He insisted on the “ax of true doctrine” which must be used to cut the root of ignorance—and that one must know how to use the ax, otherwise he harms himself. So a man who is skilled in catching snakes can safely catch them, but one who is not skilled gets bitten. Meditation: laying the ax to the root. (The coming of Christ in the desert.)
“It is the tradition of the fortunate seekers never to be content with partial practice.”
(Milarepa)
Sankaracharya on the ego (from The Crest-Jewel of Discrimination):
“When we say: ‘This man is that same Devadatta whom I have previously met,’ we establish a person’s identity by disregarding those attributes superimposed upon him by the circumstances of our former meeting. In just the same way, when we consider the scriptural teaching ‘That art Thou,’ we must disregard those attributes which have been superimposed upon ‘That’ and ‘Thou….’
“Cease to follow the way of the world, cease to follow the way of the flesh, cease to follow the way of tradition. Get rid of this false identification and know the true Atman….
“Cease to identify yourself with race, clan, name, form and walk of life. These belong to the body, the garment of decay. Abandon, also, the idea that you are the doer of actions or the thinker of thoughts. These belong to the ego, the subtle covering. Realize that you are that Being which is eternal happiness.
“Man’s life of bondage to the world of birth and death has many causes. The root of them all is the ego, the first-begotten child of ignorance.
“As long as a man identifies himself with this wicked ego, there can be no possibility of liberation. For liberation is its very opposite.
“Once freed from this eclipsing demon of an ego, man regains his true nature, just as the moon shines forth when freed from the darkness of an eclipse. He becomes pure, infinite, eternally blissful and self-luminous.”
(Sankaracharya, pp. 86, 91, 96)
I promised Tenzin Geshe I would have people send him information and subscriptions to good magazines. Apparently they are not very well informed here in Dharamsala; they have to depend on Life, Time, Reader’s Digest, and so on. I said I thought the weekly edition of Le Monde was essential and that I would get “Ping” Ferry to put them on the mailing list of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions.
An Indian security policeman was here in this room, at this desk, this morning looking at my passport, studying the Indian visa, taking down notes about where I had been and where I intended to go. He got me to write out in block letters the titles of two books I had written on Zen. And he said, “I suppose we can now expect a book from you on Tibetan Buddhism.” I said I thought not.
When we went on up the mountain from Swarg Ashram I heard a great commotion in the tall trees and looked up to see marvelous gray apes with black faces crashing and swinging through the branches. They were huge, almost as big as people. Six or seven beautiful, funny Hanumans.45 It would be wonderful to live in a hermitage with apes in the trees around it. They would be fantastic company, better than squirrels, endlessly amusing, seemingly clumsy yet infinitely agile and smart. So much bigger than monkeys, and making much more commotion in the branches. A storm of heavy apes!
Yesterday Sonam Kazi, Harold, and I drove to Palampur to meet some lamas at the Tibetan camps there. It was a fine drive on a bad road, with great views of the mountains. We went beyond Palampur to the camp, on a tea plantation, where the Tibetans are newly established, some in tents among the tea gardens, with prayer flags flying, some in the buildings of the village. We had a talk with a Nyingmapa lama, ChhokIing Rinpoche, who anted to know if I believed in reincarnation before answering questions concerning enlightenment. Like everyone else, he spoke of masters, and the need of finding one, and how one finds one—of being drawn to him supernaturally, sometimes with instant recognition. He asked me a koanlike question about the origin of the mind. I could not answer it directly but apparently my nonanswer was “right,” and he said I would profit by “meeting some of the tulkus that are in India.” Sonam Kazi said, “You have passed the first test,” and he seemed pleased.
