The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Seven (63 page)

I don’t like the administration because they make me sit.

On the whole, I prefer not to be manipulated by the establishment.

I feel fooled and conned, wretched and abused.

I prefer not to see the daylight—

If only you would permit me not to sit for at least forty-five minutes.”

I met a sitter who has developed a snout like a jackal,

Who said,

“I would like to collect the crumbs;

I would like to explore them,

So that I could feel whether the vajrayana makes sense.

These crumbs of hinayana and mahayana are worthwhile.

I prefer to regurgitate, and I would be delighted to eat up my own vomit,

And quite possibly I could take it home in lunch-packs

And have a good holiday—

If only you would permit me not to sit for at least forty-five minutes.”

I met a sitter who is a prairie dog,

Who said,

“This Madhyamaka logic and Buddhist reasoning is like eating ants as opposed to collecting nuts.

I don’t like theory anyway;

I would like to have nutshells—

If only you would permit me not to sit for at least forty-five minutes.”

I met a sitter who is an oily cat,

Who said,

“This Vajra Politics is for the stupid seagulls.

I would prefer to meow rather than fly and caw.

I feel threatened by being fed.

I prefer to do my own hunting:

You can swallow a few poisons here and there in hunting—

If only you would permit me not to sit for at least forty-five minutes.”

Many people scheme,

Trying to occupy,

Trying to use logical mind.

But when you sit,

These schemes begin to turn into cow’s dung,

Which might have good manure possibilities.

Other than that,

We find nobody has developed the lucky strike.

We have to keep on sitting,

All the time.

Sit all the time.

Day time.

Night time.

Early.

Late.

In the midst of your dream.

Who could care less that you’re sitting so much?

Somebody might be thankful that you’re sitting so much.

Sunrise.

Sunset.

Good days.

Bad days.

Making a mockery of your self-indulgence and ingenuity.

Good manipulation

Good reestablishment

Of your missing the point in the midst of your own yawn.

Fundamentally there are no sympathizers who will accept your lucky wormstrike:

Lucky cozychickengooddumplinghoneylakeincredibly goodmassagegoodbreakgoodbreathingspaceallare yourtricksanyway.

Nobody gets anybody.

Good wasabi.

We pre-smart you before you outsmart us.

Everybody knows what you’re trying to get at.

All the tricks are predictably silly.

So let us celebrate in our silly tricks—

Hallelujah!

Corny tricks and trips are bad noodles.

Try better next time,

If you can at all.

March 22, 1978

Vajradhatu Seminary

Dixville Notch, N.H.

Eternal Guest

In the jungle of passion,

The warrior of the tiger roams;

In the flame of aggression,

The diamond vajra sparks;

In the ocean of ignorance,

The iceberg of cold awake rumbles.

Bounded by love

Swallows still try to measure the sky;

Nursed with the nectar of amrita,

Still we look for a nanny goat’s nipples—

Such as we are:

But we do not give up.

We should not give up:

We are the children of the vajra world.

We should sing the anthem of lion’s roar;

We should cry the shriek of fearlessness.

Come and join us!

Let us be wakeful for our own sake;

Let us be decent for others’ sake.

My love to you.

April 6, 1978

Swallowing the Sun and Moon without Leaving the World in Darkness

GOOD LADY OF WISDOM

Crooks have their way of handling their world;

Honest ones will stitch and sew timidly.

Crooks have a way to proclaim their victory;

But the honest stumble, bump, and stutter.

Crooks have their way to dress in nouveau-riche fashion;

But the honest wash, clean, and press.

Crooks have their way to kick, knock, run;

The honest will take a taxicab.

The crooks will assume, expect, and consume;

The honest will speak softly with timid smiles.

The crooks are usually dirty, oiled with their own sweat;

The honest are clean, well groomed—at least free of dandruff.

We have a lot of reference points here—

However, I would suggest you swallow the sun and moon simultaneously.

That does not mean you are a crook,

But an honest man not wasting time.

Since we met, I have been trying to make you an honest person.

You had your little ways;

Your being honest is wicked.

Sometimes I wonder who taught you that:

Maybe your Canadian honest crooks,

Or your crooked honest Canadians.

However, someone talked you into being a timid person.

Some quarters of theism would say:

If you are a person of proclamation in early life, it is bad;

You should not take anything, even if it is given to you;

You should say thank you for everything, even if it is yours;

You should learn to say no thank you if things are not yours;

You are supposed to watch your P’s and Q’s if things are uncertain.

In short, you should not hurt a flea;

If a flea is your neighbor, turn the other cheek.

Nevertheless, if there is a big disagreement,

You should not hesitate to cut his throat

And disbelievers in Christendom are animals—

You might as well make good Yorkshire pudding out of them.

However, when your shoe walks without you

And your hat floats without you,

You wonder who’s in them.

I think you should be startled,

You have a perfect right to be startled.

We’re not joking, are we?

Of course not.

Buddha died in bed;

Christ died on the cross;

However, you might die in bed on a cross.

We shouldn’t be too concerned with little details like that.

Let’s turn the whiskers of cat,

Polish the nails of poodle.

Let’s not tiptoe, anyhow.

Take a big chunk out of my life;

Make a good cake out of it.

