4. These five categories are often referred to as five families. Trungpa Rinpoche preferred the term gene, saying it had fewer connotations of individualism and a greater emphasis on intrinsic potential.
5. In the nine-yana system of Tibetan Buddhism, the hinayana is divided into two aspects: the shravakayana, or path of the hearers, and the pratyekabuddhayana, or the path of the solitary realizers. This volume of the Profound Treasury is based on the third yana, or mahayana, and volume 3 is based on the six tantric yanas. For more on shravakas and pratyekabuddhas, see volume 1 of the Profound Treasury, part 5, “The Hinayana Journey.”
6. The contrast between theism and nontheism is a recurring theme in Trungpa Rinpoche’s teaching. He uses the term theism to refer to the belief in an external deity who might save or punish you, and in particular to deity-based religious traditions such as Christianity or Hinduism. More generally, he uses theism to refer to the co-opting of any tradition, including Buddhism, as fuel for one’s ego aggrandizement. For more on theism and nontheism, see volume 1 of the Profound Treasury, chapter 6, “Achieving Sanity Here on Earth.”
5
Basic Goodness
There is a basic state of existence that is fundamentally good and that we can rely on. There is room to relax, to open up. We can make friends with ourselves and with others. That is the fundamental virtue of alaya, or basic goodness. It is the basis of the possibility of absolute bodhichitta.
AS WE tame our mind by means of shamatha-vipashyana, we begin to be thoroughly and properly processed, which in Tibetan is called shinjang. We develop shinjang, but we also begin to find certain problems. Shinjang is the realization that our state of mind is workable. It is said to be like thoroughly processing cotton into batting: the mind becomes soft and weeded out. So when we sit on the batting, if there are any little prickly thorns in the middle of it, we find those thorns quite noticeable. Likewise, when we practice the discipline of shinjang, we notice our subconscious gossip and the distractions caused by sight, sound, and bodily feelings. We notice any movements of the mind that distract us from perfect concentration. The softness is shinjang, and the thorns are temporary obstacles that make us feel we may not be as good as we think.
As we practice, we find that there is an edge. That edge is not regarded as problematic; it is regarded as our working basis. Having processed our state of being, further inquisitiveness takes place. We ask ourselves, “What next?” That question does not mean we are ignorant, confused, or misled—it expresses intelligence and wakefulness. Asking ourselves what we should do after waking up is like sitting on the cotton batting of shinjang, and feeling something prickling us and asking, “What is this?” At that point, the possibility of further learning is taking place. We are doing more than just tagging along and trying to be courageous for lack of a better choice; instead we experience something in ourselves that inspires us to learn further, to be continuously interested in pursuing the dharma.
SUGATAGARBHA
What is that something? It is sugatagarbha. In Sanskrit, su means “perfect,” or “complete,” gata means “gone,” and garbha means “womb” or “essence.” In Tibetan, sugatagarbha is dewar shek-pe nyingpo. Dewar means “pleasure,” or “well,” in the sense of “well done”; shek means “gone,” shekpa is “those who have gone,” pe makes it “of those who have well gone,” and nyingpo means “essence.” So sugatagarbha or dewar shek-pe nyingpo means the “essence of those who are well gone,” or the “essence of those who have passed into the state of liberation joyfully and easily.”
In the related term tathagatagarbha, tathagata means “those who have gone,” whereas sugata means “those who have gone easily and joyfully.” The “going” in this case is not so much a tearing away from what you have; rather, you are going on a journey that is joyful. The idea is that somebody has done it joyfully, and you can, too. It is like the Buddha saying, “Well done.” When people asked good questions, the Buddha would say, “Well done! Look at this person who has done so well. Why don’t you all do so?” That is the idea of sugatagarbha—sharing the vision with everybody.
