Competing with Our Projections

THE FIRST YANA, shravakayana, which we discussed yesterday, is the starting point. It is the starting point in the sense that in it we begin to realize the meaning of life; or, we might say, we discover the stuff that life consists of. Life consists of pain, transitoriness, and nonsubstantiality. Discovering

that could be said to be discovering the first truth about life. You might find that rather depressing, but nevertheless, that’s the way things are. The first step, which happens in the shravakayana, is realizing the form of manifestations, realizing the nature of manifestations; realizing the nature of sound, objects, colors, movements, and space; realizing the nature of shapes and their characteristics.

The next yana is called the pratyekabuddhayana. This means the yana or path of self-enlightenment or self-contained enlightenment. This involves starting on oneself before getting involved with anything else. As they say, “Charity begins at home.” One has to start with oneself. It is because of this that the approach of hinayana as a whole has been referred to as a self-centered approach. Christianity has often looked down on Buddhism as being too self-

centered. Christians have said that there isn’t enough charity in Buddhism, or there aren’t enough charitable organizations in Buddhism. In some sense that is the shortcoming of the hinayana. There’s too much emphasis on oneself. But on the other hand, that is the virtue of the hinayana. There’s no fooling around with anything else. One does not need encouragement or reinforcement from elsewhere, from any foreign element. We don’t have to introduce foreign elements in order to prove our existence. We just simply work with the stuff we have. We start right on the point where we are.

The pratyekabuddhayana could also be described as a yana of the psychological understanding of the meaning of life. In the shravakayana, we related to the physical structure of the meaning of life. We related to impermanence and the dissatisfaction produced by impermanence, and the fact that basically things have no substance; they are empty; there is no watcher, no observer, therefore there is egolessness.

In the pratyekabuddhayana, the approach to psychological development is that of the five skandhas.1 The first is the skandha of form. Form in this case is basic being, which is ignorance from the samsaric point of view. It is that which causes duality, the split between subject and object, between projector and projection. But at the same time that kind of ignorance is very intelligent and very definite and full of all kinds of tactics and schemes. It has already developed the scheme, the policy, of ignoring any possible threats. The meaning of ignorance here seems to be ignoring the threats of any

possibilities of realizing egolessness. In other words, it means ignoring that its own game is a foolish one. In that sense, ignorance is effortless. It is a kind of natural ape instinct in which, wanting to hang on to something, we don’t even have to think about hanging on to it. Ignorance holds it automatically. It senses that there are possibilities of letting go, but it doesn’t want to face them. If you let go, then you no longer have pain or pleasure to occupy yourself with, so you stay on the edge of the straight path. Straightforwardness is seen, but instead of going ahead right onto the path of straightforwardness, you stay on the edge. That is basic ignorance.

It seems that we all have that tendency. We know that there are possibilities of loosening up, of freeing ourselves, but we don’t really want to give in to them, because it would be too humiliating in the sense that we would no longer have any weapons to wave. We would no longer have any stuff to entertain ourselves with.

There is a sort of hunger for pain. Usually when we think of pain, we don’t regard it as something we want. The conventional idea of pain is something that any sensible person would regard as undesirable. But actually and fundamentally, that’s not true. There is a very profound unreasonableness that ignorance has created, which makes it so that we want to hang on to pain. At least having the experience of pain reassures us of our existence. We have a chance to play with it as though we didn’t want it, which is a game. We are playing a game with ourselves.

All those schemes and projects involved in maintaining ego and pain are unconscious or subconscious ones. There is an inbuilt reaction that happens that even the watcher doesn’t see. It happens on an instinctive level; therefore it is ignorance. It is a self-contained administration.

And then we have another skandha beginning to develop, which is the skandha of feeling. Feeling also is on a somewhat semiconscious level. We are beginning to be aware of ourselves, of our existence, and because of that we start to survey our territory and check our security to see whether the environment around us is threatening or welcoming or indifferent. The area around us in this sense is comprised of our basic fear or paranoia of ego’s possibly losing its grip. This sends out a kind of magnetic field, and feeling is the messenger that tests out that magnetic field of ego. It tests whether the mechanism of ego will work or not, whether we will be able to survive or not.

Beyond that, a cruder level than that of the subconscious mind develops. This is the actual manifestation onto the solid level, which is perception [the third skandha]. Perception is another form of feeling but on the more active level of perceiving, of sharpening sense-consciousness. Having developed a way of detecting whether the area around us is desirable or undesirable, now we have to survey the projections more. We look to see if there is a way of seemingly changing the projections to make them constitute a more favorable situation, to make them into more favorable perceptions. This is a kind of intuition, the highest form of intuition, in which we try to see whether we can maintain ourselves or not in terms of relationships.

