THE FOUR DHARMAS OF G~OPA

Ch6gyam Trungpa, Rinpoche

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 ·THE FOUR DHARMAS OF GAMPOPA

A seminar given at Karme-Choling, July i975.

by

CHtlGYAM TRUNGPA, RINPOCHE

 CONTENTS
Page

Talk One: FOLLOWING THE DHARMA 1

First dharma: follo:wing the dharma.

Sense of separation from teachings.
Surrendering, dissolving the-journey.
Truth based on our living situation,
what we are willing to face.

Talk Two: AGGRESSION 13

Difference between commitment to dharma
and becoming completely identified with
it. Separation from dharma springing
from immense aggression. First step:
knowing oneself, understanding nature
of one's own aggression. Humor, realiz-
ing joke is on you, basis of following
one's mind according to the-dharma.

Talk Three: SUCCESS ON THE PATH 24

Second dharma: success on the path.

Renunciation:with true understanding of
suffering, te~chings become confirmation,
spokesman for you. To actualize unity
between you and dharma requires discipline.
Meditation practice. Losing your
arrogance, chauvinism. Boredom and
resentment. 'Relating with emotions.

Talk Four: TRANSCENDING CONFUSION 34

Third dharma: clarifying confusion.

Confusion as the desire for greater
happiness. Search for freedom vs. search
for happiness. Unconditional, ~11-pervasive
freedom which transcends both pleasure and
pain. Seeing clearly as final step towards
transcendence. Relation between clear
seeing and pain. ·
 Page

Talk Five: DISCIPLINE 47

Confidence and loneliness. Threefold

discipline: (1) austerity (2) absorption
(3) knowledge. Austerity as being
immovable in one's sanity, being open
to oneself and others. Absorption as
complete state of nonaggression which
allows reminders of all kinds to present
themselves. Knowledge as seeing through
emoiions and preconcepti0ns. Discipline
as the actual mechanism of transcending
confusion.

Talk Six: WISDOM 5·6

Fourth dharma: confusion being transformed

into wisdom. Threefold wisdom: (1) as a
product of learning and collection of
experiences (2) genuine insight (3) final
wisdom, the product of unlearning. Three
levels of uitimate wisdom: (1) spontaneous/
calculating mind (2) manifestation in world
as gentleness and nonaggression (3) clear
seeing. Panic as open-minded leap vs. petty
territoriality. Emotions as part of clarity.
TALK 1#1 "FOLLOWING THE DHARMA"

Welcome, everY.body. We're going to discuss

following the buddhist path from the point of view
of personal surrendering. This idea is not particularly
new--and not particularly archaic either, for that
matter. It is the usual ongoing process constantly
happening with anybody who follows the tradition,
discipline. We are not talking of dogma, bu~ of how
a person can take a journey along. the path, on the
path, and at the same time how the traveler·can be-
come no traveler.
At the beginning of your journey you have a
very solid, individualistic style, based on passions
and aggressions, all. kinds of neuroses of ego. But ~s
you walk along the path, you become smaller and s~aller.
You dissolve into the path and you become part of the
pat~ rather than a traveler on it. That. is the point
we are raising here--how to understand the possibility
:t.h~t onc·e you· have reached some enlightened stat~, ...
you cin't watch your own burial. It's impossible.
To a lot of people that may be disappointing because
they would like proof; they would like to attend
the graduation ceremony; they would like to have
credentials to reinforce their existence. But sQme-
how such a concept does not apply anymore .

.. 1 -
 The main working basis. of the buddhist path is
the shedding of ego. When we talk about ego, we are
talking purely of ego-centered ego, ego as territori-
ality--defending your own territory or trying to
conquer further territories. We are not talking in
terms of attaining a blissful euphoric state, some
kind of re-affirmation of yourself which makes you look
good and feel good, a revelation from above, or any-
thing like that. We are talking about dissolving the
journey. That's the main point.
The four dharmas of Gampopa are an important
theme throughout the buddhist tradition, and particularly
in the Kagyu, or contemplative1 tradition of Tibetan
buddhism. The first of the four dharmas of Gampopa
is following one's mind according to the dharma; the
second is the dharma practice becoming the pat~;· the
third.is tha; following the path, confusion is
transcended; and the last one is that confusion is
also transformed into wisdom. Today, I would like
to discuss the first one--one's mind following the
dharma.
When we discuss ourselves and qur spiritual journey,
we tend to have the attitude that the dharma, or the
teaching, is separate from us. Our usual understand-
ing is that we are joining a church or becoming a
follower of something or other, somebody or other,
that we are becoming a.member of a club. It's like
joining a political party. We join a party, we learn
to speak its language, we learn its particular
slogans. But that approach is a misunderstanding of
spiritual discipline. If we try to join s~me
spiritual· club and follow the appropriate regulations
and rules, that automatically·makes our ego bigger.
Dogma has its own credentials, it already has its own
power. S~in following dogma, we are merging our little
egos into bigger egos, and there is a danger of becom-
ing Hitler, Mussolini, or Mao Tse Tung, for that
matter.
So following the dharma is not signing your name
on the dotted line and bec6~ing pa~t of a movement--
a political movement or spiritual movement. Joining
a community doesn't mean you have become a buddhist
or that you· have become a meditator. You can't be-
come a buddhist practitioner that way. A lot of
people try to·do that and they find it extremely
rewarding--from a hypocritical point of view.

- 2 ..
 It is easy t6 sh~ve your head and put ori your robe and
wear the club badge and speak the right slogan~ be-
cause you don't have to give up anything--you just
join the crowd, which is· extremely simple, very easy
to do. But we.are not talking in those terms. In
this case, there's actually a relationship between·
the dharma and yourself.
Dharma literally means ·"truth" or'" "norm." It is
a particular way of thinking, a way of viewing the
world which is not a concept but experience.. This
particular truth is very painful truth--usually truths
are. It rings the soun4 of reality, which comes too
close to home. We become completely embarrassed
when we begin to hear the truth. It is wrong to
think that the truth is_going to sound fantastic
and beautiful, like a flute solo. The truth is
actually lik~.a thunderbolt. It wakes you up and
makes you think twice whether you should stay irt the
rain or move into the house. Provocative. The
sound of thunder could be nice and friendly or it
could be a great hassle. The whole thing depends
on your living situation. If you're camping outside
without a tent and you begin to hear thunder, you
feel threatened.' You feel terrible because you are
exposed and you have to move under a tree or into
a cave--some kind of roof is needed. Whereas in the
opposite situatio~ in which you already have a roof
or a·shelter, when you begin to hear thunder it
sounds great, fantastic. And you can listen to the.
raindrops as well. So the basic question is--who is
actually· listening to the truth? What is his situation?
And, in fact, what is truth?
At this point we could.say quite clearly that
truth is about you. It is not about celestial
beings descending on you, or the golden age of
Martians.· The truth is about you, your existence, your
expe.rience. It's about you. Hearing the truth of
dharma and becoming_ part of the aharma is willing
to face yourself,. to begin with. It may be disturbing
or encouraging--however, that's it. ·
Following the dharma doesn't mean go1ng along
with a particular prescription and taking your .
medication every day. Instead it's a basic commitment
to the teaching, which means yourself. You.could
get out o~ the organization, you could get out of the
club~ But.that doesn't mean you actually have
managed to·step out of the dharma. The dharma is
always you. You are·always going to have the
dharmaof you, your dharma. Your truth, your facts
and figures, your reality, are always ther~. ~eople

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 can try to escape .reality by recrea.ting the different
seasons--in the winter·they can go to Florida; in the
summer they can go up to the ·mountains. But it's not
as simple as that. Re·ality is inescapable.
The truth about you has different facets, obviously:
"What is this truth about me?· What is that truth about
me·?" You might think you are made out of
some good things and some bad things. Sometimes you
feel bad and sometimes good. And· you seem to be surviving)
hopefully-~if you don't get any new ideas, such as destroy-
ing yourself or doing something unreasonable. Other-
wise things are okay. It may be monotonous, but there
are ups and downs as well. However, that kind of
thinking is not quite enough. Regularity is not the
point; experience is the point. Fundamentally, every
one of us feels extremely insecure. You could have
lots of money, lots of background, education,
friends, resources, skills~ but none of that is
going to make any difference to your security. The
more we seek. security, the more insecurity that creates.
It constantly happens that way.
Basically you are incompetent about life. You
could b~ a corporate president or the lord of the
universe--you could be anything--but because of the
style in which you operate your life,_ because of the
.views you have about youself, you are incompetent
and you feel threatened. You could place blame on
all'kinds of people ~nd all kinds of situations, but
those are just excuses. There's something fundamentally
threatening and insecure taking place all the time.
Something's not quite as solid as we would like it
to be, so we need lots of reassurance--some philosophyJ
some idea, some kind of backing from the-world of
comfort, the world of companionship. There is always
hollowness, an emptiness taking place in us always.
That is our usual situation. Basically we feel we
are broke and we have a poverty mentality. Very few
people like to face that, but it's the first truth,
one of the very valuable truths to· face. I.t is not
really pleasant and it's not even helpful, for that
matter. But maybe its unhelpfulness is helpful.
There's always that possibility.
Out of that insecurity we come up with a lot of
strategies, plans of all kinds. We try to combat
this insecurity by means of drugs, politics, philosophy,
.religion, friends. Everybody has tried something. c
And at this point, in this world, everybody had· tried
everything. There'~ nothing left~ nothing that hasn't
been tried. Absolutely. nothing. We've run out of

- 4-
 material completely. Ne.vertheles·s we sti.ll go on.
We begin to borrow each othe~'s ideas, to juggle·
them· around. ·"Have .you -tried that? I haven't.. I
woul_d like to try' yo.urs.. He:. has tried something else,
but I haven't, so I'll tr.y his. Or-let .us try his
together.'.' We keep exchanging ideas. But the _whole
thing becomes extremely depres·sing, .very pathetic.
r-t' s like telling each ot-her stories in a ~state of
insomnia in a dormitory. You are not intereste.d
in .the story; but you want to be occupied because you
can't ~all asleep. Things have gotten that Qad,
actually. But it is all experience." It's dharma,
-in its own way, truth.
What's so sacred about that? Where does sacredness
come in? It doesn't co~-in. the form of religion, as
a savior notion. The sacrednes~s-· is its truthfulness.
It's true, therefore i~'s sacred.·· So ·it could be
secular but still sacred. At the beginning that truth
is unpleasant and very disturbing, .and absolutely use-
less in some way. You might say':.' "I already. know
about myself. I've been studying myself for twenty-fo~r
years, thirty years, forty years, fifty years.
Twenty years of my_life I have spent on this same_old
thing_, again and again. So te 11 us something new."
(Laughter.) But there isn't anything new. We have
explored all the space on this earth, externally and
internally. There's no Shangri-la. We know the
whole earth inch by inch, and we·have explored all
of human behavior in its rough form. We know all
the alternatives, all the tricks that we play on
ourselves. When anybody discovers a new trick~he
·wri~es-a'book aoout it, publicizes it and sells it,
so we know everythi_ng. The whole world is ·gett:i,.ng
to be a ·gigantic bazaar, a supermarket, a shopping
center. ·
"There is. a lot of truth in that, but where' s
the quality of path in. it?" you mig·ht a:Sk. But if
we don't face what we are experiencing, the~ there's
no path •. It may be a- drag, but you must be willing
to face and actually give in to what is happening.
Nobody's going to come up with a fat check for you
tomorrow~ At this point, believing in miracles is an
obstacl~. There is great room fo~ our minds to. open,
give, face facts--literally to face the facts: the
facts·.of reality, fact of pain, facts of boredom. You
might say you've done that already, but r·don't believe
it. We haven't quite done it complet'ely or inte~sively

- 5 ..
enough.. The truth of the matter is that you still haven't
faced f•cts. Because jou are here, it means you are still
looking for a possible alternative. If you had already
understood the whole ·thing, you wouldn't be here~ Let's
face even that.
So our world, this particular world, our dharma,
needs to be acknowledged and needs immense surre~der­
ing-~not just a one-shot deal. It's very tricky
actually when w~ talk about surrendering. U~ually
you would like to double-cross the surrendering: "If
I surrender, will I get something back? If I surrender, I
will be. worthy of it. I'll be acknowledged. In the
end I will be the winner in some sense." The whole
thing gets very complicated. That is precisely
the s_ymptom of one's mind not following the dharma
butJ rather, behaving in an adharmic way. "A" is
a negative ·prefix, ··so adharma is non-dharma, no dharma,
anti-truth, false. Without this first dharma, under-
standing the truth and our relationship to the truth,
we could not go further. Without this foundation,
the other dharmas would be too abstract and too
advanced.
So the first dharma of Gampopa, following one's
mind according to the dharma, is the first step on
the path. Finally you and r,our world meet and are
introduced to one another: 1My name is Mr. World,
Mr. Adharma."'.' "Pleased to meet you." You shake hands
and actually begin to give in. You're wil~ing to
accept your world. You have never done that before.
Either you've been too sneaky, too arrogant, too
aggressive, too passionate or too jealous. Some-
thing is preventing you from actually meeting your
world, let alone attempting anything as great as
the idea of enlightenment. You haven't really met
ycurself properly, or your world, which is yourself.
"I" is you, "am" is your world. You have never met
that particular world. And facing the fact--"! am"--
you and your.world--is very important. It makes you
less blind and less mute. Otherwise you are highly
blind and highly dumb. You usually don't behave as
your body tells you to behave, but rather your
mind behaves for you~ body. So you find yourself be-
coming a ro~ot, not actually paying attention to what
you are doing, what you are seeing, what you are
experiencing. You are. ~not really ·.~xperiene1.ng or
seeing anything at all~ Your whole world is just a
rough guess, a preconception which keeps you going.
When somebody tells you that your preconception is
not valid, then you begin to break down and your
computer system goes completely b~~serk. You are

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being very numb, bewildered. You simply don't want
to face the truth.

