..續本文上一頁re enlightened. That”s my fantasy about what we do.
5. QUESTION: (Question on enlightenment, Trungpa.) How do you explain something like that
JOHN: Well, it”s a conundrum, isn”t it
It”s very interesting and painful and difficult. My explanation is that it”s very seductive to be a spiritual teacher. When you become a spiritual teacher, people immediately start treating you a little bit differently. Not everybody. Hopefully, if you”re married, that helps because they won”t treat you any differently. But it”s very seductive and there”s always going to be traps that you haven”t seen before. I”m always falling into something that I thought I was wise at, but then a new trap comes along and I fall into it. I think that what we”re talking about--You can say it in two ways. You can say that the insight wasn”t good enough. It was great, but it wasn”t great enough. That”s the traditional Buddhist answer. But I think I”m saying something else. That there wasn”t enough work on the character containment level. There wasn”t enough work on being patient and stupid and humble and working with your own darkness. When you”re a teacher if you”re in pain, it”s very easy to go out and teach and it”s very difficult to stop and listen to the pain because everybody”s always asking you to go out to teach. To go out to teach is a natural thing, but to say, `no,” is not somehow. So teacher”s often end up not having any inner life. Very great teachers can turn into a shell quickly because that happens.
(Questioner comment
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JOHN: Yes, yes. You can get very good at the techniques of meditation that allow you to not have to sleep much and things like that,
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But I see the goal as this lived enlightenment, is the expression, it”s the lived thing.
6. QUESTION: (Zen and bringing things together
)
JOHN: I”m just beginning to feel myself to start talking about things I don”t know shit about. That”s one of those things that destroys teachers, really. Let people think we know things. Then, dammit, I start giving advice. So with that proviso, that I don”t know anything either, let me say that I think it”s good to practice in the time of chaos. I think that that”s fine. I wouldn”t want someone else to have to put up with the chaos and not me. Zen specifically was developed exactly in a time of civil war and the great koan tradition was coalesced when Ghengis Khan was coming through with his horsemen and burning the cities. People thought it would be very good to do a little zazen. It might help. The great tradition was designed for the many ways, the different possible ways. Some people just wanted to go off into the mountains and meditate and hold the world in that way in some way. The way the Hopis doing their ceremonies hold the world for us. Other people wanted to go and talk to the Mongol overlords and try to get them to stop burning cities and to rule the place. Some zen masters did that, too. So there are many opportunities. There”s not one way to go. The great traditions always should be good in hard times. Any tradition can be good in easy times.
7. QUESTION: I wanted to ask you another question about this. I want to ask how you see how--The person has this enlightenment experience, let”s say, and is coming back to themselves and working on the character or purifying the vehicle, something like that. How would you say or how do you see how that could, or would it, have an impact in the world and what would that impact be
JOHN: Well, you will feel yourself moved to do something. What do you do
If you”re a carpenter, you”ll make different kinds of furniture eventually. You”ll do something in the world. You”ll have an influence on the people. You”ll touch people. You won”t be able to help touching…
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