The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 by Chögyam Trungpa Page A
Authors: Chögyam Trungpa
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Manjushri.
In the case of mahamudra, the application or the technique is not quite like the Zen approach of logic, questioning, or koans. It is, in a sense, a highly extroverted practice—you don’t need inward scriptures, but you work with the external aspect of scriptures, which is the phenomenal world. Mahamudra has a cutting quality as well, but that cutting or penetrating quality is purely based on your experiential relationship with the phenomenal world. If your relationship to the phenomenal world is distorted or if you are going too far, then the sword of Manjushri—the equivalent of the sword of Manjushri, which is the phenomenal world—shakes you and demands your attention. In other words, the situation begins to become hostile or destructive for you if you are not in tune with it, if you are dazed or if you’re confused. If you are not willing to put your patience and discipline into practice, then such situations come up. In this case, mahamudra is very much purely dealing with the phenomenal world aspect of symbolism. So mahamudra practice contains a great deal of study of events or situations, seeing them as patterns rather than using logical, koan types of questions—which brings us to the same point.
These two practices are not polarities. You have to go through Zen practice before you get to mahamudra practice, because if you don’t realize that asking questions is the way to learn something, that the questioning process is a learning process, then the whole idea of study becomes distorted. So one must learn to see that trying to struggle for some achievement or goal is useless in any way. You have to start by learning that such a dualistic notion is useless; you have to start from the Zen or mahayana tradition. And after that, you realize that asking questions is not the only way, but being a fool is the only way. If you see the foolishness of asking questions, then you begin to learn something. Foolishness begins to become wisdom.
At that point, you transform yourself into another dimension, a completely other dimension. You thought you had achieved a sudden glimpse of nonduality, but that nonduality also contains relationship. You still need to relate yourself to that sudden glimpse of beyond question. That’s when you begin to become mahamudra experience. In other words, the Zen tradition seems to be based on the shunyata principle, which is a kind of emptiness and openness, absence of duality. The mahamudra experience is a way of wiping out the consciousness of the absence: you begin to develop clear perceptions beyond being conscious of the absence. If you feel that absence, voidness, or emptiness is so, then you are dwelling on something, on some kind of state of being. Mahamudra experience transcends that consciousness of being in the void. In that way every situation of life becomes play, dance. It is an extroverted situation.
I suppose you could say that Zen and mahamudra are complementary to one other. Without the one, the other one couldn’t exist. As experience, first of all you clear out the confusion of duality. And then, having cleared that out, you appreciate the absence of the blindfold in terms of appreciating colors and energies and light and everything. You don’t get fascinated by it at all, but you begin to see that it is some kind of pattern. The whole process of mahamudra, in other words, is seeing the situation of life as a pattern. That’s why the word mudra is used, which means “symbolism.” It doesn’t mean ordinary symbolism; it isn’t a question of signifying something, but it is the actual fact of things as they are. The pattern of life is a pattern. It is a definite pattern, a definite path, and you learn how to walk on it. I think this particular topic needs some kind of actual experience or practice; you can’t really explain it in terms of words.
S: If one is preliminary to the other, can you explain the emphasis in Zen meditation practice on posture
In the case of mahamudra, the application or the technique is not quite like the Zen approach of logic, questioning, or koans. It is, in a sense, a highly extroverted practice—you don’t need inward scriptures, but you work with the external aspect of scriptures, which is the phenomenal world. Mahamudra has a cutting quality as well, but that cutting or penetrating quality is purely based on your experiential relationship with the phenomenal world. If your relationship to the phenomenal world is distorted or if you are going too far, then the sword of Manjushri—the equivalent of the sword of Manjushri, which is the phenomenal world—shakes you and demands your attention. In other words, the situation begins to become hostile or destructive for you if you are not in tune with it, if you are dazed or if you’re confused. If you are not willing to put your patience and discipline into practice, then such situations come up. In this case, mahamudra is very much purely dealing with the phenomenal world aspect of symbolism. So mahamudra practice contains a great deal of study of events or situations, seeing them as patterns rather than using logical, koan types of questions—which brings us to the same point.
These two practices are not polarities. You have to go through Zen practice before you get to mahamudra practice, because if you don’t realize that asking questions is the way to learn something, that the questioning process is a learning process, then the whole idea of study becomes distorted. So one must learn to see that trying to struggle for some achievement or goal is useless in any way. You have to start by learning that such a dualistic notion is useless; you have to start from the Zen or mahayana tradition. And after that, you realize that asking questions is not the only way, but being a fool is the only way. If you see the foolishness of asking questions, then you begin to learn something. Foolishness begins to become wisdom.
At that point, you transform yourself into another dimension, a completely other dimension. You thought you had achieved a sudden glimpse of nonduality, but that nonduality also contains relationship. You still need to relate yourself to that sudden glimpse of beyond question. That’s when you begin to become mahamudra experience. In other words, the Zen tradition seems to be based on the shunyata principle, which is a kind of emptiness and openness, absence of duality. The mahamudra experience is a way of wiping out the consciousness of the absence: you begin to develop clear perceptions beyond being conscious of the absence. If you feel that absence, voidness, or emptiness is so, then you are dwelling on something, on some kind of state of being. Mahamudra experience transcends that consciousness of being in the void. In that way every situation of life becomes play, dance. It is an extroverted situation.
I suppose you could say that Zen and mahamudra are complementary to one other. Without the one, the other one couldn’t exist. As experience, first of all you clear out the confusion of duality. And then, having cleared that out, you appreciate the absence of the blindfold in terms of appreciating colors and energies and light and everything. You don’t get fascinated by it at all, but you begin to see that it is some kind of pattern. The whole process of mahamudra, in other words, is seeing the situation of life as a pattern. That’s why the word mudra is used, which means “symbolism.” It doesn’t mean ordinary symbolism; it isn’t a question of signifying something, but it is the actual fact of things as they are. The pattern of life is a pattern. It is a definite pattern, a definite path, and you learn how to walk on it. I think this particular topic needs some kind of actual experience or practice; you can’t really explain it in terms of words.
S: If one is preliminary to the other, can you explain the emphasis in Zen meditation practice on posture
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