Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness
by Chogyam Trungpa
Edited by Judith L. Lief
Shambhala, Boston & London, 1993
Introduction
In the mahayana tradition (1) we experience a sense of gentleness toward
ourselves, and a sense of friendliness to others begins to arise. That
friendliness or compassion is known in Tibetan as nyingje, which
literally means "noble heart." We are willing to commit ourselves to
working with all sentient beings. But before we actually launch into that
project, we first need a lot of training.
The obstacle to becoming a mahayanist is not having enough sympathy
for others and for oneself--that is the basic point. And that problem can
be dealt with by practical training, which is known as lojong practice,
"training the mind." That training gives us a path, a way to work with
our crude and literal and raw and rugged styles, a way to become good
mahayanists. Ignorant or stupid students of the mahayana sometimes think
that they have to glorify themselves; they want to become leaders or
guides. We have a technique or practice for overcoming that problem. That
practice is the development of humility, which is connected with training
the mind.
The basic mahayana vision is to work for the benefit of others and
create a situation that will benefit others. Therefore, you take the
attitude that you are willing to dedicate yourself to others. When you
take that attitude, you begin to realize that others are more important
than yourself. Because of that vision of mahayana, because you adopt that
attitude, and because you actually find that others are more important--
with all three of those together, you develop the mahayana practice of
training the mind.
Hinayana discipline is fundamentally one of taming the mind. By
working with the various forms of unmindfulness, we begin to become
thorough and precise, and our discpline becomes good. When we are
thoroughly tamed by the practice of shamatha discipline, or mindfulness
practice, as well as trained by vipashyana, or awareness, in how to hear
the teachings, we begin to develop a complete understanding of the
dharma. After that, we also begin to develop a complete understanding of
how, in our particular state of being tamed, we can relate with others.
In the mahayana we talk more in terms of training the mind. That is
the next step. The mind is already tamed, therefore it can be trained. In
other words, we have been able to domesticate our mind by practicing
hinayana discipline according to the principles of the buddhadharma.
Having domesticated our mind, then we can use it further. It's like the
story of capturing a wild cow in the old days. Having captured the cow,
having domesticated it, you find that the cow becomes completely willing
to relate with its tamers. In fact, the cow likes being domesticated. So
at this point the cow is part of our household. Once upon a time it
wasn't that way--I'm sure cows were wild and ferocious before we
domesticated them.
Training the mind is known as lojong in Tibetan: lo means
"intelligence," "mind," "that which can perceive things"; jong means
"training" or "processing." The teachings of lojong consist of several
steps or points of mahayana discipline. The basic discipline of mind
training or lojong is a sevenfold cleaning or processing of one's mind.
This book is based on the basic Kadampa text, The Root Text of the
Seven Points of Training the Mind, and on the commentary by Jamgon
Kongtrul. In Tibetan the commentary is called Changchup Shunglam. Shung
is the word used for "government" and also for "main body." So shung
means "main governing body." For instance, we could call the Tibetan
government po shung--po meaning "Tibet," shung meaning "government." The
government that is supposed to run a country is a wide administration
rather than a narrow administration: it takes care of the country, the
economics, politics, and domestic situations. Shung is actually the
working basis, the main working stream. Lam means "path." So shunglam is
a general highway, so to speak, a basic process of working toward
enlightenment. In other words, it is the mahayana approach. It is the
highway that everybody goes on, a wide way, extraordinarily wide and
extraordinarily open. Chanchup means "enlightenment," shung means "wide"
or "basic," and lam means "path." So the title of the commentary is The
Basic Path Toward Enlightenment.
The main text is based on Atisha's teachings on lojong and comes
from the Kadam school of Tibetan Buddhism, which developed around the
time of Marpa and Milarepa, when Tibetan monasticism had begun to take
place and become deep-rooted. The Kagyupas received these instructions on
the proper practice of mahayana Buddhism through Gampopa, who studied
with Milarepa as well as with Kadam teachers. There is what is known as
the contemplative Kadam school and the intellectual Kadam school. What we
are doing here is related to the Kadam school's contemplative tradition.
The Gelukpas specialized in dialectics and took a more philosophical
approach to understanding the Kadam tradition.