Question: My question is about the first part of

your talk, about how we are joining the club and
also being isolated in our seeking. How do we join
the club and not join the club?
Rinpoche: Are you familiar with the buddhist term,
"sangha?" It is a group of practitioners,· and it
also means refugees, in some sense, people who have
left their security, their homeland. They happened
to get together because of a common situation,
rather than because of a movement taking place. The
idea of sangha is that you have a sense of standing
on your own feet--and somebody else is s~nding on
his own feet as well. So you find a lot of people
who are alone, lonely. And sangha is a lot of lonely
people together who are essentially on their own.
They s~are a mutual interest rather than being saved
by the flock, particularly. It's a question of
sharing experience with each other, but not being
caught in the security of the party line.
It's like the way we grow up. We have our own
parents; we've come into the world individually,
privately, so to speak. We were born in different
places and now we begin to hang out together. We
have our own hearts; we have our own brains. We begin
to eat t9gether and live t6gether, but:·nevertheless
we are individuals. We have to grow in our own way:
nobody can make you sixteen years old. You have
.gone through that already.
Q: You were talking of the ego and its relationship
to the outer environment--as best as I was able to
understand it--in terms that were in keeping with
a traditional buddhist understanding of the relation-
ship between the individual and the outer environ-
ment. Does that process of surrendering hold through
time or does it alter in termsof the· time frame in
which ·we find ourselves? The particular reference
in that instance is to the implications of the
intellectual understanding of the relationship
between conciousness· and technological extension of
that consciousness, Buckminister Fuller's and Gregory
Bateson's intellectual understanding, cybernetic
understanding, of the possibility of arriving at a
moment of transcending what was the human condition
through an understanding of the relationship between
technology and conciousness itself--

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 R: I don't see any paTticular problems, sir. The
question is whethe·r we are with ·ourselves to begin
with. I£ we are not with u~, then any collecting of
further understanding doesn't help--it will take us
away. If we are with ourselves, and able actually
to relate with our s~ate of exp~r~ence, state of mind,
then a technological discover~ or scientific discovery,
whatever it may be, is part of that cosmic truth. ·
There's ~o problem with it, absolutely no problem.
Q: I didn't think there was a problem, but the
technological reality of milieu, the outer env.iron-.
ment·, alters through time,· ·and the traditional buddhist
view of ego's response to an outer environmental
condition which you'~e elucidating, stems from
a totally different technological environmental
condition than that in which we find ourselves. I£
that relationship does not alter through time,
perhaps we may be at the verge·of the realization
of our cond~tion that is loosely termed--
R: Well, you see, if Gregory Bateson were here •..
Q: Is he here?
R: He.' s not here, but supposing he were here.
Q: Yeah, that would be .••
R: Uh.
Q: Enlightening. (Laughter.)
R: He was in Bouxder last year and we had a lot
of ·chats about that, actually. It's quite interesting.
But if he wer.f? here, he would be in the same tent
as you are. That's~ the time situation. There's ·no
problem. I mean, time does not come as a concept.
Time comes as time·. The sun is in the West now
as far as this particular world is concerned--we
a.ll know that. Maybe people from the East or the
South would describe it quite differently, but as
far as we are .concerned, in this part of the world
the sun in is the West. I think experience is more
important than possibilites. Possibilities come
from experience--experientia'l possibilities. So,
as the Zen master says: "When I eat, I·eat; when I
sleep, I sleep"·~
Q: I'm not· entirely sure we've reached an accord,
but thank you.
R: You're welcome.

- 8 ..
 Q: I related very strongly to your statement that
we are here b~c~use we are still looking for something--
so strongly, in fact, that I'm leaving in the morning.
(Laughter.) The reason I'm leaving has to do with
my feeling that this for me is the ultimate ego trip.
The.reason we are not surrounded by ten million
other people is because there .is something which
prevents your message from reaching the large masses
of people. I feel that for me this is an intellectual
and spiritual ego trip, and I don't see how this
can be generalized to the world.
R: That's a very interesting reaction. Well, you
can leave tomorrow. I don't see any problems with
that. But I don't think it's a question of how we
can relate the truth to the public, how we can gear
it for.the mass media. The truth has to be individual.
If you have reacted that way ·to what I have to say,
then obviously something has clicked in you. So
in fact, as far as I'm ~oncerned, you are part of
the mess.

Q: I agree.
R: So goodbye. (Laughter.) Drive carefully.

Q: You spoke ·about my relationship to truth. I'm

so accustomed to not seeing this, that I wonder how
I can learn to see my relationship to truth in any
given moment.
R: Tha~'s an interesting point. Don't ask me.
In such situations, look into yourself. Where is the
barrier? Where is the obstacle? If you begin to find
the barrier or obstacle, then you have already reached
some kind of understanding. Work with that.
Q: Well, maybe I'm being too general, but I feel
that that barrier is my ego, which is the case with
everybody.
R: Sure, but you have your personal ego, too. So
you might be generalizing too much in your mind.
Your particular style is distinctly different than
anybody else's, so you have your own world. The
question to ask is how that question carne about. Is
it because you want some kind of response, some kind
of remedy, or is this simply a personal experience
of uncertainty? Once you actually begin to be able
to find out who is the questioner and where the
problem arises, then there is no problem. Try harder--
but not too hard.

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 Q: You·spoke about the world becoming like a super-
market, that whenever someone gets a new trick, he
writes a book about it. But The Tibetan Book of the
Dead--on the first day, the blue or whatever, you
know--that seems just as tricky as all the rest. It
doesn't make any sense to me. I suppose I have to
believe it.
R: I do~~t think you have to believe in it, parti-
cularly. It.should be experience.
Q: But it seems that studying the dharma becomes
just reading, sometimes. You know, after you sit
for awhile, you think: "Now I'm into the dharma so
I'll read these books." I came to this seminar with
the book, The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, because
it was entit~ed "The Four Dharmas of Gampopa." But
it doesn't make any sense to me; it just seems 1;ke
dogma, beliefs, tricks. I can!t relate it to my own
experience.
R: Maybe you're being too tricky with yourself.
You see, you could create all kinds of chain reactions~
outsmarting somebody's project constantly. But it
finally bounces back on you. If you're trying to
outsmart everybody, it finally bounces back on you,
which is not very pleasant. And even then it seems
to become a trick, sort of a dungeon.
Q: You say not to outsmart everybody, but then
there's this trick and there's that trick--
R: That's what you think you have done rather than
what you actually can achieve. In other words, we
think we are outsmarting ourselves--and then finally
we insmart ourselves. (Laughter.)
Q: That doesn't help me at all, but I'll think about it.
R: Well, I. think that will help.
Q: In the long run?
R: At least in the long run. Yeah. The point is
that we haven't really caught up with ourselves enough.
That is the problem.
Q: Caught up. (Pause.J I interpre~ that to mean
·th~t if I just continue to experience reality, then
at ~orne point all those books will make sense to me
and I will be able t~ read them. I can't read them now.

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 R: It's not the books that should make sense to you.
That shouldn't be your project, particularly. But
if what you are makes sense to you, in spite of
being without ego, then books become purely confirmation.
Q: In response to a previous question, you said
to try harder but....not too hard. What's too hard?
R: It's trying to collect too much information, too
·many tricks. To try hard is a sort of leap. But if
you try completely hard, then you ~on't actually take
a leap but you plan further: "If I leap what's
going to happen beyond the cliff?" And probably you
put up wire netting and all kinds of things under-
neath--blankets. That's trying to hard.
Q: This insecurity that everybody's trying to cqver
.up--is it possible that once one got over the shock
of nobody being home, it would be a basis for emptiness?
R: I think so.· But then the trouble is that empti-
ness is at home. iou have to think about that.
Q: When I b"egin to face the truth about myself, what
I get is the truth about myself plus guilt about
that. How do I accept the truth about myself without
getting any extras? (Laughter.)
R: I think you need more surrendering. And it
sounds like too much religion.
Q: I didn't understand that.
R: Too much religion?
Q: Yeah, I heard what you said but I didn't under-
stand it.
R: Well, too many religious con~epts of good and
evil. Too much ethi~s which goes· along with that.
Q: Are you saying that we are what we see, so to
speak, or that we are what we hear? L~ke there's a
simultaneity of experience and what we· ·are?
R: Pretty much so, but let's not make that intri
party-line language.
Q: It could become a whirlwhind at that point.
R: Yeah. We are he·re. Definitely. Some people
try not to be here but they are still here. Even
that doesn't help--they happen to be here.

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Q: Thank you.
R: I think maybe ~e should close ·at this point ..
Dinner is being roasted, or maybe· toaste·d. (Laughter.)
By the way, before you leave I'd like to
place definite emphasis·on the sitting practice of
meditation during this seminar. If you just go back
with ~ore concepts, ideas, quite possibly we're just
complicatirtg things rather than creating any kind of
clarity~ Therefore, actually combining sitting
meditation with discussion and talk and experience
would help a lot. Also, our community here is large1y
based on contemplative discipline, and the community
~embers would like to share what they are experiencing
here with you. So I would strongly encourage you
to join in the sitting practice.

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TALK 112 "AGGRESSION"

In binding our mind to the dharma, we are

able to realize the confusions that take place in
our life and the amount of suffering created from
our life situation. But we are still unable to
accept the truth completely. So we have to become
completely identified with the dharma, which is
much more than believing in something, much more
than taking a random step towards commitment.
There's a tremendous difference between commitment
to the dharma and actually becoming part of the
dharm~: Taking a step towards it has something
to do with making decisions, but becoming completely
committed is more than a decision--it's leaping off
a cliff. The whole thing depends on a sense of
trust. Some sympathy,and trust, and a sense of
warmth need to be generated-~to oneself, to begin
with, and to others as one develops sympathy to
onesel;f •. :rt needs to be beyond the aggression
level.
One o~ th~ obstacles to one's mind being able
to go alo~g with or becom·e part o£ the dna·rma is
your sense of separation ;fTom it) obvious-ly. That
sense of separation comes ;from immense aggression,

- 13 -
 holding back, and the sense of fight or struggle .
.You're ready to wage war with your world. Although
you might regard your enemy as a real experience--
dealing with an enemy and ha~ing a fight--the enemy
is not you. So you constantly have a sense of
separation betw§}.en yourself and other.
There are several ways of becoming emotionally
involved with the dharma. You may be inspired by
a fascination with the teachings or by the fascina-
tion of friends who are involved in the teachings,
or by a certain truth that it speaks. But inspira-
tion doesn't seem to be enough. If grass is green,
green is grass at the same time. You have to be
soaked·completely in dharma, so that there's no
separation between the greenness of the grass and
the grass itself. You have to be completely soaked
in it, which requires a 1ot of sympathy, and a
loving attitude. Whenever there's any resentment~
the faintest resentment t~ some aspect of one~s
life~~that you~re an employee, the nature of you~,
work, the atmosphere at large, the change of season,
too many flies--you say, "This is not really
resentment, this is just irritation." Sure it's
irritation, but that is a form of resentment. We
have created a gigantic cast iron fortification.
And even through we have particular irritations such
as flies, mosquitoes, or whatever, we also express
a constant sense of resentment in the form of
immense aggression. Generally what has happened,
particularly in the West, is that we have devel~
oped or grown up in a world that is a gigantic
market place. You can bargain your way out and
bargain your way in. If somebody's cheating you,
you can bargain with him or you can go to the ne~~
stqre and buy the same thing cheaper. Everything that
we do in our life is businesslike because we are trained
that way. We feel that if we pay for something we
should get our money's worth. We operate with an
immense business mentality all the time.
At the same time; we also have. a sense of war-
fare--who's going to win the war? That state of
warfare becomes a natural ongoing process. Need-
less to say, a lot of the conflict that takes
place in this world is not.based on)just a simple
disagreement or misunderstanding--our aggression
actually created the problem. This aggression be~
comes immense, and it takes all kinds of forms--
sometimes very controlled and sedate, sometimes
very active and articulated. Sometimes we even
become victims of our own aggression. When we try

- 14 -
to bounce on somebody else~ it bounces back on us
as well. We begin to hurt ourselves, to make life.
miserable. The opposite of that is not so much
that we should reform completely and become a
compl~tely peaceful person. That isn't particularly
the idea. The idea is to understarid.that particular
type of aggression and to work along with it in
terms of our practice. It is an inspiration to
relate with the dharma.
The first dharma of Gampopa is knowing one~
self. That seems to be-·the meaning of one's mind
going along with the dharma. One's mind begins to
follow that particular pattern. You're willing to
experience yourself to acknowledge how much time
·you waste through-this partidila·r style of ag·gres-
sion. 'You might say that acknowledging that is not
quite enough. But we hav~ more to talk about tomor~
row-~if you don't leave. But fiist._things first; ~s they
say, And that first thing is to see what's wrong
with us. Then we can look further--what type of
wrongness do we have? Then--what can we do about
it? How can we cure it? That's the general approach.
The steps we are following in this case are the
four dharmas of Gampopa. The first one is following
one's mind according to the dharma. It is actually
acknowledging ourselves9 understanding the nature
of samsara and the nature of our pain and our agres-
sion--which is very real and very personal. We've
been liying with ourselves all our life (and will
be for the rest of our life). So we know our~
selves better than anybody else. There's no
point in pretending that nothing happened, every~
thing's b~autiful. We know that's not quite true.
If you think that your whole life~~your past,
future· and present--is great. I think you're under
some kind of hyponosis or trip of ego. You're
kidding yourself, fooling yourself. That's a very
serious matter. It is worth thinking about. So
in the first dharma of Gampopa we are re~examining
ourselves. We are not trying to find a way ·to cure
ourselves, necessarily. But we are trying to find
out where we are--the way and style in which we are
impr~sonedJ the reason we ended up in this particu-
lar iail, how our situation came about. And once
we begin to know that, we begin to know lots of
truths, lots of dharmas.
But if we look at things from an arrogant as
well as an aggressive apProach, we may not be able
to understand anything at all. We might say:

