The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Seven (61 page)

We receive plentiful rain.

In green valley pastures brown cows graze.

Tibetan-tea-like rough rivers carry the highland soil.

Occasional mist and fog bring wondrous possibilities.

Naive hitchhikers laugh and scrutinize our convoy.

The highlands are beautiful, free from pollution,

The lowlands regular, telling the whole truth:

There is nothing to hide.

Harmonious province hangs together,

But for occasional economic panic.

Men of Shambhala would feel comfortable and confident in the province of no big deal,

Flying the banner of St. Andrew adorned with the lion of Scotland, red and yellow.

We find it beyond conflict to fly the banner of the Great Eastern Sun.

It is curious to see their flags strung on yellow cords;

Nice to watch the children cycling in the ditch;

Nice to discover all the waiters serving on their first day;

Nice to see that nobody is apologetic;

Good to see alders taking root after the forest fire of pines.

June 1977

New Glasgow, Nova Scotia

Lion’s Roar

Genuine people bring genuine intellect,

Genuine mind brings genuine discipline,

Genuine teacher and student bring true wisdom;

Naropa the great siddha brought the spotless discipline of the practice lineage.

Theory is empty head without brains,

Chatting logicians are the parrot flock,

Clever psychologists swallow their own tongues,

Chic artists manufacture garbage collages—

At this illustrious Institute we are free from confusion.

Let us celebrate in the name of sanity,

Let us proclaim the true discipline,

Let us rejoice:

The eternally rising sun is ever-present.

In the name of the lineage, I rejoice.

August 17, 1977

Composed for the first graduation ceremony of Naropa Institute.

Halifax

Big roll by the thunder,

Big speech by the lion,

Lovely maple trees making their statements:

I love this world,

I hate this world,

Too demanding,

Too kind,

Basically not giving any reference point.

Roar like a rock mountain,

Laugh like a giant waterfall,

Cry like a peacock’s mate—

Who is kidding who?

Success is in the palm of your hand,

Doubt is missing a flea on your hips.

Be gentle and kind,

Don’t give an inch,

Your inscrutability is mine—

Let us meet together in Cape Breton.

October 19, 1977

Charlemont, Mass.

Latest Early Conclusion

When a dragon sits on the throne,

It coils and smiles, it thunders.

When a snow lion sits on the throne,

It smiles, growls, and rejoices.

When a tiger sits on the throne,

It licks itself and purrs its own sevenfold patterns, being feline.

When a garuda sits on the throne, it becomes a giant;

It puffs and sharpens its beak and claws, and shrills.

We have nothing to say about all this.

But we might have something else to say.

When you reign, when you preside,

You can’t run the organization.

Whoopy swoopy goody is not necessarily making love.

On the other hand, toughy gruffy gronk out might be the way.

Seemingly we missed our chance in all this.

We have accomplished lots.

Smile without smiler is questionable;

Pisser without pee is embarrassment.

How you proclaim has to do with your own impatience and abrupt grudge.

You didn’t preside, you led—

Leading and presiding are entirely different.

I am encouraged that you didn’t try to preside;

Instead, you tried to lead our people.

Whether that was intentional or accidental,

It was a flying bird shitting on the right stone.

Whereas if you try to preside, you will experience the cosmos short-circuiting on you.

The tiger lion garuda dragon forces will tear you apart.

If we are going to invite the tiger into our system,

We have to be tiger-like, with feline snideness.

If we are going to invite the dragon,

We have to have reptilian immediateness.

If we are going to invite garuda-like confidence,

We have to have avian touch and go

So that we accomplish everything without committing ourselves.

If we are going to achieve the canine expression of the lion,

We have to be fearless, without expecting compliments in return.

Giant

Small

Speak

Cautious

Stinky

Ambidextrous

Mutual inadequacy—

All are bound together in how to rule,

How to preside,

How to organize.

Take your choice—which is your fault or your virtue?

Let us not pounce.

Let us not leap.

Let us bound—in accordance with the Great Eastern Sun.

No blame no praise

But at the same time—lots of liabilities.

It is heavy-duty:

You cannot get rid of it.

Autumn 1977

Charlemont, Mass.

Timely Rain

In the jungles of flaming ego,

May there be cool iceberg of bodhichitta.

On the racetrack of bureaucracy,

May there be the walk of the elephant.

May the sumptuous castle of arrogance

Be destroyed by vajra confidence.

In the garden of gentle sanity,

May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness.

October 20, 1977

Pan-Dharmadollar

Looking for cheaper restaurants,

Paying for expensive ties,

Are dualistic as much as Muhammad and the mountain.

Would the mountain come to Muhammad

Or Muhammad go to the mountain?

Sadat and Begin made a pact,

But who is going to achieve peace?

Vision and dollar are in conflict:

When there are lots of dollars,

There is no vision;

When there are no dollars,

There is lots of vision.

Clearly stranded,

Goodly rich,

Goodly poor,

Can’t afford to pay for one’s own tuxedo,

Can pay for one’s luxury in the realm of buddhadharma,

Elegant waltz participation,

Contradiction after contradiction.

Why is a parrot green,

Speaking human language?

Why is the monkey ambidextrous,

Mocking humans?