The word kadam has an interesting meaning for us. Ka means
"command," as when a general gives a pep talk to his or her troops or a
king gives a command to his ministers. Or we could say "Logos," or
"word," as in the Christian tradition: "In the beginning was the Word."
That kind of Word is a fundamental sacred command, the first that was
uttered at all! In this case, ka refers to a sense of absolute truth and
a sense of practicality or workability from the individual's point of
view. Dam is "oral teaching," "personal teaching," that is, a manual on
how to handle our life properly. So ka and dam mixed together means that
all the ka, all the commands or messages, are regarded as practical and
workable oral teachings. They are regarded as a practical working basis
for students who are involved with contemplative disciplines. That is the
basic meaning of kadam.
The few lists presented here are very simple ones, nothing
particularly philosophical. It is purely what one of the great Kagyu
teachers regarded as a "grandmother's fingerpoint." When a grandmother
says, "This is the place where I used to go and pick corn, collect wild
vegetables," she usually uses her finger rather than writing on paper or
using a map. So it is a grandmother's approach at this point.
In my own case, having studied philosophy a lot, the first time
Jamgon Kongtrul suggested that I read and study this book, Changchup
Shunglam, I was relieved that Buddhism was so simple and that you could
actually do something about it. You can actually practice. You can just
follow the book and do as it says, which is extraordinarily powerful and
such a relief. And that sense of simplicity still continues. It is so
precious and so direct. I do not know what kind of words to use to
describe it. It is somewhat rugged, but at the same time it is so
soothing to read such writing. That is one of the characteristics of
Jamgon Kongtrul--he can change his tone completely, as if he were a
different author altogether. Whenever he writes on a particular subject,
he changes his approach accordingly, and his basic awareness to relate
with the audience becomes entirely different.
Jamgon Kongtrul's commentary on the Kadampa slogans is one of the
best books I studied in the early stages of my monastic kick. I was going
to become a simple little monk. I was going to study these things and
become a good little Buddhist and a contemplative-type person. Such a
thread still holds throughout my life. In spite of complications in my
life and organizational problems, I still feel that I am basically a
simple, romantic Buddhist who has immense feeling toward the teachers and
the teaching.
What has been said is a drop of golden liquid. Each time you read
such a book it confirms again and again that there is something about it
which makes everythin very simple and direct. That makes me immensely
happy. I sleep well, too. There is a hard-edged quality of cutting down
preconceptions and other ego battles that might be involved in presenting
the teaching. But at the same time there is always a soft spot of
devotion and simplicity in mahayana Buddhism which you can never forget.
That is very important. I am not particularly trying to be dramatic. If
it comes through that way, it's too bad. But I really do feel
extraordinarily positive about Jamgon Kongtrul and his approach to this
teaching.
Point One
The Preliminaries, Which Are a Basis for Dharma Practice
1 First, train in the preliminaries.
In practicing the slogans and in your daily life, you should maintain an
awareness of [1] the preciousness of human life and the particular good
fortune of life in an environment in which you can hear the teachings of
buddhadharma; [2] the reality of death, that it comes suddenly and
without warning; [3] the entrapment of karma--that whatever you do,
whether virtuous or not, only further entraps you in the chain of cause
and effect; and [4] the intensity and inevitability of suffering for
yourself and for all sentient beings. This is called "taking an attitude
of the four reminders."
With that attitude as a base, you should call upon your guru with
devotion, inviting into yourself the atmosphere of sanity inspired by his
or her example, and vowing to cut the roots of further ignorance and
suffering. This ties in very closely with the notion of maitri, or
loving-kindness. In the traditional analogy of one's spiritual path, the
only pure loving object seems to be somebody who can show you the path.
You could have a loving relationship with your parents, relatives, and so
forth, but there are still problems with that: your neurosis goes along
with it. A pure love affair can only take place with one's teacher. So
that ideal sympathetic object is used as a starting point, a way of
developing a relationship beyond your own neurosis. Particularly in the
mahayana, you relate to the teacher as someone who cheers you up from
depression and brings you down from excitement, a kind of moderator
principle. The teacher is regarded as important from that point of view.
This slogan establishes the contrast between samsara--the epitome of
pain, imprisonment, and insanity--and the root guru--the embodiment of
openness, freedom, and sanity--as the fundamental basis for all practice.
As such, it is heavily influenced by the vajrayana tradition.
