(http://chronicleproject.com/CTRlibrary/index_CTRlibrary.html)
What I'm going to say
tonight may be new or old. But disregarding the chronological
background, we could look straight ahead in terms of spiritual
practice.
It seems necessary in
the beginning to develop some sense of an undoing process. This
undoing process takes one general pattern, but with different
shapes. The first style of undoing is simply unmasking what has
been taught, what has been presented to you in terms of
indoctrination. You set that aside or turn it off. But other times,
although you would like to set that aside, to turn it off, it won't
unstick. It hangs onto you like extremely powerful glue, stuck to
you by suction. Then you have to use another means of undoing. You
have to go so far as to perform an operation or use some kind of
force. For the purpose of unmasking, that measure seems to be
absolutely necessary.
So there are two kinds
of unmasking. The first unmasking process is extremely easy. You
begin to realize that everything in your spiritual practice is
repetitious and familiar. It doesn't make sense anymore. You've
heard it over and over again. You've read it over and over again,
and it doesn't make any sense at all. So you grow tired of it. But
it's not quite enough that you grow tired of hearing the same
things over and over again. You have to develop a defensive
mechanism so you won't be tempted to listen over and over
again--the second time or the third time or the fourth time. The
mechanism of preventing yourself from doing the same thing over and
over again is cynicism, the cynical attitude. You have to develop a
satirical attitude towards spirituality in general, as well as
towards your own particular school of thought. Whatever you have
learned, whatever you have studied, is futile because the effect
has begun to wear off. The only thing left is a corpse, a mask,
purely an image hanging out, which has ceased to have life to it.
So the cynical attitude is not only willingness to unmask but
willingness to defend yourself from remasking. The point is that
you are defending yourself from spiritual materialism so that you
cannot be tricked again. You cannot remask in the same familiar
pattern as before. You can't be conned again. So there is a clear
perception and understanding of spiritual materialism, as well as
having an offensive approach towards it.
The intellectual
approach to spirituality is seemingly delightful, sensible, and
convincing. The rhetoric of the preacher is beautiful. The
beautiful smile of the love-and-lighty person is exceedingly sweet.
Often there is a big flicker of thought that goes: "How could I
reject this beautiful man, who is actually asking me to accept him
and join him? How could I reject such a beautiful thing? This man
is good, basically. He's spreading the message of goodness and has
the invitation of a smile and everything, and he says, 'Join us, we
are one.'" But your sense of cynicism triggers off a new sense of
humor. At the beginning you see the sense of oneness that he's
speaking of, but then you also begin to see that there is a reason
why he said, "We are one." Because he thinks there is a possibility
of two, he is denying the twoness of it, and therefore he says, "We
are one." All kinds of cynical attitudes develop. And once the
sharpness of your cynicism develops, it is extremely
uncompassionate and powerful. You cannot miss noticing that
seemingly naive goodness is full of holes.
... it's not so much
that the doctrine has converted you, but that you have converted
the doctrine into your own ego.
The second part of the
unmasking process is more difficult. It's not easy to unmask: you
have to use force to unstick, to unglue yourself. The reason why it
is so ingrained is because you took it so faithfully, so
completely; and something slipped into your system before you knew
where you were. That kind of involvement comes from trusting
enormously that such and such a spiritually materialistic trip will
be able to save you. And you become part of some organization, some
ingrown situation because: "I feel there is truth. The truth came
to me. And my total being is part of that truth, I'm completely
soaked in that truth, that particular structure of whatever." You
don't realize that you have become a slave of that belief. And that
makes it much harder, because there is less room for a sense of
humor, since you are so honest and earnest. That whole system, that
spiritual organization or philosophy, seeps into your system inside
out, outside in. Because that system seems so helpful, unmasking is
seen as almost a suicidal process of rejecting your blood system,
your bones, your heart, your brain and everything. "How could I
regard this as spiritual materialism, as just a trip, when the
whole thing has become such an integral part of my existence?"
Well, you may have made a tremendous relationship with something.
