Discussing the twelve nidanas, the twelve causal links in the karmic chain reaction that goes on all the time, and all the time,
and
all the time, we see that we have no chance, none whatsoever. As long as we possess a body and our face, our face and our facade, we have no chance at all of being liberated, none whatsoever. It is as hopeless as that. There is no hope, absolutely no hope. We are going to be drawn into, and drowned in, a deep pool of shit, an ocean of shit, that is bubbling, gray in color, but smelly at the same time. We are drowning in that all the time. This is true; and the situation is hopeless, absolutely hopeless.

We might think, “I’m very smart, extraordinarily smart. I’ve read all the books on Buddhism, about the twelve nidanas and about everything else. I have the answers. I’ve read about tantra. I’ve read about Naropa and Milarepa.
²
I’ve read Meister Eckhart, the medieval mystic who talks about beautiful things. And I’ve even read about Don Juan, who says wonderful things about the nature of reality.
³
I’ve read Krishnamurti, who is very sensible. I’m hopeful, obviously. There’s
got
to be a way out somewhere. There must be something. Things can’t be all that gray and hopeless.”

But what authority do we have? We’ve just read the books. Maybe we have a friend who has also read the books, and we comfort each other: “Hey, did you read that book? Isn’t that great?” “Sure. I agree with you.” We build up a whole organization of believing each other and we make each other feel good. However, there’s no lineage, no authority. There’s no transmission of information from somebody else’s true experience. We have no idea whether Don Juan exists. Maybe he’s purely Carlos Castaneda’s trip. For that matter, we also have no idea whether the books
Meditation in Action
or
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
were really written by myself. Maybe they’re somebody else’s idea of how things should be. The whole thing is subject to question. Possibly all the miracles described in
The Life and Teaching of Naropa
, translated by Herbert Guenther, supposedly translated by Guenther, were just made up. Do we really know that there was such a person as Naropa at all? How do we know there was such a person as Meister Eckhart? And is it possible that what he said was not true, even if there was such a person? And we have no idea about the actual origin of the
Bhagavad Gita
, which contains divine instructions concerning warfare. We have no idea.

Sometimes one wonders who is fooling whom.

Who thought of the idea of enlightenment, actually? Who dreamed up God? Who proclaimed himself as god over all the earth? It seems that the whole thing is full of shit, actually, if I may use such language. Full of dung.

Sometimes we ask questions because we are really frustrated and we hope to get something out of asking them. Sometimes it is because we are feeling slightly relaxed and want to expose any intrigues that may be going on. Maybe some people are playing a game at our expense, and we would like to expose it. Such trips are constantly going on in our minds. But one thing we haven’t come up with is a real understanding of those trips. This is because we haven’t fundamentally faced ourselves and the notion of hopelessness. All these messages in scriptures, textbooks, information media, magical displays—whatever we have—are not going to help us. They will just reinforce our blind-grandmother principle of complete ignorance, because we haven’t given up any hope. We’re still looking around to see if somebody’s cheating us. We still believe everything might be okay if we could beat that cheating. That is actually our problem. Nobody has given up hope of attaining enlightenment. Nobody has given up hope of getting out of suffering. That is the fundamental spiritual problem that we have.

We should regard ourselves as helpless persons. That is the first spiritual step we can take. Taking this step is entering what is called the path of unification.
⁴
It is giving up hope; it is the step of hopelessness. The first path, which comes before this, is called the path of accumulation, in which we gather a lot of materials around us. Then comes the second path, the path of unification, which is giving up hope, totally, and at the same time realizing our helplessness. We have been conned by all kinds of trips, all kinds of spiritual suggestions. We’ve been conned by our own ignorance. We’ve been conned by the existence of our own egos. But nothing that has been promised is actually happening. The only thing that is going on is karmic volitional action, which perpetuates our desires and our confusion. Relating with that is the second path, the path of unification.

The reason it is called the path of unification is that there is a sense of uniting ourselves with ourselves. There is a path, there is a goal, and there is a practitioner of the path; but we realize that at the same time those are purely stage props, and the situation is utterly hopeless. We have no way of getting out of this misery at all. Once we realize that there’s no way of getting out of this misery, we begin to make a relationship with something.

If we end up in prison with a life sentence, we decorate our cells with pinups and graffiti and make ourselves at home. We might begin to have more gentle feelings about the prison guard and start to enjoy the meals that are presented to us in prison.

Our problem all along has been that we have been too smart, too proud. Our feeling is: I want to stick my neck out all the time. I don’t want to relate with anybody else; I want to get enlightened. I’m going to be higher than the rest of you. I don’t want to have anything to do with you at all.

That kind of attitude has been the cause of slowing down our spiritual journey. We would do better to take the attitude of the prisoner. Once we realize that we are trapped in our twelve nidanas, imprisoned, we begin to relate much more. We give birth to compassion in our prison cells. And our existence begins to make much more sense based on what we actually are.

I’m afraid this is very, very depressing. Still, it’s heroic at the same time. As you acknowledge the basic situation, you become a drummer of the dharma; you fly the flag of the dharma in your prison cell. You understand that your prison cell is made out of walls: this wall, that wall, this wall and that wall. And you have a simple floor and a simple meal. But those things become an interesting monastic situation. It is exactly the same as being in a monastery. Being in prison is the same thing.