~ 15 -
"Everything's okay, there's nothing to worry about.
We don't have to listen to this particular bull-
shit." But that is the voice of our aggression.
Aggression could be highly articulate and very in-
tellectual. or extremely impulsive and.emotional.
lt takes all kinds of forms. It's not just one
thing--purely an emotion. And it's not as if you're
telling somebody: "Just calm down and take a.rest.
Everything's going to be okay." It's not as simple
as that. It is very subtle. It's very hard to
discover ourselves. In fact, the particular type
of aggression we are talking about is very difficult
to di~cover until we have completely overcome the
basic nature of ego. But at least we can make
early discoveries o£ the crude aspect of it.
As far as this present situation of the
world of ambition is concerned, aggression seems
tp be .a success. Aggression made the world, and
we also have products of aggression: efficiency,
richness, great learning. Everything has become
the product of aggression--not only the product but
also the seed. We are constantly involved in an
ongoing chain reaction of aggression and its re-
sults, which creates seeds ·of: more aggression.
You can't buy an automobile if you never check
where you buy the spare parts you might need later
on. And if you're buying a foreign car, it's more
difficult because they might have to ship them
from overseas. We would like to make sure we know
where w~ can get spare parts . . It's exactly th~
same with aggression. We woul~ lik~ to have spare
parts available if we break down~ We have all kinds
of reserve supplies--new tactics, new techniques-~
stored in our minds all the time. We say: "I don't
have to use this at this point, but I might need it
later on. Before I use my capital, maybe I should
experiment with small thinking to get my position
without spending capital. If worse comes to worse,
I will strike."
Whether you are a kind-mannered, mild-mannered
or aggressively-mannered person, it is exactly the
same. All the time there is this big barrier, which
creates obstacles to understanding. There's a big
barrier, a big fence, between dharma and us, which
prevents us from actually clicking or communicating.
That seems to be the basic point: In order to be-
come a follower of the dharma, one has to become
nonaggressive, beyond aggression. In order. to do
that, there has to be some kind of warmth in one-
self, gentleness to oneself, which is known as

- 16 -
maitri, and there has to be greater gentleness to
others, which is known as karuna or compassion.
When we begin to make a·connection to.dharma, we
are willing to open our gates, to tear down our
walls. Then for the first time we begin to
realize that the joke has beeri on us all the time.
Accumulating ammunition and building fence after
fence was our trip rather~than something actually
having taken place. We have wasted so much of our energy
and economy on that trip. When we begin to realize
the joke was on us and created by us, then we are
actually following our minds according to the dharma.
Naturallyj that discovery goes along with a
sense of humor. It's not another resentment at
all. That wouid be the opposite direction--that
you want to kill the person playing jokes on you
(which is yours!£) and keep going all the time.
Question: You spoke against aggression, but don't
you think that sometimes the energy of aggression
can produce a more harmonious situation?
Rinpoche: Well, I think it's a question of what
kind of aggression we are talking about. Aggression
with stupidity and confusion is self-destructive.
It's like aged wine turning to vinegar as opposed
to aged wine.
Q: Will you speak a little about aggression ahd
change, bringing about change in our lives in a
nonaggressive way?
R: Well, you see, ~hat we are discussing is not
particularly how we could combat aggression. That
would be impractical. What we are talking about
is simply how we can realize its style of operating
in the world. Then I don't see any particular
problems. You are actually approaching aggression
from the back door, so to speak, and various ag- .
gressive activities could become part of the learn-
ing process at the same time. This particular
discussion today is not really complete without
going through the next three dharmas of Gampopa.
Once we put all the pieces together it will make
it much clearer.
Q: It seems that one of the obstacles to feeling
aggression is feeling that aggression isn't right.
R: That aggression isn't right?

- 17 -
 Q: Well, I guess that'~ an aspect of aggression ~s
well, feeling that it isn't right or acceptable in
certain situations.
R: Yeah. So, can you say something more?
Q: Uh, it's difficu~t to get personal.
R: Aggression is always·, personal.
Q: Uh, in many instances, in my relating to you,
there's a difficulty because I feel anger. And the
anger seems to be not wanting to be exposed in many
instances--and who are you to expose me? It seems
to take that form, anyway. There seems to be a
great difficulty there because of your place and my
place, the guru-student relationship.
R: Well, that's not a particularly unusual case.
(Laughter.) ·
Q: It may not be unusual, but it still presents
problems.
R: Sure, if you call it a problem.
Q: At this point it's not a problem; at this point
it seems to be humorous.
R: It's not a pro~lem. Something's actually begin-
ning to work. When you feel touchy, when the rela-
tionship is so much on edge--something's about to
spark~ There's obviously resentment. There's
obviously some kind of arrogance on your part that
you have a right to have your ego and confuse the
world. You don't want anybody to mind your business,
particularly. I'm sorry to put it so crudely,
but that's usually the case. I think that's the
beginning of working with the student-teacher
relationship, when something like that begins to
happen. It's a very hot point, obviously.
Q: Egads.
R: It's just about to spark something. And
that seems to be a very interesting point--you
could go further wit-h that, you could explore more.
The relationship is lik~.a mirror reflection--you
could get angry with the mirror because it makes you
look so fat. ·
Q: I've never thought in terms of getting angry
at the teacher though.

- 18 -
R: Well, that'.s exactly what happens, you know.
That's the kind of thing we are talking about.
There's somebody who minds your business andre-
flects backcon you. That's a highlight of one's
life, I would say--there is something coofing.
Q: I'm· in complete agreement ·with that. (Laughter~)

Q: Could it be that in other relationships in

which you feel resentment to a person whom you .
certainly don'~ consider to be your teacher, that
could also be a mirror in some sense?
R: Sure, definitely, but the relationship may be
less intense.
Q: I often feel· that I have confidence in a teacher
as being a ~lear mirror, but some peopie are very,
very muddy.
R: But it's still a mirror. Whether it•s a good
one or a bad one, it's still a mirror. That's the
difference between a teacher and other people. One
is clear, the other is slightly clouded. But it is
still a mirror, there is still some truth in it.
Q: I feel that the direction in which one thinks
determi~es the way one is. That is, if one thinks
negatively it seems to me that one becomes negative,
and the same with positivity. And after working
for many years in a teaching which followed the
line that you are presenting, it got to the point
where I was completely negative, a kind of negativity
that I'd never had in my life. I got to the point
of feeling that working towards seeing the negative
facets of myself resulted in my being more negative
than ever. I began to look for a teaching that
stressed love and light and positivity. And at
this point I'm just confused. Could you comment on
that, please?
R: Yes, indeed. (Laughter.) Well, how should I
begin? You see, the whole approach is not so much
that since you have had one extreme experience al~
ready, therefore you should seek the other extreme.
That will create a heart attack. You become a flea;·
jumping back and forth. One of the problems is that·
you want to solve your problem. You want to solve
it very badly:and you try to find the best remedy,
which creates more problems. But as a matter of
fact, the problem isn't there at all, even at the
beginning. You have created the problem yourself.

- 19 -
You are so panicked by the problem that you begin to
be unable to look at it. You see in the dust a snake-
shaped rope, and suddenly panic,saying: "Oh, there's
a snake, let's get away! Tell everybody there's a
snake over there." But you never explored whether
there was a rope or a snake at the beginning. This
is a very old buddhist analogY-. When we panic, we
see· things in an exaggerated form, usually for the
worse; and out of panic, if we look for somebody love-
and-lighty, we might find· one. That person could
be extremely aggressive at heart, but still, seem-
ingly at lea~t, it's a change to talk to somebody
who appears to be good, kindly. I think a lot of
people get sucked into that kind of situation by
jumping to their first conclusion and being unable
to relate with their own panic. Panic is a very
interesting experience. It makes you completely
petrified. You actually can't even think. There
is .a kind of sunyata nonthinking experience oc-
curring in panic. But that's very hard to detect
if you want to recapture it. (Laughter.) Don't
leave tomorrow. (Laughter.)
Q: The four-dharmas of Gampopa is a series, a path
that every person has to walk on by himself and can
only do by himself. But the formulation by which we
know it starts with a supplication. What is the
relationship between those two, and to whom is it
addressed?
R: The idea of blessing is a very interesting point.
When we talk about a blessing, it's not so much
goodness descending on you; it's a ·form of inspira-
tion in which you inspire yourself. At the same
time as that inspiration takes place, the blessing
is also present. You create your own situation.
Most of the supplications that exist in the buddhist
tradition are based on ·an awakening process rather
than confirmation. It is awakening--how to awake,
how to transcend. We are not addressing anybody ·
in particular, but maybe we are addressing the
lineage (the practicing lineage, the Kagyu lineage).
The reason we are doing that is because the lineage
represents practice and discipline, and we follow
certain formats with that lineage. We are prac-
titioners of that lineage, which means that we have
to go along with that.discipline in the same way as
others have done in the past·-Gampopa and Milarepa
and so forth. So, we're inspiring ourselves saying,
"I'm going to be one too." It is .a personal com- ·
mitment. It is the same as reading the Heart Sutra
and other·buddhist sutras, which are purely

- 20 -
 dialogues between Buddh~ and his disciples. At the
same time, it has its quality of up-to-dateness.
Q: Rinpoche, you said we should try to understand
the nature of aggression and pain, not in the sense
of trying to cure ourselves, but to understand wh~t's
imprisoning us, and that to relate to that in an
arrogant or aggressive way might somehow disallow
understanding. And, at least at this point, I
don't see how I can relate to anything other than
aggressively or arrogantly, no matter what style
I might adopt. And I also have a little problem
seeing the difference between curing oneself, meaning
getting rid of sickness, and seeing what's imprison-
ing us.
R: Well, I think basically the point is a sense of
understanding the aggression, to begin with. It's
like the analogy of drowning. You have to use the
water.to come up onto the surface. It's the same
water, and whether you drown or not is up to you.
You are drowning because you have mismanaged the
water, and therefore you have to use a different
approach. At the beginning, your approach may be
an aggressive one, but you are willing to shed your
arrogance and you are willing to be ripped off, so
to speak, willing to become naked. Once there is
willingness to be exposed without any hesitation,
then there's no problem, no difficulty.
Q: So that willingness doesn't rid you of aggres-
sion, but somehow changes the character of it.
R: Well, it might be the 'same style, you might be
doing the same thing, but your aggression sort of
uses itself up. The later pursuit through the path
is very irritating, but it doesn't rely on any·
aggressive means or any aggressive apnroach. It's
a question of just acknowledging boredom. Boredom
seems to be a way of transmuting aggression into
practice.
Q: I was just thinking about the analogy of a
mirror, that everybody could be a mirror or that
situations could be mirrors. But upon looking at
the mirror, would it be true that before you could
see yourself, you would see your aggression? In
other words, if I saw somebody--could they·really
reveal-myself to me if I would allow myself ~o look
at that mirror?
R: I think so, yeah.

- 21 -
 Q: But before I could see myself, would I see my
resistance to that?
R: Yeah, that's possible. According to the psycho-
logical steps that take place, you don't actually
see aggression first. Aggression is the flash, and
one's ego is the light which is permeating the flash.
But, you don't have time to go through that process.
It's so_ fast that you have been pre-programmed al-
ready. So, seemingly, the only things you see or
care for are your reactions.
Q: Then before I could recapture that flash or see
the flash again, I would have to .work through all
that _aggression.
R: Slow motion of some kind. But that seems to be
a bit tedious, and analyzing it doesn't actually
help very much.
Q: Well, what would be the--
R: At this point, nothing, except understanding
what's going on, rather than analyzing.
Q: Mm-hmm.
R: At the beginning, one has to develop a sense of
intense imprisonment. That seems to be the first
inspiration. Then, once you begin to feel the sense
of intense imprisonment, you begin to feel more of
a sense of the possibilities of not being there.
Q: Going back to a question asked last n-ight, with
specific reference to the Jewel Ornament, and not
being able.to relate or in any way experientially
identify with almost any part of it--how does this relate
to your discussion of relating to the lineage?
Lineage doesn't seem--therers no experiential
identity with it.
R: Well, I think quite basically you should work
with your aggression, to begin with, and what is
available to you at this particular moment. Work-
ing through it. The first inspiration to become
rich is to become penniless. You have to start
from the beginning. ·
Q: Where is the beginning?
R: Being· poverty-stricken and very angry, aggressive,
wretched. (Laughter.) We are not talking about

- 22 -
something diff.erent than what you have, what you
already have around you. We've got to use what
we have as resources. Once we actually realize
that there's some truth in it, that is the begin-
ning or the root of the path. Then we begin to
have a great grasp of it. The path doesn't omit
or reject that part, particul~rly~
Q: Specifically, I'm thinking of his whole thing
of accumulating merit or the list of ways that we
los~ merit. The worst murder was to murder your
guru. (Laughter.) I got the impression that the
worst offenses of all had to do with your teacher,
and it seemed like it wa~ a trade union or something.
(Laughter.)
R: We discussed that alreidy, you know. If you
don't like your mirror, what your mirror has to
say, you don't break the mirror because you know
you might find some other mirror which is also clear
and saying the same thing. So from that point of
view, the guru is not particularly one person.
It's haunting.