Maybe it's true that you have found the path. But at the same time,
what is this approach of, "It will be good for me."? What is this
falling in love with something? If you look at the heart of that
from a subtle point of view, the basic fact is that you have fallen
into a gigantic trap of needing a rescuer, needing a savior. Also,
you adopted the message of this particular doctrine to suit your
own needs rather than hearing the doctrine as speaking the truth.
You are a spokesman for the doctrine for your own sake; therefore
you have manufactured the truth of the doctrine. So it's not so
much that the doctrine has converted you, but that you have
converted the doctrine into your own ego. Therefore it becomes an
integral part of your being. Of course, at the same time there is a
sense of separateness, that you are seeking various attainments:
happiness, enlightenment, wisdom and so forth.
If you're told: "I
think you're on some kind of trip. Why don't you relax the
seriousness of it and develop some sense of humor, some
cynicism?"--that becomes almost an insult. The obvious answer is,
of course, "You don't know what I'm into, and therefore how could
you say such a thing? You're tripping, not me. You are just a pure
outsider who doesn't know the intensity of this integral feeling."
But no matter how much of a layman the other person may be, there
is still a grain of truth in his criticism.
At this point, a sense
of humor has become a tremendous threat. Taking something lightly
seems almost sacreligious. But nevertheless, that sense of humor is
the starting point of the ultimate kind of savior. You could
develop an extraordinarilly cynical attitude when you begin to
realize your own foolishness, then you can begin to turn around and
see the whole plot: how you are sucked into this and used and how
all the juice of your energy is taken out. And you see that your
conviction and your approach to a savior and liberation are being
distorted. All of this is because the teaching has taken advantage
of you, rather than your relating to the teaching as a freeway or
highway. And when you begin to realize that, you turn around
completely and take the revengeful, cynical approach, extremely
super-revengeful. You bounce everything back, and nothing is
accepted. Everything is a world of cynicism. When someone says,
"This is good for you", even that is questionable. If you are
extremely thirsty, and before you even ask for anything, someone
offers you some water, saying: "Would you like some water? I see
your thirst." --you are extremely cynical. "Oh, Oh, there it goes
again." You become extremely unyielding to any kind of help, any
kind of forward gesture. You are like a highly paranoid squirrel,
that is paranoid of the sound of its own chewing of nuts--as if
somebody else were doing it.
You see, the
psychological development is that at the beginning you are
domesticated into this very snug, beautiful, and smelly stable or
nest, which is very homey. You're thriving there and appreciating
it, when someone tells you how dirty the place is--and you begin to
have second thoughts about it. And when you begin to see that this
message makes sense, you begin to react to everything the other way
around completely. So then any suggestion, even to sit on a chair
or get into any kind of comfortable situation, is also regarded as
smelly and dirty. Now, ...instead of things being snug and cozy,
they are very sharp and brittle. Things don't bend, they only
chip.
Such a cynical approach
is exceedingly powerful and, we could say, somewhat praiseworthy,
but nevertheless you are being too harsh on yourself. You become so
smart that you even exceed the smartness itself. At that point you
begin to bite your own tail. In your cynicism, you are somehwat
reliving the past, rather than approaching towards the future. So
that cynicism is a kind of weakness: since you are so defensive and
so extremely paranoid towards the rest of the world, you are afraid
to create your own world. You may have been criticized by somebody
else; in turn you are being critical towards others--you are all
the time tiptoeing. It is such a heavy-handed approach.
At that point it is
time to develop some element of warmth. That world of cynicism is
not the only world, and, as we already know, creating a cozy nest
is also not the only world. Other possibilities exist. There could
be a world of complete warmth, and complete communication, which
accomodates the cynical as well as the primitive mind. The world is
not necessarily a big joke, but it is also not a big object to
attack. So there is another area of newfound land, an entire
continent that we haven't looked at, we haven't discovered. We
might have found it, but we haven't looked at it. That is the world
of mystical experiences. [Laughter.]
Mystical experience in
this case has nothing to do with astral traveling or conjuring up
ritual objects in your hand or turning the ceiling into the floor.
