The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion

by Chogyam Trungpa

  This third type of laziness is the most dangerous one. You are taking advantage of your life in order to avoid practice. You feel extraordinarily energetic when you exert yourself in doing other things, but when it comes to sitting practice and working with dharmic situations, you are very lazy. For instance, you prefer to vacuum the floor rather than sit; you prefer to go out and mail your letter rather than sit; you prefer to take a shower rather than sit; you prefer to make a pie first and sit later. Such situations in your life are known as insulting the dharma.

  These three types of laziness are not the only list that we could come up with. I’m sure we could come up with hundreds of thousands of ways and levels of cheating and indulging ourselves.

  The three forms of laziness are very simple. More complicated or sophisticated kinds of laziness might come up on top of that, but basically any form of laziness is simple: you do not want to work with the harsh core of being awake. You would like to avoid that direct contrast. You do not want to feel awake; you prefer to take another nap, rest just a few minutes more. You would like to have lots of padding around you so that you don’t actually have to experience the sharpness of reality, which could be either extremely painful or extremely pleasant. When you are getting close to an experience of wakefulness, you could actually delight in that, but instead you shy away from it. You would rather go back to your stable, which is full of shit and very smelly.

  On the whole, all three types of laziness should be overcome by having a sense of urgency and directness. Traditionally, exertion is referred to as joy in practice, and at the same time, a feeling of immediacy. I wouldn’t exactly call it panic, but it is a panic-like situation. According to the texts, if you are truly practicing exertion, you should behave as if a snake had landed on your lap, or as if your hair had caught on fire. It is very immediate and very direct. That is precisely what is meant by the absence of laziness. The point of the analogy is not the snake, or your hair on fire, but your reaction to it. You cannot just relax, lie back, have a good time, and philosophize about Buddhism. You have samsara on your lap and madness in your brain, so you have to do something about it.

  If you stay too long in samsara, you are going to fall apart very soon. You have to do something to prevent that from happening. It’s like the concept of vaccination: you have to do something before you actually get hit with sickness. You have to save yourself sooner or later—and the sooner the better, because you will still be young, and you won’t yet have been eaten up by the cancer of samsara. You will still have some strength, and you won’t be exhausted all the time. So the earlier the better. That is the importance of exertion.

  THREE QUALITIES OF EXERTION

  Laziness is overcome by three qualities of exertion: exertion like a suit of armor, exertion of action, and exertion of never being satisfied.

  Suit of Armor

  The first quality is that exertion is like a suit of armor. You never let go of your desire to attain enlightenment, just as you would never go onto the battlefield without wearing your armor. You literally never take off your armor until your attainment of enlightenment. You vow to practice and become accomplished in your practice until the attainment of enlightenment. That kind of definite commitment is quite different from ordinary ambition, because it is based on a sense of joy.

  The armor of exertion is connected with the joy and the longing to attain enlightenment. It is a question of realizing that whatever you experience is not all that solid and substantial, but there is an illusory quality to things. It is like driving through very thick, solid-looking fog: although it looks solid, you know the fog is not a wall, so you can just drive through. If you keep driving, at some point you can get beyond the fog and see the road.

  Action

  The second quality of exertion is action. The action of exertion is threefold: (1) making an effort to overcome the kleshas, (2) making an effort to develop virtue, which comes from basic goodness, and (3) making an exceedingly great effort to work with others.

  OVERCOMING THE KLESHAS. Action is necessary to accomplish what needs to be done on the path. It takes action to overcome the kleshas of passion, aggression, and ignorance. With the exertion of action you do not wallow in your own neurosis, but have joy in practicing virtue. A quality of gentleness goes along with your exertion, so things do not become too speedy.

  DEVELOPING VIRTUE. The action of developing virtue can be divided into five subcategories: perseverance, joy, immovability, not changing your mind, and nonarrogance.

  With perseverance, you are willing to see through yourself completely, and not stop halfway through. You are marked with exertion, and you will never give up.

  Joy is based on recognizing that what you are doing deserves respect from others, and also self-respect because your action is dharmic. You enjoy yourself because you have the feeling that your world is sacred. Whatever you do in the name of exertion, whether you drink a cup of coffee or wash the dishes or change the tires on your car, there is a sense of sacredness, which is joyful.

  With immovability, although all sorts of upheavals, kleshas, and suffering happen to you, you just continue with your exertion.

  Because you are not changing your mind, although you might see all sorts of things that ordinarily would put you off, you do not give in to those things. You continue with your practice, and you do not just drop out because you have had an unpleasant conversation with someone. Not only can your mind not be changed, but you overcome your timidity in working with others. You could stay in New York, and not be put off by the New Yorkness of it. You could work with it.

  You also develop nonarrogance. Because exertion could be a showcase, or a way of glamorizing yourself, it is important to overcome arrogance and pride. Although your exertion might be inspiring to others, even though you have done something quite good and your exertion has been fantastic, you do not become bloated by your achievement.

  WORKING WITH OTHERS. The action of working with others is not easy. It takes real diligence.