The next skandha is intellect, intellect in the sense of that which labels things, gives them a name, and puts them into certain categories.2 It does this in such a way that these categories fit with what we checked out by means of feeling and studied through perceptions. Now finally we make an official statement that things fit into this category or that category in relation to oneself and one’s productions. This is a work of art, an intellectual one. So the intuition of perception is general sensing, and intellect is finalizing.

Then the fifth skandha is consciousness, which contains emotions, thought patterns of all kinds. Emotions come from frustration. The meaning of emotion is frustration in the sense that we are or might be unable to fulfill what we want. We discover our possible failure as something pathetic, and so we develop our tentacles or sharpen our claws to the extreme. The emotion is a way of competing with the projection. That is the mechanism of emotion.

The whole point is that the projections have been our own manifestations all along. Naturally, we have put out our own projections. We put them out as our allies, our subjects, our guards who could bring back messages and let us know what’s happening. But at the same time, the ruler [the projector] is very suspicious of anything other than himself. There is the possibility that your ally might turn into your enemy; your closest friend might become your enemy; your bodyguards might assassinate you. That kind of suspicion is always happening, and because of this uncertain relationship with the projections, emotions begin to arise as another way of undermining the projections. In other words, the ruler himself has to have a weapon in case he’s attacked. That is emotion.

Emotion is uncertainty regarding the projections, and the projections have also been put out by us. What we label things makes the projections. The buildings or the houses or the trees or the people as such are not the projections. What we make out of them is the projections—our version of the buildings, our version of the landscape, the people, the trees. It is the new coat of paint that we put on them, the reproductions we make of them. And there is the possibility of not being able to relate with those, since we are uncertain of ourselves [and thus uncertain of our own projections].

Basically, we are uncertain of who we are, so there is a huge, gigantic fear in the back of our minds, which is hidden very neatly behind the veil of ignorance, of ignoring. But even though it is hidden, we are still uncertain—as though there were a huge, cosmic conspiracy happening. Whether the bomb is going to explode from the inside or the outside is uncertain. But we don’t talk about the inside bombs. On that side, we pretend that nothing has gone wrong at all. At least we have to have some place to sit, to live, dwell. So we decide to blame everything on the outside situation.

So that is the psychological state of the pratyekabuddha; that is his worldview on the psychological level. There seem to be two aspects to the meaning of life. There is the meaning of life from the point of view of the outside, which is characterized by the three marks of existence: pain, impermanence, and egolessness; and there is the internal way of seeing the meaning of life, which is in terms of the five skandhas.

It seems to me that we can’t be charitable to anyone, even ourselves, if we do not know who we are and what we are, or who we are not and what we are not—whether we exist or not. This is a very important point to understand before we begin to practice. We have to find out who is actually practicing and what we are practicing for.

Those two yanas, the shravakayana and the pratyekabuddhayana, are purely hinayana. They constitute the hinayana level of philosophy and practice. The role of the hinayana in the dharma is to define life, to lay the ground, establish a foundation. That foundation is a real understanding of the practitioner and a real understanding of the basic meaning of practice.

The meditation practice in the hinayana goes right along with what we have been describing philosophically. Meditation practice at this level is establishing a relationship with yourself. That is the aim of meditation. There are various techniques for doing that. It is not a question of achieving a state of trance or mental peace or of manufacturing a higher goal and a higher state of consciousness at all. It is simply that we have not acknowledged ourselves before. We have been too busy. So finally we stop our physical activities and spend time—at least twenty minutes or forty-five minutes or an hour—with ourselves.

The technique uses something that happens in our basic being. We jut choose something very simple. Traditionally, this is either the physical movement of walking or sitting or breathing. Breathing seems to have the closest link with our body and also with the flux of emotions and mental activities. Breathing is used as the basic crutch. This is the hinayana way of relating with oneself to begin with.

When we talk about making a relationship with ourselves, that sounds quite simple. But in fact it is very difficult. The reason we are unable to relate with ourselves is that that there is fundamental neurosis that prevents us from acknowledging our existence—or our nonexistence, rather. We are afraid of ourselves. However confident or clever or self-contained we may be, still there is some kind of fear, paranoia, behind the whole thing.

Neurosis in this case is inability to face the simple truth. Rather than do that, we introduce all kinds of highfalutin ideas—cunning, clever, depressing. We just purely bring in as much stuff as we like. And that stuff that we bring in has neurotic qualities. What “neurotic” finally comes down to here is taking the false as true. The illogical approach is regarded as the logical one. So just relating with ourselves in meditation practice exposes all this hidden neurosis.

