The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Eight (33 page)

In fact, our early morning depression is not all that logical. It is the curse of the setting sun. Out of nowhere, you just don’t feel so good.
Then
you come up with all kinds of logical explanations for why you are depressed. There is a feeling of death. For some people, that feeling is completely extended, further and further, leading to a suicidal mentality. The other approach is to replace or repress your depression by doing something very crazy or reckless. Everybody knows this fundamental depression.

We do all sorts of things to avoid depression: waiting for the arrival of the newspaper at our house in the morning; even watching
Sesame Street
with our children—or without our children. There are lots of aids to forget depression, and billions and billions of dollars are spent on those attempts to cheer up. In England, many people like to bring their tea to their bath, and they drink their tea and take a long bath. Many of us use magazines and food to cheer ourselves up. We call up a friend to make a lunch appointment so that our early morning depression can be relieved by having a chat with somebody and making a lunch date. But what about the evening? That hasn’t been worked out yet!

You may want to plan ahead, knowing that you might have this depression every morning, every day. So you plan a holiday to go skiing, surfing, or swimming. You need to take some time off—from what, one never knows, but you plan to take time off, telling yourself that you’ll have a good time here and there. You try to keep things organized even a few days ahead so that you can avoid your early morning depression. In three weeks, you’re going to go here and here and here, and you’re going to do this and this and this. You tell yourself that you shouldn’t be depressed, because you can look forward to what you’ve planned. You can keep on doing that almost indefinitely.

That is the basic idea of the setting sun. Hotels are built to promote that and airlines to accommodate it. Everything works toward helping us forget our early morning depression. From the point of view of basic goodness, we are capable of generating our own dignity and goodness. So yielding to that setting-sun mentality seems pathetic and quite sad, very sad. It is only going to get sadder as time goes on, unless we do something about it. No doubt the modern world will come up with further and more sophisticated aids to forget any reality of depression at all and to provide a million percent setting-sun world. The alternative is that, having experienced the joy of basic goodness and the sadness of the setting-sun world, we develop real renunciation, which is knowing what to accept and what to reject.

At this point, we need to understand another reference point, which is our habitual tendencies. I would like to make it quite clear that I am
not
saying that you’re stuck with your habitual tendencies. When you are nice to a dog, it will always waggle its tail. In the same way, if you say hello to a person, he or she will automatically smile. But those are just reflexes rather than habitual tendencies. The habitual tendencies that I’m talking about here are the medium-level tendencies, which definitely can be overcome. Whether it is according to the wisdom of the Buddha or whether it is according to the wisdom of Shambhala, we are basically good. We possess what is known as basic goodness. Then we develop an overlay of unnecessary tricks and occupations. We develop little tricks to shield ourselves from being embarrassed or from feeling too painful or naked. Those are habitual tendencies, but they are not fundamental. They are simply temporary habitual tendencies. It’s as though you had a building with nice, white, smooth plaster walls. If you can’t stand the plain white walls, you might decide to put colorful wallpaper on top of them to cheer yourself up. The habitual tendencies we’re talking about here are like the wallpaper that you put on but that can be taken off. The paper doesn’t go all the way through the wall; it’s not that deeply ingrained. It’s a veneer of some kind, called habitual tendencies—which have to be renounced, definitely.

Seeing the basic goodness in oneself and seeing the sadness of the setting-sun possibilities, one is willing to make some kind of sacrifice. We can take off the wallpaper, take off the veneer. The negative aspect of renunciation, so to speak, is what you reject or avoid. In this case, you are rejecting self-indulgence, purely pleasing yourself. If you reject that, you have a clean white plaster wall. What you accept, on the positive side, is the development of genuine warriorship. In the Shambhala tradition, we talk about how fearlessness comes out of the realization of fear. Similarly, when you experience morning depression, it is possible to cheer up. That situation is genuine and quite workable. From morning depression and its terror, we can step right into basic goodness. We learn to reject the terror of morning depression and to step into morning basic goodness, right on the spot.

