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© 2010 Diana J Mukpo and the Shambhala Archives All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced, distributed or exhibited without written permission from Shamhhala Archives. There are serious penalties for the unauthorized copying, exhibition, or distribution of copyright videos.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1937-1987) was a great buddhist teacher, one of the first Tibetan Buddhists to teach in English in the West,
and the author of many classics on meditation and the Buddhist path, such as Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism and Shambhala: the Sacred Path of the Warrior.
Trungpa was also an artist and poet who presented, many teaching on the relationship of art to meditation and everyday life.
April 4th is the anniversary of his death. As we commemorate his passing, the Shambhala Archives is pleased to offer this example of those teachings.
Parinirvana 2010. Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Basic Goodness and Harmony.
From Talk Four of the Visual Dharma Seminar. Boulder, Colorado, July 1978
It's quite marvelous that we have passion,
that we are not purely made out of aggression,
some kind of saving grace that we possess, which is fantastic.
We should be thankful
to the Great Eastern Sun vision.
Without passion, nothing can be experienced.
Nothing can be worked on,
but with a sense of aggression that we have bad feelings about ourselves.
Either we begin to feel a tremendous sense of righteous, and we are the only right people,
or else; we feel so pissed off that we could be destroyed by somebody else,
that's very pathetic.
And that prevents us seeing what's known as basic goodness, that we've been talking early on.
The basic goodness, what we've been talking on, is like this [pointing to flowers] arrangement.
which has its own contrast and its own togetherness, being together completely.
And also at the same time, inviting and fearless at the same time too.
And basic goodness, and this is a product of basic goodness, if I may say so [audience laughter],
and hangs together, no premeditative state involved how to put this together,
and just came along on the spot. Basic goodness.
I went up to the mountains today trying to collect this tree.
The tree was there just waiting for us to collect it. And I said, ah, that will do.
We had to work on the tree a little bit in order to transport, but still, these expressions of basic goodness,
that how things could hang together. Things could just work like that.
Basic goodness, obviously, involves heaven, earth and man qualities put together;
basic goodness of heaven, basic goodness of man;
basic goodness of earth are involved at once of course.
The notion of basic goodness is some sense of generosity.
And some sense of...
bravery comes along with the generosity,
and also some sense of notion [creating circle with fan] that the whole thing is round,
like a mandala principle.
The whole thing is working with each other's elements all together.
It hangs together so well.
And we begin to feel that way ourselves, that basic goodness exists in ourselves;
therefore that we are not afraid of our world; we are not depressed in our world.
We feel so good, we feel good of particular artistic things we are doing,
it also begins to fuel further ideas --
and some people have tried to squeeze like as if you are in a state of constipation,
sitting on the toilet seat, and taking occasion to glance to your toilet tissue.
Wish something would come through. (laughter)
And there are some artists that would begin to do that,
and the result is very unique and very technical.
Always relying back on the technicalities, and then trying to produce something out of it,
but you don't really feel good about the whole thing at all.
So, what we are talking here is like the opposite of that.
Not exact level of the diarhhea as such, [audience groans]
but some kind of free flow situations in which that you have the confidence
in that you can actually produce idea.
You may not have any idea at the beginning, as we discussed last night,
but you might have some idea halfway through, or you may not have any idea
[microphone distraction] halfway through -- I haven't touched anything [audience laughs]
But when a person feels that they have run out of ideas altogether,
then taking a short break,
and almost at the level of giving up; then the Great Eastern Sun arises in your mind.
And it is not even an idea, it is actual thing that occurred to one's state of mind,
which is connected with generosity; a sense of trusting oneself comes through.
From that sense of trust,
it occurred what's known as harmony.
If there's no trust, there will be no harmony.
It is very well to say that everything is in harmony; that we should work with that,
which is like paying lip service to something that can be done about it
but nobody actually does it,
which reminds me of various religious conferences held in various places.
The first one I experienced when I was in India there's Harmony Conference in New Delhi.
And then there were little harmony conferences taking place in California
and invited the rabbis, and bikshus, priests -- and the whole gang.
Everybody was talking harmony. Well, at the time, they didn't fight on the spot,
because they were talking about harmony, but there is no result at all,
nothing had happened at all. Absolutely nothing happened.
They came into the conference as they are. They left the conference as they are.
They are going to go back by saying we took part in the conference on harmony;
therefore our organization is greater now,
but because of what?
That's very sad, and is at the verge of the setting sun,
even the primitive setting sun, not even the sophisticated one.
The harmony had to be related with some sense of lusciousness,
richness, which is one aspect of harmony.
The other aspect of harmony is a sense of spaciousness, and openness.
The sense of lusciousness and harmony almost have qualities of a Jewish mother,
plentiful, rich, lots of stuff on the table, so to speak.
And the qualities of the openness, spaciousness -
is like a Japanese home where things are very sparse, no furnitures,
no big furnitures, no Victorian furnitures, just mat.
And even when you sleep, you sleep on a block of wood, or even stone you use as a pillow.
Those kind of two harmonies, the Jewish home and the Japanese home put together
quite conveniently,
which technically, here, is called a Shambhala home,
or the Great Eastern Sun home, again, put together.
And your work of art could be the same thing as well at the same time.
When there is that kind of harmony takes place, properly, fully,
then there is some kind of joy taking place.
For the very reason that you are not struggling, just purely creating harmony alone,
but you are also creating enlightened society.
And enlightened society can only exist on a sense of harmony and inquisitiveness
and all the rest of the things we discussed before.
Thank you for joining us in celebrating the teachings of Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
This video is from the video preservation program of the Shambhala Archives. For further information on our activities go to: www.archives.shambhala.org. Your support is appreciated!