Sugatagarbha is indestructible. It is the ancestor, or parent, of alaya.1 It is pre-alaya, but it encompasses alaya as well. Alaya has basic goodness, but sugatagarbha has greater goodness. It is wakefulness itself. From the sugatagarbha point of view, alaya could be said to be a kind of awareness, or even a form of samsaric mind. Sugatagarbha is beyond that. It is what makes the veils and obscurations only temporary obstacles.
We all have sugatagarbha. That is why we can follow the mahayana path. Although we may try to keep ourselves away from possibilities of wakefulness or dharmic situations, once we have sniffed the air of dharma, our sugatagarbha will begin to awaken. It is like raising tigers: even if we keep tiger cubs on a vegetarian diet for years, at some point or another they are going to smell blood, and at that point they are going to want to eat meat right away. We cannot prevent that from happening. So one of the greatest messages of the mahayana is that we have the potentiality of wakefulness and that we can actualize it constantly.
THE NATURAL VIRTUE OF ALAYA
The basic goodness of alaya transcends both the cotton batting and the thorns, the shinjang as well as your irritation. Beyond the delight of that early shinjang level, you develop greater friendliness to everything, and your early irritation and aggression has been processed by mindfulness and awareness, and replaced instead by basic goodness. This is described in the Kadam texts as the “natural virtue of alaya.”2 It is an important point to understand. A state of perfect, complete gentleness does exist and can be understood. The shinjang-and-thorn principle is path oriented, but basic goodness is fruition oriented. There is a state where everything is cotton batting, not just in terms of shinjang, but from the point of view of the natural, original hammock.
The technical term for basic goodness is künshi ngangluk kyi gewa. Künshi is the Tibetan word for alaya. Like alaya, künshi can also have the sense of a vast range, as in the word Himalaya, which means “snow range.” Kun means “all,” and shi means “base”; so künshi is the “basis of all.” Ngangluk means something like “basic style”: ngang means “natural state,” and luk means “its own style.” Kyi is “of,” and gewa is “goodness,” or “virtue”; so künshi ngangluk kyi gewa is the “natural state of goodness of the künshi, the basis of all.” The alaya or künshi is the fundamental state of our existence or consciousness before it is divided up into “I” and “other,” or into the various emotions.
Starting from the basic alaya principle, we then develop consciousness, which makes distinctions. We begin to create a separation between this and that, who and who, what and what. That is the basic notion of self-consciousness, distinguishing who is on our side and who is not. The basic alaya principle is called natural virtue, because it does not have any bias. It is basically just it, just neutral. It is neither male nor female, so there is no question of courting. In contrast, the alayavijnana, or alaya consciousness, is somewhat biased.
The virtue of basic goodness exists naturally in the alaya. That state of mind is very benevolent and quite possibly naive. However, the notion of basic goodness is not exactly a Pollyanna approach. It is that in spite of our personal, individual paranoia and our discriminating awareness that looks for danger and separates everything into what is acceptable and what is unacceptable, there is a basic state of existence that is fundamentally good and that we can rely on. There is room to relax, to open up. We can make friends with ourselves and with others. That is the fundamental virtue of alaya, or basic goodness. It is the basis of the possibility of absolute bodhichitta.
POSITIVE NAIVETÉ
Once we have been inspired by the precision of shamatha and the wakefulness of vipashyana, we find that there is room for total naiveté in the positive sense. The Tibetan term for naiveté is pagyang, which means “carefree,” or “let loose.” We can be pagyang with our basic goodness. We do not have to scrutinize it or investig
ate it to make sure, but the basic goodness of künshi can be cultivated and connected with quite freely and naturally. We can be carefree in our basic goodness. We can develop a sense of relaxation and release from torment and paranoia—and from this and that altogether.
With pagyang, we can actually look at our basic goodness literally and straightforwardly. We begin to recognize that state of mind because of our wakefulness, our mindfulness and awareness. As a result of practicing good posture and the techniques of shamatha and vipashyana, we see that our basic state of mind, which is naive, or pagyang, did not come from anywhere. It was never born. So our basic state of mind is unborn, unmanufactured. We also see that it does not dwell anywhere: it is nondwelling. It is difficult to capture, and we cannot seize it and sit on it. Because the basic goodness of künshi is unborn and nondwelling, we cannot theorize its existence by saying it is this or that. We discover that basic goodness is free from pigeonholing, free from any particular concept or reference point we might have.