The result is that you have a better relationship with your mate, your kitchen is cleaner, your daily schedule is accomplished on time—all because you don’t have a tremendous struggle, even on the smallest, most mundane level. You might think this is purely a Dear Abby concept of happiness, but in fact we’re talking about developing enlightened society. Enlightened society comes from the kitchen sink level, from the bedroom level. Otherwise, there’s no enlightened society, and everything is purely a hoax. So genuine renunciation is knowing what to accept and what to reject and how to step out and appreciate depression as a staircase. When you put your foot on the first step of this very feeble staircase, you wonder whether it is going to hold you. You might fall. But as you take the third, fourth, and fifth steps, you realize that, although it’s wobbly, it is going to carry you upstairs. And the journey is worthwhile.

In this way, you can begin to work with your early morning depression. First you wonder whether you can work with it or not, but once you take at least five steps, or have five thoughts—which is very fast; naturally, we think very fast for our own security—then you find that your early morning depression is fine. You can work with it, you can walk on it, and it will lead you into basic goodness. Walking on the staircase of your early morning depression is the concept of the stroke. The dot is taking the first step on the staircase, which is wobbly. One wonders . . . Then you keep going, and it is fine.

You should have a sense of self-respect and self-comfort throughout your life. When you walk down the street, don’t rush. Just take a nice walk. Be yourself, appreciate yourself. Even appreciate your subconscious thoughts. Appreciate that you are a human being in one piece. Your arms and your legs and your head are not flying off everywhere because of your wild thoughts, but you remain as one good human being with your shoes and your hairdo, perhaps wearing glasses, a tie and jacket, walking on the good earth, on the good street. Just do that, just walk nicely. Just do it. Then you will begin to feel that you are doing your
real
job. It’s not even a job, but you are actually being what you should be. After that, you can learn to eat properly, drink properly, even pee properly. Everything comes from that basic sense of being and wholesomeness. You are one piece rather than disjointed. This is a very ordinary experience, which happens to people all the time, but they don’t regard it as a good message. They just think, “Oh, forget it.” According to the Buddhist teachings, people always have that flash of buddha nature in them—always—but they don’t acknowledge it. This is the same thing.

The wisdom of Shambhala is not the product of some accident. It’s not that somebody just happened to do the right thing and now we are relaying their message to you. Rather, this wisdom has tremendous heritage and background. It comes from several thousand years of basic tradition, from a society of enlightened people, great warriors of the past. This tradition comes from Shambhala-oriented people who achieved this; in turn, they are so kind as to let us use their wisdom and to let us practice in this way.

We can find this wisdom even in the midst of the worst of the worst situations. The politics and policies in South Africa were terribly problematic for many years. However, South Africa still produced the Krugerrand, such a good gold coin. In any situation, there is always some dignity, some goldlike element. Tibet is a lost country, at this point. The Chinese occupied my country, and they are torturing my people. It is quite horrific, every bit as bad as South Africa. We Tibetans were unable to avoid that situation. Nonetheless, the Tibetan wisdom has escaped. It has been brought out of Tibet. It has something to say, something to offer. It gives us dignity as Tibetans.

On the other hand, however, although the West possesses tremendous technology, it comes along with enormous arrogance. Even though you are able to land on the moon, technology in itself is not a saving grace. We should appreciate the basic traditions of wisdom that have been preserved. It is absolutely wonderful to have respect for wisdom. You are not receiving the wisdom of Shambhala because you won the lottery. You come to this tradition with genuine interest and genuine respect. It’s not random at all. It’s not that you happened, by chance, to have the right number and therefore you are here. You aren’t a subhuman being wandering around in a lost paradise, trying to find answers to your questions, hoping to bump into the right way to do things.

The training of Shambhala is geared to educate you to be an honest person, a genuine person, not fake. The sitting practice of meditation is the main vehicle to accomplish that, so I would like to reiterate the importance of practice. When you practice, hold your seat and have a sense of your breath, without questioning or slumping halfway through. Just let the breath flow. You are sitting on the earth. This earth deserves you; you deserve this earth. That is a very important point. The basic concept of joining heaven and earth is that you are there fully, personally, genuinely.

