The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two by Chogyam Trungpa, Chögyam Trungpa Read Free Book Online

It doesn’t end because it doesn’t begin.
    TR: Well, that in itself is a beginning. Because it doesn’t end, it doesn’t begin, and it is .
    Student: If I don’t exist, why bother?
    Trungpa Rinpoche: I beg your pardon?
    S: If I don’t exist and enlightenment doesn’t exist, why bother trying to . . . I don’t have the right words . . . why bother?
    TR: That is the sixty-dollar question. (It has gone down in value.) Everybody’s asking that: “Why bother?” But in order to find out why you should bother, you have to find out why not? That problem hasn’t been solved. As long as the twelve nidanas—the links in the karmic chain reactions—continue to exist. . . .
    Student: In some of the Tibetan literature I’ve read in translation, I ran across one phrase that really stuck in my mind. “The attainment of human birth is a mighty opportunity that is not to be frittered away.” Could you comment on that in the light of what has just been said about nonexistence and why bother?
    Trungpa Rinpoche: It’s very simple. This life is very valuable. Human birth is very important. You have a chance to practice, a chance to learn the truth, and still the question of “Why bother?” keeps cropping up again and again. You see, the path actually consists of “Who am I? What am I? What is this? What isn’t this?” all the time until enlightenment is actually achieved. The question “Why bother?” has never been answered. It becomes one of the mantras of the path. “Why bother?” goes on all the time.
    Student: You said that enlightenment was a real experience and also said that enlightenment doesn’t exist.
    Trungpa Rinpoche: Because it doesn’t exist, therefore it’s real. When something exists personally, experientially, and unconditionally, it becomes a mirage, fake. A lot of people maybe find that the experience they have at Disneyland is more real than the experience they have in their city life. The mirage seems to be more real.
    Student: It’s like a mirror. You think the mirror is real.
    Trungpa Rinpoche: You are real in the mirror, that’s right. But that still is the mirror’s interpretation of you. And therefore it doesn’t exist. But nonexistence is the most valid thing of all. The highest existence is nonexistence.
    Student: So enlightenment as a real experience is just a mirror.
    Trungpa Rinpoche: More than a mirror. A supermirror. That’s why in tantric language, we speak of mirrorlike wisdom—the real experience of nonexistence. Cutting through all kinds of conceptualizations and everything. The experience of vajralike samadhi.
    Student: What does making friends with yourself mean? 5
    Trungpa Rinpoche: That you are very rich, resourceful, and that there is a working basis in you, working bases of all kinds. That you don’t have to reform yourself or abandon yourself, but work with yourself. That your passion, aggression, ignorance, and everything is workable, part of the path.
    Student: Are you talking about self, oneself, selves?
    Trungpa Rinpoche: There’s no self.
    S: So you’re working with thought?
    TR: There’s no thought. There’s is . Thoughts are interpretations of what is , spokesmen of nonexistence. The clouds exist because the sky exists. The sky exists because there’s light that shows us blue sky. But once you get out to outer space, you don’t even see blue sky. You don’t even see clouds anymore.
    Student: If there’s no self, how do we really make friends with it?
    Trungpa Rinpoche: Because of that. Since there’s no self, there’s no threat. You are not threatened by anything, because you don’t exist. Therefore the world is a bank of compassion.
    S: So everything is all right?
    TR: So to speak.
    Student: You said hope was very necessary. Usually you talk about giving up hope and encourage us to adopt hopelessness. And I actually experience that the more I hope, the less I’m able to breathe. It’s like if I have a lot of hope, I can’t even move, because