One of the “tulkus that are in India” and whom I met today is a ten-year-old boy, a lively and intelligent kid living up on the mountain here in a rather poor cottage with an older lama, another boy lama, and a Tibetan family with a huge black dog that was all ready to bite a few chunks out of Harold and me. The boy was charming and I took some pictures of him as he was petulantly rolling down his sleeves to be more ceremonious. He went into his cell and sat cross-legged on his seat and received us with poise and formality. I took his picture there too but it was probably too dark to come out. Then we went down to the drama school where a girl was playing a lovely instrument, the name of which I forgot to ask—a string instrument laid out flat and played with two sticks. It had a charming sound—-while around the corner was a radio playing popular Indian music—which I find pretty good! Here there was a young Canadian who is teaching the little tulku English and says he does not learn his lessons. “He is intelligent but too lazy to think.”
November 4, 1968
Today I am to see the Dalai Lama—but meanwhile the world goes on, and finance hooms (zooms). We have run out of toilet paper and are using Saturday’s newspaper. I became absorbed in the news of business—too good to pass over.
MUSTARD OIL SUBDUED ON POOR ENQUIRIES
Groundnut oil eased by Rs.5 to Rs.388 for want of support. Sesame and cottonseed oil also came down by Rs.5 in sympathy. (Happy to report, however, that later groundnut oils rose again Rs.5 “owing to fall in arrivals from Uttar Pradesh.”)
PULSES DEPRESSED, WHEAT LOOKS UP
Pulses, especially dal moong, dal masoor, etc. I like dal. I hate to see it depressed. (Dal = lentils.)
BOMBING HALT IMPARTS FIRMNESS TO SHARES
A smart rally was witnessed on the Bombay stock exchange—transactions were mostly squarish and of jobbing in nature (sic). Reports about the bombing halt order over VietNam (sic) given by President Johnson imparted firmness to the market.
A Christ mandala, in St. Paul’s “to understand the length and the breadth, the height and the depth…”
“The human body is better than a wishing gem.”
(Milarepa)
The three poisons:
craving,
hatred,
ignorance.
“A virnle for one engaged on any esoteric path is primarily a mode of knowing, or, to be more accurate, a factor dispositive for enlightenment.”46
November 4, 1968. Afternoon
I had my audience with the Dalai Lama this morning in his new quarters. It was a bright, sunny day—blue sky, the mountains absolutely clear. Tenzin Geshe sent a jeep down. We went up the long way round through the army post and past the old deserted Anglican Church of St. John in the Wilderness. Everything at McLeod Ganj is admirably situated, high over the valley, with snow-covered mountains behind, all pine trees, with apes in them, and a vast view over the plains to the south. Our passports were inspected by an Indian official at the gate of the Dalai Lama’s place. There were several monks standing around—like monks standing around anywhere—perhaps waiting to go somewhere. A brief wait in a sitting room, all spanking new, a lively, bright Tibetan carpet, bookshelves full of Kangyur and Tangyur scriptures presented to the Dalai Lama by Suzuki.47
The Dalai Lama is most impressive as a person. He is strong and alert, bigger than I expected (for some reason I thought he would be small). A very solid, energetic, generous, and warm person, very capably trying to handle enormous problems—none of which he mentioned directly. There was not a word of politics. The whole conversation was about religion and philosophy and especially ways of meditation. He said he was glad to see me, had heard a lot about me. I talked mostly of my own personal concerns, my interest in Tibetan mysticism. Some of what he replied was confidential and frank. In general he advised me to get a good base in Madhyamika philosophy (Nagarjuna and other authentic Indian source
s) and to consult qualified Tibetan scholars, uniting study and practice. Dzogchen was good, he said, provided one had a sufficient grounding in metaphysics—or anyway Madhyamika, which is beyond metaphysics. One gets the impression that he is very sensitive about partial and distorted Western views of Tibetan mysticism and especially about popular myths. He himself offered to give me another audience the day after tomorrow and said he had some questions he wanted to ask me.
The Dalai Lama is also sensitive about the views of other Buddhists concerning Tibetan Buddhism, especially some Theravada Buddhists who accuse Tibetan Buddhism of corruption by non-Buddhist elements.