- 23 -
TALK 113 "SUCCESS ON THE PATH"

I would like to go back a little bit to what

we discussed yesterday in connection with the mind
following the dharma. One of the characteristics
of that is basic renunciation, but not renunciation
in the o~dinary sense of leaving one's home town
or country and becoming a holy man of sorts. Re-
nunciation seems to be based on a true unde·rstanding
of suffering. And then renun·ciation takes a further
step, which is becoming part of the greater vision--
leaving one's own home town, metaphorically speaking,
or ego. This means that our familiar territory is
not related with as a cozy home situation. We
have actually left our home territory, that which
encourages us in growing familiar plans and wallow-
ing in them. And in understanding that sense of
renunciation, we must realize the need for compassion,
the need for warmth, as well as the need for less
arrogance and aggression. That seems to be the
first step, or the first ~harma. And now we're
getting into the se·cond. dharma,. ··which· is: follow-
ing the dharma, that one succeeds on the path.
Succeeding on the path of following the dharma
is comprised of three situations: you, the dharma,

- 24 -
and the path. .Y~u have become part of the ·.dharma
already. In other words, you have already identified
your experiences with the teachings,~ so the teachings
become a spokesman or confirmation for you. Follow-
ing in that dire-ction, once you have actually made
some kind of connection or comP.lete link with the
truth- -that you and the truth· are one- -e·nergy has
already happened at that point; So you can't re-
main steady and you're never stuck in one place.
Once the ~ruth and you are one, you are automatically
moving, you are already taking a journey of some kind.
You move automatically once that has happened, and
very personally. The journey takes place auto-
matically and the path happens automatically, so your
journey on the path is very powerful and energetic.
Something further seems to be necessary in this
connection: there is a need for discipline. Discipline
is the way finally and completely to actu:alize.the
unity between yourself and the dharma. Discipline
is the fuel, because·discipline is connect~d~t~
t~e.domestic situations i~ yo~r life~.Your da~-to-d~
l1v1ng. Your every day l1fe 1s some~1mes very .. -<
trying, sometimes very easy, sometimes challenging.
It takes all kinds of shapes and patterns. So
basically discipline means. willingness to work with
all that, a willingness for you and the dharma or
truth to be one. In other words, you and the truth
of suffering, you and the truth of egolessness, and
you and the truth of irnpermanenceJare one. These
are known as the three marks of existence, according
to the buddhist tradition:· egolessness, suffering,
impe·rmanence. They are very important subjects in
realizing the truth about life.
In this case, truth is not particularly the
divine truth of the theistic traditions. This
particular type of truth is nontheistic tr~th. It
is truth. Truth without theism. That is to say,
it is you and your world rather than you and your
world and somebody else (or something else). So
from that point of view, the practice of meditation
is the ideal nontheistic discipline, the traditional
discipline of meeting oneself without indulging.
Meeting oneself and breaking through onese1f. \

In meditation, you simply sit and breathe.

Breathing i.s not .regarded as a tool. Crutches maybe,
but not particularly a trick or gadget. It's im-
possible, since you have been breathing such a long
time, that it could be regarded as a new technique.
Just become one with the breath. Identify· completely
with your preath; s.o that breathing becomes you and

- 25 -
you become the breathing: body becomes breathing,
breathing becomes body"~ mind becomes body, breathing.
Very simple and direct. Thought-chatte.rs occur. ·
According to the samatha traditionJ when· thought·
chatters occur, you just acknowledge your thoughts
and return to your breathing. Religious thoughts,
sexual thoughts, thoughts of aggression, business
thoughts, domestic thoughts, thoughts that gossip~
thoughts that show your private cine~a show,
thoughts that play _back on a record player: All of
those are just thoughts, even if they're angry,
jealous, or whatever, You could feel·greatthat all
of those are just thoughts, thinking process. What-
ever occurs i~ your thinking process are to be
regarded as just thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. They're
neither good nor bad; they're simply there, like
clouds in the sky which come and go. Thoughts are
there, simply there. And then after acknowledging
your thoughts, come back to the breathing.
There's ·one point I would like to raise:
there's no such thing.as an ideal meditative state.
Since this particular tradition is not cultivating
any state of mind, any euphoric state of mind, the
practice of meditation could sometimes be quite
chaotic and disgraceful, and sometime it could be
extremely good. But whatever happens, it's your
journey that· you are taking. Having one's mind
unified with the dharma, you are taking this journey.
It is. endless, and sometimes it's circular: the faster
you go, the closer.you come back to home. So there
is no point in speeding. This journey is very
real. The more you awake, the more painfu~ it is.
The more you awake, the more you're involved with
the sitting practice of meditation, the more neurosis
could be seen through. That is, today your fever
is liftin_g, so your original sickness .becomes more
vivid. And as your original sickness begins lifting,
the side effects become more complainatory. And as ·
the side effects dissolve, then little irritations
become a big deal. So there's no end totrouble,
problems. Through the process of .becoming more -~d
·more refined by means of the sitting practice of
meditation, you become more shakey, basically, because
ego's fortification, its maintaining of its enter-
.tainment, its territoy; and its kingdom, becomes
doubtful: So there's a ,ense of loss, of losing
heart. And what you're losing is your arrogance, your
chauvinism. ·
Often you are tempted to go back to your good
old days. Life used to be more colorful: more challenge,

- 26 -
more fights, more chaos, greater pain. But some-
how, at this poin~.it seems to be too late. The
sitting practice of meditation generally brings a
lot of loneliness. You're realizing that you can't
actually use others, you have to live with yourself.
However hard it may be, still one has to live~.
with oneself. It becomes problematic, very lonely,
extremely desolate. You can't cry on somebody's
shoulder, or jump on somebody's lap. And you can't
tell somebody your innermost secrets about how the
psychological disciplines are affecting you through-
out this process. Ynu might think you are making
some sense, but others have difficulty listening
to you. Things begin to break down. The more
you try to introduce complicated methods, the more
lonely it becomes. Whereas, on the other hand, if
you're just trying.to relate with the world simply
and directly, a greater communication takes place.
Very simple, direct communication,which is not
involved with asking for sympathy or for a fight.
It's very d.irect communication with no demand on
either side. It cou~d be heavenly.
So it is very important for us to realize that
if we're going to do something about ourselves, it's
best to ~ive up trying to do something in terms of
goal orientation. As we discussed already, you
can't watch your own burial. You can't have a
graduation ceremony with ? host of buddhas and
bodhisattvas congratulating·you. (Actually, that
might happen, but then it will not be you but some-
body else--I should say something else, rather than
somebody.)
So discipline is very necessary, important.
Without it, we can't cut through ourselves properly.
Discipline is the feul which burns ego; it is the
sword that cuts through all preconceptions. Some-
times discipline becomes a source of resentment, and
sometimes it is a source of inspiration. But in
any case there are no difficulties when one is
able to get into discipline. There are no p~oblems,
no difficulties at all. The difficulties ~nly lie
in that we don't want to give up "this"--we still
would like to maintain our arrogance.
According to nontheistic disciplines, reali-
zation and freedom ~an only be possible if we are
able to develqp our own awakening. Supposing you
fell asleep and. slept late. The dawn, the sunrise
or the daylight wouldn't help. First you have to
wake yourself up in order to see the dawn, the sunlight.

- 27 -
 There.' s something in us which is awakening already.·
And we have to tap that· particular source, that
particular energy, by. means ·of discipline, the
sitting practice ·of meditation. This has been
recommended by the Buddha, and has bee.~ practiced
for 2,500 years. It's old-fashioned truth, in
some sense. But at the same time it is up-to-date,
applicable--and a lot of us still do it. This
is not particularly a testimonial, but it still
works. It still happens. It becomes a part of
basic necessity.· Even during prehistoric ages,
animals ate, drank and slept, and even at this
point in the twentieth century we still do those
same things, and they still work. It's the same
kind of thing: the sitting practice of meditation
is not a new gadget that somebody just came up with.
It is not a bright idea somebody jotted down in his
notebook and decided to publicize, jazz up, and
braodcast, which then got a lot-of followers and
finally a few testimonial reports as well.
At this point it seems to be needless to talk
about its workability, but rather how it needs to
be done. When your mind follows the dharma,
basically you begin to develop a sense of realization.
But that unity between mind and truth needs continual
disciplineJso that it does not become purely a pre-
conception, a conceptual idea, so that it actually
works and it actually relates with our basic being.
That is discipline, the practice of meditation, ·
which· according to the Buddha is very simple and
direct.
As far as technique is concerned, it is very
simple. Basically it is working with what is
available, that is, with yourself and with what is
around you: your body, your breath, your mind. It's
very simple. You work with your body by boycotting
unnecessary activities, just sitting still. When
you sit still, you feel your heart beat, you hear
your breath and your thoughts begin to chatter.
·so what has been recommended. is just to go along
with your breathing, which is a natural thing.
Whereas if you try to hold your mind steady and still,
·the more you try to hold it, the more your mind be-
comes restless. Your mind doesn't want to accept
that kind of authority. It becomes more inquisitive
about entertaining one~elf.

Question: What set you to laughing· in the beginnirrg

of the lecture!

. .:. 28 -
 Rinpoche: W~ll, I think w~'re still very much home-
oriented,and that's very na1ve--and funny too. It
feels as if everybody comes here after they've just
finished the dishwashing, suddenly settled down, and
now are watching television.
Q: Rinpoche, would you say·that buddhism is a
kind of ultimate coping mechanism?
R: I think all religions would say that, in-
cluding buddhism. But at the same time, as
buddhists, we think. that we've got the best.
Q: The best what? I go t lost. I'm not .asking
you to find me, but I'd like to find you, your ·
teachings--
.R: Well, the best. from the point of view of
coping. You feel you aren't being cheated ~nymore,
that the only process you're going through is re-
·discovering yourself.
Q: Oh.
Q: I seem to have a little trouble communicating
in this realm of buddhism. Before starting on the
path, we all find ourselves in a state of duality,
and we think in terms of duality, and at the other
end, there's nonduality. And the only way I can
conceive of getting off the starting line, is
talking ·a-tnt thinking in a mixture of both duality
and nonduality, experiencing a little nonduality
through meditation, if I'm fortunate. But I find
it to be necessay to communicate in the dualistic
manner. I can't comprehend trying to communicate
in the nondualistic way. Is this unusual or is this
a conflict? Have you found this to be .a difficult
stumbling block as people start out from the
word 'go~ and starting down the pCl.th slowly,
slowly dissolve?
R: ~···don't see any problems. Even if you reach
the level of nonduality, that is duality already.
So you can '·t just mimic nonduali ty. And I don't
think there. is really such a thing as nonduality at
all .. That'.s just another idea.
Q: Mm-hmm. Well, I was listening to your tape
today on Don Juan, and you were talking about the
·Journey. to Ixtlanh. and how Don Genera said that he
would never get t ere, he would always be on the
path or· on the journey. So in a sense, we·'re always

- 29 -
 operating from a woild.o£ duality, correct!
R: Yeah--
Q: --and we have to participate in the· thought
processe~to some extent, that duality offers.
Today, in our 'discussion, I found a very strong
resistance to logic, you know, the implication that
logic is dualistic and therefore that there's no
place for it.
R: There's no problem. Actually, what I'm
planning to talk about tomorrow is the intellectual
~evel, how one•s mind works.

Q: I'll wait until tomorrow then, and maybe ask my

question then.
R: Don't leave before tomorrow. (Laughter.~

Q: In our discussion group today, we were talking

about aggression, and--
R: Can you raise your voice?
Q: Yeah. It occurred to me that maybe our
mere existence in some ways is aggressive in that
we're taking up space. And underlying this aggression
may be an insecurity of being. Would-you comment
on that? ·
R: I think you are right, but then there is the
obvious aggression which stems from that. Our obvious
arrogance, obvious aggression can be worked on.
The point is we can't knock the whole wall down at
once, but we can take it down brick by brick. We
can deal with what are simple situations now.
Basic existence obviou~ly is a sense of wanting to
hold on and a sense of being. It contains a
lot of aggression already, for the very fact that
l-and-other is already a step towards fortificatio~.
You don't want to be attacked; you would like to ~
hold your particular castle.
Q: Looking at ourselves as being aggressive
and confuse.d, and at life as sufferingJ could become
self-indulgent in negativity. And in that way, it
would reinforce the negative rather than th~ positive.
R: It dependi on how you are actually dealing with
that situation. You could d.eal with that situation
as going back to familiar ground, holding onto
your territory, or you could. work on i~ as manure
- 30 -
 that could be abandoned in the field. But .it's still
useful to grow crops.
Q: ·Yesterdayr you alluded to aggressiveness having
a relationship with boredom, and· I've been thinking
about that because I'm bored a lot when I sit. Is
boredom just resentment or is.there such a thing as
an acceptable type of boredom?
R: I would say boredom is resentment, definitely.
But when the boredom begins to take shape, you
.would like to get into boredom rather than active
resentment. So boredom could be said to be passive
resentment, a deaf-and-dumb approach: you don't want
to see, you don't want to he·ar, and you don't want
to speak.
Q: Lately I've been feeling I had many hopes,
illusions or ideas which seem to have fallen
away--but not completely. I guess I still resent
that. Everything seems rather star~,· barren, and
vague. I just do not know anymore what steps to
take or what direction to be moving. How do you work
with that kind of vagueness, or if it's boredom, with
that kind of boredom?
R: Well, it's not a question of the direction
that you're taking, that you must know that. It
doesn't involve scheming. We basically lack an
understanding of newness, of the present situation.
You come up with the problem in the present and you
would like to do something about it. But since you
can't face the present, you try to study its case
history, which is in some sense a cop-out.
Q: But you must still do something. You are still
alive.
R: You can do. it in accordance with what's
there rather than doing something according to
Dr. Spock's book.
Q: I don't understand that. Doing something means
something to me. My hassle is that I have a lot of
aggression and hostility in me. It's a big part
of me. And when things come up in my life, heavy
scenes, trips--when I have to react to my own
aggression or somebody else's--I'm usually unable
to do it. But I've only been meditating since
Thursday morning. I don't even know if I'm
meditating yet. Bu.t if aggression comes into my head
whn I'm sitting, I start looking at it. And if I
think I'm looking at it, all of a s~dden t~ere's-some-

- 31 -
thing else there, I don't know kow to deal with it
and I don't think I can· learn how to de a! with it.
I think that--here I am, thinking. My he·ad is so
full of concepts and words, falling all the time,
that I guess I have decided, somehow, to commit
myself to sitting. But I'm still nervous. I'm
shaking like a leaf right now, and "hello."
~: Well, I think the simplest answer is, sit.
Q: Thank you.
R: It's very tricky. It could be. It's in
the process of trying to tone down, but at the
same time, it could be a raging war--you know, planning
your warfare.
Q: Should one give up an opportunity to attackJ
even though that means you're not doing what you're
feeling?
R: Well, you see, this has been our general problem
all along when we talk about emotion. We have a
misunderstanding that emotions imply particular
actions. For instance; we think anger automatically
means hitting somebody. But that's not quite the
case. Attacking is something other than actual
anger. Attacking is the product of the emotion
rather than the emotion itself. So the emotion
actually lies within us. Emotion manifests in
all kinds of ways, but acting it out is not quite
the way to release it. What usually happens is
that when you go along with the product of emotion,
that recharges the next one, and so it goes on
and on, perpetually. It never stops~ The question
is how to have some kind of relationship with your
emotions themselves, not just the product of the
emotions. Usually what happens in the state of
emotion is that we go completely stupid, and we
actually don't have any logical minds or any
intelligence at all. You could be a very intelligent
person, but nevertheless when you are in that state,
you're petrified and frozen completely. The emotions
begi~·to take you o~er before you actually strike
somebody. So there's a lot of room actually to make
friends or harmony with the emotions at that point.
Emotions can be worked with in your mind, as the
emotions are actually cooking, when they actually
happen, when they are actually brewing. They
can be worked on at that level. I think that it's
more a conflict between you and you, rather
tha~ between you and somebody else from that point of view.

