The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Five (37 page)

S:
If you could live totally in that, without the second judgment, without the subsequent activity of the mind, would there be a familiarity from when you knew both things?

TR:
Both things?

S:
Yes. First you see something clearly, without the overlay quality of judgment. But then, as you go on judging what you saw, you familiarize yourself with it more or less. But before that familiarization, before your bias becomes involved, is there still a sense of familiarity with what you see, or does it become something strange?

TR:
I think there’s still familiarity, because there’s trust in one’s own intellect. You may be dealing with completely alien raw material, but at the same time, there’s trust in your own intelligence, which creates another level of familiarity with things. It’s like a confident general conducting warfare on the battlefield. He probably doesn’t know the nature of his enemy, but he’s confident he can wipe him out.

Student:
Rinpoche, what is aware of prajna? Prajna being awareness of various things, is there something that is aware of prajna? Or is prajna aware of prajna?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
There are two levels to that. The first level is prajna being aware of itself in such a way that it cuts its own blade. It’s so fast and so precise that it cuts itself. This doesn’t blunt its blade; that blade sharpens itself by cutting itself. Then there is another level, which is the awareness of skillful means. It is aware of how and when to use the sword. The use of the sword creates feedback to the swordsman.

But prajna is by no means regarded as absolute. It is still a relative experience, because striking with a sword is going from here to there.

Even though the sword may have two edges, while you’re cutting “that,” you can’t cut “this.” You have to cut “this” after “that” has been cut. So there is still a process and a journey involved, which brings a sense of skill, a sense of confidence. The blade of the sword is accuracy and wakefulness, and the body of the sword is confidence and delight in itself.

S:
Is prajna cutting itself similar to disowning your own insight?

TR:
Definitely, yes. Prajna is an ongoing process—constantly cutting, all the time. So all the time it is cutting, it has to sharpen its own blade. Otherwise you would have to stop cutting to sharpen the blade. So it’s a built-in mechanism, so to speak. Cutting through sharpens itself, because it cuts itself as soon as it cuts the other.

Student:
Is this sense of confidence the reason that prajna can’t handle emotions?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, we can’t really say that prajna can’t handle emotions; rather, emotions never occur on the prajna level; emotions are no longer a part of that particular level. They are just irrelevant from that point of view. Emotions are not particularly dealt with, and the problem of emotions never occurred.

S:
Because prajna is just seeing?

TR:
Yes.

Student:
I was wondering a bit more about the relationship between resentment and prajna. Did you mean to say that resentment caused prajna? Or when that kind of resentment comes on, it’s already prajna, understanding?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
The resentment gives birth to prajna. You give birth to a sword. It begins to cut through your insides, and there is all kinds of pain and resentment, and you don’t know who to blame. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, you give birth to a sword.

S:
You described the situation at Nalanda as a typical highly disciplined monastic situation and gave the impression that just the very irritation of the situation contributes toward the development of prajna.

TR:
Yes.

S:
How does that work? Can irritation cause intellect?

TR:
Irritations are intellect, you could quite safely say. Irritations come from logical mind of some kind or other. Without that, we couldn’t be irritated.

S:
Then I could give a person a little gift of prajna by putting a pebble in his shoe?

TR:
Sure. That sharpens prajna.

S:
Is that one of the reasons behind a very tight and claustrophobic meditation schedule?

TR:
Anything. Anything. Yes, anything.

S:
You mean yes and more?

TR:
Yes and more, yes. Since we can’t have eight-by-eight meditation cells for everybody, we can create time cells.

Student:
You said that at the prajna level, emotions are not seen as a problem, and apparently it can go on like that. I still don’t understand that.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
At the level of prajna, emotions don’t apply as a problem, because prajna is very much speeding along, constantly speeding. In order for emotions to ferment, you have to wait for a little while. That explains the analogy of Naropa sitting reading a book. He is obviously constantly cutting through, but here he has relatively slowed down, slowed down a little bit. He has decided to relax a little bit and, for lack of something better to do, to read a book. And then the message came to him that we will be discussing soon.

Student:
It seems that a little while ago you were implying that the way to give birth to prajna is by increasing the level of irritation as much as possible. It seems that it really couldn’t be that simple, or we could really go wild irritating each other and help each other give birth to prajna.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
It’s not as simple as that, that’s true. I wasn’t really recommending putting things in people’s shoes as a practical approach. In fact, that level of irritation can be created just by giving a little space to people. In that way, the equivalent of Naropa’s setup can be created in a Vermont farmhouse. We are not as learned as Naropa and his colleagues. We don’t have such a lavish property. We don’t have the patronage of the kings. But still we can do a pretty good job.

Student:
Does prajna have a sense of compassion?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
It has a sense of trust in oneself, which is basic compassion, warmth, toward oneself. That automatically happens. Without that, you wouldn’t be holding a sword. You wouldn’t strike because you’d mistrust yourself. The reason the sword of prajna can be handled by a person is that he has a certain amount of trust in himself.

Student:
Is prajna related to what Don Juan calls clarity?
¹

Trungpa Rinpoche:
We can’t discuss the Don Juan issue at the level of prajna. Basically, it is at the level of tantra. There is that element of clarity, which is a hint of prajna at a higher, more mystical level, higher than the mahayana level we are discussing. Obviously, tantra does have prajna.

S:
Don Juan says that when clarity develops, it becomes your enemy.