Mystical experience in this case is discovering a hidden
warmth--the larger version of home, the larger version of new
realm. An analogy for that is the pure land that traditional
buddhism talks about: the land of Amitabha, which is the land of
the padma family. It is filled with padmaness, richness. Everything
is inviting, drawing in, seductive. But at the same time, that
which makes this seduction different from samsaric seduction is the
quality of spaciousness in it. The ordinary sense of seduction
automatically suggests that you are trapped in a two-way journey:
either you have to be sucked in or you have to reject it. But in
this case, in the land of Padmapani or Amitabha, while there are
possibilities of seduction everywhere, at the same time there are
punctuations of space all over. So at least you can read the whole
pattern intelligently.
You might say this is
kind of a new phase. We seem to have gone from extreme cynicism to
believing something, developing some kind of devotion, the bhakti
approach. At some point the extremely cynical vajra-style approach
becomes a process of eating your own body, biting your own tail
again and again. You don't get anywhere. Whenever you feel
comfortable, you have one more bite of your tail to make sure you
are awake and critical. But in this case you are giving up that
continual biting, that continual punishing of yourself. You let the
snowflake fall on your head and melt. You do not just brush it off,
but you let something relate to you. That does not mean that you
have to con it, or to go forward and try to grasp it at all. You
are simply accepting the existing situation. The idea of bhakti or
the devotional approach is the same. It is not a question of
developing faith in someone's mystical power or believing in some
person as a savior, a magician. Instead, the idea is that you
manufacture the whole world. And since you manufacture the whole
world, you don't have to regard it as something bad, just because
you made it. Why don't you manufacture a world that is okay? Get
into your own dream, there is nothing bad about it. You are a
manufacturer, you don't have to get imports from foreigners. Live
your own production, enjoy your own production.
The whole approach here
is that you have extremely adequate resources within yourself,
whether you regard yourself as insane or sane. You have tremendous
resources in any case. Whether you take advantage of your insanity
or sanity is up to you.
There is a message
coming out of all this. In other words, you can be kind to
yourself. In that case, surrendering to a teacher or lineage is not
shifting gears into a new approach. The lineage is an example, from
this point of view. The lineage is an example of successive people
surrendering to themselves and beginning to find the expression of
the guru in themselves. And finally the expression of the guru in
themselves turns into universality, naturally and automatically. It
is not that you have a guru and then, because he can't give time to
you or because he is too busy or distant physically and you can't
communicate to him, deciding from sheer frustration to regard the
universe as your guru.
There's a different way
of looking at things, if you look very closely. The whole approach
here is that you have extremely adequate resources within yourself,
whether you regard yourself as insane or sane. You have tremendous
resources in any case. Whether you take advantage of your insanity
or sanity is up to you. Relating with the insanity is extremely
powerful, mystical; and at the same time, relating with the sanity
is mystical as well. So the approach here is that in going from
extreme cynicism to warmth, finally you are not biting your own
tail in order to keep awake. Instead you feel comfortable with your
body and falling asleep. Not analyzing what kind of body you have,
you are comfortably sleeping: huge tusks, big tail, fat belly or
whatever.
QUESTION: Must one
first go to the most extreme point of cynicism before some warmth
can be injected into the attitude?
RINPOCHE: That cynicism
seems to be necessary. It's like having to make your journey away
from home. You make a journey of thousands of miles before you
return home. Only then do you begin to realize that returning home
means a lot to you. It is purely setting up a kind of idea, the
right perspective. It seems inevitable and absolutely essential
that you begin to confuse the little home and the larger home, the
confused home of ordinary seduction and the universal
home.
Q: Is the degree of
that extreme cynicism similar for everyone? Is it more outrageous
for some people than others?
R: It depends on how
keen you are on developing some kind of ascetic trip.
Q: Would a more vajra
person be liable to have a more extreme cynical trip?
R: Quite
possibly.
Q: Is cynicism an
ascetic trip?
R: Yes.
Q: The more outrageous,
the more ascetic?
