The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Seven (20 page)

There are two basic understandings of symbolism: the theistic and the nontheistic. Theistic symbolism is a constant self-existing confirmation; that is, whenever symbolism exists, you exist and your world exists. In the case of a nontheistic symbolism such as Buddhism, you don’t exist, symbolism doesn’t exist, and the universe doesn’t exist. That’s quite shocking! “How do we go beyond that?” you might ask. But we don’t actually go beyond that. Instead of trying to go beyond it, we try to get into it.

The basic notion of nontheistic symbolism is that whatever exists in our life—our birth, our death, our sickness, our marriage, our business adventure, our educational adventure—is based on symbolism of some kind. This type of symbolism may not be the vivid visions you see by tuning your system in to a mystical state of mind, such as fantastic auras with symbols in the middle. In fact, from the point of view of nontheism, such perceptions are regarded as bullshit. Maybe you need more rest or another cup of coffee. We do not go along with any kind of highfalutin colorful adventures, cosmic explosions of color after color, or fantastic visions. Looking for magical messages, as opposed to a direct relationship, creates a barrier to understanding symbolism.

In the nontheistic discipline of Buddhism, we do not glorify
that
because we want to confirm
this
. Instead, we simply go along. We are not denying God, but we are simply trying to approach reality as simply as we could. A tortoise walks and carries a heavy shell; a cow walks along and grazes by itself in a green meadow, depositing its dung; pigeons make their own noises and live on the roof. Things have their own place. They don’t have to be commanded by the higher or the greater, particularly. Things are as they are, ordinary and simple. Seemingly, that is a very simple-minded approach, but actually it is extremely deep.

Symbolism usually comes as messages. It is a very simple eye-level relationship: me and my world. You could forget the sky, or the It, Him, or Her. That makes the whole thing extremely simple: there’s no Big Brother watching you. Symbols of all kinds occur throughout our life, and whether you believe it or not, the most penetrating and powerful symbol in our life is pain. Therefore, the symbolism of suffering is very important and realistic. Complaints occur
right here
—not up there or down below, but in the middle, where we are living, where we are actually experiencing our life on this particular earth. We are not underground, and we are not up in the air—even though people get fascinated that Tibetans can levitate. In fact, there was one eccentric old gentleman in England who wrote me and said that he wanted to start a laboratory of Tibetans levitating behind glass, but his plan didn’t come off.

Basic suffering is very powerful ground, and the basis of man’s attitude toward symbolism. The only immediate symbolism we can experience is pain. It is the direct message that we have been constantly involved in seeking pleasure of all kinds—and when the search for pleasure becomes our theme, that automatically provides a reference point to pain. We may feel relatively good, with nothing to complain about, particularly. But then we would like to entertain ourselves more. We go to the movies, but the movie is terrible, so we decide to go to a restaurant, but the food isn’t so good—or, for that matter, we go and see a great movie and have a fantastic meal in a restaurant!
All of that
is an expression of basic pain.

The existence in our mind of basic pain is extremely powerful and difficult to shake off. Basically, we feel captured by our life. We can’t get out of it; we are stuck with it. We don’t want to get into it—maybe it is too much for us. So we are stuck in the middle of it all the time. We may try to blame our pain on the past, but what we are experiencing is in the present, here and now. Even if our pain did develop in the past, it is impossible to change that. We are stuck with our regular thinking, our regular world as it is. We have to take what we are given. It’s our world, whether we like it or not. As they say, “America—love it or leave it.” That’s great symbolism. The American flag: you can’t take it, you can’t leave it, it’s always there.

Pain takes place all the time, and pleasure takes place all the time. The problem is that we really don’t want to relate with the actuality of things as they are. We don’t want to relate with that kind of symbolism, but it is always there. You have to share the meaning of symbolism personally, the pain and pleasure aspect of symbolism, definitely so. Otherwise, we cannot discuss the meaning of symbolism; we have nothing to talk about. That basic symbolism of pain and its hang-ups pervades our entire life. There is symbolism when you wake up, when you feel dirty and wish you could take a shower, when you take your shower and feel refreshed, when you feel hungry, when you eat your breakfast, bacon and eggs sunny-side up, toast and marmalade, quite possibly a waffle or pancakes, and when you are willing to face the world after a hearty breakfast and coffee. That is all symbolism. The idea of coffee, and in fact the word
coffee
, is very provocative. It is mantra.
Pancakes, eggs, bacon
. That is all extremely powerful, very poetic, although we don’t want to get into any trip about being a poet. Everything that goes on in our life is related with some kind of symbolism.

