The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Seven (25 page)

Being and Projecting

In this practice, you go slowly through the threefold process of perception: the sense of being, the sense of doing, and the sense of linking together
.

I
N THE
B
UDDHIST TRADITION
, it is said that there are six psychological sense perceptions—seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and thinking—which operate on six corresponding types of sense objects. These are referred to as the twelve ayatanas. And according to Buddhist psychology, we go through a threefold process in connection with each of those sense perceptions. The first is a sense of existence. When you begin to listen or to look at something, you have a sense of being. This is just a general sense of being; nothing in particular is planned or conceptualized—simply a sense of being. Second, there is a flicker or snapping process, which flashes to the sense object. And third, there is communication between the two. Your flashing process and your sense of existence are brought together.

As a space awareness practice, we could work with our sense perceptions in that way, in a kind of slow-motion version of that. First you work with the sense of existence. You are standing and you are there. Feel that basic sense of being. Then, in order to prove that existence, you have to do something, to project out. Finally, you begin to feel some sort of play back and forth, as the projector and the projection relate together. So in this practice, you go slowly through the threefold process of perception: the sense of being, the sense of doing, and the sense of linking together.

In this exercise, we are trying to use some of the notions of Buddhist psychology in a practice. The whole process starts with an embryonic sense perception. Before you have actually seen the object or moved your body, there is the
potential
of using the sense organs. Then we use speech, hearing our own speech; visual perception; the movement of our body; and possibly we could smell the whole thing as well. The way in which we usually project ourselves is made into a sort of formula: you start with a sense of being, putting yourself into a situation, slowly dissolving the edge, and then executing whatever is there.

Obviously, the sense of being can’t be one solid thing. It moves constantly. It projects out and in, and it is very fickle. Nevertheless, there should be some attempt to relate to the overall situation, to a sense of the whole. It is like looking at a string of beads or an animal’s tail. When a lot of little beads are strung together, you have a mala; hundreds of small hairs put together become a tail. So there is a general sense of being, made out of lots of little things put together.

Lost Horizons

One day passes and another day comes along, and everything happens the same. But basically, we are so afraid of the brilliance coming at us, and the sharp experience of our life, that we can’t even focus our eyes
.

R
ELATIVE SYMBOLISM
is based on experiencing one’s world in a different fashion. This does not refer to some superspiritual-materialistic vision based on altered neurological perceptions. It simply means an experience that transcends the common phenomena of good and bad, promises and threats. This kind of visual perception is fundamental and basic, and it can only develop through training in the discipline of meditation. Without such training, without such taming of the mind, we either misjudge situations or are overpowered by them. We are unable to perceive things as they are in the fullest sense.

People struggle in all kinds of ways to realize and understand a higher level of vision. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of it in the work of great artists, such as William Blake or Shakespeare. We constantly try to reach higher and higher, as if we were dwarves. But we do not need to regard ourselves as dwarves. It is always possible for us to pick up on certain highlights and principles of absolute visual dharma. At first they may not be continuous experiences but occur to us in a haphazard and accidental way. So we might have a problem with that, as it is not quite in keeping with our speed and our desire to learn more.

There is also a lot of room. Because of that, when you actually do begin to perceive things in your own true way, you find that the perceptions you are experiencing can be extremely painful and irritating. It hurts a lot, like looking at the sun with our naked eyes. It is overly powerful. The
Tibetan Book of the Dead
talks about how we shy away from brilliant and penetrating visions, but when we see something subdued and pleasant, we are magnetized. It is quite possible we might go along with those inviting visions rather than the penetrating ones. But the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
also says that if you go along with the bright and penetrating visions, you might be saved; whereas if you are fascinated by the beautiful, fantastic, colorful visions, you might be trapped in the samsaric rebirth cycle again and again.

