Read Online The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two by Chogyam Trungpa, Chögyam Trungpa - Free Book Online
Authors: Chogyam Trungpa, Chögyam Trungpa
Tags: Tibetan Buddhism
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you are, how badly you behave—how fucked up you are, basically. This is the trick that is played on you by some forms of traditional spirituality.
People in certain evangelical traditions, who are particularly interested in converting people to their faith, make use of this trick to make their teachings seem more glorious. They are unable to raise their doctrines or teachings any higher or make them any deeper or more direct and personal, so instead of raising the level of consciousness or of the doctrinal or meditative understanding of their teaching, they choose to lower the other area—that of the people they are dealing with. They reduce them lower and lower—to the level of sewage. Through doing that, their own level automatically seems to become higher, more impressive.
So they play on your guilt and your weakness and whatever emotional fuckedupedness exists in you. They tell you that if you keep going the way you are, you are going to get worse, you are already worse, you could get even worse than that, and eventually you will be no more than a turd if you don’t pull yourself together.
That is the kind of trick that has been played on people—which is by no means meditative or connected with spiritual practice in any way. It is a kind of spiritual-materialistic way of inspiring someone to embark on the spiritual path: to reduce them to nothing.
The approach of meditation is the opposite of that. In that approach, we give people a chance at least. At least we provide some kind of a handle or stepping-stone. There is a working base, there are possibilities, there is inspiration. There is something happening within one’s state of being, which is meditation practice.
Nevertheless, the approach of meditation is not all that easy. You’ve got to do it yourself. The teachers and the teachings can only show you how to do it, that’s the closest we can come. But then you have to do it yourself. You can’t expect complete hospitality. Your car can only go as far as the garage; it can’t drive you into the bedroom. Once your car has stopped in the garage, you have to walk to the bedroom; you have to take off your clothes, you have to get in bed. A certain effort is involved. No matter how tired and how helpless you are, the hospitality offered by your transportation doesn’t carry you beyond that. Unless you fall asleep in your car, which often happens, both metaphorically and in actual fact.
So students are given as much assistance as possible, which consists in showing them the path. Showing the path in a down-to-earth, practical way is traditionally known as “grandmother’s finger-pointing.” The grandmother is old and wise and knows how to handle the details of life, and she points with her finger and tells you to do this and this and this. “Grandmother’s finger-pointing” is a particular term of the Kagyü tradition of Buddhism in Tibet. Showing you how to do it in this way is the closest we can get to helping you along the path.
But there is a need for some acknowledgment and some willingness on the part of the student. You have to be willing to follow the grandmother’s finger-pointing. If that is the case, then the next question is quite obviously, what are we going to do? The answer is, practice meditation.
There are two types of meditation practice. One is called shamatha , which means “development of peace.” The other is called vipashayana , which means “development of insight.” We discussed that in basic out-line in the last talk. We cannot develop complete vipashyana unless we have some background as to what shamatha is all about. In terms of the metaphor of the tree we used earlier, shamatha is not cutting the branches or leaves of the tree. That comes much later. Before we do that, we have to acknowledge the basic tree ness —the branchness, the leafness—how the whole setup is seen and experienced. That is an important prerequisite for vipashyana. We can’t skip that
People in certain evangelical traditions, who are particularly interested in converting people to their faith, make use of this trick to make their teachings seem more glorious. They are unable to raise their doctrines or teachings any higher or make them any deeper or more direct and personal, so instead of raising the level of consciousness or of the doctrinal or meditative understanding of their teaching, they choose to lower the other area—that of the people they are dealing with. They reduce them lower and lower—to the level of sewage. Through doing that, their own level automatically seems to become higher, more impressive.
So they play on your guilt and your weakness and whatever emotional fuckedupedness exists in you. They tell you that if you keep going the way you are, you are going to get worse, you are already worse, you could get even worse than that, and eventually you will be no more than a turd if you don’t pull yourself together.
That is the kind of trick that has been played on people—which is by no means meditative or connected with spiritual practice in any way. It is a kind of spiritual-materialistic way of inspiring someone to embark on the spiritual path: to reduce them to nothing.
The approach of meditation is the opposite of that. In that approach, we give people a chance at least. At least we provide some kind of a handle or stepping-stone. There is a working base, there are possibilities, there is inspiration. There is something happening within one’s state of being, which is meditation practice.
Nevertheless, the approach of meditation is not all that easy. You’ve got to do it yourself. The teachers and the teachings can only show you how to do it, that’s the closest we can come. But then you have to do it yourself. You can’t expect complete hospitality. Your car can only go as far as the garage; it can’t drive you into the bedroom. Once your car has stopped in the garage, you have to walk to the bedroom; you have to take off your clothes, you have to get in bed. A certain effort is involved. No matter how tired and how helpless you are, the hospitality offered by your transportation doesn’t carry you beyond that. Unless you fall asleep in your car, which often happens, both metaphorically and in actual fact.
So students are given as much assistance as possible, which consists in showing them the path. Showing the path in a down-to-earth, practical way is traditionally known as “grandmother’s finger-pointing.” The grandmother is old and wise and knows how to handle the details of life, and she points with her finger and tells you to do this and this and this. “Grandmother’s finger-pointing” is a particular term of the Kagyü tradition of Buddhism in Tibet. Showing you how to do it in this way is the closest we can get to helping you along the path.
But there is a need for some acknowledgment and some willingness on the part of the student. You have to be willing to follow the grandmother’s finger-pointing. If that is the case, then the next question is quite obviously, what are we going to do? The answer is, practice meditation.
There are two types of meditation practice. One is called shamatha , which means “development of peace.” The other is called vipashayana , which means “development of insight.” We discussed that in basic out-line in the last talk. We cannot develop complete vipashyana unless we have some background as to what shamatha is all about. In terms of the metaphor of the tree we used earlier, shamatha is not cutting the branches or leaves of the tree. That comes much later. Before we do that, we have to acknowledge the basic tree ness —the branchness, the leafness—how the whole setup is seen and experienced. That is an important prerequisite for vipashyana. We can’t skip that
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