·- 32 -
Q: In relation to what you said about aggression,
I wonder how one can deal with other people's
resistance to the path or to one's .involvement in
spirituality--their lack of understanding or their
resistance to it.
R: Well; .I think trying to iay your trip on
somebody else doesn't help. It becomes just another
trip as far as they are concerned, obviously. I
think that peop!_e can only understand your in-
volvement in the dharma by your example, by where
you are. Example is better than words. ·

- 33 -
TALK ##4 "TRANSCENDING CONFUSION"

Our subject tonight is the third dharma of Gampopa:

transcending confusion, clarifying confusion. "Well,"
we could ask, "If one is following the path of dharma,
is completely unified with the dharma, and practicing
meditation diligently--then what else is necessary?"
But in many cases, situations arise which are completely
beyond our expectations. We begin to get into so- ·
called trips of all kinds, wishful thinking, expecta-
tions, the need for certain revelations--all leading
back to spiritual materialism constantly. This is
the constant problem that we face. A person could be
a competent practitioner, a good meditator; but he
still has problems in actually giving up the goal,
giving up preconceptions. In a nontheistic discipline,
the idea of being saved or delivered into a higher
goal, is always problematic. The nontheistic approach
is much sharper than that. It is more accurate and
precise for the student following the path.
The notion of goal or promise, tends to bring
unnecessary security, maybe false security. It tends
to bring up the question of pleasure: that following

- 34 -
 the spiritual path is based on purely seeking greater
pleasure. You can call it bliss or absorption or any-
thing you want; but nevertheless, what it boils down
to is seeking for pleasure. And that used to be the
main selling point of assorted ·spiritual trips: "Other
pleasures, such as becoming ·a millionaire, or having
an air-conditioned home, or having everything you want,
fame, glory and everything, didn't satisfy you. We,
on the other hand, are offering greater pleasure. So
why don't you come to us?" That used to be the great
commercial. People got -sucked into it, and a lot of
people thought is.was an extraordinariiy good idea.
This particular pleasure could be jazzed up by saying:
"It is not safe and not indulgent. It is ultimate
pleasure. It has no comparison with anything at all,
therefore it-is superior and supreme and fantastic.
And it is also the truth. If you really experience
the truth, you experience fant~stic pleasure, incom-
parable pleasure." This attitude has its roots in the
theistic tradition in some sense--a perverted form,
of course. And if we are swayed by that kind of atti-
tude, we will have difficulty in actually transcending
our confusion, which is the third dharma, or third
step of the path. We will have no way to transcend
our confusion. Buddhadharma is not based on creating
and developing a sense of great pleasure. You might
get a clear idea about pleasure or bliss or the jhana
states or mahasukha or whatever you would like to call
it. But that experience is actually still confusion.
It has the sense of duality--experiencer and experience.
You could say that this pleasure is supreme
pleasure because you don't experience the experiencer,
that you are completely, totally involved with the ·
cosmic orgasm and ~o forth. You might lose the re-
ference point of experiencer when you are completely
overwhelmed by pleasure. Of course. The same goes
for anger, for that matter. But in fact that's the
problem. There is a split, schizophrenia in the cosmic
sense, rather than ~omebody being freaked out in a
mental hospital. There is the greater schizophrenia
of not being able actually to concentrate on one-
pointedness in dealing with one's ego. Immense confusion.
It is true ~hat a lot of the current approaches
to spirituality are geared for that particular pleasure,
that particular promise, in a very sophisticated way--
to the level of salesmanship in the ordinary sense.
A whole range of salesmanship takes place. Nevertheless

- 35 -
they are all saying the same thing: "How can we be
more comfortable?" In other words: "This wretched
life is so painful, we should renounce it. We should
become ascetics so we can get better pleasure and
we don't have to deal with this rotten, wretched life
called samsara." The reason we renounce it is that
we are disgusted. We don't want to live in a dungeon--
we would like to iive in a diamond castle.
That's the kind of situation that creates con-
flict. The more we think in terms of the goal and
the object of the goal, the more our minds become
schizophrenic. There is immense separation: the more
we try to give in, give up, devote ourselves or wor-
ship, the more important the worshipper becomes. It
is a mutual ego-building. You might praise the Lord.
And praising the Lord, you get a reward: you become
close to God or the Lord. And finally you become
good friends and you can actually demand what you
want from Him or Her. It's a kind of diplomatic
game, that you are trying to reach higher and higher
into the authorities, trying to get closer and closer.
Once you are close to the authority or the president,
the king or the queen, you have access to making yourself
comfortable and happy, because you have great influence
by then; You have a lot of credentials at the same
time--which becomes a big problem at this point.
Spirituality from this poin~ of view, according
to the third dharma of Gampopa, is not so much seeking
pleasure or comfort or security. Instead it is very
straightforward and somewhat, you might say, dull.
And there's no "fun-fair" involved. We explore our
emotions, work with them in their own state rather than
with their'products. We don't get a chance to change
shifts, to take our minds off the miserable situations
of samsara. Everything seems to be very dull and purely
pragmatic. That seems to be the whole point: non-
theistic discipline is very pragmatic. It's human-
situation oriented, rather than another promise for
ego.
In other words, everything--whatever we do, any
little steps we make--is based on the ide~ of the
desolation of ego, of that which creates double vision.
Basically what happens is a type of egomania. Ego
is actually unable to make up its mind. Ego sometimes
wants that, somtime wants this--constantly changing
its mind. And at·the same time there is another situation--

- 36 -
"me and other." So there is a fourplex involved--
"me and other" and "this and that." Conflicting
situations are constantly taking place and we have no
idea what to do, once we become victim to them. But
somehow, following the path of·meditation actually
does create a sense of perspective, a sense of clear
vision, a sense of reality. We are not searching for
happiness or greater happiness, particularly, but we
are searching for freedom. In order to gain real
freedom, one has to be free from the search for hap-
piness. That search could become imprisonmen~. If
one really wants to have a long-term, complete project,
one has to do a clean job of the whole thing. In ,
order to do that, one has to look at every detail
of the "yes's" and "no's" that are involved in the
whole thing.
Freedom is not exactly the same as happiness.
Happiness is a state Of mind, as I once read on a
bottle of gin. It says, "Gin is a state of mind."
(Laughter.) Even supreme happiness is a state of
mind. But freedom is independent of a state of mind,
a mind that actually minds "yes's" and "no's .• " It
is total experience. When freedom occurs, there is
no reference point and there is no celebration. You
have freedom already, so there's no point in beating
a dead horse. Sometimes celebrating breakthroughs
is a hang-up. There is still something very sad about
that. Celebrating.victory means that you are still
in imprisonment, you're still struggling a lot. You
haven't quite reached beyond this celebration of
victory. So freedom, from the ultimate point of view,
doesn't need celebration; it is a direct-and simple
experience, all-pervasive. It is not a state of mind
according to the emotionality or feeling level--the
level of "for or against," in other words.
So the basic notion of transcending or clarifying
confusion is experiencing the state of freedom, an
unconditional state of freedom. It's not pleasurable--
and not pa~ticularly unpleasurable either. It's big
thinking. And it has a huge mind, a big heart. It
is all-pervasive. It covers all areas, but not for
the sake of covering all areas--it just happens that
way. Such a state of being is transcending confusion,
transcending predominantly seeking pleasure. Some
people seek pain, but that is not exactly the usual·
style of human behavior. Usually if you are some-
what intelligent, you seek pleasure. But sometimes
you might seek pain because your pleasure is too much.

- 37 -
You need a contrast. It is like dipping into a
Turkish bath or sitting in a steam bath and trying
to live through the claustrophobia of all-pervasive
heat. But that's just trying to create little con-
trasts, knowing that once you get out of it, you'll
b~ fantastic.

The application of the practice of meditation

brings a sense of actual freedom. But in taking
steps towards transcending confusion, it 'is necessary
for you to give up hope and fear at once, simultane-
ously. You have to give up pleasure shopping. That
seems to be an important point. Otherwise we constantly
accumulate all kinds of things, one after another.
You are involved in an endless game, an endless search.
You pick up little pieces of that and this all over
the place: you meet this famous person, that famous
person; this writer, that writer; this eccentric sage,
and that eccentric saint. You're collecting all the
time. But at the same time, you could be said to be
collecting a lot of imprisonment. You could buy a·
gold chain; silver chain; a chain in.laid with diamonds,
opals, rubies; wooden ones; bamboo ones; concrete
ones (laughter); cloth ones; hoping it is going to
be a good ornament to wear--but in the end it becomes
a hang-up. That's what's called spiritual materialism.
We might have a good time in the "fun-fair,"
on our. shopping trip--a glorious time, never a dull
moment. But when we come back home with our collec-
tions,.that is something quite different. "What do
we do with these? Which chains should we wear today?"
The sense of renunciation that we talked about at the
beginning--realizing the pain that is involved in our
life and the confusion that is involved in our life,
the chaos--it is not bad to think that over. It makes
a lot of sense. It's very earthy. It's an original
idea of ours, our own experiences, very simple and
direct. Quite possibly that will bring us to a re-
nunciation of our territoriality and ego-hold; and
at the same time that might bring the possibility
of transcending confusion.

Confusion, from this point of view, is the de-

sire for greater happiness. Greater happiness is
a somewhat mythical theme: you are not quite exper-
iencing greater happiness. You think that the best
you can do is to try to experience it--which is already
watered down. So whatever we do in our life is trying

- 38 -
 to boycott what we have in our existence--our mind,
our body, our intelligence, our perception. We look
for something else entirely different. We are more
interested in foreign cultures than our own culture.
We don't have happiness; we feel miserable. There-
fore we import happiness as a foreign product and
try to make the best of it.
The question is how much are we fooling ourselves
for the sake of freedom--so-called freedom, good living.
It is also important to look at the path from a domes-
tic poirit of view, in terms of our journey from the
beginning to the end--how much development is taking
place, or has it been the same old thing, that we are
always getting in our own way? Maybe occasional doubts
are the best remedy, the best way to transcend confusion.
guestion: I associate these talks with what we read
J.n the Sadhana: "Grant your blessings so that my mind
may follow the dharma; Grant your blessings so that
confusion may be clarifieQ.." I had some idea that
maybe "confusion may be clarified" was what you called
transcending confusion.
Rinpoche: Mm-hmm.
Q: When it's clarified rather than muddy, it suddenly
becomes--it's no longer confusion. Is that right?
<

R: That's right. Yes. I think maybe "transcending"

is a better word.
Q: Does that mean the confusion doesn't exist at
that point, that it is left behind?
R: Well, I think it takes several steps. First we
have to clarify. Then we can transcend. It isn't
a one-shot deal. But fundamentally, it's transcending.
Q: I have trouble understanding how one can fulfill
-the expected role of earning a livelihood and make
any significant progress towards transcending confusion.
For example, a president of a bank--if he actually makes
progress towards giving up his territory, he can't
fulfill his role anymore. He would make a lousy pre-
sident of a bank, it would seem to me, if he was in
that position. I'm finding myself in that position
more and more~-participating in merchandising life
and material possessions and that sort of thing. I
find it difficult to have any motivation in that di-
rection--and therefore I can't even seem.to support

- 39 -
myself. (Laughter.) I find myself more and more at
the mercy of people supporting me. ·
R: Well, your analogy of a bank president makes an
interesting point. If anybody is in that particular
role, the more he hangs onto his territory the more
people get pissed off at him and the more he feels
trapped in the organization. But if such a person
delegates lots of responsibilities to his colleagues
and subordinates, and at the same time inspires their
particular initiatives in the organizational realm,
then his territory becomes much greater and he is more
respected. He is not fighting for his territory, but
residing there as a leader. I think 1t depends on how
big the bank"is and also how benevolent that bank
president is. If there is less territory you could be
a greater leader. You don't have to hold onto your
particular little area. And in fact, trying to have
every finger in the pie would exhaust you to death as
the organization became bigger--it would be cutting your
own throat. So, if you really want to expand and
develop and open, you should delegate more in terms
of leadership. That happens very naturally. And
sometimes, of course, you have to take a chance. Some
people might be questionable in their posts. You don't
really like to put someone there but still you would
like to cultivate that par.ticular personality in that
particular role. And it will probably turn out well
because once somebody's in a high position, the trust
of the leader is invested in him, so that person
begins to feel very inspired and begins to pull up.
There is ~ess dragging down, but instead constant .
pulling up. So from the bank's point of view, I think
you can transcend confusion very easily.
But individual situations are very tricky, I
suppose. If you are living off of somebody, that's
very heavy duty. And one of the principles of the
bodhisattva approach is, to begin with, that you
should not be a nuisance to yourself. The second one
is that you shouldn't be a nuisance to others. So
I suppose one has to develop some transcending of
confusion there, too. (Laughs.)
Q: Where does the bhikshu come in?
R: He doesn't expect to· be supported by other people.
He's just a simple-living person. And there is no
prc:>blem. It is an open situation. It is not that he.
begins to tap his particular devotee or his particular

