The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 4 (49 page)

I feel safe talking to this particular group about this, since they have some understanding of the hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana principles. I think everybody here understands that they have to go through the whole training before they begin to “drop” amrita. So the transmutation of poison into medicine is connected with number five.

The next one, number six, is called “mother’s curse,”
Mamo Bötong
in Tibetan. Mother’s curse in this case means that the phenomenal world begins to come into a closer relationship with you and your practice. You are in tune with the phenomenal world, and if you miss one second of relationship with the phenomenal world, you are cursed, bewitched. The symbol of the mother’s curse is a bag full of liquid poison, with a snake as the rope fastening. This approach is so dangerous, extremely dangerous, and powerful at the same time. You can’t miss an inch, a fraction of an inch, a fraction of a minute. If you are not in contact with anything, you can be destroyed instantaneously. Before you can think of being destroyed, it has already happened, and you go straight to vajra hell. The tantric approach, particularly the maha ati approach, is highly dictatorial. And it knows no limits. You are constantly under challenge.

The word
mother
is used here in the sense of the cosmic feminine principle, which is both seducer and destroyer. This is not on the messenger level, not just a warning. In actual solid situations, there is a difference between relating with the boss and relating with a messenger. Encountering the mother’s curse is relating with the boss. If the boss dislikes you, dislikes your unskillful actions, he could really hurt you. There could be famine, war, madness, and all the rest of the worst consequences one could ever think of. But the mother’s curse does not go too far. It is still at the facade level.

The next one, number seven,
is jikten Chötö
in Tibetan.
Jikten
means “world,”
chö
means “offer,” and
tö
means “praise.” We haven’t practiced grounding ourselves in the world enough, so we have to praise our world, and also we have to offer our services to the world. This is a very interesting point, which seems to call for nationalism. A sense of nationalism is important. You don’t regard your country as something to be abandoned or to be gotten rid of, as though you could step out of your country and enjoy another domain, another realm. So this seventh principle involves developing some basic nationalism. The place where you grew up, the place where you were raised and educated and where you are living, deserves some respect. Also, if you do not respect your country and take pride in your country, you might be struck, destroyed.

That is a very precise message, but we have little understanding of how to relate with our world, our nation. Americans have a problem relating with America. And national pride does not necessarily only mean worshiping the flag or the grand old presidents of the past, some of whom died peacefully and some of whom killed for the sake of the nation. That kind of nationalism is spiritual materialism. The kind of nationalism we are talking about is spiritual nationalism. Your country, where your belongings are and your life situation takes place, has spirituality, buddha nature in everything. This refers to the experience you have of your country, such as of the landscape—the beauty of America. Taking America as the basic image, let’s suppose you went from California to Colorado to New York, and let’s say you were walking instead of driving. You would begin to appreciate the beauty of your country enormously. It’s almost fantastic: Who thought up these ideas, such as that such a beautiful rock could be there, that beautiful plants could be there, that beautiful cactus could grow, and there could be such beautiful rolling hills and such beautiful maple leaves—all these things that your country churns out and nobody else’s? We are talking about the very physical existence of the American land, the United States of America, or North America as a whole, including Canada. It could also be South America. But this land that you’re living in is an extraordinarily beautiful one. It has glamorous cities, beautiful landscapes, and everything is unique. It is a complete world, which brings pride on the individual level as well as having subtleties and spiritual implications. Your country is a really great country. There’s very little need to take a trip to Tibet or visit Darjeeling to view the Himalayas. This is a tantric interpretation, a kind of vajra nationalism, which seems to be necessary at this point.

Then we have the last one, number eight, which is the principle of the ultimate spell,
Möpa Trak-ngak
in Tibetan.
Möpa
means “vicious,”
trak
means “wrathful,” and
ngak
means “mantra.” This has the sense of “ultimate spell of wrathful action,” which means that you are not afraid of striking anywhere, not afraid of challenging anything. If you have to sue somebody, you are willing to do it. You are not afraid of that. We have experienced the significance of that on the practical level. If you don’t sue or take legal action against another party or an authority, you might end up economically as a zombie. So you have to take action.

This principle is a vajra curse or, better, a vajra incantation. We are not afraid to say that thus-and-such a person should be destroyed and thus-and-such a person should be developed. Which in fact is quite outrageous.

A lot of things that we encounter in these principles I feel the audience is trustworthy enough not to make into something else. This audience consists of good citizens rather than famous people, celebrities who might engage in wishful thinking about overpowering the nation. However, if someone did decide to make themselves important and try to rule the world or the nation, it’s too late for them to do that. They could get struck.

Then we have anuyogayana, which is connected with bringing the head and heart together on a practical level. You may have read in the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
that the peaceful deities are stationed in the heart chakra and the wrathful deities are stationed in the brain chakra. On the anuyogayana level, a real relationship to the wrathful deities takes place, and they come alive. In the yanas associated with mahamudra, there is not enough emphasis on their wrathful aspect. Instead of being described as wrathful, they are described as threatening. The deities are described as threatening, passionate, and meditative in the mahamudra yanas. There are passionate ones with consorts or by themselves; the meditative ones are connected with ignorance; and the wrathful ones are described as threatening rather than wrathful. Threatening implies a certain objectivity—you can be threatening without losing your temper. Whereas in the case of the anuyogayana, you have to lose your temper. You have to be one hundred percent, if not two hundred percent, into the wisdom. It is real anger rather than trying to play games skillfully.

Another aspect of the wrathful deities is that they have adopted the raiment of the Rudra of ego. They subjugate the Rudra of ego and use his clothing. This means not abandoning the samsaric world as something bad, but rather wearing it as an ornament.