Our simple daily life could be involved with that kind of statement all the time, but we reject it as a purely mundane thing. We regard it as a terrible hassle and forget the whole thing. We drink our coffee and eat our bacon and eggs, just to get it over with. Then we go to the meditation hall and sit on a cushion and think maybe that will be a big thing for us. Somehow symbolism doesn’t work that way. The basic point of tantra is interest and awareness in every activity we are involved in throughout our life, at every moment.

There is always some kind of message taking place. What message? We don’t know. It’s up to you. There’s not going to be a fantastic dictionary or encyclopedia. This is simply a reminder that every activity you are doing—smoking cigarettes, chewing gum—has some kind of meaning behind it. The simple point is that the things you do shouldn’t be missed. You should experience what you do. (But don’t be heavy-handed, as if you were going to write a book about it. I don’t want to make this into a trip.)

At every moment, our every move usually has a thought-provoking quality. The universe is constantly trying to reach us to say something or teach something, but we are rejecting it all the time. In categorizing your experience as mundane and sacred, good and bad, significant and insignificant, you are rejecting symbolism, right and left, all the time. You are rejecting the whole thing. By fitting everything into categories and pigeonholes, you have nothing left in your life except your own pain. But this pain is not really productive pain, like the original basic pain we were talking about. Instead, you just rot yourself into a grain of sand. That is not really very romantic. It’s a terrible thing. Finally it is as if your ingrown toenail becomes monstrous and eats you up, not only your toe but your whole body and your expansive, energetic vision. Everything is disheveled.

The basic point is that we have very many possibilities of symbolism: every activity taking place is basic symbolism. I would like you actually to appreciate the world around you and begin to understand the facts and figures, the basic realities. There are a lot of things taking place. Symbolism doesn’t have to be poetic or spiritual or mystical; it is the ordinary truth that takes place in everyday life. Buddhist symbolism is both unique in its nontheistic approach and very ordinary. Altogether, it is simply our living situation—life and experience, life and experience—very simple and direct.

Empty Gap of Mind

In order to realize unconditional symbolism, we have to appreciate the empty gap of our state of mind and how we begin to project ourselves into that non-reference point
.

U
NLESS WE HAVE SOME
basic understanding of the foundations of Buddhist psychology, we have no way of understanding symbolism at all. So we are preparing our ground with integrity and at a slow pace. We do not want to present tantric symbolism California-style. Instead, we will go slowly, step by step.

Symbolism has to do with phenomenal experience, the various realms of phenomena that can be experienced through the five sense perceptions, particularly the very powerful auditory and visual perceptions. Phenomena as traditionally known are inspired purely by the five sense perceptions. We also try to piece phenomena together, to record and edit them in our mind, which in Buddhism is considered a sixth sense. For instance, if as a child we were slapped by a parent, that particular phenomenon is recorded in our mind; so the next time we are tempted to do the same thing, it is quite clear what will happen to us—we will be slapped again. That’s sort of an adolescent phenomenal experience in which a reference point, or relationship, takes place. There seem to be further phenomena as we grow up and go to school, and we are told all sorts of facts and figures and stories. We begin to build our phenomenal experience further, into possibilities of all kinds: how we relate with other children, exchange information back and forth, watch Sesame Street, or whatever it may be. In all these details, phenomenal experience is shared.

As we grow further, we begin to relate with philosophy and spirituality, whatever our particular approach may be. Our phenomenal experience becomes much more complicated, not that childhood phenomenal experience is all that simple. Some underlying unsaid communication takes place all the time, and the phenomenal world becomes extremely complicated and tiresome sometimes. Other times, we simply can’t live without it. We have to have phenomenal experiences of all kinds. If we don’t have enough ordinary phenomenal experiences, we go out and buy newspapers, watch television, go to the movies, or even take trips to foreign countries to see how other people live, which are superphenomena.

