NO
From Chogyam Trungpa: Ocean of
Dharma
Basic NO is accepting discipline in
our life without preconceptions. Normally, when we say the
word “discipline,” it comes with a lot of mixed
feelings. It’s like saying “oatmeal.” Some
people like hot cereal, and some people hate it.
Nevertheless, oatmeal remains oatmeal. It is a very
straightforward thing. We have similar feelings about
discipline and the meaning of NO. Sometimes, it’s a bad
NO: it is providing oppressive boundaries that we don’t
want to accept. Or it could be a good NO, which encourages
us to do something healthy. But when we just hear that one
word, NO, the message is mixed.
Fearlessness is extending ourselves
beyond that limited view. In the Heart Sutra, an essential
teaching given by the Buddha, it talks about going beyond.
Gone beyond, gate, is the basic NO. In the sutra, it says
there is no eye, no ear, no sound, no smell — all of
those things. When you experience egolessness, the solidity
of your life and your perceptions falls apart. That could be
very desolate or it could be very inspiring, in terms of
shunyata or the Buddhist understanding of emptiness. Very
simply, it is basic NO. It is a real expression of
fearlessness. In the Buddhist view, egolessness is
pre-existing, beyond our preconceptions. In the state of
egolessness everything is simple and very clear.
Great Eastern Sun, Chogyam Trungpa and
Warrior-King of Shambhala, Remembering Chogyam Trungpa,
Jeremy Hayward
The Big No arose some time
ago when I was together with my vajra regent1 and several
other students at the Kalapa Court, my house. When the Big
No came out, I had found that everybody was indulging in
their world too much. I had to say No. So I crashed my arm
and fist down on my coffee table, and I broke it. I put a
dent in it. Then I painted a giant picture of the Big No in
the entrance hall of my house: BIG No. There was ink
everywhere from that proclamation. The message was: From now
onward, it’s NO.2 Later on, I executed another calligraphy
for the Regent as another special reminder of the Big No,
which he has in his office. That No is that you don’t give
in to things that indulge your reality. There is no special
reality beyond reality. That is the Big No, as opposed to
the regular no. You cannot destroy life. You cannot by any
means, for any religious, spiritual, or metaphysical
reasons, step on an ant or kill your mosquitoes—at all.
That is Buddhism. That is Shambhala. You have to respect
everybody. You cannot make a random judgment on that at all.
That is the rule of the king of Shambhala, and that is the
Big No. You can’t act on your desires alone. You have to
contemplate the details of what needs to be removed and what
needs to be cultivated.
On the whole, gentleness is the rule in the Shambhala
kingdom. It is actually much more terrifying than kindness,
to your surprise. When you are gentle, there’s no room for
hostility. We like being hostile; we want to be perked up
and energized by our negativity. But in Shambhala, we never
do that, and we shouldn’t do that. However, with Shambhala
vision, there is festivity and joyousness, because we are
not totally in the dungeon of our neurosis. That
cheerfulness is what we call the Great Eastern Sun. The
model for the Great Eastern Sun is the sun that shines at
ten o’clock in the morning. The sun is no longer the early
morning sun, and it is no longer a teenage sun. The sun is
about to be full, but it’s not quite full. That ten o’clock
sun is the Great Eastern Sun.
You may hear what I’m saying and think that it’s true.
But you have to practice it; you have to do it, sweethearts.
We can’t just issue messages of philosophy all over the
world. We are capable of actually sending up a satellite
that would beam down Shambhala or Buddhist slogans
twenty-four hours a day. What good would that do? We have to
get ourselves together.
Please regard yourself as part of the Shambhala kingdom.
People say, “Another day, another dollar.” But from the
Buddhist point of view, we say, “Another breath, another
life.” We should be proud and very pleased that we can hear
these teachings because we have not dropped dead yet! Beyond
that, I hope you will have a good time, enjoy your life, and
appreciate the information you’ve received.
A few years ago, His Holiness Karmapa was visiting the
United States, and we were working with many different
people and organizations to finalize his tour of the
country. A Buddhist studies’ professor told one of the
people working on the arrangements that we should never
refer to His Holiness as a king. That is completely missing
the point, and it’s totally wrong.3 I am going to write the
professor a letter, basically saying exactly that, but I may
not put it that politely. We should do things in a humble
manner and in a glorious manner, and both of them come
together. There’s no conflict between the two at all. We
need to develop a humble manner, meaning a sense of decorum,
without arrogance. But when we invite friends into our home,
we shouldn’t be shy of showing our guests the silver.