Point Two
The Main Practice, Which is Training in Bodhichitta
Ultimate and Relative Bodhichitta
Ultimate Bodhichitta and the Paramita of Generosity
The ultimate or absolute bodhichitta principle is based on developing the
paramita of generosity, which is symbolized by a wish-fulfilling jewel.
The Tibetan word for generosity, jinpa, means "giving," "opening," or
"parting." So the notion of generosity means not holding back but giving
constantly. Generosity is self-existing openness, complete openness. You
are no longer subject to cultivating your own scheme or project. And the
best way to open yourself up is to make friends with yourself and with
others.
Traditionally, there are three types of generosity. The first one is
ordinary generosity, giving material goods or providing comfortable
situations for others. The second one is the gift of fearlessness. You
reassure others and teach them that they don't have to feel completely
tormented and freaked out about their existence. You help them to see
that there is basic goodness and spiritual practice, that there is a way
for them to sustain their lives. That is the gift of fearlessness. The
third type of generosity is the gift of dharma. You show others that
there is a path that consists of discipline, meditation, and intellect or
knowledge. Through all three types of generosity, you can open up other
people's minds. In that way their closedness, wretchedness, and small
thinking can be turned into a larger vision.
That is the basic vision of mahayana altogether: to let people think
bigger, think greater. We can afford to open ourselves and join the rest
of the world with a sense of tremendous generosity, tremendous goodness,
and tremendous richness. The more we give, the more we gain--although
what we might gain should not be our reason for giving. Rather, the more
we give, the more we are inspired to give constantly. And the gaining
process happens naturally, automatically, always.
The opposite of generosity is stinginess, holding back--having a
poverty mentality, basically speaking. The basic principle of the
ultimate bodhichitta slogans is to rest in the eighth consciousness, or
alaya, and not follow our discursive thoughts. Alaya is a Sanskrit word
meaning "basis," or sometimes "abode" or "home," as in Himalaya, "abode
of snow." So it has that idea of a vast range. It is the fundamental
state of consciousness, before it is divided into "I" and "other," or
into the various emotions. It is the basic ground where things are
processed, where things exist. In order to rest in the nature of alaya,
you need to go beyond your poverty attitude and realize that your alaya
is as good as anyone else's alaya. You have a sense of richness and self-
sufficiency. You can do it, and you can afford to give out as well. And
the ultimate bodhichitta slogans [slogans 2-6] are the basic points of
reference through which we are going to familiarize ourselves with
ultimate bodhichitta.
Ultimate bodhichitta is similar to the absolute shunyata principle.
And whenever there is the absolute shunyata principle, we have to have a
basic understanding of absolute compassion at the same time. Shunyata
literally means "openness" or "emptiness." Shunyata is basically
understanding nonexistence. When you begin realizing nonexistence, then
you can afford to be more compassionate, more giving. A problem is that
usually we would like to hold on to our territory and fixate on that
particular ground. Once we begin to fixate on that ground, we have no way
to give. Understanding shunyata means that we begin to realize that there
is no ground to get, that we are ultimately free, nonaggressive, open. We
realize that we are actually nonexistent ourselves. We are not--no,
rather. (1) Then we can give. We have lots to gain and nothing to lose at
that point. It is very basic.
Compassion is based on some sense of "soft spot" in us. It is as if
we had a pimple on our body that was very sore--so sore that we do not
want to rub it or scratch it. During our shower we do not want to rub too
much soap over it because it hurts. There is a sore point or soft spot
which happens to be painful to rub, painful to put hot or cold water
over.
That sore spot on our body is an analogy for compassion. Why?
Because even in the midst of immense aggression, insensitivity in our
life, or laziness, we always have a soft spot, some point we can
cultivate--or at least not bruise. Every human being has that kind of
basic sore spot, including animals. Whether we are crazy, dull,
aggressive, ego-tripping, whatever we might be, there is still that sore
spot taking place in us. An open wound, which might be a more vivid
analogy, is always there. That open wound is usually very inconvenient
and problematic. We don't like it. We would like to be tough. We would
like to fight, to come out strong, so we do not have to defend any aspect
of ourselves. We would like to attack our enemy on the spot, single-
handedly. We would like to lay our trips on everybody completely and
properly, so that we have nothing to hide. That way, if somebody decides
to hit us back, we are not wounded. And hopefully, nobody will hit us on
that sore spot, that wound that exists in us. Our basic makeup, the basic
constituents of our mind, are based on passion and compassion at the same
time. But however confused we might be, however much of a cosmic monster
we might be, still there is an open wound or sore spot in us always.