- 40 -
supporter, or comes back again and again--but it's an
open-ended kind of thing. Actually, during the Second
World War a few Burmese bhikshus came to England, and
realized ~hat they couldn't practice their discipline
as they had done in Burma--begging in the streets.
They realized that and got themselves jobs, and at
work they wore the uniforms of their factory. And
when they returned home they wore robes and conducted
services and related with their buddhist followers.
It was very successful. It is a remarkable memory
for people, nowadays--that those people actually
demonstrated an example of buddhism. So that can be
done, too.
Q: Could you elaborate a little bit about freedom
from what? You speak of our seeking to attain free-
dom. I'm confused about exactly what it is that we're
trying to get free of.
R: Free of confusion. If you are trying to establish
your freedom from confusion, you are not fighting it:
you are free from confusion or imprisonment. If you
have too much of you, that's the source of your im-
prisonment. If you begin to open up, there is less
confusion because you don't exist, actuaily, which is
very threatening. It's not easy to say, and not as
easy to do as to say--but expand.
Q: Rinpoche, I hope I'm not making too much of these
words--transcend and clarify--but it seems to me that
confusion grows out of a series of mistakes that are
continually made. And therefore I don't see how
confusion could be transcended. It would naturally
disappear once it was clarified, and there would be
no need to transcend. Confusion is a man-made product,
and once it's clarified, it ceases to be. So there's
no necessity to transcend it, in the sense that transcend
means to overcome.
R: Well, I think there are two steps: clarifying
and transcending. Clarifying is to clarify situations:
You see clearly so you have no more confusion at that
given time. To transcend is to uproot it altogether,
so that recurrent attacks don't happen.
Q: But if you did a good job of clarifying, it wouldn't
recur.
R: It would. That couldn't happen. You're asking
too much. To begin with, you have to make friends with

- 41 -
 your confusion. Then you can begin to clear up the
whole thing. It's not all that frightening, and it
is workable. Then, when you begin to see through,
there are no threatening situations. You begin to
see that confusion is part of you, and therefore
you have to pull yourself up. And everything becomes
very clear.
Q: Yeah.
R: And by that time you probably don't have any
more confusion--just momentary confusions. Maybe
occasional attacks. You know where you are and what
you are. But somehow you haven't completely trans-
cended, because you still have you and them, which
is the bigger hang-up. We are not talk1ng about
curing physical sickness in this case, but about
psychological sickness.
Q: Yeah, but didn't the confusion arise initially
because you differentiated between this and that?
R: Mm-hnuil.

Q: And therefore--
R: Precisely, yeah.
Q: Well, in clarifying confusion you would also
see through that.
R: Not necessarily. You might see that you have .
greater hang-up~ which is very threatening. You begin
to see everything very clearly and terrifyingly. You
know how bulky and stuffy and stubborn and fucked-
up you are. And you begin to see this very clearly.
It's like reading your x-ray, you know. (Laughter.)
It is.an insult but we can't go on without it. There
might'be a very delicate and more sophisticated
way of doing it, but somehow there's no point in hiding
that particular inconvenience from yourself--no point
in sheltering yourself from that. Do you see the logic?
Q: Well, I didn't follow that last part. I missed
out on that because it seems to me that ultimately,
the most you can hope to. do is to see clearly what is.
R: Yeah, which is not. very pleasant.
Q: Why is that?

- 42 -
 R: Well, you might actually be able to overcome
little expressions that are created by the confusion,
but the confusion itself is deep-rooted, so you might
feel that it is very threatening.
Q: I guess I just don't see why it would be threat-
ening.
R: You don't?
Q: No.
R: I think it's very threatening if you realize
that·you have a concrete heart or a plastic lung
inside you, and that you have to put up with it for
the rest of your life. This might be very threatening.
Q: Yeah, but I think it's· only threatening because
we aren't seeing it . clearly. If we saw the complete
pictur~, we ~ouldn't be frighteried anymore.

R: I think that's too clinical an approach.

Q: Okay.
R: You've been practicing too much, doctor. I'll
keep an eye on you. (Laughter.)
Q: Yesterday when I said that I thought·of buddhism
as a coping mechanism, I think I did what you were
talking about at the beginning of tonight's talk.
I tried to characterize this whole pursuit in terms
of expectations. And since I mentioned that yester-
day, I've kind of gotten a bit scared that perhaps
I reduced it too much, or made it into ·something with
expectations. But you agreed that it might be charac-
terized as a coping mechanism.
R: Yeah.
Q: I got a twinge of jadedness or boredom when I
thought about it because if it's only a coping mech-
anism, then it would tend to make me feel like I'm
not into something real, you know.
R: Sure. Well, I think that's part of the method-
ology. The presentation of the teaching is a coping
mechanism. But it is something more than that.

- 43 -
Q: What is ,the something more? I mean, I've heard
that samsara is nirvana. I've heard that.
R: You heard that? (Laughter.)
Q: Okay.
R: Well, we have a long way to go to get there.
(Laughter.)
Q: I know.
R: Transcending ~onfusion is the next step. It's
not only a coping mechanism, but it is actually dealing
with it. So it's something.
Q: So buddhism is dealing with reality.
R: Well, that takes a lot of steps. The hinayana
level is a coping mechanism--you are quite right;
the mahayana level is a dealing mechanism; and ~he
vajrayana may actually be transcending--or curing, for
that matter, which is a dangerous word to mention,
actually.
Q: Securing?
R: Curing. Well, what do you think about that?
Q: i've gotten into the habit of trying to explain
in a couple of sentences what buddhism is to people
who ask about it. But I don't know that much about
it myself. And in doing that, I've started characterizing
it as a psychology, a coping mechanism--
R: Yeah. Well, I think all of them apply, partially.
An elephant is like a piece of leaf, or.a tree trunk,
or whatever--the seven blind men's views of an elephant.
Each one of them is correct, but when we begin to put
them together it turns out to be something quite
different.
Q: I don't believe I understand what transcending
means. You indicated that you can possibly transcend
something by seeing it with clarity and then becoming
friends with it and accepting it. I'm not sure what
the steps are, or what tr.anscending means in essence.
R: It's quite simple. Once you have seen very clearly
and made friends with the situation and also are

- 44 -
actually able to experience that particular confusion,
transcending is no longer threatening. It is trans-
parent. That particular experience of confusion no
longer exists as an opponent, or as opposition--it's
part of you completely.
Q: All.right. Can that be done through meditation?
R: Only through meditation. It's like crossing a
river. Before you cross the river, there's the other
shore. And while ·you are on the river, crossing the
river, you begin to see that the place you came from
is also the other shore (as well as the other shore
being the other. shore). And then as you go on and
you begin to get to the other side, you begin to realize
that it is no~big deal--it's just another shore.
And in fact, it's this side already.
Q: I wonder, in seeing different things in oneself,
about the difference between seeing them and seeing
them clearly. When does it become a point of indulging
and perpetuating them?
R: I don't see any·problems there.
Q: I do. When are we further perpetuating them
rather:than just acknowledging them and seein~ them,
feeling them?
R: Well, it's all part of the same thing. You go
through different densities. You might see with
your own eyes, naked eyes; then you might wear spec-
tacles; then you might look through binoculars. It's
a different kind of seeing through. In the beginning
you see the haze, the silhouette or a collection of
colors, maybe--but not really the texture. And then
as you go closer, you begin to see things much more
personally. The whole thing becomes very real. And
one of the interesting points about that is that when
you begin to see everything very precisely, it is
actually very painful, irritatingly painful. According
to the scriptures, an ordinary person's experience of
reality is like a stroke of hair on your tongue;
whereas Buddha's experience of reality is like a
stroke of hair on your eye. So it's very painful
to be Buddha, from that point of view, because direct-
ness becomes very clear, very precise. So becoming
enlightened is not all that great fun. Certainly
you don't become just a jellyfish.

- 45 -
Q: Would you please say something about overcoming
obsession as opposed to transcending confusion?
R: I think that's saying the same thing~ Obsession
is confusion. Obsession is approaching things from
the point of view of a monomaniac, and confusion is
approaching from the general angle. I don't see any
differences between the two.
Q: Well, confusion would be a confusion of choice
between this and that.
R: No, not really. What we are talking about is
confusion itself--its numbness, its dullness, its
blurry edges--rather than confusing that and this.
That would be a psychotic level of conf~sion. But
we are talking about the ordinary neurotic level.
Q: But obsession doesn't always have the form of
dullness. .It cart be very hard-edged.
R: It could. It's dull and sharp at the same time.
That's why you are so attracted to one particular
thing all the time. Sometimes it pushes you back and
you get confused, and sometimes it becomes very clear
and so you are attracted. You think you just about
have the answer, and then somehow you don't have it.
So you are tossed back and forth like a yo-yo. The
whole thing is very energy consuming. And in the end
the whole thing becomes very dazed.
Q: Apd obsession is overcome in the same way as
transcending confusion?
R: I ~houid say so.

- 46 -
TALK ##5 "DISCIPLINE"

I would like to discuss a few more things in

connection with yesterday's dharma: clarifying con-
fusion. There are some practical details that need
to b~ looked at from the point of view of personal
discipline. Personal discipline is largely based
on a sense of freedom. Whenever there is a sense of
freedom, that freedom becomes real, but at the same
time the person who actually experiences freedom
becomes very lonely. But such a person does not
particularly search for companionship in order to
overcome the sense of loneliness. He develops. a kind
of confidence personally within himself, and a con-
tentment that goes with the loneliness.
That sense of freedom or fearlessness brings
what's known as threefold discipline. First of all,
there is austerity, or discipline itself, in which
there is a sense of immovability in one's sanity.
That is, you do not have to be subject to seductions
anymore, particularly those of the theistic tradition,
wkich only provide further backing (for ego). That
sense of self-sufficiency be·comes an important point.

- 47 -
 When you become personally involved in the practice,
then there is no feeling of poverty, no feeling of
confusion. Then your discipline or exertion be-
comes very tlear. Your interest in the world becomes
very clear and sharp, and in some sense, the world
becomes part of your playground. It also becomes
an expression of your conviction.
You begin to trust the world a li ttl.e~bi t more,
so you don't generate panic. The world be·co.mes some-
what comfortable to live in--not because it is enter-
taining, partjcularly, but because it is right, perfectly
righ.t~ When you can swim properly, you can trust the
water, that it is not going to drown you, and you can
float very easily. Therefore the first quality of
threefol~ discipline, exertion or basic discipline,
is itself twofol_d. It is a personal experience of
both openness to oneself and openness to the other.
There is a sense of warmth taking place in
basic discipline. And that-warmth automatically
brings a sense of workability. Naturally, occasional
thought-chatter, occasional potential panic, and
discontentment of all kinds will occur. That doesn't
mean to say that it will happen all the time, but
there will obviously be that kind of hassle. Never-
theless, that hassle doesn't become a big deal--it's
just another tipple in ~he pond. The sense of
discipline becomes very real, in that you are actually
working twenty-four hours a day, all the time. You
are not working so hard that get tired nor are you
working too little, so that you get lazy.
Then there is the second discipline, meditation.
In this case it is more absorption than meditatio~.
Absorption doesn't mean getting into a state of
trance but developing an interest in relating with
the ~orld, and becoming equally inspired by the response
from the world. There is a sense of mutual atmosphere,
and some sense of higherness--not on the level of
pleasure or pain, but just a sense of the atmosphere
being ripe, ·fresh and ready. This is a complete state
of nonaggression.
One finds reminders taking place in all directions,
in every little event that takes place in your life,
when there is watchfulness, mindfulness, and a sense
of nonaggression. Reminders don't come to you as
aggressive imposition, they just present themselves.
If you have made little mistakes, they bounce back.
So there are constant reminders taking place--bot~
positively and negatively. That's the s~nse of

- 48 -
 absorption--that you have created that open space,
open situation. · And within· that atmosphere, all
kinds of growth can take place.
The third discipline is knowledge, which is
the intellectual aspect of discipline. There is
a sense of seeing thro~gh pure ·emotionality and pre-
conception, allowing a sense of real truth to begin
to work. All three disciplines are connected with
a sense of freedom and loneliness. Unless there's
that atmosphere of freedom and loneliness, hone of
these disciplines ca~ develop ~r be cultivated· be-
cause you will be latching onto somebody else or
something else. In terms of the intellectual aspect
of it, it is parti~ularly important that there's
no need for reference points. When you become a
scholar, you refer to books, authorities, and history.
But in this case of intellectualization, no confirmation
is needed and you begin to cut through unnecessary
bullshit. There seems to be general directness, and
a sense of immense clarity begins to dawn on you.
This sometimes tends to create a sense of irritation,
as if your pupils were dilated and you began to
see more clearly than you should. The reds become
more red, the pinks more pink, and the blues more
blue. There is that possibility. However, that
doesn't really inspire you to close down. Instead
it creates a kind of ladder, on which each time
you take a step you go up higher and higher, become
·more and more clear, and create a more open kind
of situation.
On the whole this process becomes very powerful.
It. exp.ress~-~ a sense of freedom and at the same .
time, feels one from a naive idea of freedom. At .
that level,. power over others or the sense of imposing
one's own trip on others becomes irrelevant because
there is no need for it. No confirmation is necessary, no
conquering of territory is necessary. Everything becomes
very clear, crisp and direct. Such clarity gives you a slight
pain in the heart or chest, in some sense, because everything's
overwhelmingly as it is. Occasionally there is a temptation
to run back to old habits, and snuggle up in your
dirty blanket, (laughter) which smells very homey and
secure, like the good old days.
There is always the potential of a freakout.
When I talk about freakout in this case, I mean a
sense of bursting out into extremes. But that's
just a threat, or the uncertainty which brings a
threat. Actually, it never happens. One always
wishes something dramatic will happen to keep you
- 49 -
 company so you don't have ·to be lonely all the, time.
But at this point, there is no such luck. I think
those three disciplines act as the actual mechanism
of clarifying or transcending confusion, (the third
dharma). That seems to be it.
If you'd like to ask questions,_you're welcome.