Shambhala vision is not based on the creeping humbleness and
reasonability of democracy.
I hope that we can mingle ourselves together. Please join
the Shambhala world. You invite me; I invite you. The world
is not all that small. There’s a giant world. I appreciate
your kindness and goodness. Even after the death of our
leader, His Holiness,4 you have actually made my life
longer.
from:
Chapter 12 from
GREAT EASTERN SUN,
The Wisdom of Shambhala
THE BIG NO
by Chogyam Trungpa
Thirty years ago (January 8, 1979 to be precise) Trungpa
Rinpoche proclaimed the Big No. Here to commemorate thirty
years of NO, is Chögyam Trungpa’s commentary on the
event and its meaning from Chapter 12 of GREAT EASTERN SUN,
THE WISDOM OF SHAMBHALA.
© 1999 by Diana Judith Mukpo. Used here by
arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc.
from The
Chronicles
Warrior – King of Shambhala
Remembering Chogyam Trungpa
Jeremy Hayward
Wisdom Publications, 2008
Chapter 10
1979:
Deepening Practice, Shaky Leadership
IN THE MIDDLE of January, a birthday_ party was held
for
Ken Green. Toward the end of the party, Rinpoche
called
together the Directors for a short meeting we all
crowded into the toilet, the only private place in the
house at that moment. There he told us, sternly and
forcefully, that the Regent needed to have more boundaries
around his behavior and that we should take care of it.
Since 1976 he had manifested brilliantly as a teacher of
Buddhism and in that sense was coming up to the expectations
of him as Rinpoche’s lineage holder. Yet he had not curbed
his wild behavior, and in particular his involvement in the
gay scene. It was not his gay activities as such that was
the problem-Rinpoche never had a problem with that but
rather, perhaps, his recklessness. And, indeed, it was this
recklessness in the end that caused his tragic and untimely
death, as I will recount in the Epilogue.
That night we were called to a meeting in the Court,
which the Regent joined later-someone was sent to fetch him
from a party that he had gone on to after Ken’s birthday
celebration. While we were waiting for him, Rinpoche told us
clearly that no one else could have been his Regent, and
asked each of us what we thought was the source of the
Regent’s difficulties. I was the last to speak and said that
the quality that made him the Regent–a purity that somehow
was not caught in worldly things-was the same quality that
was giving rise to the problems; he sometimes didn’t seem to
care how he behaved, I felt, and whether he was endangering
himself or going against conventional norms in a harmful
way. Rinpoche commented, “Your answer was the best.”
He instructed us to challenge the, Regent along the lines
of the committee that Rinpoche had told me about in retreat,
but we were not. effective in getting through to the Regent
and soon Rinpoche ended that part of the evening.
After we left the Court, Rinpoche continued with a
smaller group to try to get through to the Regent that there
was a potentially serious problem. Rinpoche himself
described this incident three years later at a Shambhala
Training Level Five program.
The Big No arose when I was together with my vajra regent
and several other students at the Kalapa Court, my house.
When the Big No came out, I had found that everybody was
indulging in their world too much. I had to say No. So I
crashed my arm and fist down on my coffee table, and I broke
it. I put a dent in it. Then I painted a giant picture of
the Big No in the entrance hall of my house: BIG NO. There
was ink everywhere from that proclamation. The message was:
From now onward, it’s NO. Later on, I executed another
calligraphy for the Regent as another special reminder of
the Big No, which he has in his office. That No is that you
don’t give in to things that indulge your reality. There is
no special reality beyond reality. That is the Big No, as
opposed to regular no. You cannot destroy life. You cannot
by any means, for any religious, spiritual, or metaphysical
reasons, step on an ant or kill your mosquitoesat all. That
is Buddhism. That is Shambhala. You have to respect
everybody. You cannot make a random judgment on that at all.
That is the rule of the king of Shambhala, and that is the
Big No. You The Regent clearly had a certain level of
realization of emptiness and the joy that goes with this,
and he was brave and forthright in expressing this
understanding. But at any level of realization up to the
very highest, there is always the possibility of going
astray into ego-trips and misuse of the dharma and of our
less-than-perfect understanding of it. We, as well as the
Regent, were being warned by Rinpoche to “watch out”-as he
so often told us. It was a powerful night, and a valuable
lesson to us all. This split between the two aspects of the
Regent’s nature began to manifest increasingly and I will,
say more about this as the story unfolds.
—
end