Why do Americans mock the vajra kingdom?

They don’t mean to,

They are merely being casual because they have no money,

Or they have too much money;

Therefore, they can come up with cheap proposals.

Will this go down in our history?

No.

The Noh play says:

Worshiping every deity is trusting in ancestral heritage.

For the cosmopolitan communication of dharma,

Let us have lots of ratna.

For the hermit who is in the cave in order to perpetuate the practice,

Let us have lots of ratna.

For the scholars who are translating buddhadharma into Americanism,

Let us have lots of ratna.

For the householder yogis who could practice tantra with indestructible conviction,

Let us have lots of ratna.

For the freelancers who might give up their ego trips,

To accommodate and lure them into the dharma world,

Let us have lots of ratna.

For the young maidens who fall in love with the dharmic man,

To create a truly genuine dharmic world,

Let us have lots of ratna.

For the warriors who fight for the sake of Shambhala kingdom,

Who never leave their prajna swords behind,

Let us have lots of ratna.

For the administrator who never breathes for his own sake,

But is purely concerned about the facts and figures and morality of our organization of the vajra mandala,

Let us have lots of ratna.

For the vajra master who couldn’t exist without the vajra world, dedicating his life and yet receiving longevity nectar from others,

Let us have lots of ratna.

Money peeps, Money tweaks,

However, money has never roared.

Lion’s roar could be money.

Pay!

Due!

Accelerate!

Save!

Complain!

Bargain!

Let us save money by spending,

Let us spend by saving:

Sane money is free from dualistic territory.

For the Great Eastern Sun, frigid money is no good.

Computerized this and that is a kid playing cowboys and Indians:

Let us relax and be taut in our money world.

May there be Sukhavati of dollars.

May there be Shambhala kingdom with lots of wealth—

But wealth comes from waltz,

Waltz comes from dignity,

Dignity comes from consideration,

Consideration comes from being sane.

Let us spend,

Let us save:

The Great Eastern Sun saves and radiates.

Good for you—

Jolly good show to everyone—

Let us be genuine.

December 3, 1977

Meetings with Remarkable People

Banana aluminum,

Wretched secondhand pressure cooker,

Crucifixions made out of plastic,

Jumbo jet,

Iron grid that is fit for cooking but not for eating, with a permanent garlic stain,

Rooster with its feathers and flashy crest and waddles of elegant pink flashy brocade—

Sometimes we wonder whether we should be one of those,

Or else should completely fake the whole thing.

The gentleman with slim mustache and notepad under his arm

Told us that we shouldn’t fake anything,

Otherwise we are going to run into trouble with BDS as well as IRS.

The gentleman with belly button, weighing 300 pounds,

Told us that if we’re going to fake anything,

We had better cut our aortas first.

A lady too told us the same thing;

She was wearing a tigerskin skirt,

She had a giant smile but one tooth,

She had turquoise hair but elegant gaze

From her single eye,

She was drooping,

She seemed to be wearing some kind of lipstick and powder makeup,

Her earlobes were big,

She was wearing giant gold earrings—

She told us they were 24 carat

And she complained that they were sometimes too heavy on her head;

She also told us that her hair was unmanageable,

That her neck muscles have too much blood power;

However, she stood there telling us all those things.

She brought along a companion of hers,

A lovely maiden wearing a necklace of pearl,

Smiling, with a light complexion,

Riding on a white lion.

Then she brought a third friend who was very peculiar:

One wonders whether he was a man or woman, human or animal;

He had a most gaping mouth opening at his stomach,

With somewhat polite gaze;

He possessed nine heads,

All of them expressing certain expressions

And wearing conch-shell rings in their earlobes;

When you look at him, his faces have the same expressions,

But with seeming distortion in every face of delight.

Can you imagine seeing such people and receiving and talking to them?

Ordinarily, if you told such stories to anybody, they would think you were a nut case;

But, in this case, I have to insist that I am not a nut case:

I witnessed these extraordinary three friends in the flesh.

Surprisingly, they all spoke English;

They had no problem in communicating in the midst of American surroundings.

I am perfectly certain that they are capable of turning off the light or turning on the television.

What do you say about this whole thing?

Don’t you think meeting such sweet friends is worthwhile and rewarding?

Moreover, they promise me that they will protect me all along.

Don’t you think they are sweet?

And I believe them, that they can protect me.

I would say meeting them is meeting with remarkable men and women:

Let us believe that such things do exist.

December 8, 1977

International Affairs

THE COSMIC JOKE OF 1977

In this godforsaken place so-called planet Earth,

Rainstorms thundershowers snowfreeze floods and typhoons constantly occur.

Somewhere there is good harvest, somewhere there is famine,

Shortage of something-or-other,

Aberfan chaos,

Liverpool dock strike,

Sheffield problem with the stainless steel workers.

Jesuits in China were kicked out by the Communists.

Catholics do hard work in Thailand, but the Buddhist school system makes it ineffective.

Sri Lanka is having a paranoia with the Sacred Heart people.

Mr. Park experiences slap on the face from trying to buy the U.S. senators.

Indira Gandhi is fading in Desai’s pollution with bhajans of Gandhi supplication.