Let us roll in a king-size snowbed,

Let us sniff Mitsuko,

Let us pluck hair off the tiger’s back,

Let us eat sausage of Brahman bull,

Let us catch the sun with a net,

Let us catch the moon with bait,

Let us not tiptoe.

Since your world is mine,

There is no problem with polite society—

As long as you don’t perform the mudra of chicken,

As long as you don’t proclaim like a duck,

As long as you don’t float like a baby baboon.

Let us proclaim the lion’s roar,

Let us fly like a seagull.

Let us shriek like an eagle:

Which reassures us that there is no maggot in our brains.

Let us proclaim in the name of delight and love and fearlessness.

We could eat our eggs and bacon happily ever after.

April 17, 1978

Saddharma Punsters

In the primordial world there is no language;

There is no need for translation.

In the manifested world there is the language of onomatopoeia.

In the fully evolved world we have languages of direct expression.

So we stumble, in this way:

The translator says, “What do you mean by ocean?”

The interpreter says, “I mean ocean.”

The translator says, “What do you mean by ocean?”

The interpreter says, “I mean ocean,

Such as Mediterranean, Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Antarctic—

On the whole I mean oceanic.”

Then the translator says, “What do you mean by oceanic?”

The interpreter says, “I mean oceanlike.”

And the translator says, “What do you mean by oceanlike?”

The interpreter says, “I mean salty, waves, divides continents, ships can sail through.”

Then Robin Kornman says, “What do you mean by: Ships can sail through?”

The interpreter says, “Ships are miniature islands where people can stay, and they commute from one continent to another continent so that dry goods can be delivered.”

Then Larry Mermelstein says, “What do you mean by dry goods?”

The interpreter says, “Dry goods means that they are dry because they are carried from mainland to mainland in ships without being spoiled by the water.”

Lodro Dorje says, “Ah, that makes sense!”

David Rome says, “There is a grammatical error in this language. Why do we have to say: Mainland to mainland? Since they have to travel by water, they are bound to get wet somewhat. Therefore we might say: From off the mainland on to the mainland. On the whole, if the water is wet, why do we bother to say wet as opposed to water? But on the other hand if water means wet, why do we say water instead of saying wet? Why don’t we use one language? Either we should decide to say wet or water.”

So the translators go on and the interpreters expound their thing

And one of these days, who’s kidding who—

Whether skull means head or head means skull;

And we have confusion about why jackal is coyote or coyote is jackal;

And we have further problems: why worm is snake, and so forth.

Until the philosophy is carried out between translators and interpreters,

We will have to talk about why blue is not black,

Why a round earth,

Why the solar system.

So we end up agreeing with each other,

And the final agreement and conclusion between translators and interpreters is that the truth of suffering and the truth of prajna have no synonyms.

Let us be that way;

Let us understand those two,

So we can translate happily with the interpreter,

So we can interpret happily with the translator.

Iris is blue.

Blood is red.

Bone is white.

Marrow is gray.

When we look at the first sun we squint our eyes.

When we touch our finger to fire we go Ouch.

When we pee in the toilet, we assume a serious face.

When we wipe our bottoms, we assume a pragmatic look.

Let us translate that way;

Let us continue that way,

With or without Kornman Mermelstein Dorje Rome,

Happily ever after or sadly.

Let us translate fully.

The truth is:

When you say mind,

The translation is mind,

The interpretation is mind.

Good luck!

April 30, 1978

Falling in Love with a Pair of Handcuffs

Looking at the distant notch,

One begins to feel there is a mist of pain and pleasure;

Reading the pages of the pages of Tintin and Asterix,

One begins to feel there are endless scapegoats.

Let down by the weather,

Cheered up by a sunny breakfast,

One begins to feel you are the most wretched

As well as the most well-favored person.

Reading the bubbles in the glass of your Perrier water;

Experiencing sweet-and-sour affirmation

In discussing between the delicacies of frogs’ legs and Yorkshire pudding—

Somebody says, It is falling in love with a pair of handcuffs.

Someone says, It is joining heaven and earth.

In any case, the Dixville Notch has given us enough excruciating pain,

As well as splendid pleasure.

As we watch the chipmunks go up and down,

Sometimes we wish that they could come down the way they went up.

Watching constant snowflakes floating among the trees

Adorned with their lichens,

Which are so brightly deep green and beautiful beige,

Brocaded with subtle grayness—

Has the world ever seen this?

Possibly not.

Except us

As we float in the yellow and gray room watching the ceiling

And discussing whether there is a tinge of pink in it.

Agitation,

Unfriendliness,

Are based on smelling each other’s bodies

Where our eyelids quiver.

Subconscious gossip trying to label who’s kidding who,

Distant plans,

Short confrontations,

Are all bounded in failing the examination.

The target and success tend to bring us an attack of sickness.

The threat of hara-kiri,

The accentuated unknown fear,

Brought us closer, ever loving.

While the stomach rumbles,

While the ice crackles,

Sometimes we don’t pay attention to our mutual humor.

But on the other hand this snowdrop.

This muddy wet world.

Save us from too much tripping out in the world of buddhadharma,

Whether we pass our exams or not.

Ironically our mutual world is adorned with mutual delight,

Which does not particularly belong to either of us.

Since we realize that there is no alternative

We end up celebrating every minute,

Which is not your fault or mine.

Let us have three cheers for the owl and the cockroach

And the trustworthy nappy which keeps our outfit clean.