R: Yes--in that you are
not allowing any help. Any help is regarded as
suspicious.
Q: Is there any
difference between that warmth and self indulgence--from a cynical
point of view? (Laughter.)
R: Well, we could say
that self-indulgence is very quality oriented, and enjoying the
warmth is more journey oriented. In other words, warmth is not
regarded as home but it is regarded as part of a luxurious
highway--as opposed to a Howard Johnson's. [Laughter.]
Q: How does this tie in
with meditation?
R: How does it tie in
with meditation? Well, it seems that the whole thing is tied
together, because in order to relate with everything that goes on
in your mind you have to relate with your own state of being, or
state of mind. Meditation practice brings out your deception, or
your cynical attitude. And it also brings the possibility of being
willing to settle down and let yourself go with a
technique.
The whole thing makes a
general picture. If a highly cynical, or an exceedingly,
unnecessarily cynical person would meditate, he or she would find
all kinds of unnecessary things going on in the mind. Even
meditating itself would be questionable. It is something that one
shouldn't be doing, because there is something funny going on
there. Whereas if you develop this attitude of warmth, then
whatever goes on in your mind is part of the picture. So then you
don't punish yourself, cut yourself off, or alienate yourself from
your meditation or from your mind. So the basic question is whether
you alienate yourself from your mind or not.
Q: Rinpoche, is it
possible to go back and forth between both states of mind all the
time?
R: It is not cut and
dried, the same as any experience. It's like light and color: you
have yellow color here and you have intense blue color over there,
and in order to transfer the yellowness into blueness you have to
take a journey, which makes green. So there is always that kind of
border situation, which makes the whole thing possible.
Q: Could you say
something more about the guru and the lineage as it relates to this
warmth idea?
R: Well, to make the
whole thing very simple, the guru and the lineage--everybody,
without exception--at some point are kind to themselves. And they
appreciate their own dignity. They are not cowards, so they relate
with themselves--not as enemies but as resourceful future lineage
persons, lineage holders.
Q: Were you saying that
at some point when you loosen up in this regard there were
seductions of space all over the place, permitting you to see the
whole thing as intelligent?
R: There is alternating
seduction and space. Yes.
Q: Alternating
seduction. What is the seduction?
R: The seduction is a
kind of invitation: your life situation is not just constantly
harsh and mocking, but there are all kinds of invitations, as well.
But if you get completely seduced by that, you end up in a
dungeon-like situation. So, in order to make the invitations valid,
you have the other aspect, which is the space. Space puts the whole
thing in the right perspective.
Q: The dungeon is being
completely involved in that to the point of being
trapped?
R: You become your own
prison.
Q: Would the
possibility of that warmth increase as one's ambition starts to
wear down, one's ambition that there is something to
achieve?
R: Well, that is
already taken for granted: your initial training in cynicism would
take care of that in any case. In other words, you can't just
switch off one area and switch on another one. Some element of
cynicism continues.
Q: Is that cynicism
really necessary in order to counter ambition? It seems to be just
another form of ambition, itself.
R: The cynical approach
is not exactly ambition alone, but it is an amalgamation of
ambition and trying to find holes in the other approach. So it sort
of protects yourself from trying to find any way of bouncing back
on others.
Q: Rinpoche, I've got
this problem. Even though I'm cynical, in living in the city and
working with people and all that, although I see all the crap that
goes on, I play along with it. I don't show them that I see through
them and that I don't want to play their games and do their trips.
I just play along with it. But what should one really
do?
R: You see, we are not
trying to work out a manual on cynicism or a textbook on warmth--do
it yourself style. The situation is different each time, and you
have to improvise as your intelligence permits. There does not seem
to be a rationale.
Q: Rinpoche, would you
say that the small home that you are talking about, the first one,
is when the teachings and the practice become sort of a hidden
place, an occupation, something you can occupy yourself with, a
nest?
R: In the Beginning?
Before the cynical approach?
Q: Yes.
