The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Seven (34 page)

The crux of the matter is: what do we do and how do we do it? Do we just sit and wait? Do we read stacks and stacks of books, trying to collect ideas from that? Do we take miles and miles of journeys, trying to meet with supposedly clever, enlightened people and collect information from them? Since we do not know what we are doing, if we do something in that light, it seems to be fruitless. Quite possibly we end up bumping into somebody who is absolutely absurd and getting false ideas about what they have to say. We regard that as our first discovery and begin to mess up our future. Quite possibly, we could collect all kinds of garbage by reading books, and our misunderstanding and partial understanding could create enormous chaos. We could become a walking book, but what happens after that? Another alternative is just to have a good time, go to Florida, California, South America, drink tequila, listen to sweet music. Just forget everything and have a good time.

Somehow none of that is quite what we mean by nowness or being in the now. Nothing seems to be the ideal situation to fill that gap of nowness. Whatever we do, we are involved in some kind of trip, enormous deception. Our sense of boredom led us into entertaining ourselves, or trying to entertain ourselves, and that whole process has become a rat race, a vicious circle. It is constant, with no end, no beginning, purely absurd. Another suggestion might come up, which is to go and practice meditation. Try to raise your consciousness, whatever that may be. Try to imitate holy men and become a holy person. But that seems to be the same thing. So at this point, whatever we do, we can’t get out of anything.

We don’t seem to be doing anything real. We are constantly trying to mimic that and that and this and this. Nothing is very personal. There’s nothing personal and nothing real in terms of our experience. Everything we do is copying something, following something, trying to find new materials to fit our own confused jigsaw puzzle. Somehow not only is that not working, but it is the wrong end of the stick. And if you expect me to give you the answer, that may be very hard to come by. It seems that whenever you have a problem, there is a concrete answer: “Take this pill. Do this.” But that approach seems to be founded upon false premises, for the very reason that you find the answer because you are weak. Therefore you are fed by nipples. And if you feel lonely, you play with toys and you have a babysitter: “Let me read you a bedtime story. Let me sing you a lullaby.” So we are back to square one.

If you really want to do something properly, if you really want to do it genuinely, we could say quite safely that you have got to be back to square one. You have to taste and experience that. Otherwise, there seems to be a problem with “art in everyday life,” as the cliché goes. Any work of art is expressing ourselves in particular terms and concepts. Artistic talent is expressed in media of all kinds. But what is artistic talent? What makes you artistic? What convinces you, if you are uncertain, that a work of art is a real expression of yourself? Or is a work of art something to make sure that the rest of the world is convinced about you, so that in turn you yourself find ground to exist? Such questions have never been looked at or studied properly. From this point of view, genuine artistic talent is experiencing a sense of being back to square one. Being completely bewildered by that, we make our first expression of art in the sense of copying or imitating, tuning in to a philosophy, or spiritual waves. But going beyond that approach, if we feel that we are back to square one and completely bewildered, we have a beautiful white canvas in front of us.

The topic of art in everyday life is not particularly designed for artists. Ordinarily, a good artist needs a lot of ideas, a lot of tricks and concepts. Hopefully, we will not provide that here, for the sake of our sanity. If I do so, I take everything back—what I have said and what I might say. I find myself working in administration, with organizational issues, which involves looking into the economy, aesthetics, and social situations of the groups of people involved. I am also involved with educational decision making of all kinds—and I find the best time for me to make decisions is when my mind is completely blank, when I find myself back to square one. At that absolute, unbiased level of mind, something takes place. I’m not suggesting that might be the trick, and it is not just a story, which could be very fishy. When we are back to square one, we cut all our connections and roots, and at the same time, we appreciate their shadows. Obviously, you still respect your umbilical cord, because you have a tummy button. Nobody has plastic surgery to remove that, and nobody regards it as an ugly mark; it is regarded as an organic expression that you have been born in this world and you have a tummy button.

Back to square one. That seems to be the starting point of any genuine expressions we might express. Genuine expressions have to be self-existing, born within one. So if you are going to express such genuine expressions, you have to get back to genuine ground. And so far as we are concerned, at this point the only genuine ground we have is back to square one.

If you cut all kinds of roots and fascinations, all kinds of entertainment, regarding it as a very subtle form of conmanship, what do you have? You might say, nothing. But it’s not quite nothing—it’s back to square one. The point is that your genuine existence and expressions should not be colored by any form of artificiality. However subtle, however magnificent, however beautiful or holy it may be, it still discolors your existence. So if you have a sense of ultimate cynicism, you are back to square one. If you see through any trips that are laid on you, or anyone trying to influence you, if you see through how you yourself are influencing somebody else’s ideas or borrowing ideas and concepts from somebody else—then you are back to square one. What else do you have, except your square one? It’s not difficult; we are constantly back to square one. If we are in the midst of making decisions and not knowing what to do; if we are confused, terrified, or sick—we are constantly back to square one. If we feel extremely weak, not knowing how to proceed to our next strategy, we are back to square one. It is very familiar ground. It is not a particularly extraordinary state of mind, but highly ordinary.

At that point, making a decision may involve a strategy that takes us off square one or a genuine expression coming from square one. It is very personal: sometimes it does; sometimes it doesn’t. Take the example of falling in love. The conditions causing you to fall in love with somebody are not because your husband or your wife is a wealthy person, has a lot of intelligence, is a good breadwinner, or would be good for you. If you don’t have those accessories and you begin to like somebody as another human being and appreciate him or her as your mate, then you are operating from a square-one point of view; whereas if you have been talked into it by your parents in a matched marriage or through religious concepts, it is operating from square thirty-three. However, if it is genuinely felt and personally experienced, it is like the elements: fire burns, water is moist, air moves, space is spacious.

