The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 4 (9 page)

There are enormous problems with thinking that we can only trust in what we were told rather than in how we feel. When we have only been
told
how to handle ourselves, our behavior can become automatic. Automatically we pick and choose. We learn to be perfect actors. It does not matter how we feel. We might be in tears, but still we put on a gleaming smile and make polite conversation. If we cannot find anything good to talk about, we just talk about the weather. With that approach, we become very crude. In fact, we are trying to become perfect actors rather than real people.

Some students of meditation have a similar problem. They have been told to keep a good posture and that the more a person keeps perfect posture, the closer he or she is to enlightenment. If one takes that approach without a sense of personal connection, it can produce a situation similar to that of the children of aristocracy who are taught to have good table manners. In both cases, there is a body problem, an actual physical problem, which has nothing to do with politics or society.

The tantric tradition is fundamentally an intentional approach to life in terms of how we handle our body. How we speak, how we look, how we touch our cup, our fork or knife, how we lift things and carry them about—all those things are very deliberate. But such deliberateness is not presented in a manual or book on how to act according to the tantric tradition. The point is that there is no such thing as a real tantric diet or proper tantric behavior. Instead, we develop a basic attitude, so that when we begin to extend our arm, we simply do it. When we begin to touch, we touch; and when we lift, we lift in a very confident way. We just do it. We have a real experience of confidence. There is no tantric finishing school designed to train people for the tantric aristocracy or to develop a deceptive but well-mannered king. The tantric approach to body—how to handle our body and our sense perceptions, how to look, how to feel, how to listen, how to handle the whole situation—is very personal and real.

Tantra is deliberate, but at the same time, the heart of that deliberateness is freedom. The “crazy yogins” of the tantric tradition were not people who just hung out on street corners doing their crazy things. The freedom of tantra is something very real, dignified, and vajra-like. The sense of indestructibility is always there. There is intention, there is reality, and there are constant discoveries.

S
ECRET
M
ANDALA

Then we have the third world, which is the secret mandala, or the mandala of the sacred realm. The sacredness and secretness of this mandala are not based on our being highly evolved and consequently looking down upon the outer mandala and the inner mandala. Rather, the secret mandala consists of simplifying our psychological behavior, our meditative behavior, into a sense of awareness and openness in which we have no hesitation, none whatsoever, in dealing with our emotions.

In the secret mandala, emotions are all interwoven and interconnected. Passion is connected with aggression, aggression is connected with ignorance, ignorance is connected with envy or jealousy, and so forth. There is a continuous web taking place that is quite obvious and real. Therefore a person at the tantric level should not regard any
one
emotion as a big deal, but all emotions are a big deal. All the emotions that exist in a person’s mind are the same problem—or the same promise, for that matter. They contain the seed of freedom, or liberation, and as well, the seed of imprisonment. In the secret mandala we work with all our hidden corners, any little areas of irritation. In fact, those things that we regard as little problems may actually be our biggest problems. Those problems are completely interrelated, which is the notion of mandala here.

There is a sense of continuity in our emotions and a sense of openness at the same time. For instance, we lose our temper, we become outraged, we are about to strangle our partner, and in fact we begin to do so—that itself is a mandala display. We feel angry, we feel passionate, we feel jealous, and we feel ignorant—all those things are happening at once. That is a real experience. There is no “how to do it”; we did it already. That is our chance. In fact, that is our golden opportunity. We have manifested the secret mandala already.

On the other hand, we usually do not acknowledge or experience our emotions properly. When we need release we might make love; when we need release we might kill someone. That is not quite the proper way to approach our emotions. Exploding on the spot is not the way to express emotions directly. Emotions are sacred; they should be regarded as real and obvious things that can teach us something. We should relate with them properly, without “getting off” on something or other. We might say, “I’m bored. Let’s go to the movies.” That is not quite the way to deal with our boredom.

The tantric approach to emotions is much more disciplined and much more personal. It is highly personal; that is why this mandala is called the sacred mandala. It is very difficult to achieve, but it is also very important and extremely sacred. Normally, no one is able to achieve such perfection, or even to conceive of such a possibility. So we should respect the sacredness of the secret mandala.

The mandala principle is an important concept in the tantric teachings. The outer mandala is connected with the external world: how to relate to society, politics, organizations, domestic relationships, and so forth. The inner mandala is connected with our body, and how to handle it. The secret mandala is connected with how to deal with our emotions. We have to incorporate all three mandala principles simultaneously in our experience. We can’t separate them; we can’t practice each of them separately, at different times. We have to do it all at once. In that way things become much more real.

The mandalas
are
reality. It is as simple as that. Of course, reality is real, but our contact with reality is through our sense perceptions, our body, and our emotions—the three mandalas. The three mandalas are what meet, or mate, with reality. When we put our finger on a hot stove, it is our perceptions that get burnt by their meeting with reality. We have to communicate with reality; otherwise, there is no reality. We might try to get out of the whole thing by saying, “Who cares?” But
that
becomes reality at the same time. We cannot get away from it. It is very personal, and it is very haunting. It is all over the place.

FOUR

Nontheistic Energy

U
SUALLY WHEN WE TALK
about energy, we are referring to an ongoing source of power, something that is able to generate power, such as an electric generator. In a similar manner, when we speak of an energetic person, we usually mean a vigorous person, someone who possesses enormous energy. When we are around such a person, we feel there is a bank of energy happening. That person works so hard that we feel guilty being idle around him or her. We feel that we should do something too, and we begin to work very hard. Then no one can say that we have been bad boys and girls, that we haven’t done our chores, washed the dishes, or ironed the sheets. Because we feel that person’s enormous energy, we begin to perk up, and we stop being idle. We begin to take part in the energy.