There always will be a sore spot.
Sometimes people translate that sore spot or open wound as
"religious conviction" or "mystical experience." But let us give that up.
It has nothing to do with Buddhism, nothing to do with Christianity, and
moreover, nothing to do with anything else at all. It is just an open
wound, a very simple open wound. That is very nice--at least we are
accessible somewhere. We are not completely covered with a suit of armor
all the time. We have a sore spot somewhere. Such a relief! Thank earth!
Because of that particular sore spot, even if we are a cosmic
monster--Mussolini, Mao Tse-tung, or Hitler--we can still fall in love.
We can still appreciate beauty, art, poetry, or music. The rest of us
could be covered with iron cast shields, but some sore spot always exists
in us, which is fantastic. That sore spot is known as embryonic
compassion, potential compassion. At least we have some kind of gap, some
discrepancy in our state of being which allows basic sanity to shine
through.
Our level of sanity could be very primitive. Our sore spot could be
just purely the love of tortillas or the love of curries. But that's good
enough. We have some kind of opening. It doesn't matter what it is love
of as long as there is a sore spot, an open wound. That's good. That is
where all the germs could get in and begin to impregnate and take
possession of us and influence our system. And that is precisely how the
compassionate attitude supposedly takes place.
Not only that, but there is also an inner wound, which is called
tathagatagarbha, or buddha nature. Tathagatagarbha is like a heart that
is sliced and bruised by wisdom and compassion. When the external wound
and the internal wound begin to meet and communicate, then we begin to
realize that our whole being is made out of one complete sore spot
altogether, which is called "bodhisattva fever." That vulnerability is
compassion. We really have no way to defend ourselves anymore at all. A
gigantic cosmic wound is all over the place--an inward wound and an
external wound at the same time. Both are sensitive to cold air, hot air,
and little disturbances of atmosphere which begin to affect us both
inwardly and outwardly. It is the living flame of love, if you would like
to call it that. But we should be very careful what we say about love.
What is love? Do we know love? It is a vague word. In this case we are
not even calling it love. Nobody before puberty would have any sense of
sexuality or of love affairs. Likewise, since we haven't broken through
to understand what our soft spot is all about, we cannot talk about love,
we can only talk about passion. It sounds fantastic, but it actually
doesn't say as much as love, which is very heavy. Compassion is a kind of
passion, com-passion, which is easy to work with.
There is a slit in our skin, a wound. It's very harsh treatment, in
some sense; but on the other hand, it's very gentle. The intention is
gentle, but the practice is very harsh. By combining the intention and
the practice, you ae being "harshed," and also you are being "gentled,"
so to speak--both together. That makes you into a bodhisattva. You have
to go through that kind of process. You have to jump into the blender. It
is necessary for you to do that. Just jump into the blender and work with
it. Then you will begin to feel that you are swimming in the blender. You
might even enjoy it a little bit, after you have been processed. So an
actual understanding of ultimate bodhichitta only comes from compassion.
In other words, a purely logical, professional, or scientific conclusion
doesn't bring you to that. The five ultimate bodhichitta slogans are
steps toward a compassionate approach.
A lot of you seemingly, very shockingly, are not particularly
compassionate. You are not saving your grandma from drowning and you are
not saving your pet dog from getting killed. Therefore, we have to go
through this subject of compassion. Compassion is a very, very large
subject, an extraordinarily large subject, which includes how to be
compassionate. And actually, ultimate bodhichitta is preparation for
relative bodhichitta. Before we cultivate compassion, we first need to
understand how to be properly. How to love your grandma or how to love
your flea or your mosquito--that comes later. The relative aspect of
compassion comes much later. If we do not have an understanding of
ultimate bodhichitta, then we do not have any understanding of the actual
working basis of being compassionate and kind to somebody. We might just
join the Red Cross and make nuisances of ourselves and create further
garhage.
According to the mahayana tradition, we are told that we can
actually arouse twofold bodhichitta: relative bodhichitta and ultimate
bodhichitta. We could arouse both of them. Then, having aroused
bodhichitta, we can continue further and and practice according to the
bodhisattva's example. We can be active bodhisattvas.