That may sound fantastic. We might think there has to be some secret teaching, some semi-magical method—that we can’t expose ourselves just by doing something simple like breathing or just sitting and doing nothing. But strangely enough, the simpler the techniques, the greater the effects that are produced.

The sitting practice in hinayana is called shamatha. This literally means “dwelling on peace” or “development of peace,” but let us not misunderstand peace in this case. It does not refer to tranquillity in the sense of a peaceful state. Peace here refers to the simplicity or uncomplicatedness of the practice. The meditator just relates with walking or breathing. You just simply be with it, very simply just be with it.

This technique is especially designed to produce exquisite boredom. It is not particularly designed to solve problems as such. It is very boring just to watch one’s breathing and sit and do nothing; or walk, not even run, but just walk slowly. We may think we have done that many times already. But usually we don’t just breathe and sit and walk. We have so many other things happening at the same time, millions of projects on top of those things. But in this case we relate to the boredom, which is the first message of the nonexistence of ego.

You feel as if you are in exile. You are a great revolutionary leader. You had a lot of power and schemes and so on, but now you are in exile in a foreign country and you’re bored. Ego’s machinations and administration have no place in boredom, so boredom is the starting point of realization of the egoless state. This is very important.

Then at some point, within the state of boredom, one begins to entertain oneself with all kinds of hidden neuroses. That’s okay, let them come through, let them come through. Let’s not push neurosis away or sit on it. At some point, even those entertainments become absurd—and you are bored again. Then you not only draw out the discursive, conceptual side of hidden neurosis, but you begin to become emotional about the whole thing. You’re angry at yourself or at the situation you managed to get yourself into. “What the hell am I doing here? What’s the point of sitting here and doing nothing? It feels foolish, embarrassing!” The image of yourself sitting on the floor and just listening to your breathing—that you let yourself be humiliated in this way—is terrible! You are angry at the teacher and the circumstances, and you question the method and the teaching altogether.

Then you try more questions, seeking out another kind of entertainment. This involves believing in mystery. “Maybe there is some kind of mystery behind the whole thing. If I live through this simple task, maybe it will enable me to see a great display of higher spiritual consciousness.” Now you are like a frustrated donkey trying to visualize a carrot. But at some point that becomes boring as well. How many times can you seduce yourself with that? Ten times, twenty times? By the time you have repeated the same thing seventy-five times, the whole thing becomes meaningless, just mental chatter.

All those things that happen in sitting meditation are relating with ourselves, working with ourselves, exposing neuroses of all kinds. After you have been through a certain amount of that, you master the experience of breathing in spite of those interruptions. You begin to feel that you actually have a real life that you can relate to instead of trying to escape or speed [along without having to connect with it]. You don’t have to do all those things. You can be sure of yourself, you can really settle down. You can afford to slow down. At this point you begin to realize the meaning of pain and the meaning of egolessness and to understand the tricks of ignorance that the first skandha has played on you.

So shamatha meditation practice is very important. It is the key practice for further development through all the yanas of Buddhism. Student: Is the experience of boredom also an experience of egolessness?

Trungpa Rinpoche: It is an experience of egolessness rather than an egoless state. S: The ego is experiencing the boredom?

TR: Yes, ego is experiencing its own hollowness. This is still experience, not achievement. If there is achievement, you don’t experience egolessness, but this is the experience of egolessness.

Student: Doesn’t the boredom just become another form of entertainment? Trungpa Rinpoche: I don’t think so. It’s too straightforward, too frustrating to be entertaining. I mean the idea of it might be entertaining now, but when you are actually experiencing it . . .

S: Well, you were talking about pain being entertaining. TR: That’s different. In pain, something’s happening; in boredom, nothing’s happening.

Student: Sometimes I’m sitting meditating and I notice strange neurotic things happening to me. I try to understand them, but as soon as I try to understand, I just get confusion. Is it best to just drop it?

Trungpa Rinpoche: You don’t have to try to do anything with it, particularly. Just let it arise and fall away of its own accord. One of the important aspects of the proper attitude toward meditation is understanding that it is a very simple process that does not have any schemes in it. Of course sitting and breathing is a scheme to some extent, but in order to remove dirt we have to put soap on the body. So something has to be applied. You have put another kind of dirt on in order to remove the existing dirt. But it’s not very much and it’s the closest we can get to [no schemes at all].

Student: What do you do with your emotions when they arise? What about anger, for example? Suppressing it just seems to be a cop-out.