Basically, square one is your ground. If you’re on your own ground, I don’t think there is any danger. Usually there’s an element of sanity, a seed or essence of sanity operating in you if you are back to square one. There’s something positive happening. If you feel that being back to square one is dangerous, that must be another square, not square one.

If you feel confused, you might wind up not doing anything. But actually, not doing anything at all might be healthier than wasting your time doing something. Everything amounts to that, eventually, so I think there’s no problem with that. The situation of being cornered is good, if you can use such terminology. It is fruitful, genuinely square one. Unless you are cornered, you don’t really do anything much. But once you are cornered, you begin to exercise your sanity and intelligence. That’s usually a characteristic of human behavior. I don’t think anybody will stand still all that long, afraid to make a move. That nonaction might prove to be an embryonic situation.

Back to square one is more than simply trusting your intuition. We seldom have transparent intuition. Instead, our intuition is very solid and is influenced and colored by all kinds of things, and it is usually conditioned by concepts. Back to square one is simple, straightforward. You feel you’ve been cornered, and you have to pounce out in one way or another. Not knowing exactly what to do, you feel very vivid about the whole reality around you, and at the same time, you know that you’ve been cornered. Through the process of paranoia, you have been purified as well; you have been stripped to the waist and downward as well to your toenail and the floor you are standing on. So you have nothing to hide. You are completely transparent; you are cornered. It’s more than intuition; it’s experienced intuition. Usually the intuitive process is still a kind of radar system, rather than experience. This is much more real in some sense. It is very direct and somewhat extraordinarily penetrating.

You could get yourself into such a square-one situation. In the Buddhist tradition, it’s part of the discipline, or path. But it is not a path in the sense of going forward and speeding to your goal. Instead, you are coming backward, getting
into
the whole thing rather than getting
out of
it. And sometimes you find that the rug has been pulled from under your feet; you find yourself back to square one. If you work with that situation—not try to get out of it but sit with it and nurse that experience of immense desert, the desolation of not finding anything to fool around with—then there seems to be something to it, definitely. Square one is where you come back to when you are finally thrown back on your backbone. However, there is a problem if you hear too much about the merits of square-one-ness. It becomes a doctrine again, and it ceases to be square one. At that point, it is something else; we could hardly call it square one.

Genuine square one is when you realize the desolateness, the spaciousness, and all kinds of words we could use for that which is completely devoid of any feedback at all. You are pushed back and punched in the nose—but you are still sitting there cross-eyed, like an owl made out of gold. You are slightly sick because you have finally confronted your good old self, but at the same time, you feel slightly relieved because you can still maintain your existence. That type of square one is primordial, rather than imaginary, or a doctrinally conceived idea or concept. It is the really genuine one. Square one should be devoid of any culture. When you’re at a low moment of your energy, completely beaten down to the point of death and it feels like you are a piece of shit, you don’t feel any culture about that. You feel very genuinely noncultural—and definitely real.

A sense of nonthinking is necessary at the same time as a sense of the thinking process. According to the Buddhist tradition, the sitting practice of meditation provides basic footing, solid ground to develop further understanding, further experiences of square one. So I feel somewhat guilty if I provide just words, words, words, planting further confusion in the world of confusion; whereas if people sit and stop thinking and talking by means of meditation, I feel that we have planted dynamite to transcend the world of confusion. So it would be good if you could practice meditation as much as you can, as much as is physically and psychologically possible. It would be good if you could get into the sitting practice of meditation. You could become more clear and sane, and you could also influence the national neurosis in that way. Keep that in mind.

If you begin to step out of square-one-ness, then you can trip out on all kinds of things. I think it is a problem that artists are not willing to go back to square one. They are unwilling to face their basic situation unless they can find a dramatic message in it. Obviously, people on Madison Avenue appreciate it if artists come out with a dramatic message, which helps in exhibiting their showpieces. But that is not the only world—there are other worlds than Madison Avenue, as we know.

If there is desire, it’s easy to portray. But if there is no desire, it’s very hard to portray that feeling in terms of visual art. For instance, people have great difficulty portraying the Buddha, because he doesn’t do anything. He just sits there. Bodhisattvas, the people who out of compassion took vows to save all sentient beings, are easier to portray. They tend to have a benevolent look, very gentle and soft, and they are supposed to show sorrow and pain because they realize that their fellow sentient beings are in pain and they want to save them.

The question of square one is very important. An artist should not try to get away from his media, which includes his life situation. And for that matter, meditators, who are also artists, should not get away from
their
media: their passion, aggression, and ignorance—whatever goes on in their minds. As long as you try to get away from that and look for alternatives, such as a better future or more pleasant experiences, then you begin to mess up the whole thing. So the issue is keeping your ground, where you came from. You should not be ashamed of that. If you are black, you’re black; if you are white, you’re white. You cannot get away from it, or have plastic surgery. So it is a question of acceptance. From that point of view, art is the practice of meditation, and meditation is a work of art.

Everybody has their own square one, and they get back to it. That seems to be a universal thing; otherwise, they wouldn’t exist. Since everybody does exist, since they have their existence and functions in life, there is the possibility of seeing square one in a more clear and precise way. One is one; it is a number. When you have one, that indicates the possibilities of two and three and four. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are going to get to square two and the rest of it. Then you have zero, which is not any kind of figure. It denotes nothing, I suppose. We want to be something, right? Even if we are back to square one, we are there, we are something. We don’t want to be nothing, and we constantly try to avoid that. That is the problem. So the only alternative—not even alternative, but only choice, so to speak—is to be zero.