We have problems with the kind of visual perceptions that dominate our life. People are generally afraid to jump into a high-energy pool; they prefer to latch on to a moderate, toned-down, monotone energy. That seems to be much simpler and cheaper. What’s wrong with us, if I may say so, is that we are too cowardly. We might think we are extremely brave and able, that we can fight anyone who fights us, overcome them with logical debates and put our points across clearly. We might think we are completely well equipped, with all the defense mechanisms we need—and not only that, but all the offensive weapons as well. People do feel that way sometimes, but even that is an act of cowardice. We are so paranoid that we want to be prepared for any possible danger. We want to shield ourselves from the reality of fear. We would like to see something very gentle and colorful. But if we look very closely at our desire for something gentle and colorful, as opposed to the brightness, we find that basically we just want to get sick. We prefer to be nauseated rather than to be excited by the pool of energy. If we are sick, it is easy to say, “I’m sorry, but I have an upset stomach. I must lie down. Please forgive me. I can’t take part in your party.” We are so convincing. We are constantly looking for a way to chicken out.

We really don’t want to deal with the bright lights, the very precise, sharp, penetrating, cutting brilliance. Nobody would like to work with that; instead, there is hesitation. People often resort to devotion as a way of chickening out: “If I trust and worship what I have experienced, probably the brilliant radiation will not hurt me, but accept me.” Another possibility is to philosophize the whole thing: “Since my philosophical understanding is quite a friendly one, I might be saved and accepted in my vision of sharp, penetrating experience.” We could quite safely say that both of those are attempts to shield ourselves, because we are afraid of the bright, precise, penetrating realities of life. We don’t want to have anything to do with it, if possible.

Sometimes you feel embarrassed that you are put on the spot. You feel you must make some attempt to deal with it, or at least pay lip service to it, saying, “That’s a fantastic experience, so penetrating, so powerful. Okay, I’m going to do it!” Or we make a big deal out of it, “Here I am, naked! I’m just about to jump off the cliff! Pain or pleasure, I don’t care—here I come!” But when we are actually put on the spot, we can’t do it. Whether we are subtle or dramatic, it’s still just lip service. All of us without exception are cowards. We know the consequences, but we are not willing to leap. The penetrating experiences in our life are extremely powerful, unshakable, so true. That does not only apply to visual perception, but also to emotional experience: visual perception and emotional experience always go together.

Visual perception is the first gate, or entrance, through which we relate with our emotions. And when the object of our emotions is not literally visible, in front of our eyes, we psychologically imagine the visual perception, and we begin to feel the emotion. For example, when we love someone very dearly, painfully so, we frequently have visual perceptions of that person. That builds up to creating imaginary conversations. He speaks to you, you speak to him. You develop a feeling of physical contact, maybe eating in a restaurant together or driving around in the country. All those perceptions are connected to visual perception. Visual perception is the vanguard of all the other sense perceptions. The second level is auditory experience.

We are extraordinarily fertile and have immense potential, but at the same time, we don’t really want to commit ourselves. We prefer to lie back and nest in our neurosis and rest and rest, like an ingrown toenail. Sometimes we get bored and try to entertain ourselves. But we are so polite and childish, whether we go to the movies, eat in fine restaurants, have a few drinks with friends, or take a trip to Asia or Europe if we have money. We do all kinds of little things, but they are not
real
things. What we are doing is not quite what we should be doing. You might regard yourself as a blunt and direct person, but you’re still being too polite. You might vomit your neurosis right and left—shout and yell at people, fight and kill, make love—but you are still back to square one. We are such cowards. It’s so embarrassing that we can’t talk about it or even think about it. What’s the point of all these little secrets, these little games that we play? We seem to enjoy them. One day passes and another day comes along, and everything happens the same. But basically, we are so afraid of the brilliance coming at us, and the sharp experience of our life, that we can’t even focus our eyes.