When we look at our mind, the only thing we can find is sense consciousnesses or sense perceptions. We see that there is an intelligent mind working, but if we look deeper than that, we find that it is like a pool of milk and honey: it is good, soothing, and fundamentally harmless. It is not even harmless—it is just completely good and willing to create the effects of goodness as well. That good state of mind can be referred to as rapkar gewa, which means “white virtue.” The word white means unstained, so white virtue is unstained basic goodness. That unstained basic goodness is the starting point of the Buddhist path of loving-kindness. All human beings, even the most vicious, possess that possibility. That kind of caring, softness, and gentleness exists in everyone. There is always some white virtue. The bodhisattva path is not moralistic or puritanical, and it is not about trying to be good in the name of virtue or for somebody else. In the case of the bodhisattva path, it is because we have goodness already in us that we can afford to be good.
In shamatha-vipashyana, we look at our basic state of mind and experience it fully, and we regard any obscurations or obstacles as temporary. Instead of looking for trouble or for problem areas, we look for that naive state of existence that we always possess. Whenever we take care of ourselves by taking a shower or combing our hair, or even putting our glasses on our face, that is our naive way of treating ourselves better. We do not always behave as if we were on a sharp edge looking out for an attack, but there are occasions when we treat ourselves better. That tendency to treat ourselves better seems to indicate that a tendency toward goodness exists. Obviously, basic goodness goes beyond that—it goes deeper than that to goodness itself—but those occasions when we don’t deliberately hurt ourselves, when we deliberately treat ourselves well, could be seen as expressions of pagyang. And as we go on, we could then develop into realizing basic goodness on the spot; we can recognize basic goodness naturally. That is how we begin to develop the possibility of absolute bodhichitta. We do so by realizing that our basic state of mind, or the natural virtue of alaya, is unborn, dwells nowhere, and is unconditional, open space.
TEMPORARY STAINS AND THE FIVE CATEGORIES OF MIND
According to the mahayana, our mind includes stains or obstacles as well as sugatagarbha. In the Buddhist tradition, we have lots of words for mind or consciousness, all of which are connected with the possibility of the mind being stained or free from stains. Nonetheless, all of them have the suggestion that such stains or hang-ups are somewhat temporary. In the mahayana, and even at the early level of hinayana, your mental stains and discursive thoughts are not regarded as permanent problems. In Tibetan, the term for temporary stain is lobur gyi trima. Lobur means “temporary,” “abrupt,” or “sudden,” gyi is “of,” and trima means “stain”; so lobur gyi trima means “temporary stain.” Because your stains are temporary, your situation is altogether workable.
Sem
The first term for mind is sem, which means “that which minds the other.” We have an expression in Tibetan, yul la sem pena sem, which means “mind is that which can project toward an object.” Sem is the process of minding, like the English expression “Mind your own business.” You are minding the situation, minding the day and minding the night. It almost becomes a verb: you are “sem-ing.” Sem is that which proclaims itself for no reason, like a fish jumping out of the water, and then projects to the other. You think, “Aha! This is red, this is green, and this is yellow,” or “I am happy, I am sad. I am this, and I am that.” That is minding, or sem.
Lo
The next term for mind is lo. Lo comes out of the sem principle, but with lo you have more discrimination. Lo is slightly more intellectual than sem. It is found in words like lodrö, or “intellect.” Sometimes lo is connected with prajna and the quality of being smart. Actually, the best translation of lo may be “smart.” Basically, you can distinguish between fish and fowl. But in general, when we go from sem to lo, we are going to a slightly better grade of mind.