By practicing in that way, we come to experience the Shambhala teachings very directly. Our appreciation of the teachings brings a natural appreciation of the teacher. Because of our respect for wisdom, we can appreciate the spokesperson for the wisdom, the elder. “Elder” in this case does not mean someone who is chronologically old. Rather, it is someone who has worked and practiced and tested the Shambhala wisdom. It is someone who is able to survive in the world of the setting sun. In fact, such people are able to glow and project a good message that will influence others. It is quite remarkable that they are willing to share their compassion and their limitless kindness with others. There are such people, and that lineage and warrior tradition are worthy of respect. Often we think that we can buy wisdom. People have spent lots of money trying to do that, but they are unable to accomplish very much. It is very important to realize that wisdom cannot be bought or sold, but wisdom has to be practiced personally. Then we begin to realize the value of wisdom. It is priceless.

THREE

Overcoming Physical Materialism

In working with students in the Western world, I have been presenting a twofold message: first, how to overcome psychological and spiritual materialism; second, how to overcome physical materialism. The first message is designed to help people become genuine practitioners in the Buddhist world. The second message is to help people overcome actual physical materialism by practicing the disciplines of body, speech, and mind so that they can become warriors in the enlightened world of Shambhala.

I
N CONNECTION WITH RENUNCIATION,
we discussed the joy of basic goodness, the sadness of the setting sun, and the discipline of what to accept and what to reject. Out of that, we come to respect wisdom; therefore, love for the teacher or the elder may develop. Renunciation is also connected with overcoming habitual patterns such as early morning depression. With that understanding, I’d like to go a little bit further, although my approach, generally speaking, is not to jump the gun. I don’t want to present tricks or ways to overcome problems when you haven’t undergone thorough personal training.

The next theme is letting go. From the discipline of renunciation, knowing what to accept and what to reject, and from realizing your basic goodness altogether, you begin to realize that you can let go. In order to introduce this theme, I’d like to tell you a story. In 1974, His Holiness the sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyü lineage of Buddhism to which I belong, was to arrive for his first visit to North America. A group of us had a meeting, and we talked about protocol and other arrangements. Quite a number of people said, “Couldn’t we just take His Holiness to a disco and feed him a steak? Do we really have to vacuum the floor? Maybe he should sleep on a waterbed. Couldn’t he just come along and see what America is like?” In the end, that wasn’t the approach we decided to take! That would have been the opposite of letting go, which is not taking pride in one’s crudeness. That approach is bloated with arrogance.

Letting go is free from the vision and style of the setting sun. Instead, it is connected with the idea that you are
worthy
to let go. If you are a good driver and you know the mechanics of your car, then you can drive at 110 miles an hour on the highway. You know how to control the car, how to work the mirrors and the steering; you know the power of the engine, the weight of the car, the condition of the tires and the road, the weather, and how much traffic there is on that highway. You may drive fast, but it does not become suicidal at all. It becomes a dance. Maybe it is quite dangerous for me to say that. I would not recommend that you play with letting go. But when you have the real sense of letting go, you should let go.

The Buddhist idea of wisdom is similar to letting go.
Samyaksambuddha,
¹
the ultimate attainment of enlightenment, is correlated with somebody who can let go thoroughly. Such people have attained the wisdom and the skillful means to know how far they can push or develop themselves. Therefore, the daringness of letting go is connected with skill and training. If any of you are athletes, you know that. In a sport such as skiing, for example, if you start to let go at an early level of your training, you end up breaking your legs. If you mimic or ape letting go, you run into trouble. On the other hand, if you let go properly, once you have good training in how to let go and how to stop ambition and frivolity altogether, then you discover that you have a great sense of balance. Balance doesn’t come from holding on to the situation. Balance comes from making friends with heaven and earth: earth as gravity or a reference point for us and heaven as breathing space where we can actually build up our posture and hold our head and shoulders properly. I’ve been riding my horse Drala every day, and I keep learning, again and again, that balance is not freezing your legs to hold on to the saddle. The balance comes instead from how much you float with the movement of the horse as you ride. So each step is your own dance, the rider’s dance as well as the dance of the horse.