The Dalai Lama told me that Sonam Kazi knew all about dzogchen and could help me, which of course he already has. It is important, the Dalai Lama said, not to misunderstand the simplicity of dzogchen, or to imagine it is “easy,” or that one can evade the difficulties of the ascent hy taking this “direct path.” He recommended Geshe Sopa of the New Jersey monastery who has been teaching at the University of Wisconsin, and Geshe Ugyen Tseten of Rikon, Switzerland.
Murti on Madhyamika: “Its dialectic is of crucial importance. This dialectic is the consciousness of the total and interminable conflict in reason and the consequent attempt to resolve the conflict by rising to a higher standpoint.”
[T. R. V. Mutri, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (London, 1960), p. 126]
In the afternoon I got a little reading done and then had quite a good meditation. Talking with various rinpoches has certainly been helpful, and above all the Dalai Lama himself. I have great confidence in him as a really charismatic person. The Tibetans are all quite impressive and their solidity does a great deal to counteract the bizarre reports about some of their practices. It is all very good experience.
Thinking about my own life and future, it is still a very open question. I am beginning to appreciate the hermitage at Gethsemani more than I did last summer when things seemed so noisy and crowded. Even here in the mountains there are few places where one does not run into someone. Roads and paths and trails are all full of people. To have real solitude one would have to get very high up and far back!
For solitude, Alaska really seems the very best place. But everyone I have talked to says I must also consider others and keep open to them to some extent. The rinpoches all advise against absolute solitude and stress “compassion.” They seem to agree that being in solitude much of the year and coming “out” for a while would be a good solution.
The idea of being in Alaska and then going out to Japan or the U.S. strikes me as a rather good solution. And, in some small way, helping in Alaska itself. On the way back from this trip I think I will need to go to Europe to see Trungpa Rinpoche’s place in Scotland and the Tibetan monastery in Switzerland. Also to see Marco Pallis and then John Driver in Wales. I must write to “Donald” Allchin about Wales.
The way in which I have been suddenly brought here constantly surprises me. The few days so far in Dharamsala have all been extremely fruitful in every way: the beauty and quiet of the mountains, my own reading and meditation, encounters with lamas, everything.
In a way it is wonderful to be without letters. No one now knows where to reach me. Undoubtedly there is some mail accumulating for me at the USIS office in Calcutta. But it will be ten days or more before I see any of it. And Brother Patrick is sending on only what is most essential.
Trying to get a better perspective on the earlier part of this year, there is a lot I cannot quite understand. And perhaps do not need to understand. The last months have been demanding and fruitful. I have needed the experience of this journey. Much as the hermitage has meant, I have been needing to get away from Gethsemani and it was long overdue.
This evening the lights in the cottage went dead for awhile. I stood out in the moonlight, listening to drums down in the village and looking up at the stars. The same constellations as over the hermitage and the porch opening in about the same direction, southeast toward Aquila and the Dolphin. Aquarius out over the plain, the Swan up above. Cassiopeia over the mountains.
November 5, 1968
The metaphysician as wounded man. A wounded man is not an agnostic—he just has different questions, arising out of his wound. Recognition of the wound as a substitute for real identity, when one can “think of nothing else.”
Buddha rejected the dogmatism of idealism and materialism and suhstituted a critical dialectic, “long before anything approximating to it was found in the West.” “Criticism is deliverance of the human mind from all entanglements and passions. It is freedom itself. This is the true Madhyamika standpoint.”
(Murt;. p. 4’)
Note that Buddha neither said “there is a self nor “there is not a self.” But among many Buddhists there appears to be a kind of dogmatism that says “there is not a self” instead of taking the true middle. Also Buddha replied by silence because he considered the condition of the questioner and the effect of a dogmatic reply on him. Buddha did not say “there is no self” to prevent the bewilderment of Vacchagotta.48 “For he would have said: ‘Formerly indeed I had a self but now I have not one any more.’”