At the beginning, as we are growing up, the phenomenal world is simply based on survival and our need to communicate with our living situation. In order to ask our mother to cook an egg, soup, or cereal, we have to have some symbolism in mind: we think
soup, egg
, or
cereal
. At first we don’t actually say it properly, but we think it. We visualize it fully and completely. Then we utter the word
egg, soup
, or
cereal
. When we vomit out those words, our parents are very proud of us, because we are beginning to talk and to communicate. Perceiving symbolism—relating with any kind of symbolism in the world—is based on that growth of phenomenal experience. It projects outward personally at all levels: at the grownup, old-age, youngster, teenager, and infant levels, such phenomenal experiences take place constantly. We could classify those phenomenal experiences as symbolism, definitely, but it is relative symbolism rather than absolute symbolism.

It is important to realize that those little phenomenal experiences are produced by restlessness, by searching for further entertainment, by looking into and investigating our world. What is the world made out of? What is the world, anyway? We ask all kinds of questions of our parents, professors, friends, elders, uncles, aunts, psychiatrists. We are trying to sort out what this world is. We want so badly to find out what it is all about. Some people think they have some kind of clue, possibilities of that and this. But we are still depending on the possibility of finding
the answer
, and in that sense, we are all babies. This has nothing to do with chronological age. We simply do not have enough experience of symbolism or the realization of what symbolism means, so whether we are old or young, we are still like infants. That seems to be a problem—or maybe a promise.

In order to understand absolute symbolism, we first have to get squared with the relative phenomenal world, or relative symbolism. So try to understand this point. At this moment, how we view our world personally is not very difficult; but at the same time, it is extraordinarily difficult and complicated. We would like to have access to our particular world at this very moment, as though it were a gigantic baby bottle and we could take a sip. We want to be fed all the time, to suck rather than just sit. That is a crude way of putting it, but it is not meant to undermine your individual dignity. I respect your dignity and splendor, but let’s face it—everybody wants to be a big baby. Some of us are bold and hungry enough that we would like the whole bottle in our mouth, with a huge nipple. Some people are more polite and don’t want a big bottle, which would make them very self-conscious, so they have a little thin tube. Apart from political and social concerns, the whole thing boils down to the fact that we are big babies, quite lovable ones.

When you begin to understand relative symbolism, you realize that relative symbolism is like a nipple. You are fed constantly. If you are restless or uptight, you can suck violently; if you are angry, you could bite it. We are stuck with that big nipple, big bank of comfort, all the time. It is smothering. Relative symbolism is based on passion, which also means restlessness, demandingness, and aggression. We are fed with spiritual fluid, or temporary domestic fluid, in connection with our perceptions of the world and how we feel. And since the definition of dharma, according to the Buddhist tradition, is passionlessness, relative symbolism is not real dharma.

At this point, I would like to shift our attitude from being big babies and discuss absolute symbolism. I hope you are up to it. Absolute symbolism is not a dream world at all, but realistic. As far as linguistics is concerned,
absolute
means “needing no reference point.” Otherwise, absolute would become relative, because it would have a relationship with something else. So absolute is free from reference point. It is wholesome, complete by itself, self-existing.

The idea of absolute symbolism is also passionless and egoless. How come? Actually, as far as absolute is concerned, you don’t come but you go. It is a going process rather than a coming process, not a collector’s mentality, in which you store everything in your big bank with fat money behind it, or your big bottle. Absolute symbolism is egoless, because you have already abandoned your psychological reference point. That doesn’t mean you have abandoned your parents, or your body, or anything of that nature. So what is that reference point? It is a sense of reassurance that makes you feel better. It’s like when you are crying and your friends come along and hold you and say, “Don’t cry, everything’s going to be okay. There’s nothing to worry about. We’ll take care of you. Take a sip of milk. Let’s take a walk in the woods, have a drink together.” That type of psychological reference point is based on the idea of relative truth.