The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 4 (47 page)

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Mm-hmmm.

S:
That seems pretty far-fetched.

TR:
At this point, your mind has not been trained to realize anuttarayoga, that’s why.

S:
I still don’t see it. If there’s an earthquake, who is the recipient of that kindness?

TR:
Nobody.

S:
Then who is it that calls it kind?

TR:
You do.

S:
As I’m swallowed up by a crack in the earth?

TR:
That’s your trip. You produce the teaching. You create Buddhism yourself. There’s no Buddhism as such; you produce it by yourself. You want to relate with Buddhism rather than the samsaric world. You produce nirvana, because you experience samsara; it’s your trip. The tantric tradition speaks in a much more powerful way than the hinayana or the mahayana when it says that it’s your trip. The earthquake is a good message, saying that this is your world, which you produced, and it is highly energetic and powerful.

Student:
You were talking about the relationship between teacher and student, which you said was based on trust. In your poetry, if I have understood it properly, you say emphatically, do not trust, do not trust. Is that trust that’s necessary for the relationship between student and teacher the same thing as “do not trust”?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think so; not trusting is the saving grace. When you do not trust, you’re distrustful; then there is some continuity. It is precisely in that sense that the mahayanist talks about the emptiness of everything. Emptiness is the truth in reality; it is wisdom. If you trust in the emptiness, nonexistence, if you are distrustful in that way, that is continual trust. There’s some kind of faith involved at the same time.

Student:
You used the word
divine
a few times in this talk. At what point in the progression from hinayana to mahayana to vajrayana does that word start to become relevant?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
The divine or divinity or benevolence can only be relevant if there is no perceiver of them. In other words, god can be a legitimate experience if there is no watcher of the god. The god can only be perceived if there is no worshiper of the god. In other words, Jehovah does exist as a workable experience if there are no Christians, no Jews, no Christ.

Student:
It seems that we are practicing the hinayana and mahayana, but you are starting to teach us tantra in the middle of that.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
A very important point is that we could relate with the vajrayana and mahayana levels in relation to how to handle our life situation. As far as practice itself is concerned, [at this point] we should relate purely with the hinayana with maybe just a little pinch of mahayana. Our beliefs have to be destroyed through the rationale of hinayana Buddhism. But our relationship to our life activity could involve taking a chance. That has to be raised from the simple-minded level of hinayana to the mahayana and vajrayana levels if possible.

Student:
Could you say something about what a karmic debt is?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That seems to be very simple. If we decide to recreate either good or bad activities, we are going to get involved with the results of that. Then, by getting involved with those results, we sow a further seed as well. It is like seeing a friend once; having lunch with your friend sows seeds for having another lunch with your friend. And so you go on and on and on and on.

Student:
I’m a little mixed up about something. If you don’t get to the tantric level before having gone through the hinayana and the mahayana, after you’ve gone through the hinayana and mahayana, why should you still be so fucked up that you need the guru-dictator?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
You do need that; that’s precisely the point. You probably have accomplished and achieved a lot, but still you could be carrying the neurosis of the hinayana and the mahayana. You need someone to destroy those. They are very powerful, highly spiritually materialistic, extremely powerful—and you need to be cut down. You create wisdom by being involved with the hinayana, and you create the hang-ups that go along with it. Then when you get involved in the mahayana, you create further wisdom, greater wisdom, paramita wisdom, but you also create paramita hang-ups as well. Those things have to be cut down by the dictator, the guru, and the principle is much higher and more powerful still. There’s no end. There’s no end, my dear friend.

Student:
With this feeling of commitment you were transmitting with regard to tantra, I got a feeling of desperation at the same time. That made me wonder: Is there also more of a feeling of egolessness at the tantric level, when it comes time to make that commitment? Does the student have less watcher at that point?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think so. But at the same time, there will also be the problem of the hang-ups that this lady [the previous questioner] and I were just discussing. That happens as well. That goes on right up until maha ati yoga, which comes at the end of the seminar. You should hear that as well.

Student:
You were saying that tantric practices have been prematurely introduced into this country and that they lead to a loss of individuality, or something like that, if they are introduced too early. Could you elaborate?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think that tantra has been introduced too early in this country, definitely. Particularly, some of the Hinduism. Hinduism is tantra. There is no hinayana aspect to Hinduism as it has been presented in this country. In Hinduism as it exists in India, before you become a sannyasin, or renunciate, before you become a tantric practitioner involved with the religious tradition, you raise your children, you work on your farm, and you relate with your country. That is the equivalent of hinayana in Hinduism. That hasn’t been introduced in this country. Only the glamorous part of Hinduism, the cream of it, which infants can’t handle, has been introduced here. Students of Hinduism have not really been mature enough. Hinduism is a nationalistic religion. In order to become a Hindu, you have to become a good citizen of India, raise your children, cook good food, be a good father or mother—all those things. This is similar to what developed in Judaism. It seems that the problems we’re facing is that without that basic grounding, highlights have been introduced that are extraordinarily electric and powerful. As a result, people have suffered a lot, because they are not even on the level of relating with their families, their parents. Many people have decided to regard their parents as enemies. There’s no solid social structure. They decide they dislike their mother’s cooking. They’d rather go to a restaurant than taste their mother’s cooking. There’s no sacredness in their relationship to their family. Maybe that’s why there are so many restaurants around here.

That seems to be a problem, actually, sociologically or spiritually. The Hinduism that has been introduced in this country is highly powerful, extremely mystical. It is at the level of tantra. But there has been no hinayana introduced that relates with how to behave.