R: Definitely, yes. You
have all kinds of confirmation--the holy books, gurus, comfortable
temples, meditation halls, zazen bells, all provided for you. Yes,
definitely so. It's kind of a little nest.
Q: And how does the
cynicism develop out of that?
R: It's seeing through
the trippy quality of that. You know that it's absurd--you've
created your own little opium den.
Q: This warmth that you
are talking about--it seems to me it can coexist with the
hopelessness that you were talking about during the crazy wisdom
seminar.
R: I suppose so, yes,
somewhat. The impossible becomes the possible. Yes. Yes. Yes. Good
and slow.
Q: But in general the
hopelessness precludes warmth? You said [inaudible]
R: I didn't say that.
Not in the slightest. Hopelessness could be an extremely warm
thing, extremely inviting. For one thing, it is cheap. [Laughter.]
It doesn't cost you anything.
Q: It's probably no
good then.
R: Oh, no. I didn't
mean it that way. I mean cheap in the sense that you get your
money's worth. [Laughter.]
Q: Is it more
appropriate to work out this problem in interaction or in
retreat?
R: Anything--both,
either. [Laughter.]
Q: How can you not be
at it?
R: Well, there are a
lot of possibilities--slipping into a little alley, a little home.
One of those. [Laughter.]
Q: Is part of the
warmth accepting little trips you see you're on? "Well, I know it's
a trip, but I won't blow it exactly right now?" Is accepting the
trips part of the warmth?
R: Are you referring to
your trips or others' trips?
Q: Anything. Either.
Let's deal with my trip.
R: If it's your trip, I
think you have to blow it. Is it's another's trip and you blow it
too early, that may not be appropriate. It's like retelling a joke:
it doesn't make sense. So you have to do it at the proper time; you
have to be skillful. But if you realize that it's your own trip,
it's easy to blow it. You are your own closest friend--or your
closest enemy.
Q: Blowing my own
trips, I feel more like my own closest enemy.
R: That's
okay.
Q: I still don't see
how warmth could come into that situation.
R: You make a journey
together with yourself.
Q: This self that's
always blowing my trips?
R: Sure. It's like two
people snowed in together. They feel extremely friendly with each
other.
Q: That's like saying,
"It may be crooked, but it's the only game in town."
R: Whatever you want to
say! [Laughter.] Several minutes of silence. It seems to be
extremely unusual. We have had an extremely quiet question period
for a long time.
Q: Rinpoche, at one
point you were talking about unmasking and then you said,
deception--that first of all you were putting on a mask for
yourself and then it became a deception for others. I can't even
capture the ambiguity there. Unmasking couldn't possibly be a
deception. Well, I suppose it could, but not if it's really
unmasking. By putting on a mask you fool yourself, and then by
taking it off, it changed into deceiving other people. It changed
perspective from the inner view to the mirror view, but it was the
same thing. And it changes all the time, back and forth. They sound
as if they are entirely different, but actually they are the same
event--you just see it from a different perspective.
R: We are talking about
taking part in an unmasking ceremony--taking part in the ceremony
of unmasking.
Q: Yeah.
R: And that heroic
gesture of unmasking becomes another projection. That seems to be
the style of some people. To begin with you confess how bad you are
and how terrible you are--that you are no good. And then you find a
way out of that condemnation of yourself, because you see yourself
so clearly. That's why you are an intelligent person and you are a
somewhat high being, an awake person--because you saw your trips.
That's why what you say makes sense.
Q: I think I picked up
on that one. But there's something else--there's kind of a gesture.
A certain gesture exists in a situation, or in a conversation, as a
friendly gesture. But a mirror flash takes place, some kind of
doubt comes in, and it takes the form of exactly the opposite. As
soon as it is understood as friendly, at that very moment, it
suddenly takes the opposite value and becomes a suggestion of
hostility. You know what I mean?
R: I don't think
so.
Q: I don't either, I
guess. I guess I'll have to give up.
R: Don't. Pursue
it.
