The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 4 (38 page)

Egolessness can be approached from all kinds of different angles. Self is not applicable anymore, because you have realized selflessness. From the student’s point of view, what is experienced is the irrelevance of the self. This leads to the basic practices of the bodhisattva’s way, which bring further realization of impermanence and the nonexistence of self. Ego is regarded as a collection of stuff related with the five-skandha process, as we have said. It is purely a collection and does not amount to anything else. Therefore those five stuffs or skandhas depend for their sense of existence on relative reference points.

From the point of view of impermanence, anything that happens within that realm that depends on the existence of self is also subject to decay and death. Life is a constant process of death and decay. Life consists of a process containing birth, illness, old age, and death. Life contains fundamental bewilderment, in which you don’t even recognize the bewilderment as it is anymore.

Today we are trying to understand the basic meaning of shunyata. The shunyata experience could develop as a sense of the basic emptiness of life and the basic suffering of life, and at the same time, as a sense of nondualistic wisdom, inspiration. I feel that it is extremely important before discussing tantra to realize the nature of the juncture between the tantra and the sutra teachings, which is what we are joining together at this point, to realize what is the continuity there and what is not.
¹
It is very important to realize that.

Self, ego, tries to maintain itself and develop its territory. Should that be encouraged or discouraged? Should we try to maintain ourself or should we not? What would you say?

Student:
Who should?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I beg your pardon?

S:
Who should try to maintain itself?

TR:
Who is he?

S:
Should we? Who?

TR:
Who is we or who?

S:
Should we try to maintain ourselves? Who is we?

TR:
I’m asking you.

S:
I don’t know.

TR:
Who is that? Who is that?

[
Silence
]

TR:
Did you say you don’t know?

S:
Well, I . . . I suppose who is that.

TR:
Yes, but who isn’t that?

S:
Who isn’t that?

TR:
Moreover, what are you talking about?

[
Laughter, then silence
]

TR:
Who are you?

S:
I don’t know.

TR:
Why don’t you? Why?

S:
There’s no way of answering the question.

TR:
Why not?

S:
Nothing works.

TR:
Why should it work?

[
Silence
]

TR:
It’s not a matter of con-manship. Things don’t have to work. Let’s warm up. Why should it work? Who are you? Why should it work? Who are you? Why should it work?

S:
It just stopped.

TR:
Stopped?

S:
The questioning.

TR:
Where does it stop? Where? Where?

[Silence]

TR:
How come it stopped there?

S:
I guess you can’t focus anymore. Other things start happening.

TR:
Understand that. We all show that common symptom. So much is happening that we find the whole thing bewildering, are unable to focus on any one particular thing. The whole thing is bewildering, bewildered. Constantly. Bewildered constantly all over the place. So we are confused, bewildered. Subject to confusion. We are a victim of confusion. What shall we do? Shall we stay? Try to get some sleep? Get some food? Or shall we try to get out of it? If you try to get out of it, it means putting in a lot of energy. Trying to get out means creating some kind of scheme so that you
could
get out of this prison. Could we do that? Couldn’t we do that? How can we do that? Do you want to get out or do you want to stay in?

It’s a very inviting, smooth nest. Like being a worm. You could regenerate your next generation. You could retain yourself constantly by being a worm. Or you could stick your neck out by being a crocodile. You could.

Something coming up there?
[The Vidyadhara invites a question from the audience.]

Student:
When you ask how can we get out or whether we want to get out, maybe the thing to do is just be aware of the mess we’re in.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Aware of what?

S:
Aware of confusion.

TR:
How would you get out of that? How would you do it?

S:
Why would you want to?

TR:
Precisely, why should you want to? Why?

Student:
It’s not secure.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes, it’s so secure.

S:
It’s
not
secure.

TR:
Well, it seems to me it’s secure, because the whole thing is set up for you. You can swim in your amniotic fluid, and—

S:
Well, for a while.

TR:
You have your placenta, and along with the placenta, beautiful swimming pools have been created.

S:
Yeah, it’s fine as long as it works.

TR:
It seems to work as long as the mother eats enough food. I mean there’s no point at which we have to come out of the womb. If we are happy, we could remain there eternally. If the mother eats appropriate food, we eat and we get to survive. Moreover, we get the fun of swimming around in the water, behind the placenta, inside the womb. We feel happy. Great!

Student:
But isn’t that a problem?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That is a problem, of course. But how do you see the problem? How could we maintain that situation? We could stay there. What prevents us from staying in our mother’s womb? What prevents us? What triggers off our leaving?

Student:
At some point it’s painful.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
You don’t know, because you haven’t been there yourself. You’ve forgotten the whole thing. When you’re an infant, you have no idea of it. You have to purely guess. If the baby had a reference point of relating with an open situation as opposed to the claustrophobia of being in the womb, obviously the baby would want to come out. But the baby has forgotten the reference point. It has forgotten being pushed into the womb and developing as an embryonic being. It has no reference point, so where would you start? How would you relate with the whole thing? How would you?