Question: There was a time when I thought that I

had experienced some understanding of karma and its
effect on my life--like having a package of new
seeds that seem to get automatically planted at
the same time. What you are saying now makes me
think that maybe the experience of loneliness is
somewhat familiar, and that there is a choice of
indulging, which is like trying to replant the
1

seeds, or experiencing the freedom to not plant

seeds. Is that right?
Rinpoche: Well, the loneliness that we are talking
about at this point is somewhat different. We are
talking about loneliness within the experience of
freedom, which is much subtler, ·and much more all-
pervasive. There doesn't seem to be a desire to
recreate companionship or entertainment. Possibly
there is no chance to recreate karmic debts or sow
karmic seeds.
Q: So at this point. they don't even bother to
send you a new package of seeds?
R: Well, it seems to be unnecessary. That kind of
atmosphere doesn't apply. at this point. It's a
different kind of greenhouse.
Q: Is the pain or confusion which seems to get
more intense, self-existent, or does it need a
perceiver?
R: I think it's self-~xistent. If there's a perceiyer,
then the pain isn't clear. You always create some
kind of numbness, or shell, to protect yourself
from imposition from pain.
Q: So it's always there?
R: Yeah. That's a good·question.
Q: At whatever point of development I seem to be,
I'm seeing a lot.of my aggression. However, I am al-

- so -
 ways involved in.relationships based on attraction/
repulsion, like you talk about in Cutting Through
Spiritual Materialism. As I begin to be more aware
of it, it becomes more painful. Is there any way at
this point, before having developed the warmth and .
generosity towards myself that ~ can feel it towards
others, any way that I could use relationships as
a tool?
R: Well, I thin~ that there is no other choice.
We are not particularly trying to become monks or
nuns, to run away from the world, or become desert
hermits. We have to conduct our business, we have
to work with our bread and butter, and we have to
maintain Karme-Choling. (Laughter.) The relation-
ship situation is a working basis and a very important
one. Although the whole approach may not be
ideally right, appropriate, or sane, there is still
an element of sanity if one begins to take an interest
in a relationship rather than just indulging in it.
It could be very powerfully beneficial.
Q: Thank you.
Q: Would you say the same thing about marriage and
relationships that are based on trust and close
living together?
R: Well, when I talk about relationships, I am
talking about anything--having a puppy dog with you
(laughter), or being married, or having a mosquito
on your nose, whatever.
Q: Rinpoche, last night you were talking about
the stroke of the hair on the palm, and the tongue,
and in the eyes, and now you are talking about
seeing clearly being painful. If this threefold
mechanism or seeing clearly helps to transcend
confusion, that seems to make you feel high. I
don't understand how the intensity of seeing clearly
is painful. It seems just to help to see the
silliness of everything you engage in. And that
feels good!
R: Well, it would feel good, but good would be
~ good, so you would feel some pain with it. If
you feel good superficially, everything is lovey-dovey
and fine. But if you really feel good, it has a little
bit of pain in it.
Q: But that doesn't seem like a very painful· pain.

- 51 -
R: It is. It is very.painful pain. It depends
on h.ow good you feel. (Laughter.)
Q: Well, okay. Could you describe that pain a
little bit more? You see that there is pain, so it
isn't quite so painful.
R: Pain is experience. Maybe you are confusing
two issues there. When we talk about pain, we are
not talking about conceptual pain. We are talking
about actual experience, overwhelming experience,
direct experience. And when you see clearly, you
have a very clear experience,· which is almost over-
whelming.
Q: But there is nothing you can do about it?
R: There is no point in doing that. There is not
even a desire to do anything. It is not pain in
the sense of bothering you, but pain in the sense of
its being penetrating.
Q: Could it be called something other than pain
in that case?
R: I can't imagine anything. (Laughter.) You
could call it insight if you like! That is a very
euphemistic term for pain, in some sense. It is
pain; it hurts; but it doesn't bring you down,
particularly. Usually when we are in p_ain, we
panic, then we feel more painful and we call the
doctor. When the doctor is late, we panic more.
And if we have a bad doctor, we panic even more.
None of that is involved--it is sheer, clean~cut
pain. It·• s the same kind of pain' as when you're
in love with somebody. You're in love so much it
hurts--sweet and sour dish.
Q: On the subject of communication and loneliness:
you mentioned in an earlier lecture that the possi-
bility of direct communication, when one is not using
another person for someone to fight with or to get
sympathy from,could be "heavenly." (I think that
was your word.) Now you say that when one has this
clarity, it is highly lonely. I would think that
this possibility of communication would have some
ameliorating effect on this loneliness. Could you
discuss this a bit, please?
R: Well, loneliness is actually pleasurable at
this point. It's courtship, some kind of honeymoon.
You feel lonely, very.desolate, and there's nothing

- 52 -
around you. You·are in the middle of a desert,
which feels very spacious and lonely. You can't
lay your trips on anybody and they can't lay their
trip's on you. Lon~liness is very beautiful from
that point of view. I think that is what the
Christian mystics talk about, concerning the
benefit you get out of Jesus' prayer. The heart
beat becomes Jesus' prayer., rather than you actually
saying the prayer yourself. Christ becomes you and
you become Christ, wfiich is all an expression of
loneliness because there is no Christ there--you
are doing the whole thing. You feel lonely at the
same time. Well, we have to try to find out. I
think that's the only way--words can't really
accomodate that.
Q·: I think you said that the state of freedom was
sort of a prerequisite for the three disciplines
that you mentioned. Is that accurat~?
R-: As far as I'm concerned:
Q: I'm having a logical problem. You said that
the three disciplines were also the mechanism for
transcending confusion?
R: It's an environmental situation, and if you're
trying to find logic, you probably won't find it.
Should we ·have the roof first of should we have·
the foundation first? If we want .to build a houseJ
we should have a roof. We should then have walls
to stand the roof on, or the other way around,
whatever. (Laughter.) We should have a plumbing
system in it and frames around it. Where do we
begin? Should we have the money first or should
we have the plan first? It's a vicious circle if
you begin to look for the logic. It happen simultan-
eously. There is a sense of transcending confusion
at the beeinnine. and then there is a sense of
freedom. But you can't .iust live on that oarticular
freedom1 because it doesn't really mean much of anything.
You're free--so what? That is why you have a
practice involved with this: discipline, ausorption,
and knowledge. You have a foundation fi·rst, then
you build the frames, then you··put the roof on it.
I believe that's true. ·
Q: You mentioned that warmth had a purpose, erasing
or eliminating· aggression. And yet it woul~ seem
that it would develop out of a lack of aggression.
Would you develop warmth from the lack of aggression?

- ~3 -
 R: Not necessarily, because if you develop
warmth without aggression, there is no energy. There's
nothing to be warm--or hot, for that matter. That
warmth has to be generated by. something or other,
which is aggression, in some sense. Aggression has
a lot of elements. It has an energetic aspect and
it has stupidity in it as well. The stupidity is
transcended by clarity. So then you have the energy
aspect of the warmth, automatically.
Q: Is that all part of the aggression?
R: ·Yeah, we could say quite clearly that our
enemies are·our lovers. Basically, we have a very
heavy relationship with our enemy, somebody whom we
really hate. They are actually our lovers. We could
say the same thing about our lovers: They are enemies,
from that point of view.
Q: Could you say that the cessation of suffering
was the same as the cessation of our concepts about
pain?
R: I wouldn't say they were quite the same. I
think concept is more than suffering. Maybe the
cessation itself is a concept, to your surprise. We
haven't got it quite in a nutshell yet. We have more
work to do.
Q: When you have nonaggressive energy, if it takes
.t.!te form of creativity do you come up against
ego- tripping? Our society makes. creati vi t"i ·~into an
ego trip. So if you're trying to get beyond ego,
you're faced with either suppressing creativity or
just being and.not expressing-- ·
R: What's the problem?
Q: The problem is the reaction of others; making
creative expre~sion into ~gocentricity.
R: So?
Q: In buddhism, I seem to see a ki~d of ·letting go
of emotion and not indulging in it, arid I see most
creativity as indulging in emotion in order to·express
it. So what·happens to art in buddhism?
R: I don't see any problems with art. Art can't
be created by speed or aggression. Art can only be
created by an awareness of space. You have no art
otherwise, unless you are designing guns or rocket-
ships or something like that, which is a different
kind of art, I suppose.
- 54 -
 Q: I'm talking about communicating with others,
trying to share·oneself through art.
R: Well, you don't have to share your ego with
somebody else particularly. That would be regarded
as bad art. But you can experience egolessness and
share the absence of ego with somebody else. Art
doesn't have to be aggressive, it can be inspiring.
Art is an expression of love, or passion, so passion
plays more of a role than aggression.
Q: But isn't that where the indulging comes in?
R: Not necessarily. Indulging is trying to put
everything in your pocket: putting every cent you
made on that day into your pocket. If there is any
space, you don't have to put everything in your p-<H:ke-'t";
every cent. You could be slightly untidy, but
that doesn't really matter. Efficiency is not the
point here. ·
Q: If the basis of the practice that we've been
talking about is meditation and discipline, is it
possible really to face up to yourself and .cut
through if you only practice an hour a day, as
opposed to the kind of schedule that they keep
here or on a retreat?
R: Well, it could be possible, but at some point
you have to break your routine. You have to impose
on yourself some kind of irregularity. If you are
used to sitting ·at five o'clock every evening, it
becomes a routine. Your physical situation begins
to accept that and your body is ready to do that,
so there is no particular effect taking place in
your state of mind. From that point of view,
irregularity seems t·o be more important than
regularity. So the programs we have here are very
irregular. (Laughter.) Sitting sessions are not
really predictable--you can't anticipate, when
they're going to happen. You may be ready to sit
two hours beforehand, but once you begin you are
put in a different kind of rhythm altogether. The
whole thing seems to be designed to confuse expect-
ations.
Q: Do you think just by sitting short amounts of
time, like an hour or two a day, that it's possible
to not face up to yourself for a long time?
R: It depends on your life and your job, basically,
but roughly speaking, that should·do something.
• Well, I think we have to close at this point.
Thank you. Tomorrow after the talk, you can go.
(Laughter.)
- 55 -
TALK 16 "WISDOM

I would like to step back over what we discussed

yesterday: the sense of freedom and how to develop
a sense of freedom through the three disciplines.
The basic idea of a sense of freedom becomes more
than a sense of freedom in the fourth dharma, confusion
being transformed into wisdom. The notion of wisdom
is threefold: first there is wisdom as a product of
learning and a collection of experiences; then there
is wisdom of cultivated, genuine insight; and then
there is a final wisdom in which that cultivation of
wisdom and collecting of information falls apart.
That kind of wisdom, the ultimate or final wisdom, is
what we are discussing today. In order to appreciate
and see clear sunlight, we build up stormy dark clouds·.
Then when the clouds suddenly shift, we appreciate
the bright sunshine more. It's the process of learn-
ing in order to unlearn. That seems to be the wisdom
that we are talking about. It's not a product of ·
being wise or learned, but a product of unlearning.
Obviously, in order to unlearn, you have to learn a
lot. Then finally the learning process breaks down
and there's the product of unlearning, which becomes
very clear, direct and pr_ecise.
Traditionally, there are three levels of wisdom:
being, manifestation, and clear seeing. The first
type of wisdom,· being, takes the shape of nowness. That

- 56 -
 is to say, its prec~s1on comes from some boundaries of
confusion. Whenever there is a boundary of confusion,
precision becomes sharper and clearer. That's what
we mean by transforming confusion into wisdom. It is
largely based on e·motions of all kinds, like aggression,
passion, ignorance, or whatever. All those extremes,
or heavy-handednesses, become part of the clarity, part
of wisdom. The basic notion that we have to give up
the bad and have allegiance to the good, that we should
clean up the black and become white., somehow doesn't
apply at this point. That's a very mechanical approach,
just the destruction of the unpleasant and building up
of something pleasant. Such an approach builds up the
idea of aggression, so one is unable to follow through
on the path. The three levels of discipline--discipline,
meditation and knowledge--tend to bring a sense of
fullness in which you begin to realize that give and take
doesn't play an important role. It's more an acceptance
of what you are than automatically having what needs
to be cleaned up cleaned, and what needs to be grown
grown. There's no pick-and-choose. It seems to be
an organic process, natural growth, from that point of
view. Wisdom of that nature is spontaneous mind, and
at the same time, calculating mind. Whenever there is
spontaneity, it is calculated spontaneity. Because no
error has been made, everything is precise. That parti-
cular state of experience is a state of being in wisdom.
You are sustaining the experience because it is already
part of you, not because you are trying to sustain it.
If something is a foreign element, you have to try to
sustain it. But in this case, it's part of you already,
so it doesn't need sustaining. It's a state of being.
The second type of wisdom is the state of manifestation,
which means interacting with the world in one's appro-
priate way. That doesn't necessarily mean that the
behavior pattern of a person becomes religious or holy,
particularly--but naturally wholesome, naturally gentle
and nonaggressive. This provokes further chaos in some
sense, because whenever such energies are reflected, you
get reactions. The world begins to react as an immense
threat, immense competition. The world is also inspired
by your example, at the same time. So the natural
process is one of manifesting, acting without strategy
or plan. If there .is a plan or strategy of action, then
one has to secure the object of the action in order to
make it predictable, which is very difficult. Some-
times, apparently by chance, you manage to do this and
you're known as a successful person. But at the same
time, you generate a lot of chaos and disharmony

