Friday, January 20, 2012

Study Hall

The Thursday morning Young Urban Zen study group that I am attending has decided to look at the six paramitas, and yesterday we were reading from Meditation in Action by Chogyam Trungpa. We had one less copy of the book than there were people in the room, so I was mostly just listening as we read aloud, and I had a strong physical reaction to this paragraph:
"Out of his simplicity and awareness the bodhisattva develops selfless warmth.  He doesn't even think in terms of his own psychological benefit; he doesn't think, 'I would like to see him not suffering'.'I' does not come into it at all. He speaks and thinks and acts spontanteously, not thinking even in terms of helping, or fulfilling any particular purpose. He does not act on 'religious' or 'charitable' grounds at all. He just acts according to the true, present moment, through which he develops a kind of warmth. And there is a great warmth in this awareness and also great creativity. His actions are not limited by anything, and all sorts of creative impulses just arise in him and are somehow exactly right for that particular moment. Things just happen and he simply sails through them, so there is a continual, tremendous creativity in him. This is the real act of karuna - a Sanskrit word which means 'noble heart' or 'compassionate heart'. So in this case compassion does not refer to kindness alone, but to fundamental compassion, selfless compassion. He is not really aware of himself, so compassion has greater scope to expand and develop, because here there is no radiator but only radiation. And when only this radiation exists, without a radiator, it could go on and on and on, and the energy would never be used up. It is always transormed and as it expands further and further it changes always into something else, into a new creative activity, so it goes continuously on and on. This creative transformation is not merely a theoretical or philosophical concept, but actually takes place in a practical sense, sometimes in a very simple way".
We noted, as we discussed it, the caveat that Trungpa's life offers some examples of this that we might not choose to follow ourselves, and that creativity is not the same as complete license.

6 comments:

Myomon said...

Didn't SR say that strictly speaking there are no enlightened persons, only enlightened activity?

Shundo said...

Couldn't say for sure without looking it up, but it sounds good to me.

Shonen said...

Enlightenment, ironically, has always seemed dualistic to me.It's hard not to fall into the trap of thinking that someone or something gets enlightened. There is also the tendency to think that enlightenment is some sort of permanent state. The term enlightened activity seems to avoid these traps... I'm reading Jack Kornfield's "After the Ecstacy, the laundry" and this question is raised in the first chapter of his book with some very vivid examples of people having all kinds of satori experiences and falling back into habitual tendencies.

Shundo said...

Hi Shonen, I definitely agree with the latter part of your comment, and have seen it happen to people myself. The sentence "It's hard not to fall into the trap of thinking that someone or something gets enlightened" is indeed a dense proposition, and I think I would suggest the Genjo Koan:"To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening".

Shonen said...

ah yes, leave it to Dogen..!
The Shobogenzo is on my reading list - hopefully for this year (and probably next year as well), not sure when I'll get to the Genjokoan - all those Study Hall posts are having an effect!

Shundo said...

Dogen aways knows best...

Luckily the Genjo Koan is near the front of the Shobogenzo, and is somewhat more digestible than some of the other parts - or perhaps it just seems so from so many times chanting it.