In order to arouse absolute or ultimate bodhichitta, we have to join
shamatha and vipashyana together. Having developed the basic precision of
shamatha and the total awareness of vipashyana, we put them together so
that they cover the whole of our existence--our behavior patterns and our
daily life--everything. In that way, in both meditation and
postmeditation practice, mindfulness and awareness are happening
simultaneously, all the time. Whether we are sleeping or awake, eating or
wandering, precision and awareness are taking place all the time. That is
quite a delightful experience.
Beyond that delight, we also tend to develop a sense of friendliness
to everything. The early level of irritation and aggression has been
processed through, so to speak, by mindfulness and awareness. There is
instead a notion of basic goodness, which is described in the Kadam texts
as the natural virtue of alaya. This is an important point for us to
understand. Alaya is the fundamental state of existence, or
consciousness, before it is divided into "I" and "other," or into the
various emotions. It is the basic ground where things are processed,
where things exist. And its basic state, or natural style, is goodness.
It is very benevolent. There is a basic state of existence that is
fundamentally good and that we can rely on. There is room to relax, room
to open ourselves up. We can make friends with ourselves and with others.
That is fundamental virtue or basic goodness, and it is the basis of the
possibility of absolute bodhichitta.
Once we have been inspired by the precision of shamatha and the
wakefulness of vipashyana, we find that there is room, which gives us the
possibility of total naivete, in the positive sense. The Tibetan for
naivete is pak-yang, which means "carefree" or "let loose." We can be
carefree with our basic goodness. We do not have to scrutinize or
investigate wholeheartedly to make sure that there are no mosquitoes or
eggs inside our alaya. The basic goodness of alaya can be cultivated and
connected with quite naturally, in a pak-yang way. We can develop a sense
of relaxation and release from torment--from this-and-that altogether.
Relative Bodhichitta and the Paramita of Discipline
That brings us to the next stage. Again, instead of remaining at a
theoretical, conceptual level alone, we return to the most practical
level. In the mahayana our main concern is how to awaken ourselves. We
begin to realize that we are not as dangerous as we had thought. We
develop some notion of kindness, or maitri, and having developed maitri
we begin to switch into karuna, or compassion.
The development of relative bodhichitta is connected with the
paramita of discipline. It has been said that if you don't have
discipline, it is like trying to walk without any legs. You cannot attain
liberation without discipline. Discipline in Tibetan is tsultrim: tsul
means "proper," and trim means "discipline" or "obeying the rules,"
literally speaking. So trim could be translated as "rule" or "justice."
The basic notion of tsultrim goes beyond giving alone; it means having
good conduct. It also means having some sense of passionlessness and
nonterritoriality. All of that is very much connected with relative
bodhichitta.
Relative bodhichitta comes from the simple and basic experience of
realizing that you could have a tender heart in any situation. Even the
most vicious animals have a tender heart in taking care of their young,
or for that matter, in taking care of themselves. From our basic training
in shamatha-vipashyana, we begin to realize our basic goodness and to
let go with that. We begin to rest in the nature of alaya--not caring and
being very naive and ordinary, casual, in some sense. When we let
ourselves go, we begin to have a feeling of good existence in ourselves.
That could be regarded as the very ordinary and trivial concept of having
a good time. Nonetheless, when we have good intentions toward ourselves,
it is not because we are trying to achieve anything--we are just trying
to be ourselves. As they say, we could come as we are. At that point we
have a natural sense that we can afford to give ourselves freedom. We can
afford to relax. We can afford to treat ourselves better, trust ourselves
more, and let ourselves feel good. The basic goodness of alaya is always
there. It is that sense of healthiness and cheerfulness and naivete that
brings us to the realization of relative bodhichitta.
Relative bodhichitta is related with how we start to learn to love
each other and ourselves. That seems to be the basic point. It's very
difficult for us to learn to love. It would be possible for us to love if
an object of fascination were presented to us or if there were some kind
of dream or promise presented. Maybe then we could learn to love. But it
is very hard for us to learn to love if it means purely giving love
without expecting anything in return. It is very difficult to do that.