Student:
I feel very much what you say about the danger of leaping over something that is supposed to be done first. I just wonder whether it has to do with the speedup of time that is going on. I feel right now that everything is happening with incredible speed. Everybody walks fast. And I wonder how that can be brought into connection with a tradition that has gone through centuries. It is dangerous to get into tantra without going through hinayana and mahayana, but everybody, particularly in America, wants instant nirvana.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think that is because America has actually achieved a materialistic vajrayana, and Americans expect to get a spiritual equivalent. Because they’re so spoiled. There’s automation, and everything is materialistically highly developed. They have gone through the hinayana level of manual farming and so on, and the mahayana level of creating a republican, democratic society as the American world. They take pride in taking the pledge [of allegiance], worshiping the flag, and so forth, on a mahayana level of benevolence. Then beyond that, they have also achieved the vajrayana level of automation, and there are all kinds of power trips and all kinds of war materiel—missiles, bombs, airplanes—everything has been achieved on a vajrayana level. And now that they’re so spoiled on that level, they are asking for the spiritual equivalent of that. They don’t want to go back to the hinayana level. They have everything happening to their lives, so they are asking direct: “We have everything we want materially, therefore we want everything we want spiritually too.” That is tantric materialism, spiritual tantric materialism. That seems to be the problem, and if there are any wise tantric teachers around, Americans won’t get it.

Student:
Would you say that most drug trips are tantric spiritual materialism?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
No. The drug trips, LSD and so forth, are not as tantric as they think they are. It is purely on the level of mahayana materialism. The idea is that drugs are good for society, because they provide good vibrations, goodness and love, and realization leading to goodness. So the drug culture could be described as mahayana rather than tantric.

Student:
Traditionally, surrender to the spiritual friend was enabled by the all-encompassing love the student had for the spiritual friend. That enabled the student to have faith and trust in him. Is there any room for that?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think there’s room for everything—your emotions and your trust and everything. That is what ideal devotion is: Your emotions and your trust and everything else is involved. It’s a big deal, a hundred percent. That’s why the samaya vow with the guru is the most important discipline in tantra. Without respecting your guru, you can’t get tantric messages.

There’s the story of Marpa visiting Naropa. Naropa had magically created a vision of the mandala of Hevajra, with the colors and everything, above the altar.
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Then Naropa asked Marpa, “Would you like to prostrate to the mandala, or would you like to prostrate to the guru?” Marpa thought that the guru’s magical creation was a fantastic discovery. He thought he would rather prostrate to the divine existence he could see, so he decided to prostrate to the magic show. He did that, and Naropa said, “You’re out! You didn’t place your trust in me, the creator of the whole show. You didn’t prostrate to me, you prostrated to my manifestation. You still have to work harder.”

So it’s a question of whether to worship the magical achievement or the magician himself. The guru is, in fact, from the tantric point of view, the magician. Even in relation to our rational twentieth-century minds, the guru has all kinds of magic. Not that the guru produces elephants out of the air or turns the world upside down, but the guru has all kinds of ordinary magic. It is seemingly ordinary, but it is also irritating, unpleasant, surprising, entertaining, and so forth.

Student:
What is the difference between the guru and the Christian godhead?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
In the Christian approach, God is unreachable. The guru is immediate. For one thing, he is a human being like yourself. He has to eat food and wear clothes like you do, so it’s a direct relationship. And the fact that the guru has basic human survival needs makes the situation more threatening. Do you see what I mean? It is more threatening because you can’t dismiss the guru as being outside of our thing, someone who can survive without our human trips. The guru does thrive on human trips. If we need food, the guru also needs food. If we need a love affair, the guru also needs a love affair. A guru is an ordinary human being, but still powerful. We begin to feel personally undetermined, because the guru minds our trips too closely and too hard. That is why the guru is powerful: He asks you what food you eat and what clothes you wear. He minds your business on those levels as well as with regard to your relationships, your practice, your body, your job, your house. The guru involves himself with those things more and more. Whereas if he were God, he would just be hanging out somewhere. God doesn’t make any personal comments, except in terms of your conscience—which is your fantasy anyway.

Student:
Rinpoche, at one point when you were describing mahayana, you said that there’s a role for doubt in mahayana. You said that there’s a confluence of the river of the teaching and the river of doubt, and that by contrast, tantra was like a single thread. Does that mean that there’s no role or function for doubt once you enter tantra? Is it completely eliminated?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That’s precisely where the dictatorship comes in. You are not allowed to have any doubt. If you have doubts, they’ll be cut. Doubt is not regarded as respectable in tantric society.

NINE

Mahamudra and Maha Ati

I
T SEEMS NECESSARY
at this point to clarify the classification of the tantric yanas. There is a gradual psychological evolution or development through the first three levels of kriya, upa, and yoga. Then there is a fourth stage of tantra in relation to that group known as anuttarayoga. This is the classification of the tantric yanas according to the New Translation school that existed in Tibet.

The New Translation school is particularly associated with the mahamudra teaching. The reason it is called the New Translation school is to distinguish it from the Old Translation school, the tradition associated with the maha ati teachings of tantra, which were introduced into Tibet earlier on, at the time of Padmasambhava. The maha ati teachings are connected with the mahayoga-, anuyoga-, and atiyogayanas, which we will be discussing.
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The New Translation school started with Marpa and other great translators who reintroduced tantra into Tibet later on. This later tantric school developed the teachings of Naropa and Virupa, two Indian siddhas. The teachings of Naropa particularly influenced the Geluk and Kagyü tantra traditions in Tibet, and the teachings of Virupa particularly influenced the tantric tradition of the Sakya order of Tibet.
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