I was listening to one
of Ram Dass's early talks on the tapes, and there was a tremendous
humbleness, describing how fucked up he was--and that in itself
became a message. The description of how fucked up he is somehow
became words of wisdom. And he seemed to handle himself that same
way when I met him in Wyoming. His approach was that he found it
extremely uncomfortable in the beginning to talk about anything.
The only introduction that he had was passion and aggression. And
gradually, other things happened to him that were slightly better,
and he worked with people and gave darshans to people. So it's a
very gradual maneuver. That makes sense somewhat, but the whole
picture is that you can only give the answer that you are okay, in
spite of these problems. And you are left somewhat speechless if
you have to start a new chapter of deception or being friends with
yourself. The whole picture is painted in a very blurry sort of
way.
Q: Do you think that is
from a lack of vajra pride?
R: I would say so,yes.
It's a lack of vajra pride, as well as a lack of separating
neurosis from sanity. I mean, they do belong to different camps, so
to speak, and you can't just jumble them together.
Q: It seems kind of
like conning spirituality: you don't really have to unmask, you
just say how fucked up you are. It's like protecting yourself from
spirituality by saying that you're fucked up.
R: Yes, it's sort of
one-upmanship: before someone else can that you are fucked up,
you've said it already. [ Laughter.]
Q: Is that conning
yourself?
R: In a very cultured
way.
Q: Well, how is that
different from your describing the work of an artist, based on
saying, "I am the lowest of the lowest of the lowest of the
low."?
R: [Inaudible]--as they
are--and they don't make sense. [Inaudible.] They are no good, or
fake, whatever.
Q: And therefore you
need to maintain a sense of humor about the...
R: Yes. Automatically,
when you criticize somebody, a smile goes along with it--unless
it's a court case or some thing.
Q: You were saying that
if you see your own games, you have to [inaudible]--how do you do
that without getting caught in the trap of being spiritual by
saying you're fucked up?
R: Well, it seems that
you're communicating with yourself rather than making a
declaration.
Q: Yes. But you can
make a declaration to yourself.
R: Sure. But the whole
point is to see the confused nature of yourself, not to strategize
it--how to do it, how to blow yourself up. There is not a plan.
But, whenever a point comes up, just hammer it down as it
arises.
Q: Repress
it?
R: No, blow it
up.
Q: I don't
understand.
R: Short-circuit it by
not giving into yourself or further conning yourself. Just
acknowledge what's happening and deliberately break the continual
flow of thought patterns. That is quite different from suppressing
or converting. The whole point is that there is a continuity which
you think is very worthwhile, because you would like to hear your
own chronological background: how you developed, how you handled
yourself. You would like to keep track of that and say "I am sane."
But you are breaking that barrier, breaking that continuity, so
that there are no possibilities of chronological reports or any
kind of recognition from yourself. It's intense condemnation--so
intense that it doesn't seem to be condemnation, but purely
cutting. It has to be abrupt and sudden. If you strategize, you
can't cut through it. The whole thing becomes a game
again.
Q: Rather than seeing
situations and thinking about how you should act in situations--you
naturally see it.
R: Yes. [Inaudible.]
Sort of instinctive, almost.
Q: What happens if that
strategy comes right out there, if you see it coming right back
after you condemn it. You know that you're condemning yourself, and
you know that it's good to condemn yourself and to cut it off
and...
R: Well, that's what I
mean. There's no preparation. It's got to be abrupt.
Q: Yeah, but there's
something that comes back, even after you do that
abruptly.
R: Afterwards--that's
another matter altogether. That's a child building a sand
castle.
Q: I know. But you
can't help doing it. You know it's foolish, but it happens
anyway.
R: Sure. That's a
foolish thing to do.
Q: Yeah, but it just
happens anyway.
R: Let's leave it that
way.
Q: The same thing
happens again and again and again.
R: So what? It's a
child's game.
Q: So you short-circuit
it and new wires grow back.
R: In other words,
after you short circuit it, you have a philosophy about that. You
have a philpsophy of what's been happening to you, and you have put
it all into a logical language. That doesn't seem to be
particularly important. The whole idea is