Student:
Is there a choice?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
As far as the baby is concerned there’s no choice. It is just so. That’s the whole point. [For there to be a choice, there has to be a reference point that sets up alternatives.] So why would there be an alternative? There is no reference point, absolutely no reference point.

Student:
Did we create that alternative?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I suppose so. But there is no reason for creating a reference point as far as the baby is concerned.

Student:
People make the reference points for the baby, don’t they?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
What?

S:
The parents or other people make the reference points for the baby. The baby doesn’t have a choice.

TR:
How? How?

S:
By having selves. By having egos of their own. They make reference points for the baby, and the baby takes them on. He doesn’t have any choice but to take them on.

TR:
Yeah. That sounds interesting. Yeah. How do they do that?

Student:
Doctors say something about the cortex connecting up with the hypothalamus. There’s a different brain structure when the baby’s in the womb.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes. How do we do that? As a mother—

Student:
You tell the child how to relate to the pain.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, that’s at a more developed stage. It has already related with the pain; that means it has already made its mind up. But before that? How do we work with the birth?

Student:
It’s what you said about emotions being the result of our projections onto the outside. The mother has all of those, so she’s already giving them to the baby from the moment the baby is conceived. Even if the baby has no thought, he’s already got the mother’s—

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That’s true, it seems. That’s how we come to the conclusion. Duality happens—through a demand to go from one extreme to the other extreme. Duality constantly happens, going from one extreme to the other extreme. Duality is not basically a set pattern, but it has its momentums [that move it] from one extreme to relate to the other extreme. It’s not preprogrammed as such, but it is related with a reference point that creates [a movement from] one extreme to the other extreme. Which is a very important point.

Student:
There’s no memory without duality?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yeah, there’s no memory without duality. Yeah.

S:
Then how could Padmasambhava say there is one mind with continuous memory? In Evans-Wentz’s book
The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation
, it’s stated that your memories continue.

TR:
That’s primarily in reference to the vajra state: one memory, one mind. You have to attain a state of one mind before you do that. The baby has two minds, or three minds, in fact: mother, father, son.

Student:
What happens when you see everything as just continuous events?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
You begin to see it as continuity.

S:
See what as continuity?

TR:
What?

S:
What’s the continuity?

TR:
Nothing.

S:
What do you mean, nothing?

TR:
Discontinuity.

S:
Discontinuity?

TR:
As continuity. You see, the whole point here seems to be to relate properly with egolessness. Before we embark upon our study of tantra, we have to realize a sense of egolessness—because of the ego. This is something that is continuous but is based on discontinuity. Thus the ego is subject to impermanence and the ego is also subject to pain, suffering. The three marks of existence—pain, egolessness, and impermanence—exist simultaneously.

Of course we should not forget the glorious bodhisattva path we have been discussing. People have tremendous insight connected with that, tremendous inspiration to dance on the bodhisattva path. Nevertheless they should be aware of the consequences of egolessness and pain and impermanence constantly happening at the same time, all the time. It’s happening all the time. So some kind of awareness of the basic framework of Buddhism needs to be kept all the way through. This is necessary, extremely necessary.

Ego, self, is based on survival. And survival means being right on time, constantly on time. You live on time. Throughout death and rebirth, again and again, you survive with your time. And because time is such a prominent factor, it is a source of struggle and pain. The pain and time and survival are based on the same continuity. So life cannot exist without pain and impermanence and ego at the same time. It’s extremely simple logic, kindergarten level.

Student:
Is this pain based on the idea of securing something—because we have to secure some kind of permanent situation, we’re in pain? But there’s nothing to secure, and understanding that is the security. I mean, there just is no security, but realizing that is some kind of security.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
And so forth. You begin to realize egolessness that way. But you have never stopped yourself or created a bank of memory or created anything basic and solid, because your ground is subject to continual change and pain. You have no ground
at all
. This seems to be very simple logic, which I hope everybody could understand.

Student:
Rinpoche, isn’t there an urge toward insecurity as well? Some sort of need to be insecure?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes. That’s very simple. You use the same logic all over again. The logic is that death lives. It’s the same thing. Death lives.

Student:
How does this all tie in with the baby in the womb?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
The baby in the womb has the same kind of insecurity. Insecurity constantly happening. Therefore processes happen at the same time, as you go along. Babies are regarded as innocent, but this is by no means the case. Things with the baby are already happening according to its karmic situation. There is a reason that it is
your
baby, the baby of certain parents, which is a condition, continuity.

Student:
What you’re saying is that pain and the knowledge of transitoriness depend on ego. You’re saying that they exist along with the hollowness of ego. Is that right? Something is generated out of the sense of pain—

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I don’t follow your logic.

S:
You’re saying that there is pain and transitoriness and egolessness, and these are three facts. And I don’t see whether there’s any definite relationship between them. But I think the relationship between them is what you’re trying to get across.

TR:
The pain, impermanence, and suffering are linked. You have ego, but you don’t have ego. That produces apprehension and pain. The reason why that apprehension developed altogether is that you didn’t have a relationship with the time. The time was not sympathetic to you, toward your maintaining yourself anymore.