The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa Collected Works: Volume Two by Chogyam Trungpa, Chögyam Trungpa Page B

root, which we get to later?
    Trungpa Rinpoche: That’s right. In order to scrub the floor, first we have to clean it off. Once you clean it off, you know what you are doing. It’s a reasonable way of handling the whole thing. You start with what you have immediately available, which brings you an enormous contact with reality. Whereas if you were to try to relate to the basic duality, you would just find it impossible. Instead of trying to work brick by brick, it would be like trying to push down a whole wall. You would end up with a defeat. So it’s better to start with small things that are quite pronounced rather than starting with the fundamental subtleties and trying to sort out the whole problem.
    Student: Do these fundamental subtleties come up disguised as fantasies?
    Trungpa Rinpoche: They are more or less the same thing as the fantasies, but they can’t really be disguised. The root of a tree can’t be disguised as the leaves. The root has to remain the root in order to hold up the leaves and branches. The basic subtleties act as a sustainer, so they have to keep their position.
    Student: Emotions are accompanied by physical sensations. Are those also thoughts?
    Trungpa Rinpoche: Yes. That does not mean to say that you don’t feel physically, but your body is also your thought. For example, if you cut your finger while you’re chopping an onion, you have a bleeding thought. But it’s real. Thoughts shouldn’t be dismissed as “just thoughts.” Such a thought is so real, it’s tangible.
    Student: Would you mind clarifying those two aspects of mind again? The first one is characterized as the basic duality between me and the other; and the second one, a worse case, involves intense thoughts. Is that right?
    Trungpa Rinpoche: It’s quite simple. The first one is basic duality, and the second one is the activities of that.
    S: Can they be separated as a first form of thought and then a second?
    TR: They are not the first or second thoughts, but the roots and the branches.
    S: The first one is the root.
    TR: Yes.
    S: So we have to get at the root through the branches.
    TR: Yes, we have to start with the branches first.
    S: So when we see through the very highly differentiated thoughts and sensations that we’re involved with, then we come to the more fundamental thing between self and other.
    TR: Yes. If you start by tackling the self and other, in tackling that you start more branches, so you have an endless job.
    S: I see.
    TR: Anyway, that’s what we said.
    Student: I grasp what you’re saying abstractly, but I’m wanting to put it into some experiential framework so it’s not just an abstract idea.
    Trungpa Rinpoche: Well, that’s why you are here, obviously. We will discuss the details in the coming talks. To begin with, I wanted to make clear what subject we would be discussing and give you a basic map. That might be somewhat abstract or not particularly pragmatic at this point.
    Student: Is the sixth sense you mentioned related to intuition?
    Trungpa Rinpoche: It’s a lot of things—intuition, paranoia, hope, and fear—all kinds of things. Intuition is included, but in this case intuition has some kind of a reference point. Therefore you have intuition that is different from the enlightened kind of intuition, which is wisdom. Here, this is intuition on a very crude level.

TWO
     
    Recollecting the Present
     
    T HE BASIC APPROACH to understanding the mind is a process of gradually making friends with oneself. That is the first step.
    At first, we feel what we are and what we have is somewhat chaotic, and we feel alienated from ourselves. One sterile approach of traditional spirituality is to play heavily on one’s inadequacy, one’s weakness. You are encouraged to recognize that more and more, until you reach the point where you can’t actually stand yourself. You get involved in all kinds of self-flagellation, self-blame. You feel poverty-stricken. You are filled with a sense of how bad