That is why this yana is called the pratyekabuddhayana.
Pratyekabuddha
means “self-enlightened buddha.” You care about your environment, which is necessary, important, very basic, and also tremendously fun. The fun of hopelessness is very powerful, fantastic.

I’m afraid this is very boring. You see, Buddhism is the only nontheistic religion. It doesn’t contain any promises, or doesn’t permit any. It just suggests the basic necessity of working with ourselves, fundamentally, very simply, very ordinarily. It is very sensible. You have no complaint when you get to the other end of the trip of Buddhism. It’s a very definite journey.

Perhaps we could have a discussion, if you don’t feel too depressed.

Student:
From what you were saying about hopelessness, I guess it could help one relate to one’s environment better, but there is something else. Maybe I’m thinking of another kind of hopelessness, but it seems that hopelessness takes away the inspiration to practice at all. And the same thing in relation to the teacher. If you see him as not being able to save you either, it takes away your inspiration for relating to the teacher.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
What’s the problem?

S:
That seems to me to contradict what you were saying about hopelessness being a way to make a true relationship with the teaching.

TR:
Hopelessness is getting into the teaching more because you have no choice. When we think about hopefulness, that involves choices of all kinds. But when you realize that there’s no hope at all, the way we were talking about, you end up with just yourself. Then you can generate teachings or expressions of teachings within yourself.

Student:
What influences you to slow down if you find yourself speeding?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Hopelessness, obviously. The more you speed, the more frustrated you get. So there’s no point in speeding. It’s hopeless.

Student:
Could you distinguish between hopelessness and despair?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Despair is still hopeful, and hopelessness is utterly hopeless. There is no ground to hang on to. You are completely wiped out, therefore you might hang on to your basic being.

Despair is a resentful attitude. You are in despair because you have a sense of retaliation against something or other. Hopelessness is a very genuine, beautiful, simple act. You’re hopeless—it’s a fantastic thing. You really
are
hopeless then, you know. There’s no trips about it. It’s clean-cut.

Student:
Rinpoche, does this mean that a person has to experience a lot of suffering before he becomes really hopeless? Or could it just happen on the spot?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Both.

Student:
Rinpoche, it would make no sense to try to give up hope. If you did that, you would be hoping not to hope. How do you give up hope?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
You don’t. You’re stuck with hope. And then you’re disgusted with it.

Student:
If there’s no trick to giving up hope, how do you manage not to shoot yourself?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Shoot yourself?

S:
Yes.

TR:
I don’t see the connection.

S:
When you’re faced with being a fake, that causes panic for sure.

TR:
But shooting yourself is creating more pain.

S:
Not for long.

TR:
Really? How do you know? If you regard the body as the problem, then obviously you might be able to destroy your body. But the whole point here is that your mind is the problem. And you can’t get a gun that will shoot your mind. Let us know if you find such a gun.

Student:
It seems you’re saying that the only hope is hopelessness.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That’s true.

Student:
But that’s a contradiction.

TR:
No, the only hope is hopelessness. “Only hope” means that the ground, our sense of security, is the only hope, which is hopeless—you have no ground. You don’t make yourself into a target [for the pain] in any way at all, which is hopeless. The only hopelessness is not to provide yourself as a target.

Student:
Isn’t that true because when you have no hope, there are no expectations? You cease making judgments, so you like whatever you’ve got?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That could be said.

S:
Isn’t that the beginning of joy?

TR:
Let’s not rush too fast.

Student:
Hopelessness is: Mind and body are equal? If body and mind are both dropped . . . hopelessness doesn’t become. So without hope and with hopelessness, would—

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Please don’t try too many angles. It is hopeless
straight
. You can’t get around it. It will bounce back on you.

Student:
Is seeking the mind of a pratyekabuddha still in the realm of hope?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
What I have been trying to say is that the mind of a pratyekabuddha is hopeless. We have gotten as far as that, the second yana. The first yana is the acknowledgment of pain. The second yana is the pratyekabuddha realizing hopelessness, realizing the hopelessness of the circle of samsara.

Student:
Does the experience of hopelessness always have to be painful? It would seem that after a while you couldn’t keep up the pain or the pain would change to something else.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
In the beginning it’s painful, but in the end, it’s reality.

Student:
Do you have to realize the truth of your own death before you can become hopeless?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
No, your own death is also hopeless. They go together. Your death is hopeless.

Student:
At one point, you talked about discipline. You said getting at the origin of pain involved discipline. How does that discipline relate with how you get to hopelessness?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Being faithful to your hopelessness is discipline.

THREE

The Preparation for Tantra

S
INCE OUR TIME
is too limited to take a slow, extended journey through the nine yanas, we are going to make a jump. We are going to discuss now the preparation for tantra, which is the mahayana path. First we prepare ourselves in such a way that we have a chance to know just ourselves. Then we begin to know otherness, and then we know everything in mandala perspective.
¹

This approach is based on a sense of individuality and on a sense of egolessness at the same time. What happens with the sense of our individuality here is that, in giving up hope, in reaching a state of hopelessness, complete and total hopelessness, a sense of openness begins to develop simultaneously [which contains an element of egolessness]. Because we have given up hope completely, utterly, totally, there is a sense of opening. That particular sense of openness is called faith or devotion. We have completely tired ourselves out, exhausted ourselves beyond our hopefulness. We realize that life is hopeless and that any effort we put in to gain further experience is also hopeless. Then we get into a real understanding of the space between us and our goal. That space is totally and completely full. And that fullness is what is called faith.