Shepa
Another term for mind is shepa, which means “consciousness.” She means “familiarity,” “knowing,” or “comprehending,” and pa makes it a noun; so shepa means “consciousness.” It is slightly better than lo, which is still somewhat instinctive and naive. Shepa is beginning to become much more intelligent. It is that which is capable of she, or knowing. She is the root for sherap, which means “prajna,” and she can also be found in yeshe, which means “wisdom.”
Rikpa
The next term, rikpa, means “insightfulness,” or “able to be touched by a situation.” Rik means “insight,” and pa makes it a noun, so rikpa means “insightfulness.” Rikpa goes beyond knowing and feeling. It is a more advanced state of the mind’s capability.
Tokpa
Beyond rikpa, we have what is known as tokpa, which means “comprehension,” or “realization.” Tok means “comprehend,” and pa makes it a noun, so tokpa means “comprehension.” With tokpa you are finally able to perceive and realize the phenomenal world, to see things as they are and to comprehend them. You are no longer confused, but you have insight. That insight may not be a spiritual discovery at a high level of wisdom, but when you begin to tok, you actually make a connection to the phenomenal world. Tok is also the root for namtok, which means “thoughts,” or “concepts.” When you have thoughts, you begin to label things. You say, “This is an enemy, that is a friend.” Tokpa is connected with intuition; it is the intuitive level of your relationship with the world.
To review, first there is the mind that perceives the phenomenal world, that perceives the other, and then there is the mind that puts labels on it. Then there are levels of mind that not only label, but also think intelligently about the world. And finally, there is the mind that actually perceives some kind of reality. It is like waking up from sleep: First you open your eyes, and you realize where you are. Then you have to get up. You probably think about whether to take a shower or put on your bathrobe. After that, you think about what kind of breakfast there will be. Then you think further about what you are going to do next. It is that kind of growth. You begin at the beginning, and continue until you have actually faced so-called reality. That is how the five levels of mind take place. And as you work with those states of mind, you begin to clarify your existence. You become more precise, and are able to clean up habitual patterns connected with past activities or behavior.
In working with the mind, the temporary-stain part is the imperfections and problems you have collected and put in your pouch. But at the same time, you have collected insight. When you learn, you learn accurately, which is an expression of purity—but you learn with your own version of accuracy. For instance, you may hear the statement “Form is empty.” You learn that form is empty, but then you add something else to it, which gives you something to hang on to. The training would be to eliminate that stain, that extra thing. Having done so, what is left is sugatagarbha.
All aspects of mind possess stains as well as intelligence. It is possible for
us to train our mind because we have all those faculties to work with. In each aspect of mind, one part has the possibility of sugatagarbha, because there is intelligence taking place, but another part is marked by temporary stains. It is said that if you put a tortoise into a bowl of milk and water, the tortoise will be able to separate the two and drink the water because the tortoise has certain chemicals in its lips that curdle the milk. That analogy applies to us: once we have understood that we have a mind—and we are sunk into our mind already, in any case—we begin to realize that part of our mind is sugatagarbha, and part of our mind is temporary obstacles. When we are able to see those two aspects quite clearly, we can then train our mind.
When we train our mind, we are training all those categories of mind at once. But before we do so, we have to know that the mind has particular areas with particular functions. In talking about mind, basically what we are referring to is the double vision of what is known as duality, which causes us to say, “I am so-and-so.” When we say “I” and “am,” there is the duplicity of our mind, which is sem; there is our basic awareness, which is lo; there is our intelligence, which is shepa; there is our insight, which is rikpa; and there is the collective mechanism that stores information in our mind, which is tokpa. All five aspects contain sugatagarbha as well as temporary stains, and we go through all of them thoroughly and properly. We cover all the possibilities, so that we have no further questions as to which part of us is left behind. It is like going through a gate: you don’t just go through the gate right away, but you consider the whole process. You realize that your eyes, nose, head, shoulders, arms, legs, and whole being need to go through this gate. The whole thing may seem very complicated, but each part is very simple and workable.
The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion Page 6