- 57 -
which creates a lot of pain and misery in th·e world.
So the:basic point of manifestation, the second type
of wisdomt is that you are acting out of a sense of
spontaneity, without putting importance on c~lculation
or reference points.
The third type of wisdom, clear seeing, goes
between the sense of being and the sense of acting,
·covering the whole area. Clear seeing is a sense of
seeing things as th~y are, without panic. Sometimes
you destroy yourself by success, sometimes by too much
blame--if you .have only a partial view of things,
you jtimp·back and forth like a flea, trying to refer
back to yourself and the other, but unable to s~e
both simult~neously. An example of that limited
perspective is an administrator who has too many fingers
in the pie, trying to run the entire business by
himself without giving any work to his subordinates,
his friends. He would like to run the whole show, and
in order to do so, he has to be there and here, here
and there, all the time. That in energy-consuming,
and it breeds further aggression--and sometimes panic
too. "So," you might ask, ".what is the trick of
being in different places at once?" But there
doesn't seem to be any trick. It's a question of
actually having clear vision, in which you don't
make a journey to-and-from anymo.re. The 'ourney
is being made already--it's simply perceived. It's
like the example of spontaneous sunshine. The sun
doesn't have to come down and check to make sure it's
shining on a blade of grass. It shines and stays
there. Likewise, clear seeing ~s ~~natural process,
but it seems to be quite hard to do.
Quite possibly, your glimpse of those three
processes taking place in you is not really complete.
But you can cultivate and work on transforming
confusion into wisdom by such a glimpse of relating
directly with the world and yourself at once. This
is nowness .. It is also said to be a state of panic--
in a more subtle sense than territoriality. This
special kind of panic is sort of an open-minded leap.
One doesn't expect to see one's own games at the
same time as they are being played. But in this type
of· panic, viewing oneself and experiencing the process
of viewing happens at once. Such an experience is
possible in~~people 's minds- -even in the animal realm,
to a certain extent. So there is a natural sense of being,
a natural sense of manifestation, and a natu~al sense
of clarit~.

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 The reason the fourth dharma of Gampopa is
known as clarifying confusion into wisdom is because
confusion always acts as a reminder. Remember, you're
still on the path. You're -taking a journe~ and at
this point there is a contrast between this shore
and the other shore. There is ~till a reference
point of some kind. ·Once you are in the river it is
another matter, but for now there's some kind of
reference point. That reference point becomes very
heavy-handed and very confusing.- Then one takes a
little leap. Seemingly it is very little, minute--but
once you take the leap, it becomes enormous. You
are taken by surprise: The leap is supposed to be
humble, but it turns out to be quite sizable. On
the whole, transforming confusion into wisdom re-
quires a sense of fearlessness and i great sense of
humor, that everything's not purely black and white
or a big deal; It's an act of spontaneity. We're
talking abou~ two-fold panic: The petty panic of
territoriality acts as a kind of bounda-ry so that
the _greater panic can take you over. At that point,
you're completely absorbed in open-mindedness, in wisom.
These two types of panic are always interacting, so
there's a constant chance for us to transform our
confusion into wisdom. Usually we experience the
petty panic. But that petty panic opens into a
larger scale, nondualistic panic. It's called panic
because there's no reference point to hold onto, so
you lose touch somewha~. At the same time, your
clarity begj.;ns to have ~.ome kind .of control. That
seems to be ~be·general process practitioners go
through in foflowing the discipline through the
four dharmas.
~

The dharma of realizing neurosis and simple

truth, i~ediate truth, is the first one. In the
second dharma, one begins to find some kind of
discipline--meditation practice--and the sense of
journey begins to take place. In the third dharma,
one begins to develop a sense of freedom, so that the
practice of meditation doesn't become another home or
nest. From there one begins to d_evelop a greater
sense of vision, depth. A sense of being, and a sense
of manifesting and a sense of clarity take place.
The four dharmas of Gampopa are descriptions of
different-stages of a journey. It's like starting
from the plains and walking towards the·mountains
and fording rivers and finally getting to the summit.
Then it's time to climb_down again. So the journey is
not completely over!.-a similar journey is repeated again
and again.

- 59 -
 I hope you realize that what we have been dis-
cussing in this seminar is not a promise or guide-
line or prescription, but a way to refresh one's
memory about oneself on the path. Once we actually
learn more about who we are, what we are, a~d what
we are doing, the path is already there. It doesn't
have to be written in Sanskrit, Japanese or Tibetan
particularly, but it's a cosmic language that can
express· the quality of path that takes place all the
time. There is a difference.between a practitioner
on the path and somebody who's just on the path.
Somebody who is just on the path is involved in a
vicious circle; without direction. But somebody who's
on the path as a practitioner uses the vicious circle
as a way to rediscover himself, a way to unlearn him-
self all the time. So natually he be_ comes involved in
a journey rather than a vicious circle. Well, I
think we have run out of our subject at this_point.

~uestion: Could you talk a bit about the differences

etween the-practice of zazen and the meditation that
we're doing here? What are the differences and
similaritie~?

Rinpoche: Well, there isn't very much difference

really, in some sense. I think it's a question of
who actually does it rather than the nature of the
path. Some people might enjoy this particular
journey or that particular journey, and some people
might hate it. It's not that the landscape is
designed to please everybody. Instead, it's a
question of who is actually taking the journey.
People have their own style of traveling on the path.
Some people decide to crawl, some to walk, some to
fly--so it depends on what means you are using.
Obviously, it you follow the more painful way, it's
more painful. (Laughter.) I think technically the
Zen tradition and the basic buddhist tradition~
particularly the Tibetan tradition, seem to be very
close. In terms of style, in Zen there is a lot of
emphasis on strict posture and the strictness of
black and white. And in the Tibetan tradition the
sitting practice is not all that organized, not
all that cleancut. I think each has its own merits:
Sometimes it's better to have great precision and
sometimes it's better to have a sense of relaxation.
But I think both-paths lead to discovering some kind
of loneliness and boredom--and finally enlightenment,
hopefully. (Laughter~)

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 Q: Rinpoche, when you w_ere talking about clear
seeing, manifestation, and your sense of being in
the world, you mentioned that there was still a
great deal of pain. Does pain ever become a source
of inspira~ion beyond just its workability?
R: I think it does, definitely. You see, ordinarily
pain is a pro~lem. It's not good because it prevents
one from working hard or studying hard and it interrupts
one's continuity and·endeavors. So the usual idea is
that pain is an obstacle. Nobody regards pain as a
path unless he is sadis.tic. But on the other hand,
when we talk about pain we are jumbling a lot of things
together. There is the pain of longing, of looking
for a change or for comfort; the.re is the pain of
being caught·up in your troubles; and most of all,
there's a sense of stupidity that goes with pain.
When you feel pain you feel slightly bewildered and
you try to reason with yourself saying, "I could take
an aspirin and my headache would go away." That thought
might cur~ you a little bit, but once you have taken
an aspirin, if the pain doesn't ·go away, you panic
even more and get more caught up in your pain all
the time. So pain can make you numb and stupid.
There's another aspect of pain which is jUst are-
flection of things back to you, very penetratingly.
It is not necess.arily pqinful or pleasurable, but just
direct contact. In other words, direct contact
followed by a sense of panic (which is numbness or
bewilderment) makes you completely caught up in your
pain. ·So the psychology of pain is very complicated,
if you look at·it properly. Quite possibly the imprison-
ment or the bewilderment aspect of pain could be lifted,
leaving the penetrating or direct contact aspect. Then
it would become energy, precis~on or clarity.
Q: I haven't a question, but I .found myself with
the_microphone in my hand. I don't know how it
got here and I'd like to say, "Thank you very much."
R: That ,·s a good question. (Laughs.) Anyone else?
Q: The past year my situation has been one of extreme
boredom and loneliness and I find at times I can use
it as a path, but at times it's very easy to just in-
dulge in laziness. How do I keep myself from doing
this?
R: It doesn't sound as if .you have really gotten bored
or lonely enough. There's a .lfttle element of-:ple.asu.re

- 6L-
in your boredom. You can sort of snuggle into your
dirty blanket. That's not real boredom. Real bore-
dom is excruciating, and real loneliness is very de-
manding. I think the point is not to fool yourself, .
trying to communicate those experiences as·just another
chapter in your life, just flipping through the pages
and going to s~eep.
Q: In connection with the notion of spiritual mater-
ialism--would the greed that we have in wanting to go
through the process of joining a group like this, having
a teacher, and wanting to study be a problem? And
would it be an extreme reaction to avoid the whole
thing? I ge~ the feeling that the situation is really
not that closed. At times there is a sense of open-
ness, of being willing even to accept greed and to con-
tinue working. Is that so? Does that clarify anything?
R: Not quite into wisdom, but somewhat. If one watches
oneself too much, then there are endless problems,
endless miscalculations, and things are not done pro-
perly. The point, somehow, is to be willing to be a
fool at the beginning, willing to make mistakes, but
at the same time to go along with some kind of clarity.
We can't really start perfectly at the beginning.
If we could, we wouldn't have to take the journey at
all. So at the beginning it's not black and white,
it's everything at once.
Q: This morning I was trying to understand what hap-
pens to me when I hear you speak. One of the things
that I know happens to me is that I sometimes think
I understand well some of the things you say and at
other times I think I cannot use what you say, that
it goes beyond me or around me. In some way I am not
capable of understanding it yet. The analogy I drew
was that sometimes in relating to ~mall children they
request information from me that I can't give to them
because their minds, their spirits, their bodies, what-
ever, aren't developed or sophisticated enough for
them to understand me. So I cannot answer their ques-
tions. One way of understanding the concepts of buddhism
and what you have to say, would be for me to under-
stand you as a man and as a guru in comparison to
understanding myself as a man. I was hoping that
you would spend a couple of minutes talking about
your mind and your heart· and your senses and possibly
comparing them with mine. I think that would give
me some insight into the big, vast body of knowledge
that (inaudible). It's just wishful thinking right

~ 62 ~
now--I'm not really attached to wanting that from you
so much as an explanation of why that might not be
valuable to me.
R: Well, here we are. It's very difficult to compare.
I·would have to.be you, you would have to be me--which
would be very difficult. We.would have to spend at
least ~ good solid six months together, just you ~nd
I alone, and even then it would be very hard. Things
might get even more confused. (Laughs.) I thi~k
the point is.that t'he reference point doesn't really
apply. You're in the world. You're not trying to
get into mine--that would be impractical. You know
you couldn't do that. You can't be me--you can't be
anybody but yourself. You're born alone, you die
alone, and you're here alone. There's no point in
comparing. Particularly in regard to the teachings or
what I say, you can only understand according to your
·own way, your oWn style. That particular type of
coloring of perception will go on for a long time.
It takes quite a while for us to reach the level of
the complete shedding of ego. And until then, you
can't really understand somebody completely. It's
impossible. I think there's a: need for gl vin-g up
hope. Once you begin to do that, there might be some
avenues open.
Q: A couple of times during the lecture you mentioned
contrast as relating to spontaneity. Then there was
the whole idea of boundaries clarifying things more
than confusing them. But I didn't quite see how that
realted to spontaneity.
R: I think there's a moment of spontaneity when therels
a sense of boundary. The boundary is usually like
the mainland--made out of deliberateness. And when
the land begins to end and begins to lead to a cliff,
there is a contrast between spontaneity and deliber-
ateness.
Q: Spontaneity leads to deliberateness?
R: In order to see clearly, yeah. Otherwise we
can't begin anywhere. If you want to learn something,
if you want to be an artist, you have to be unartistic
to begin with--then you can learn to be artistic, you
can make that breakthrough. At the begining, you
can't even draw a circle, but you begin to evolve.
In other words, seeing clumsiness is seeing clarity
at the same time.

- 63 -
 Q·: (Inaudible.)
R: That contrast is not just purely a study of the
two situations, but you actually, emotionally, experience
the mainl~nd as well as the cliff. You feel it properly,
you go through it. Then you find that your particular
ground.is ended, your landscape is ended.
Q: I'm confused about the circularity and the
automaticness of the dharma.
R: It's not quite exactly automatic. The idea is
that the vicious circle is a path, journey. But it's
not really a straight journey, it's a vicious-circle
journey. You repeat things again and again. There
arc immense opportunities provided for you to learn
something, and if you miss them, you come back again
and again. Another possibility is that you might get
into a circular journey to begin with and you may
miss a few points, but you,at least pick up the high-
lights. So your journey becomes less circular--but
it is still slightly curved. It then begins to
straighten out because you pick up more and more
experiences, because you are open to them. You are
not purely trying to get ahead of yourself all the
time, but you are trying to learn something. So
it's sort of like a question mark--it curves and
theri goes on. (Laughter.)
Q: It seems that I have talked to several people here
who are married, and whose wives or husbands are not
involved in buddhism. And their reaction seems to
range from "That's all right" to sadness. Is that a
real difficulty or is it rather just more of ego's
game of wanting the world to be playing the game your
way?
R: If there's really & direct threat to your practice,
that would be an obstacle. It would be very difficult
to live with somebody who's constantly trying to prevent
you from practicing. But other than that obvious
situation, I don't see any particular problems. In a
lot of cases, discovering another path is very exciting
and you try to share it with somebody, which· is a
natural thing. But you tend to put unnecessary energy
into it, trylng to convince your partner to become
involved. And often, trying too hard puts them off.
In this case, you create your own trouble. The point
is that you can only demonstrate your discipline and
practice by example rather than by convincing anybody,
particularly. It seems to be better to present an
·example of nonaggression and basic gentleness and leap.

- 64 -
The way you behave, talk and do everything else begins
to change, once there is some kind of psychological
transformation taking place.

Well, maybe it's time for us to end this particular

seminar.
Q: We can leave tomorrow.
R: You better leave today. (Laughter.)

- 65 -