The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Eight: 8 by Trungpa Chogyam & Gimian Carolyn Rose

Author:Trungpa, Chogyam & Gimian, Carolyn Rose [Trungpa, Chogyam]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
Published: 2010-09-28T03:00:00+00:00

SIX

Mirrorlike Wisdom

Coming to the Western world, I encountered the makers of the clocks, big and small, and the makers of other machines that do wondrous things—such as airplanes and motorcars. It turned out that there was not so much wisdom in the West, but there was lots of knowledge.

OUR BASIC THEME is still the primordial dot. From that dot, the open sky dawns, which is to say, great vision arises and expands. Trust arises out of that, and from that trust arises the need for renunciation. Because of renunciation, we can be daring, which is the principle of letting go.

In the ordinary sense, letting go means being carefree and giving up any discipline. It means to hang loose or to stop being square. It can have the connotation of going against the societal norms you were brought up with, whether it be the Protestant ethic or Orthodox Jewish ethics. In modern-day Catholicism, some of the monastic traditions are becoming more informal. For instance, a priest may not use the confessional box to hear confession. Instead of wearing a habit, monks and nuns might dress in lay clothes, maybe even jeans. Instead of saying mass on the sanctified altar, priests might conduct the ceremony in the middle of the church. Instead of speaking or praying in Latin, they now use the colloquialism of their national tongue. Instead of having organ music, the church might invite jazz musicians to present their own songs as prayers.

The Shambhala approach to letting go is more like having an excellent running conversation in Latin or Sanskrit. Or it is how to speak the English language properly, with tremendous feeling. Letting go is the eloquent expression of speech, the expression of dignified existence. With body loose and available, it is highly controlled awareness joined with inquisitive and open mind. Those are the expressions of letting go.

This is not my version of letting go at all. I do not take personal credit for it, nor should I. It is purely my upbringing as a Shambhala person. As a child in the monastery in Tibet, I was brought up very strictly. At the age of five, I began to study and learn to read, write, and think. While I was learning the alphabet, I was taught to sit up properly. I was told that it is bad for you to hunch or lean over when you are memorizing the alphabet. I was told that my handwriting would be like my posture, so I shouldn’t hunch over. I was warned that my pronunciation would also be bad if I didn’t sit up straight. I was told, “Sit upright, read with upright posture, and write with upright posture.”

I was never allowed even the shortest break of any kind. All preoccupations or excuses were completely undercut. I had a private tutor, so I was the only person in the schoolroom. There were no other students to compare notes with or to have as a reference point at all. In this country, I suppose, if you were put in such a situation, you would think it was a torture chamber.

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