When we decide to love somebody, we usually expect that person to fulfill
our desires and conform to our hero worship. If our expectations can be
fulfilled, we can fall in love, ideally. So in most of our love affairs,
what usually happens is that our love is absolutely conditional. It is
more of a business deal than actual love. We have no idea how to
communicate a sense of warmth. When we do begin to communicate a sense of
warmth to somebody, it makes us very uptight. And when the object of our
love tries to cheer us up, it becomes an insult.
This is a very aggression-oriented approach. In the mahayana,
particularly in the contemplative tradition, love and affection are
largely based on free love, open love which does not ask anything in
return. It is a mutual dance. Even if during the dance you step on each
other's toes, it is not regarded as problematic or an insult. We do not
have to get on our high horse or be touchy about that. To learn to love,
to learn to open, is one of the hardest things for all of us. Yet we are
conditioned by passion all the time. Since we are in the human realm, our
main focus or characteristic is passion and lust, all the time. So what
the mahayana teachings are based on is the idea of communication,
openness, and being without expectations.
When we begin to realize that the nature of phenomena is free from
concept, empty by itself, that the chairs and tables and rugs and
curtains are no longer in the way, then we can expand our notion of love
infinitely. There is nothing in the way. The very purpose of discussing
the nature of shunyata is to provide us that emptiness, so that we could
fill the whole of space with a sense of affection--love without
expectation, without demand, without possession. That is one of the most
powerful things that the mahayana has to contribute.
In contrast, hinayana practitioners are very keen on the path of
individual salvation, not causing harm to others. They are reasonable and
good-thinking and very polite people. But how can you be really polite
and keep smiling twenty-four hours a day on the basis of individual
salvation alone, without doing anything for others? You are doing
everything for yourself all the time, even if you are being kind and nice
and polite. That's very hard to do. At the mahayana level, the sense of
affection and love has a lot of room--immense room, openness, and daring.
There is no time to come out clean, particularly, as long as you generate
affection.
The relationship between a mother and child is the foremost analogy
used in developing relative bodhichitta practice. According to the
medieval Indian and Tibetan traditions, the traditional way of
cultivating relative bodhichitta is to choose your mother as the first
example of someone you feel soft toward. Traditionally, you feel warm and
kind toward your mother. In modern society, there might be a problem with
that. However, you could go back to the medieval idea of the mother
principle. You could appreciate her way of sacrificing her own comfort
for you. You could remember how she used to wake up in the middle of the
night if you cried, how she used to feed you and change your diapers, and
all the rest of it. You could remember how you acted as the ruler of your
little household, how your mother became your slave. Whenever you cried,
she would jump up whether she liked it or not in order to see what was
going on with you. Your mother actually did that. And when you were
older, she was very concerned about your security and your education and
so forth. So in order to welcome relative bodhichitta, relative wakeful
gentleness, we use our mother as an example, as our pilot light, so to
speak. We think about her and how much she sacrificed for us. Her
kindness is the perfect example of making others more important than
yourself.
Reflecting on your own mother is the preliminary to relative
bodhichitta practice. You should regard that as your starting point. You
might be a completely angry person and have a grudge against the entire
universe. You might be a completely frustrated person. But you could
still reflect back on your childhood and think of how nice your mother
was to you. You could think of that, in spite of your aggression and your
resentment. You could remember that there was a time when somebody
sacrificed her life for your life, and brought you up to be the person
you are now.
The idea of relative bodhichitta in this case is very primitive, in
some sense. On the other hand, it is also very enlightening, as
bodhichitta should be. Although you might be a completely angry person,
you cannot say that in your entire life nobody helped you. Somebody has
been kind to you and sacrificed himself or herself for you. Otherwise, if
somebody hadn't brought you up, you wouldn't be here as an adult. You
could realize that it wasn't just out of obligation but out of her
genuineness that your mother brought you up and took care of you when you
were helpless. And because of that you are here. That kind of compassion
is very literal and very straightforward.
With that understanding, we can begin to extend our sense of
nonaggression and nonfrustration and nonanger and nonresentment beyond
simply appreciating our mother. This is connected with the paramita of
discipline, which is free from passion and has to do with giving in.
