The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 4 by Chögyam Trungpa Page A
Authors: Chögyam Trungpa
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glorify it; we should appreciate it. But deep in our hearts, we would like to take off. We would like to fly away into the cosmos, into outer space. We really would like to do that. In particular, anyone seeking spiritual materialism or spiritual entertainment feels that way: “Wouldn’t it be much better if we could leave this earth, our home ground, if we could swim across the galaxies of stars? We could feel the cosmos bubbling, and we could dance in the darkness, and occasionally we would relate with the sun or the planets.” The problem with that approach is that we want to neglect our home ground and the familiarity of our highways, our plastic world, our pollution, and all the mundane happenings in our lives. But they are all part of the adornment of living on this earth—whether we like it or not.
Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi. Two of the principal yidams, or “personal deities,” of the Kagyü school of Tibetan Buddhism, used in tantric visualization practice. This statue was a shrine object of Naropa, Marpa’s guru .
PHOTO BY GEORGE HOLMES AND BLAIR HANSEN.
What is familiar becomes a part of tantric study, because it is basic to our state of being. Our state of being is grounded in a sense of continual experience, a sense of continual landmarks of all kinds. For instance, our body is a landmark. It marks the fact that we were born on this earth. We do not have to refer back to our birth certificate to make sure that we were born. We know that we are here, our name is such-and-such, our parents are so-and-so. We were born in Louisiana, Texas, Colorado, New York City, Great Neck, or wherever. We were born, and we were raised in our hometown. We went to school and studied and did our homework. We related with other people: We began to play and to fight with the other students, and we began to develop into real boys or girls. Eventually we went to a bigger school, called a university. Then we really began to grow up: We began to take part in politics and philosophy and to experiment with life. We developed opinions of all kinds. Finally we grew up and became men and women—real individuals. Now we are people of the world. As grownups, we might be looking for marriage partners or business contacts, or we might be dropping out of the world and becoming free spokesmen, who do not believe in this crazy society. In any case, as men and women of the world, we make our statements; we develop our philosophy. In tantric language, that experience is called samaya.
Samaya is a basic term in the language of tantra. The Tibetan translation, tamtsik ( dam tshig ), literally means “sacred word.” The fact of life, the actual experience of life, is samaya. Whatever we decide to do, all the trips we go through, all the ways we try to become an individual are personal experience. Fighting for personal rights of all kinds, falling in love or leaving our lover, relating with our parents, making political commitments, relating with our job or our church—all these things are the expression of samaya.
At a certain point in our life, we begin to live on our own. We may try to reject any interdependence as fast and as hard as we can. Although it is impossible to be completely independent, we still try to be so. We try to get any factors out of our system that seem to bind us. We feel that we have been imprisoned by our parents, by society, by the economy, or by our religion. So we try to get out of those prisons and we try to get into expressing our personal freedom. On the other hand, rather than rebelling, we might choose to get into a certain church or a particular social environment based on a sense of our own personal choice. That could also express our freedom, because we were never told to do that—we just decided personally to do it. When we commit ourselves to the world, whether as a reaction to constraints or as a decision to get into something new, that is called samaya, sacred word, or sacred vow.
Whether
Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi. Two of the principal yidams, or “personal deities,” of the Kagyü school of Tibetan Buddhism, used in tantric visualization practice. This statue was a shrine object of Naropa, Marpa’s guru .
PHOTO BY GEORGE HOLMES AND BLAIR HANSEN.
What is familiar becomes a part of tantric study, because it is basic to our state of being. Our state of being is grounded in a sense of continual experience, a sense of continual landmarks of all kinds. For instance, our body is a landmark. It marks the fact that we were born on this earth. We do not have to refer back to our birth certificate to make sure that we were born. We know that we are here, our name is such-and-such, our parents are so-and-so. We were born in Louisiana, Texas, Colorado, New York City, Great Neck, or wherever. We were born, and we were raised in our hometown. We went to school and studied and did our homework. We related with other people: We began to play and to fight with the other students, and we began to develop into real boys or girls. Eventually we went to a bigger school, called a university. Then we really began to grow up: We began to take part in politics and philosophy and to experiment with life. We developed opinions of all kinds. Finally we grew up and became men and women—real individuals. Now we are people of the world. As grownups, we might be looking for marriage partners or business contacts, or we might be dropping out of the world and becoming free spokesmen, who do not believe in this crazy society. In any case, as men and women of the world, we make our statements; we develop our philosophy. In tantric language, that experience is called samaya.
Samaya is a basic term in the language of tantra. The Tibetan translation, tamtsik ( dam tshig ), literally means “sacred word.” The fact of life, the actual experience of life, is samaya. Whatever we decide to do, all the trips we go through, all the ways we try to become an individual are personal experience. Fighting for personal rights of all kinds, falling in love or leaving our lover, relating with our parents, making political commitments, relating with our job or our church—all these things are the expression of samaya.
At a certain point in our life, we begin to live on our own. We may try to reject any interdependence as fast and as hard as we can. Although it is impossible to be completely independent, we still try to be so. We try to get any factors out of our system that seem to bind us. We feel that we have been imprisoned by our parents, by society, by the economy, or by our religion. So we try to get out of those prisons and we try to get into expressing our personal freedom. On the other hand, rather than rebelling, we might choose to get into a certain church or a particular social environment based on a sense of our own personal choice. That could also express our freedom, because we were never told to do that—we just decided personally to do it. When we commit ourselves to the world, whether as a reaction to constraints or as a decision to get into something new, that is called samaya, sacred word, or sacred vow.
Whether
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