We are afraid, and we don’t really want to relate with anything at all. We feel somewhat awkward. Sometimes we deal with our awkwardness very professionally, as in talking to the policeman who stops us on the highway. And sometimes we deal with it by acting like we were talking to our kids. But none of those little tactics work. Those imitation professional tactics don’t click. At that point, we don’t see anything, we don’t hear anything, we don’t speak. We are blind, deaf, and mute. This is the basic process we go through, and we should do something about it. It is very important to do something, because we are not completely paralyzed yet. There is still a lot of energy. We can actually begin to face reality as it is. I don’t see any problem with that.

The problem boils down to the fact that we do not really want to experience reality in the fullest sense at all. Instead, we always try to bring in a substitute reality. For instance, if we find that our child is not going along with our expectations, we say, “One day this child will come to his senses and come back to us.” If we have a lost lover, we say, “Sooner or later he will return to me and realize how I really feel about him.” Even with a lost pet, a lost dog or cat, we hope that it will return and recognize us. Those little gestures are somewhat pathetic and don’t make much sense. With LSD or any kind of drug experience, when the first trip is terrible, we would like to make the second trip better, so we take it again. “I was just on the verge of discovering something when I was on my fifth trip. Maybe I should take a sixth.” That approach perpetuates itself all the time, but it never catches the fish in the net. And in the world of art, we could take the same superficial approach, in which everything is very interesting and very beautiful and then the whole thing is over. The memory of what you have gone through does not even take part in your dreams. Everything is forgotten, a lost horizon.

Giving

Aggression acts like a big veil preventing us from seeing the precision of the functioning of absolute symbolism, as well as relative symbolism. And the only possible remedy, according to the traditional approach, is surrendering
.

A
PPROACHING SYMBOLISM
based on our desire constantly to learn more and more is questionable, because a lot of aggression is taking place there. Not in the sense of being angry, or losing your temper, but aggression as a fundamental obstacle. All the collections you have made, and continue to make, are questionable. When you get really angry, your eyes are bloodshot and you can’t see properly; you begin to stutter and you can’t speak properly. You become a mean vegetable. That kind of aggression is the greatest obstacle to perception and to perceiving symbolism. If you really see the city of Boulder, if you really see the mountains of Boulder or the skies of Boulder, there is no aggression. But I somewhat doubt that you have really seen it. This remark is not condescending, putting down your honorable existence. It is a reminder. Maybe you haven’t got anything together to experience what you should experience. That’s highly possible, because aggression is very powerful. When you project toward an object, you want to capture it, as a spider captures a fly, and suck its blood. You may feel refreshed, but that is a big problem. The definition of dharma art, as well as iconography, is the personal experience of nonaggression.

There is more to aggression than losing your temper and beating your husband or your wife or your kid or having a fight with your neighbors. All of that is simply a by-product of aggression. Actual aggression takes place in our minds, in our hearts. It makes our blood boil. It can make us so completely stupid and offended that we cannot even see. At that point, very strangely, you reach a kind of pseudo experience of egolessness. You become completely one with the aggression. When you really lose your temper, you don’t exist; only your aggression exists. You lose your reference point. That is what you are most afraid of. You are so outraged, you see red, your heart beats very fast, and you begin to hear this low-pitched sound. And you end up just a little bundle of a flea, red in color, a flea who would like to jump but can’t, a mean, bloodthirsty flea. You may think you’re big, but you’re just a flea.

Aggression creates a lot of obstacles to experiencing symbolism. When we talk about aggression, people get angry. They don’t want to hear any of it; they want nothing to do with it. “Tell me something peaceful, good. You’re supposed to calm my mind.” I’m afraid the truth of the matter is it doesn’t work that way. We have to explore what we have, and how deafness and blindness come about because of our personal aggression. When we are aggressive, we would like to find something out very badly. We would like to possess the truth, chew it, swallow it, and eat it up. That is a big problem. We demand truth as we would a piece of chocolate. But we are still angry and always want more. So we look for the next block of chocolate. We go on like that and never realize how many trips we lay on ourselves. That makes us deaf, dumb, and blind. Our perception of symbolism is completely blocked. That is a very terrifying, terrifying space.