  Never Being Satisfied

  The third quality of exertion is that you are never satisfied with your exertion. You never relax and say, “Now I have exerted myself enough.” According to Gampopa, exertion is connected with the sense of being one with the dharma. You avoid obstacles to the dharma, and you do not come up with unnecessary excuses to avoid practice. However, overcoming laziness has nothing to do with being speedy, or with being quick and fast in the contemporary Western sense. Rather, exertion means being consistent, continuous, and faithful to the practice. Being consistent allows you to have a sense of joy, rather than seeing practice as a duty that you have to perform. The practice of dharma is getting into your blood.

  When you have accomplished the three kinds of exertion, and have mindfulness and awareness in your everyday experiences and activities, you begin to regard exertion as a part of your basic, natural activity, rather than as something that is imposed on you. You don’t say, “Now it is time to practice, and now it is time to switch off practice and do something else.” Instead, exertion becomes part of your makeup, part of your being in whatever you do. You realize that you are not fundamentally stuck in the mud. You can pull up your anchor and sail away.

  SPARK OF HUMOR

  Between the levels of patience and exertion, there is a point at which you can spark some kind of flash on the spot. You can understand that in your ordinary life, you are very extremely heavy-handed without any genuine humor. In order to invite a sense of humor, you do not need to go back to the root of the problem and you should not go forward, thinking that you can solve it. There is something in between those two, a little lump, so to speak.

  You can actually feel it on the spot, right now, this very fraction of a second. You have a lump in your mind. Look at it. When you look, it begins to become rather ridiculous that you are holding on to that particular lump. You begin to feel that it is very funny, but at the same time it is worth celebrating.

  You can work with
that lump; it could be a very chewy situation. It is pleasurable and worth celebrating that you can get the substance of your life between your teeth. You can chew it and work with it. It becomes food for your mind, food that is not bad or poisonous, and not particularly pleasurable either. It is much better than chewing gum; you can chew that lump very beautifully. It is nourishing, as long as you pay attention to what you are doing, as long as you work with your lump, as long as you stay with it long enough.

  You find that the lump in your jaw, the lump between your past and future states of mind, is very chewy, but it is also quite good. It is quite real. Don’t try to get rid of it; don’t take it out of your mouth and throw it in the garbage pile. Chew it and swallow it. It is the juice of your life. You are swallowing your kleshas, your ayatanas, your dhatus,1 and your skandhas. All those things contain pretty good chewing gum. It is very basic. You do not need too many metaphysical interpretations—just feel it. You are chewing right now, on the spot. Look at it, chew it, and swallow it. You will feel that you have done something at last, this very day. Such chewing is connected with shamatha and vipashyana practice and everything within them. It is very simple and delightful.

  1. The six triads of sense organ, sense object, and sense consciousness are called the eighteen dhatus in Sanskrit, or kham in Tibetan. The six pairs of sense organs and sense objects are called the twelve ayatanas, or kye-che in Tibetan. See volume 1 of the Profound Treasury, chapter 37, “Rediscovering Your Own Mind.”

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  Meditation

  With samten, or meditation, you cannot be moved by wandering thoughts. Your attention is good, and your desire to do things becomes very real. Exertion encourages some sort of feistiness, and the practice of samten establishes that feistiness as grounded and real. . . . Working for sentient beings is finally becoming fully and thoroughly established as the ground of your whole being. Your state of mind is completely and fully soaked in it.

  THE FIFTH paramita is meditation. The paramita of meditation, or dhyana paramita, is described as a good rider. You ride on the horse of exertion with complete mindfulness and skill. You develop constant steadiness, which is like maintaining a good seat as you ride your horse.

  The Sanskrit term dhyana is similar to the word Zen in Japanese, or Ch’an in Chinese. At the paramita level, dhyana means “subdued thinking,” or “mindfulness.” The Tibetan word for dhyana is samten. Sam means “thought process,” or “steadiness of mind,” and ten means “stabilized”; so samten means “stabilized thought process.” Dhyana or samten is like the king of the mountains. You are never moved or challenged. You always stay very still. Samten is a further elaboration on the notion of patience, but it is much more insightful than patience. By learning how to extend your attention further and to stay on one spot for a long period of time, you can cultivate the dharma and the notion of enlightenment.

  The nature of samten is to cut distractions, and its function is to develop groundedness. Samten consists of watching your thoughts and whatever goes on in your mind as a flowing river or a mountain range. Meditation is one of the key ways to attain enlightenment, because it allows us to cut through preoccupations and desires. We see how we attempt to fill up our space, how we divert ourselves, and how we preoccupy ourselves with family, money, food, and entertainment.

