The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Five (29 page)

When Naropa had recovered from his swoon and gone on his way praying, he found on the bank of a river a rascal who had opened the stomach of a live man and was washing it with warm water. When he asked him whether he had seen the venerable Tilopa, he replied:

“Yes, but before I show him, help me.”

Again Naropa refused, and the man appearing in a centre of light in the sky said:

How will you find the Guru, if

With the water of profound instruction

You cleanse not Samsara, which by nature [is] free

Yet represents the dirt of habit-forming thoughts?

And the man disappeared in the sky.

After having woken from his swoon Naropa prayed and journeyed on until he came to the city of a great king, whom he asked whether he had seen Tilopa. The king replied:

“I have seen him, but marry my daughter before I show him to you.”

Having taken her, he seemed to spend a long time. Then the king, not wishing to let him go, took back the girl and the dowry and left the room. Not recognizing this as a magic spell, but thinking that he would have to employ force with the aid of the
bDe-mchog rtsa-rgyud, Abhidhana-uttaratantra,
he heard a voice say:

Are you not deceived by a magic show?

How then will you find the Guru

If through desire and dislike you fall

Into the three forms of evil life?

And the whole kingdom disappeared.

When Naropa came to, he travelled in prayer until he met a dark man with a pack of hounds, a bow and arrows.

“Have you seen Tilopa?”

“Yes.”

“Show him to me.”

“Take this bow and arrow and kill that deer.”

When Naropa refused, the man said:

A hunter, I have drawn the arrow

Of the phantom body which from desires is free

In the bow, of radiant light the essence:

I shall kill the fleeing deer of this and that,

On the mountain of the body believing in an I.

Tomorrow I go fishing in the lake.

So saying, he disappeared.

When Naropa had recovered he continued prayerfully in search of the Guru and came to the shore of a lake full of fish. Nearby two old people were ploughing a field, killing and eating the insects they found in the furrows.

“Have you seen Tilopa?”

“He stayed with us, but before I show him to you—hallo, wife, come and get this Bhikshu something to eat.”

The old woman took some fish and frogs from her net and cooked them alive. When she invited Naropa to eat, he said: “Since I am a Bhikshu I no longer have an evening meal, and besides that I do not eat meat.” Thinking, “I must have violated the doctrine of the Buddha to be asked to dine by an old woman who cooks fish and frogs alive,” he sat there miserably. Then the old man came up with an ox on his shoulders and asked his wife: “Have you prepared some food for the Bhikshu?” She replied: “He seems to be stupid; I cooked some food, but he said that he did not want to eat.”

Then the old man threw the pan into the fire while fish and frogs flew up into the sky. He said:

Fettered by habit-forming thoughts, ’tis hard to find the Guru.

How will you find the Guru if you eat not

This fish of habit-forming thoughts, but hanker

After pleasures (which enhance the sense of ego)?

Tomorrow I will kill my parents.

He then disappeared.

After his recovery Naropa came upon a man who had impaled his father on a stake, put his mother into a dungeon, and was about to kill them. They cried loudly: “Oh son, do not be so cruel.” Although Naropa was revolted at the sight, he asked the man whether he had seen Tilopa, and was answered: “Help me to kill the parents who have brought me misfortune and I will then show you Tilopa.”

But since Naropa felt compassion for the man’s parents, he did not make friends with this murderer. Then with the words:

You will find it hard to find the Guru

If you kill not the three poisons that derive

From your parents, the dichotomy of this and that.

Tomorrow I will go and beg,

the man disappeared.

When Naropa had recovered from his swoon and gone on in prayer, he came to a hermitage. One of the inmates recognized him as Abhayakirti and asked: “Why have you come? Is it to meet us?”

“I am merely a Ku-su-li-pa,
¹
there is no need for a reception.”

The hermit, however, did not heed his words and received him with due honours. Asked for the reason for his coming, Naropa said: “I seek Tilopa. Have you seen him?”

“You will find that your search has come to an end. Inside is a beggar who claims to be Tilopa.”

Naropa found him within sitting by the fire and frying live fish. When the hermits saw this, they began angrily to beat the beggar, who asked: “Don’t you like what I do?”

“How can we when evil is done in a hermitage?”

The beggar snapped his fingers, said “Lohivagaja,”
²
and the fish returned to the lake. Naropa, realizing that this man must be Tilopa, folded his hands and begged for instruction. The Guru passed him a handful of lice, saying:

If you would kill the misery of habit-forming thoughts

And ingrained tendencies on the endless path

To the ultimate nature of all beings,

First you must kill (these lice).

But when Naropa was unable to do so, the man disappeared with the words:

You will find it hard to find the Guru

If you kill not the louse of habit-forming thoughts,

Self-originated and self-destructive.

Tomorrow I will visit a freak show.

Dejectedly Naropa got up and continued his search. Coming to a wide plain, he found many one-eyed people, a blind man with sight, an earless one who could hear, a man without a tongue speaking, a lame man running about, and a corpse gently fanning itself. When Naropa asked them if they had seen Tilopa, they declared:

“We haven’t seen him or anyone else. If you really want to find him, do as follows”:

Out of confidence, devotion, and certainty, become

A worthy vessel, a disciple with the courage of conviction.

Cling to the spirituality of a Teacher in the spiritual fold,

Wield the razor of intuitive understanding as the viewpoint,

Ride the horse of bliss and radiance as the method of attention,

Free yourself from the bonds of this and that as the way of conduct.

Then shines the sun of self-lustre which understands

One-eyedness as the quality of many,

Blindness as seeing without seeing a thing,

Deafness as hearing without hearing a thing,

Muteness as speaking without saying something,

Lameness as moving without being hurried,

Death’s immobility as the breeze of the Unoriginated (like air moved by a fan).

In this way the symbols of Mahamudra were pointed out, whereafter everything disappeared.

[Pp. 30-36]

In the teachings proclaimed by the Kagyü lineage, we find a lot of processes that have to be gone through and understandings that have to be developed. This is by no means easy. It is extremely difficult to understand that there is some basic confusion we have created, and that within that confusion there is also some kind of madness. Strangely enough, the madness is not confused. There is sanity in the confusion and the madness. Confusion in dealing with the situation of life as a fixed thing seems to be a sane approach. So what seems to be insane is enlightenment.

Naropa’s approach to his successive discoveries in his visions—or whatever they are, phantoms that he sees—is connected with his seeming sanity. Because Naropa was born a prince and was educated and became a professor at Nalanda University, he regards himself as a sensible person, an educated, sensible person, someone highly respected. But this sensible quality, this sanity of his, turns out to be a very clumsy way of relating with the teachings of Tilopa—the teachings of the Kagyü lineage. Because he was not enough of a freak, because he was not insane enough, he couldn’t relate with them at all.

Insanity in this case is giving up logical arguments, giving up concept. Things as they are conceptualized are not things as they are. We have to try to see within the conceptualized situation, according to which fire is hot and the sky is blue. Maybe the sky is green; maybe fire is cold. There’s that possibility, always.

When we hear someone say such a thing, we become extremely perplexed and annoyed. We think, “Of course, fire is hot; fire is not cold. Of course, the sky is blue, not green. That’s nonsense! I’m not going to have anything to do with that kind of nonsense. I’m going to stick to my sensible outlook. The sky is blue and fire is hot; that gives me a sense of security, satisfaction, and sanity. If fire is hot, I’m quite happy with it. if the sky is blue, I’m also happy with that. I don’t want any interference with my regular line of thought.”