It was Buddha’s aim not to give a “final” speculative answer but to be free from all theories and to know, by experience, “the nature of form and how form arises and how form perishes.” He wanted “not a third position lying between two extremes but a no-position that supersedes them both.” This is the Middle Way.
(Murt;, pp. 45–47)
Buddhist dialectic and “alienation” might be a good theme for my Bangkok conference. Like Marxism, Buddhism considers that a fundamental egocentrism, “providing for the self (with possible economic implications in a more modem context) leads to dogmatism about the self—either that it is eternal or that it does not exist at all. A truly critical attitude implies a certain freedom from predetermination by economic and sociological factors. The notion of “I” implies the notion of “mind.” I am “my property”—I am constituted by what separates me from “not I”—i.e., by what is mine “and not anybody else’s.”
As long as “I” assert the “I” dogmatically there is lacking a critical awareness that experiences the “I” dynamically in a continuum of cause and effect—a chain of economic or other causations and coordinated interrelationships.
Hence, the implicit alienation in Samkhya-prakriti exists but has no value except in relation to purusha. It is for purusha.
(Murti. pp. 61 ff)
November 5, 1968
The “mandala awareness” of space. For instance, this mountain, where a provisional Tibetan pattern of dwellings and relationships has been, very sketchily, set up. You get oriented by visiting various rinpoches, each one a reincarnation of a spiritual figure, each one seated in his shrinelike cell, among tankas flowers, bowls, rugs, lamps, and images. Each rinpoche figures henceforth as one who “is seated” in a particular plane, near or far: the Khempo of Namgyal Tra-Tsang high up on the mountain with his little community. Ratod Rinpoche just up the hill, a quarter of a mile from here, near the official headquarters of the Dalai Lama’s administration. The little tulku, who can hardly be imagined as sitting still for very long, higher up, just below the khempo. And the Dalai Lama himself in a sort of center, where he is certainly very “seated” and guarded and fenced in. Thus what was for me on Friday a rugged, nondescript mountain with a lot of miscellaneous dwellings, rocks, woods, farms, flocks, gulfs, falls, and heights, is now spiritually ordered by permanent seated presences, burning with a lamplike continuity and significance, centers of awareness and reminders of dharma. One instinctively sees the mountain as a mandala, slightly askew no doubt, with a central presence and surrounding presences more or less amiable. The rinpoches were all very amiable. The central presence is a fully awake, energetic, alert, nondusty, nondim, nonwhispering Buddha.
Shooting down in the valley: not firecrackers, army rifles. Maneuvers or shooting range. Mock warfare. Outside and below the mandala. I open the window for fresh sunlit air.<
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A second earthquake: one came about an hour ago—now this one. The first lasted several seconds, shaking the house more violently. This lasted a little longer, long enough for the “when will it stop?” anxiety to surface. But this was less violent. After the silence and rumbling, then the burst of voices, the outcry of birds, the barking of many dogs. And life resumes its quiet course once again. Nothing has fallen. At this moment the elections are perhaps ending, the polls closing in America.
Last night I dreamed that I was, temporarily, back at Gethsemani. I was dressed in a Buddhist monk’s habit, but with more black and red and gold, a “Zen habit,” in color more Tibetan than Zen. I was going to tell Brother Donald [Kane], the cook in the diet kitchen, that I would be there for supper. I met some women in the corridor, visitors and students of Asian religion, to whom I was explaining I was a kind of Zen monk and Gelugpa together, when I woke up. It was 6 A.M. Time to get up.
Other recent dreams, dimly remembered. Strange towns. Towns in the south of France. Working my way along the Riviera. How to get to the “next place”? I forget what the problem is, or if it is solved. Another: I’m in some town and have a small, silvery toy balloon, but it has a dangerous explosive gas in it. I throw it in the air and hope it will float completely away before anything happens. It rises too slowly, departs too slowly—but nothing happens. The dream changes.
Two white butterflies alight on separate flowers. They rise, play together briefly, accidentally, in the air, then depart in different directions.
The Other Side of the Mountain Page 30