Trungpa Rinpoche: If, when you’re angry, you just go out and have a fight with somebody, that’s also a cop-out. That’s another way of suppressing your anger. You can’t handle it, therefore you try some other way. Whether you do that or suppress, you are not relating with your emotions completely. The real way of relating with an emotion is just to watch it arise, experience its crescendo, and then find out if that emotion is threatening you in any way. You can do that if you are willing to do that. Of course, you could say you didn’t have time to do such a thing—before you knew it, you just exploded—but that’s not quite true. If you are willing to do it, you can relate with your emotions.

Emotions are not regarded as something that you should throw away; they are regarded as very precious things that you can relate with. The final frustration of the ego is the emotions. It can’t cope with itself, therefore it has to do something—become extremely jealous or extremely angry, or something like that. But one can really watch the emotion: Instead of relating with the end result of the emotion, relate with the emotion itself. S: Not watch what it does to the object of the emotion?

TR: Yes, that’s right. You see, usually in talking about emotions, we completely misunderstand the whole thing. We just talk about the end results, which is also an expression of frustration that doesn’t solve your problem. It doesn’t release anything; it just creates further chain reactions. Student: Your emotion can be telling you things.

Trungpa Rinpoche: Yes, but you don’t listen to it. You are just hypnotized by the emotion—that’s the problem. The emotion is telling you things. It is talking to you, but you are not talking to it. You just become something the emotion manipulates by remote control. You don’t have access back to its headquarters. That’s the problem, always. That’s why emotion is so frustrating. It finally gets hold of us and controls us completely. We are reduced to just an animal. That is why we usually find emotions uncomfortable.

Student: How do you relate to the energy of your emotions?

Trungpa Rinpoche: You see, there are two ways of relating to energy. You build up energy and then you spend it, or you build up energy and regenerate it. The second way, if you relate to the qualities of the emotions completely, you are able to retain the inspiration of the emotions, but at the same time you see the neurosis [that occasioned them] as blindness. Particularly in the tantric teachings, emotions are not regarded as something to get rid of but as

something necessary. Also in the bodhisattva path, emotions are regarded as necessary. They become the seeds of the bodhisattva’s paramita practices.3 Those practices are based on the chemistry of the different emotions and how they can be transformed into different things. In tantric practice, the emotions are transmuted into different inspiration. Emotions are the seed of compassion and wisdom. They are a way to attain enlightenment. So one wouldn’t try to get rid of them; one would try to relate to them. That’s the whole point.

Student: You mentioned watching your emotions. Even at the time of the emotion’s crescendo, there’s still a very strong watcher. Is it like riding them or watching them from the outside?

Trungpa Rinpoche: It is not so much a matter of looking at them from the outside. It’s a matter of embracing them as something together with you. In other words, it’s trying to build a bridge. There’s a big gap [between you and the emotion], that’s why the emotion becomes uncomfortable. There’s a tremendous gap; the emotion becomes separate entertainment. It becomes a separate entity that is going to hit you back. You become small and the emotion becomes huge and begins to manipulate you.

S: The larger the gap, the more it’s out of control?

TR: Well, the more frustrating it becomes, anyway, because you can’t reach it, even though you are controlled by it. So the idea is to build a bridge, or take down the barrier between you and your emotion.

As long as you regard the problem as separate from you, there’s no way of solving the problem, because you are actually contributing toward the separateness. Your enemy becomes more and more terrifying. The more you relate to it as an enemy, the more the enemy can do to you.

Student: I feel that my experience of boredom is very close to panic, like it has panic on the borders or is the other side of panic. Trungpa Rinpoche: Yes, obviously boredom is panic in the sense of not having a sufficient supply of entertainment. That’s why you panic, sure. But that sounds like a very good sign.

Student: Rinpoche, how do you transform emotions?

Trungpa Rinpoche: Transform? You don’t do it, it happens. If you are willing to do it, it happens. Student: When you talk about relationship with emotions, does that mean attention looking at the meaning of the emotions? Trungpa Rinpoche: It seems to be some kind of feeling of putting out a sympathetic attitude toward the emotions as being yours.

S: Would you call that attention or awareness?

TR: I think you could call it awareness. When the texts describe this practice, they speak of the emotions being self-liberated. In fact there’s no difference between you and the emotion, so the emotion is liberating itself. The sense of separateness is just illusion.

I think one of the biggest problems is that we are unable to develop compassion or a sympathetic attitude toward our projections, let alone toward things outside our projections—other people, other life situations. We can’t even take a sympathetic attitude toward ourselves and our own projections, and that causes a lot of frustration and complications. That is the whole point we are trying to deal with here. The boredom of meditation demands your attention;

in other words, the boredom becomes the sympathetic environment in relation to which you can develop compassion. [In that boredom] you have no choice but to relate directly to what is happening to you.