The wrathful principle is connected with the brain, intellect. The peaceful deities are connected with the heart, emotion. The intellect in this case is not necessarily the analytical, rational mind. The intellect here is something aggressive in the vajra sense, something extremely powerful. This is the reason for the timing in the
Tibetan Book of the Dead:
First you see peaceful deities, and if they are not able to help you, then those peaceful deities turn into angry ones; they lose their temper and strike you again. In relation to the wrathful deities, the ati tantric tradition speaks of immense anger, without hatred of course, the most immense anger that enlightened mind could ever produce, as the most intense form of compassion. There is so much kindness and compassion in it that it turns red.

That is the expression of crazy wisdom. At this point there is no problem of maintaining balance. Extremes are used as the reference point of balance rather than any kind of compromises.

The leading mandala in the anuyogayana is the one called the mandala of the hundred deities. It has forty-two peaceful divinities and fifty-eight wrathful deities related to the Vajrasattva principle, the principle of vajra nature. They all are manifestations of vajra nature—vajra passion and vajra anger.

It seems that we could discuss the iconographical symbolism connected with the growth in experience derived from the various yanas in great detail, but we don’t have enough time. Also I feel responsible not to confuse you too much by introducing a lot of stuff—names and ideas. That might cause you to fail to see the general pattern, and you might become fascinated by the details.

So that brings us to the final yana, maha ati. The spiritual discipline of maha ati falls into four categories. The first one is the revelation of dharmata, which means reality. Here everything is seen as real and direct. The next one is called
nyam kongphel
in Tibetan.
Nyam
means “temporary experience,”
kongphel
means to acknowledge your temporary experiences but not hang on to them. The next one is called
rikpa tsephep. Rikpa
means “intelligence,” “intuition”;
tse
means “measure”; and
phep
means “in accordance with that.” You have reached a point of real perspective in your practice. The last one is “wearing out dharmata.” Dharmata is the isness of all the dharma constituted by both samsara and nirvana. So there is a wearing out of the whole thing; [you no longer prefer nirvana to samsara]. You are even giving up enlightenment.

One of the basic projects, if you can call it a project, on the maha ati level, and the point of all the practices that go on there, is to destroy the notion and the experience of enlightenment. So there’s no goal, no search at all. That is what is called wearing out dharmata. And at that point there is a sense of being unleashed infinitely. There is a sense of craziness, the ultimate craziness, which does not believe in even trying to accomplish anything at all.

Usually when we feel crazy in the conventional, simple-minded way, it is because we have some political, spiritual, or domestic idea that we would like to communicate to the rest of the world. Therefore we feel crazy, dogmatic. In this case, there’s a sense of being crazy and completely on the loose, but there’s no game, no goal. That kind of crazy person doesn’t have to say anything at all, or he could say a lot about the whole thing.

I feel that we cannot go too far with maha ati at this point. This is as far as we can go at the present time. I hope that you will all come back, so we can discuss the further development of the three stages of ati. That needs room and space. And at this point, we have been bombarded by all the yanas to the extent where we are uncertain who’s who and what’s what.

Student:
You mentioned that in the anuyogayana, extremes could serve as a reference point for balance. Does this mean that there is still a reference point in the anuyogayana?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes, but it’s a much better one. But we still haven’t reached maha ati, so there’s still a reference point. You see, finally, any technique, any method, any activity we might present becomes a reference point.

Student:
I still don’t understand how the practice of mahamudra is integrated with visualization practice.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
The mahamudra practice is a highly visual thing. It is very much in tune with colors and sights and smells. It is so much in tune with any perceptions we might have, because there is no barrier anymore. So the visualization is not imagining something; you actually do feel whatever deity your practice is connected with. For instance, if you’re doing a Kalachakra practice, you feel so overwhelmed by that that your life is completely bombarded by Kalachakra-ness.
³
Visualization comes to you and strikes you; therefore there’s no problem with that. It’s more a question of how far you’re willing to go. It is a question of if you are willing to go too far or of the extent to which you are willing to go too far in opening, giving.

Student:
It seems to me that visualization would be an unnecessary side trip that could distract you from the essence of the mahamudra experience.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That is possible. In fact the great Indian siddha Saraha attacked the idea of visualization, asking why there couldn’t just be pure mahamudra without other trips. That is an expression of the mahamudra practice’s yearning toward the maha ati level. It begins to break through, to become more revolutionary.

Student:
Could you explain how extreme compassion turns into extreme wrath?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I don’t know how to explain that. I mean, that’s it. You have to experience it, I suppose. I could use all kinds of adjectives, but they would just be words.

Student:
What should you do upon meeting a wrathful deity?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Meeting one? I don’t think you meet them just like that. You become somewhat associated with that quality yourself. You are moving in that direction already, and so you’re ready to see it, ready to experience that way.

S:
So there would be some kind of identification with it?

TR:
Yes, there would be some identification with it.

Student:
This extreme anger of the maha ati yanas—is that something that is directed toward the self and relates purely to one’s own growth, or can this extreme anger with compassion manifest in the world?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Manifest?

S:
For someone who was at the level of the maha ati yanas, would this manifest in his teaching or purely in his practice, personally?

TR:
I think it manifests in life experience altogether. There is a sense of crazy wisdom, of unreasonableness that is still being reasonable, a very dignified wildness that is very solid and very sharp at the same time. That manifests in relating to the lifestyles of individuals one is dealing with and in dealing with oneself. There are all kinds of possibilities. Wherever there is energy, there is that possibility.