  The meditation paramita is a step beyond the paramitas of generosity, discipline, patience, and exertion. At this point there is a quality of immense solidity, which derives from the previous four paramitas and an awareness of everything that is taking place. At the same time, there is a little irritation coming from the awareness, which reminds you that you have to go back to your state of being, that you have to be precise and solid. This is reflected on the faces of the lohans, the original accomplished disciples of the Buddha.1 There is seemingly a sense of serenity, a superficial calmness—but underneath, turmoil takes place. It is interesting that lohans are not really demonstrations of a perfect state of being, as a lot of people have made them out to be. There is a superficial diplomacy, dignity, and confidence, but underneath is uncertainty. The reason for that uncertainty is that there is not yet prajna, which is the next paramita. When prajna strikes, that uncertainty is transformed into knowledge. Then you could be a full, solid individual without any problems.

  On the level of dhyana paramita, shamatha is not so much taming—we have pretty much tamed everything at this point—it is rather getting used to being tamed. The shamatha experience is more a matter of synchronizing body, speech, and mind. If you are unable to control your body, speech, and mind, you will constantly be led into heedlessness, in spite of all the other paramitas you may have attained. You will be subject to passion, which is based on fickleness, wandering mind, and the inability to pay heed to what happens in your life. If you are not able to attain ideal steadiness of mind, you may not be able to attain the ultimate awakened state, which is free from passion.

  Dhyana paramita includes postmeditation experience as well as meditation experience. The quality of postmeditation is a sense of composure in which body, speech, and mind are well-coordinated. You are able to be where you are, in a state of ease and relaxation, with less anxiety and frivolity. You are able to cut through your passion, longing, desire, or looking for further feedback. Because your body, speech, and mind are fully occupied and at their best, you experience complete satisfaction. That is the definition of shamatha practice on the meditation paramita level.

  The practice of dhyana paramita allows you to concentrate on the virtues of nonaggression and contentment. Once you realize that your state of mind is already content, and that your body, speech, and mind are synchronized and at ease, you begin to find yourself relaxed and at your best. Because of that, you are able to attain the ultimate seclusion, the ultimate hermitage. You do not have to look for a means of escape, or physically run away from the city and take a rest in the countryside, but you can find your hermitage within yourself.

  You might find that inner hermitage very lonely. Usually when you go to a lonely place, you know that you can always go back to your busy life. You know that you can cut your loneliness and entertain yourself all over again. But in this case, you are carrying your loneliness with you all the time, so you might find it very difficult to shake off. You might find it somewhat hauntingly lonely. However, although I am warning you that you might have that kind of difficulty, it should be all right, because we all feel that way. Even though you might feel somewhat lonely, you still could feel extremely relieved and joyful. You no longer have a need for unnecessary toys and babysitters and playmates. You are completely coordinated, and you are in one piece. Your mind is one, and your concentration and actions are at their best. That is the real idea of dhyana.

  From the bodhisattva’s point of view, if you do not have good concentration, you will not achieve intuitive appreciation or intuitive insight; and if you don’t have intuitive insight, you will not be able to work with other sentient beings. The term intuitive insight has often been mistakenly translated as “clairvoyance,” which is slightly hokey. The idea of intuitive insight is that you have a way of seeing and experiencing how other people’s minds actually work.

  TWO CATEGORIES OF SAMTEN

  Samten is divided into two categories: common samten, or shamatha, and special samten, or vipashyana. Common samten is based on developing concentration and mindfulness, in the basic and ordinary sense of paying heed to everything. Special samten is the development of awareness. This awareness is present throughout your everyday life. It is constant awareness, which brings the possibility of combining shamatha and vipashyana together. Doing so allows you to be fully steady, and free from preoccupation with the world of desire.

  THREE LEVELS OF SAMTEN

  In addition to two categories of samten, there are three levels: dwelling in the dharma of seeing, accumulating goodness, and enthusiasm in working for others.

  Dwelling in the Dharma of Seeing

  The first level of samt
en is dwelling in the dharma of seeing. It is the practice of shamatha. Your perception and your state of mind are working along with the ayatanas and dhatus, so you are constantly projecting outward. You are not trying to contradict the ayatanas, but you are maintaining yourself within the ayatanas, so you are able to remain in the state of shamatha quite leisurely. Your mind becomes peaceful and your body relaxed. That seems to be the essence of shamatha practice.

  The relaxation that comes with shamatha is called shinjang. You are thoroughly processed. Your mind is processed by the peace and one-pointedness of mindfulness practice, and your body is processed by assuming certain postures. Eventually the posture of sitting meditation practice becomes a soothing and natural exercise; it is natural relaxation. It is as if both mind and body were put into a washing machine and then into a dryer. But it is a dry-cleaning process rather than a wet-cleaning process. You do not have to go through the wetness of passion, just the dryness of prajna. So shinjang is the Buddhist version of dry-cleaning our whole being. It is achieved through shamatha practice, which is the first level of samten.

  Accumulating Goodness

  The second level of samten is accumulating goodness or virtue. Having fully and thoroughly achieved shamatha mindfulness, you begin to develop vipashyana awareness. Mindfulness is a very localized situation, but with awareness, you actually can discriminate dharmas. At the same time, you develop a further appreciation of concentration. In the state of awareness, you can appreciate the possibility of seeing the world properly and fully. You can see how your ayatanas and dhatus function or operate, and you can see how the world works. This is what is known as vipashyana.