The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 4 by Chögyam Trungpa

tantra have to be transmitted or handed down directly from teacher to student. In that way the teachings become real and obvious and precise.
    A direct relationship between teacher and student is essential in vajrayana Buddhism. People cannot even begin to practice tantra without making some connection with their teacher, their vajra, indestructible, master. Such a teacher cannot be some abstract cosmic figure. He has to be somebody who has gone through the whole process himself—somebody who has been both a panicking student and a panicking teacher.
    We could say that the vajra master exists because he is free from karma, but that through his compassion such a teacher establishes a relative link to his world. However, in a sense no one is actually free from karma, not even the enlightened buddhas. The buddhas are not going to retire from their buddhahood to some heavenly realm. They have to help us; they have to work with us. That is their karma and our karma as well.
    That is one of the interesting differences between the theistic and the nontheistic approach. In the theistic approach, when we retire from this world, we go to heaven. Once we are in heaven we do not have anything to do with the world. We have no obligations, and we can be happy ever after. But in the nontheistic tradition, even if we attain the state of liberation or openness, we still have debts, because the rest of our brothers and sisters in the world are still in trouble. We have to come back. We can’t just hang out in nirvana.
    So the vajra master is a human being, someone who has a karmic debt to pay as a result of the intensity of his compassion. The dharma cannot be transmitted from the sun or the moon or the stars. The dharma can only be transmitted properly from human to human. So there is a need for a vajra master who has tremendous power—power over us, power over the cosmos, and power over himself—and who has also been warned that if he misdirects his energy he will be cut down and reduced into a little piece of charcoal.
    It is extremely important to have a living vajra master, someone who personally experiences our pain and our pleasure. We have to have a sense of fear and respect that we are connecting and communicating directly with tantra. Making that connection is a very special thing. It is extremely difficult to find a true tantric situation and to meet a true tantric master. Becoming a true tantric student is also very difficult. It is very difficult to find the real thing.

SEVEN
    Visualization
     
    I N TANTRA THERE is a sense of continuity, there is a sense of existence, and there is a sense of reality. If we are deeply involved in our experience, then there is a total and profound sense of experiencing reality. Whereas if we have a halfhearted approach to experience, then obviously we get halfhearted results in understanding reality. The tantric approach is complete involvement, which begins with a basic sense of being grounded: in our body, in our house, in our country, on this planet Earth. We are not talking about taking trips to Mars or Jupiter or even to the moon. We are working right here, on this planet Earth. Whether we like it or not, we are here and we have to face that.
    This suggestion might seem rather depressing, if we do not want to keep relating with the earth. Of course, the earth has been glorified by descriptions of its beauty: the beautiful flowers and greenery that the earth nurtures, the waterfalls and rivers and fantastic mountains that the earth has provided. But apart from that, the earth seems to be rather hopeless. It is just a solid lump of rock.
    We may try to cheer ourselves up by saying: “Wow! Fantastic! I took a trip to the Himalayas and I saw the beautiful mountains of Kanchenjunga and Mount Kailasa.” Or we may say: “I saw the Rocky Mountains. I saw the Grand Canyon. Great!” Such remarks are just comic relief. In fact we feel that we are stuck with this earth, and therefore we should