Then there is another kind of energy, which is self-existing. Self-existing energy is not dependent on something or somebody else; it simply takes place continuously. Although the source of such energy is difficult to track down, it is universal and all-pervasive. It happens by itself, naturally. It is based on enthusiasm as well as freedom: enthusiasm in the sense that we trust what we are doing, and freedom in the sense that we are completely certain that we are not going to be imprisoned by our own energy, but instead, freed constantly. In other words, we realize that such energy does come up by itself, and that we can work with it. This self-existing energy is the potentiality of
siddhi
, a Sanskrit word that refers to the ability to use the existing energies of the universe in a very special and appropriate way.

Self-existing energy is difficult to describe in words or concepts. When we try to describe this pattern of energy, we are only finger painting. Basically, it is the energy of the psychological realm. No matter what state of mind we are in, we experience a particular quality of life, that is, we experience an emotion. We begin to feel an electric spark taking place. That energy can come out of having a quarrel with our wife or out of having a severe accident or a love affair. It comes out of being either rejected or accepted.

This energy is created both when we fail to do something and when we accomplish something. Rejection or acceptance by the world does not mean that the energy is either invalid or valid. Rather, there is transparent energy happening all the time. Whether we are in an appropriate situation, in accordance with the laws of the universe, or we are in an inappropriate situation, not in accordance with the laws of the universe, energy is constantly taking place. This energy, from the vajrayana or tantric point of view, is simply the energy that exists. It does not mean being hard-working or extremely industrious, always doing things, being a busybody, or anything like that. This energy can come from all kinds of challenges, in the positive or negative sense. Such energy takes place constantly.

Self-existing energy permeates all of our emotional relationships: our emotions toward our relatives, our lovers, our friends, and our enemies. It also permeates our philosophical beliefs: either something is happening “right” according to our beliefs, or something has gone “wrong” according to our beliefs. Some situations try to dislodge us from our philosophical or religious commitments, and some situations try to draw us into certain commitments. All kinds of energies take place. So when we talk about energy, we are not talking about vigor alone but about that which exists in our lives. It is as though flint and steel were rubbing against each other and sparking constantly, again and again. That is, the phenomenal world exists, and we either rub against it or with it, and that rubbing is constantly creating a spark.

According to the tantric understanding of reality, energy is related to the experience of duality, the experience that you exist and others exist. Of course, both those concepts are false, but who cares about that?—at the time, anyway. The deceptive existence of you and other rubs together, nevertheless. Sometimes you are conquering the world and sometime the world is conquering you. It is like riding on a balloon in the ocean: Sometimes the balloon rides on you and you are underneath the ocean; sometimes you ride on the balloon and the balloon is underneath the ocean. That play of duality takes place constantly; that kind of electricity takes place all the time.

So the basic notion of energy is nothing particularly magical or miraculous. It is simply the rubbing together of the duality of you and the phenomenal world, you and other. We are talking about that spark, that fire. It is real fire, real water, real earth, and real air: The real elements are working with you. Still, at this point we have no idea who
you
are, actually. Let’s just say we are talking about the basic
you
. Let’s leave it vague at this point; otherwise it is going to get too complicated. Just leave it at
you
, this vague stuff that exists somewhere or other in the middle of the cosmos.

At this point the question arises of how we can handle, or utilize, such energy. In fact, that has been a question for a long, long time. For twenty-five hundred years the same question has been asked: How can we handle self-existing energy; how can we work with it? Fundamentally, that question is the question of how to handle duality, or the basic split.

The split between self and other is taking place constantly, constantly creating energy, and we are always trying to work with it. Our approach is usually to try to unify the split in order to avoid the energy. We may say, “I am a good man; I am a bad man; I am Joe; I am Mary.” In doing so, we are trying to bring self and other together in a superficial sense, as if no energy existed at all, as though everything were going smoothly: “There is nothing to worry about; everything’s going to be okay. I am Mary, and that’s smooth. There is no gap between
I
and
am
and
Mary
at all.” Or we try to avoid the split by refusing to say “I am.” Instead we might say, “My
name
is Mary.” Still we have a problem. That approach of smoothing things out and trying to make everything presentable and respectable brings enormous problems, enormous questions. In fact, instead of getting rid of the energy, it raises further energy.

The attempt to define who we are and who we are not is basically split into two approaches: the theistic approach and the nontheistic approach. In the nontheistic approach we simply acknowledge the dualistic gap rather than trying to unify it or conceal it. In the theistic approach, there is an ongoing attempt to conceal that gap completely. There is a notion of spiritual democracy. In fact, that approach is often used in dealing with political and social problems: “Blacks are not against whites—we are all the same species. Since we all live on the same earth, we should regard ourselves as a brotherhood.”

That approach of covering up separateness, pretending that the black man is a white man, is the cause of all kinds of problems; but the theistic approach can go much further than that, to the point of covering up
any
differences: “Let us have real unity. We can conceal this problem. We can iron it out completely, like a cloth. Let us work in such a way that when we have ironed our sheet we can even conceal the seams. In fact, we can make the whole sheet seem to be made out of one big cloth. God is in us and we are in God. It’s all one, so don’t worry.”

Another way to cover the gap is to try to eliminate discomfort. The modern world has provided us with all sorts of conveniences: television, beautiful parents, lots of toys to play with, automobiles, and so on. There are notices everywhere offering entertainment and telling us how to handle ourselves. Even while we are flying in an airplane, we have food to entertain us. The world has provided all kinds of entertainment to make us feel better, to make sure that we do not feel bad or lonely. When we board an airplane, the stewardess says, “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you have a comfortable flight. Call us if you need any help.” That is a theistic remark, and such remarks occur all the time.