Traditionally, we use our mother as an example, and then we extend beyond
that to our friends and to other people generally. Finally, we even try
to feel better toward our enemies, toward people we don't like. So we try
to extend that sense of gentleness, softness, and gratitude. We are not
particularly talking about the Christian concept of charity, we are
talking about how to make ourselves soft and reasonable. We are talking
about how we can experience a sense of gratitude toward anybody at all,
starting with our mother and going beyond that to include our father as
well--and so forth until we include the rest of the world. So in the end
we can begin to feel sympathy even toward our bedbugs and mosquitoes.
The starting point of relative bodhichitta practice is realizing
that others could actually be more important than ourselves. Other people
might provide us with constant problems, but we could still be kind to
them. According to the logic of relative bodhichitta, we should feel that
we are less important abd others are more important--any others are more
important! Doing so, we begin to feel as though a tremendous burden has
been taken off our shoulders. Finally, we realize that there is room to
give love and affection elsewhere, to more than just this thing called
"me" all the time. "I am this, I am that, I am hungry, I am tired, I am
blah-blah-blah." We could consider others. From that point of view, the
relative bodhichitta principle is quite simple and ordinary. We could
take care of others. We could actually be patient enough to develop
selfless service to others. And the relative bodhichitta slogans [slogans
7-10] are directions as to how to develop relative bodhichitta in a very
simple manner, a grandmother's approach to reality, so to speak.
Ultimate Bodhichitta Slogans
2 Regard all dharmas as dreams.
This slogan is an expression of compassion and openness. It means that
whatever you experience in your life--pain, pleasure, happiness, sadness,
grossness, refinement, sophistication, crudeness, heat, cold, or
whatever--is purely memory. The actual discipline or practice of the
bodhisattva tradition is to regard whatever occurs as a phantom. Nothing
ever happens. But because nothing happens, everything happens. But in
this case, although everything is just a thought in your mind, a lot of
underlying percolation takes place. That "nothing happening" is the
experience of openness, and that percolation is the experience of
compassion.
You can experience that dreamlike quality by relating with sitting
meditation practice. When you are reflecting on your breath, suddenly
discursive thoughts begin to arise: you begin to see things, to hear
things, and to feel things. But all those perceptions are none other than
your own mental creation. In the same way, you can see that your hate for
your enemy, your love for your friends, and your attitudes toward money,
food, and wealth are all a part of discursive thought.
Regarding things as dreams does not mean that you become fuzzy and
woolly, that everything has an edge of sleepiness about it. You might
actually have a good dream, vivid and graphic. Regarding dharmas as
dreams means that although you might think that things are very solid,
the way you perceive them is soft and dreamlike. For instance, if you
have participated in group meditation practice, your memory of your
meditation cushion and the person who sat in front of you is very vivid,
as is your memory of your food and the sound of the gong and the bed
that you sleep in. But none of those situations is regarded as completely
invincible and solid and tough. Everything is shifty.
Things have a dreamlike quality. But at the same time the production
of your mind is quite vivid. If you didn't have a mind, you wouldn't be
able to perceive anything at all. Because you have a mind, you perceive
things. Therefore, what you perceive is a product of your mind, using
your sense organs as channels for the sense perceptions.
3 Examine the nature of unborn awareness.
Look at your basic mind, just simple awareness which is not divided into
sections, the thinking process that exists within you. Just look at that,
see that. Examining does not mean analyzing. It is just viewing things as
they are, in the ordinary sense.
The reason our mind is known as unborn awareness is that we have no
idea of its history. We have no idea where this mind, our crazy mind,
began in the beginning. It has no shape, no color, no particular portrait
or characteristics. It usually flickers on and off, off and on, all the
time. Sometimes it is hibernating, sometimes it is all over the place.
Look at your mind. That is a part of ultimate bodhichitta training or
discipline. Our mind fluctuates constantly, back and forth, forth and
back. Look at that, just look at that!
You could get caught up in the fascination of regarding all dharmas
as dreams and perpetuate unnecessary visions and fantasies of all kinds.
Therefore it is very important to get to this next slogan, "Examine the
nature of unborn awareness." When you look beyond the perceptual level
alone, when you look at your own mind (which you cannot actually do, but
you pretend to do), you find that there is nothing there. You begin to
realize that there is nothing to hold on to. Mind is unborn. But at the
same time, it is awareness, because you still perceive things. Therefore,
you should contemplate that by seeing who is actually perceiving dharmas
as dreams.