TR:
That has something to do with energy. You see, on the prajna level, there is not very much relating to energy as such. Sharpness is the only energy. The other energy I am referring to is a kind of fertility, energy that gives birth to itself. That doesn’t happen on the mahayana level; it only happens in tantra.

Student:
Do you have to cut everything down before the fertility begins to happen?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think so, yes. It’s more of a plowing process, actually. You have to plow twice. Once to tame the ground and then again to sow the seed.

Student:
Does the difference between prajna and jnana, knowledge and wisdom, seeing and looking, have to do with the birth of some kind of aim in a person? Your sword just functions, cuts anything that comes into view. But wisdom would be not having to do that—knowing what you’re after and therefore knowing when to cut and when not to.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Prajna is discovering the weapon and the technique for using it. But there is no master there to conduct the whole scheme. Jnana is discovering the wise schemer. At that level, you have the plan that is not planned deliberately, and you also have the weapon and the swordsman. At that point, it becomes a complete kingdom. That’s why the buddhas are sometimes referred to in the scriptures as kings or victorious ones. Bodhisattvas are called princes—they’re still on the adolescent level.

This contrasts with the look-and-see approach, which is connected with an external deity or God. You have to put an effort into perceiving an external being who is greater. But in the case of the nontheistic tradition, there is no reference to an outsider. There is rediscovering within. That results in the difference between looking in order to see and seeing in order to look.

Student:
You were talking about trust in oneself. It seems to me that could only be real after prajna is born. Up until that point, how can you distinguish between ego-based self-confidence and trust in oneself?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Ego doesn’t cut its own ground. Ego nurses its ground. An egoless experience like prajna cuts its own ground. That’s where the irritations and resentment we have been talking about come from. And within the realm of resentment, a soft heart begins to develop, softness toward oneself. The softer you become toward yourself, the more you want to cut your ground. Somehow the question of ego doesn’t apply at that point. Ego is already dissipating and has given up its hold on you. This is an organic thing that happens slowly. Somebody might ask you later, “What happened to your ego?” And you might say, “Oh, I never thought about that.”

Student:
Resentment gives way to being soft to yourself, and the more soft toward yourself you are, the more you have a need to cut away your own ground? I don’t quite follow.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Softness here is a sense of being kind to yourself.

S:
How does that grow from resentment?

TR:
It grows from resentment because resentment is very intelligent; anger is very intelligent; depression is very intelligent. And usually you are angry at yourself because subconsciously you wanted to be kind to yourself. Otherwise you wouldn’t get angry. If you weren’t wanting to be kind to yourself, you might just as well give in, let yourself be destroyed. The resentment is an outward-directed defense mechanism for protecting yourself, which automatically suggests a sense of softness, a soft spot in oneself.

S:
So where does the cutting come in, the desire to cut more the more one feels the soft spot?

TR:
Well, one doesn’t cut oneself; one cuts one’s ground, which is the same thing resentment does, actually. This is completely the opposite of ego. The ordinary ego approach is that you hate yourself and you love your ground. You are constantly building up your ground, your territory. Still, you regard yourself with distaste. It is suicidal. It’s the reverse psychology of what develops when people are put into a monastic situation and disciplined in the way we talked about. They begin to change their logic. They begin to resent the environment rather than themselves. They reject the ground and want to preserve themselves—which is compassion.

Student:
Does the resentment come from seeing through the veil that covers the pain?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes.

S:
And does that high degree of irritation bring a high degree of awareness at the same time, because you’re right there?

TR:
Yes, yes.

S:
So the resentment is actually intelligence itself.

TR:
You can’t have resentment without being intelligent.

Student:
Is resentment an emotion?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
There is a definite technical problem with that. Emotion is supposed to be a fundamental, organic process. Resentment may be the vanguard of the emotions, but it is not a real emotion, because it relates with the fringe, the edge of things. Resentment is edgy and not quite hearty.

S:
What are real emotions?

TR:
Different expressions of being and different ways of relating with being. For example, if you feel your being is lacking something, you create passion. If you feel your being is threatened, you create aggression—and so on. It’s connected with a total sense of being. The total sense of being feels not quite complete enough, and you try to balance that. Real emotions are much more dignified than things like resentment, which are at the level of the outskirts. The emotions are the real capital rather than the profit.

Student:
Rinpoche, can resentment give way to real emotion if you are willing to get into it?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
It could. You see, the resentment we are talking about here is a very special kind of resentment—spiritual-journey resentment. Ordinary resentment doesn’t develop; it just goes back and forth, because there’s no journey. There’s no heart. There’s no particular pattern. It’s just random.

Student:
Would you say an emotion like anger is an expression of your pain, or isn’t it rather ego’s attempt to cover up the pain—in a sense, to escape itself?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Sure, I think so. Basically the shyness of ego doesn’t want to face itself, so it tends to bring up all kinds of things.

Student:
If you feel very angry, then there seems to be a need to get beyond your anger.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That depends on the student’s level. At the beginner’s level, anger has never been understood or experienced properly. Anger has to be acknowledged. At the more advanced level, I suppose we could say that anger can be transmuted into a working basis.

Student:
Does that require trust in your anger? Or trust in yourself?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Those two amount to the same thing. Yes, something like that. There is an all-pervasive trust happening in that area. Usually the problem comes when you and your anger are in conflict. The problem is being in conflict with your emotions, which makes things very uncomfortable. If you had no conflict with your emotions, things would be very natural. If there is no conflict, that solves seventy-five percent of the problem.