If you look further and further, at your mind's root, its base, you
will find that it has no color and no shape. Your mind is, basically
speaking, somewhat blank. There is nothing to it. We are beginning to
cultivate a kind of shunyata possibility; although in this case that
possibility is quite primitive, in the sense of simplicity and
workability. When we look at the root, when we try to find out why we see
things, why we hear sounds, why we feel, and why we smell--if we look
beyond that and beyond that--we find a kind of blankness.
That blankness is connected with mindfulness. To begin with, you are
mindful of some thing: you are mindful of yourself, you are mindful of
your atmosphere, and you are mindful of your breath. But if you look at
why you are mindful, beyond what you are mindful of, you begin to find
that there is no root. Everything begins to dissolve. That is the idea of
examining the nature of unborn awareness.
4 Self-liberate even the antidote.
Looking at our basic mind, we begin to develop a twist of logic. We say,
"Well, if nothing has any root, why bother? What's the point of doing
this at all? Why don't we just believe that there's no root behind the
whole thing?" At that point the next slogan, "Self-liberate even the
antidote," is very helpful. The antidote is the realization that our
discursive thoughts have no origin. That realization helps a lot; it
becomes an antidote or a helpful suggestion. But we need to go beyond
that antidote. We should not hang on to the so-whatness of it, the
naivete of it.
The idea of [that] antidote is that everything is empty, so that you
have nothing to care about. You have an occasional glimpse in your mind
that nothing is existent. And because of the nature of that shunyata
experience, whether anything great or small comes up, nothing really
matters very much. It is like a backslapping joke in which everything is
going to be hoo-ha, yuk-yuk-yuk. Nothing is going to matter very much, so
let it go. All is shunyata, so who cares? You can murder, you can
meditate, you can perform art, you can do all kinds of things--everything
is meditation, whatever you do. But there is something very tricky about
the whole approach. That dwelling on emptiness is a misinterpretation,
called the "poison of shunyata."
Some people say that they do not have to sit and meditate, because
they have always "understood." But that is very tricky. I have been
trying very hard to fight such people. I never trust them at all--unless
they actually sit and practice. You cannot split hairs by saying that you
might be fishing in a Rocky Mountain spring and still meditating away;
you might be driving your Porsche and meditating away; you might be
washing dishes (which is more legitimate in some sense) and meditating
away. That may be a genuine way of doing things, but it still feels very
suspicious.
Antidotes are any notion that we can do what we want and that as
long as we are meditative, everything is going to be fine. The text says
to self-liberate even the antidote, the seeming antidote. We may regard
going to the movies every minute, every day, every evening as our
meditation, or watching television, or grooming our horse, feeding our
dog, taking a long walk in the woods. There are endless possibilities
like that in the Occidental tradition, or for that matter in the theistic
tradition.
The theistic tradition talks about meditation and contemplation as a
fantastic thing to do. The popular notion of God is that he created the
world: the woods were made by God, the castle ruins were created by God,
and the ocean was made by God. So we could swim and meditate or we could
lie on the beach made by God and have a fantastic time. Such theistic
nature worship has become a problem. We have so many holiday makers,
nature worshipers, so many hunters.
In Scotland, at the Samye Ling meditation center, where I was
teaching, there was a very friendly neighbor from Birmingham, an
industrial town, who always came up there on weekends to have a nice
time. Occasionally he would drop into our meditation hall and sit with
us, and he would say, "Well, it's nice you people are meditating, but I
feel much better if I walk out in the woods with my gun and shoot
animals. I feel very meditative walking through the woods and listening
to the sharp, subtle sounds of animals jumping forth, and I can shoot at
them. I feel I am doing something worthwhile at the same time. I can
bring back venison, cook it, and feed my family. I feel good about that."
The whole point of this slogan is that antidotes of any kind, or for
that matter occupational therapies of any kind, are not regarded as
appropriate things to do. We are not particularly seeking enlightenment
or the simple experience of tranquility--we are trying to get over our
deception.
Notes
Introduction
1. Hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana refer to the three stages of an
individual's practice according to Tibetan Buddhism, not to the different
schools of Buddhist practice.
Point Two
1. The word not is a conditional one, as it is usually linked with an
object--not this or not that; the word no is unconditional: simply, No!
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AUTHOR: Chogyam Trungpa
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