very likely one of the most powerful teachings i’ve ever encountered. seems to be the theme this week.
this one, by Traktung Rinpoche, deals with the difference between finding comfort in this life and world (samsara), and really fixing samsara — the common ‘title’ given is ‘The Guru’s Purpose in Relation to Samsara’ — the point being to explain pointedly what all these teachers, lamas, gurus, Rinpoches are actually working toward.
“Often “spiritual teachers” console you, they compliment the nice job you’ve done with samsara while encouraging you further. This is good salesmanship but it leads no one to truth. Samsara won’t work, Samsara’s flattery won’t work. Love works, empty minded luminous wisdom works – works by manifesting all empty appearance as radiant mystery.
But this shatters the world as everyone knows it.
Spiritual commercialism runs rampant these days. Buying and selling sublime teachings destroys what is sublime. Then what was the essence of beauty is merely an empty shell. The emperor’s new cloths never brought such a good price.
I understand it – hope and fear sells! But Padmasambhava said “My dharma is not for sale!” First thing he did when entering Tibet was to set the kings beard on fire! He was not chasing gain and fame around. He was not saying whatever he thought would sell.
A visiting Tibetan Lama I know once said to me, Lama to Lama, “It is good to lie to them if it helps them believe.” (it was our first and last meeting) He was a pleasant fellow with something to sell and a need to collect disciples and money. He was no Padmasambhava!
Would any one of us really like to come face to face with the mind-blowing wildness of Padmasambhava’s view? He was a madman of wisdom. He was a Mahasiddha beyond the cares of what happens in the dream of people’s so called lives. His compassion was to set them free from their dream life not to “fix up”, not to patch up their dream. He was not a priest or politician monk. He was living fire, radical rebellion, a force of nature.
You know these mahasiddhas were not self-help circuit Gurus. These were not get rich quick, you can have it all, samsara will work if you only pay for my course people. They were Siddhas, madmen, they exploded the lie of duality’s somber death realm with the visionary light of pure open unexplainable suchness.
Theirs is not really a teaching for you if the highest you can conceive is Dr. Phil’s relationship advice on Oprah. I am not saying that has no value – I am just saying that if that is the highest you set your sights on then this teaching is not for you.
By and large everyone is about trying to fix samsara. You want to make this realm work somehow.
It won’t!
This realm is not meant to work.
And by this realm I mean this realm of dualism – where people live according to the dictates of duality – not the elements of the earth, water, etc. This realm of dualized, concretized, solidified, rigidified light crammed down into the compactness of gross elements and endless conceptual stories – this human realm.
It can’t work. It has suffering written right into the plot line. It is like all those soap opera characters on TV; they will never be happy – it’s not in their scripts! It is like Gilligan on the island – he’ll never get off. No matter how many opportunities he gets he will always end right back there with Mr. and Mrs. Howell.
Now this same human realm, when the dualizing effect of ordinary dualistic view is sloughed off, becomes not one of the six realms of delusion but one of the six spaces of Kuntuzangpo. It is discovered to be a realm of visionary wonder. Only the Buddha is happy. Everyone else is, at best, just seeking happiness in the midst of the logic of suffering.
By and large people come to the Dharma to find some way to rearrange the furniture in the room of samsara in hopes of finding a square centimeter more room, a few more consoling moments, a quick laugh, a good time.
They do not come to have the whole myth of this realm exploded.
This realm makes sense to them.
This realm has a logic and they have embraced the axioms of its logic and so all of its propositions make sense.
They really believe the endless hope and fear equation.
But the Buddha of sublime wisdom, Padmasambhava, did not come to make peace with samsara. He did not come to negotiate. He came laughing with wild delight of another proposition altogether. He came riding the great white Drala warhorse, armed with bliss and wisdom, armed with reality that shatters the clutches of this realm altogether. Yehaaa!
You see this realm does not make any sense nor does it need to. This realm does not make any difference nor does it need to. Temporary phenomena! Momentary play. Life after life after life after life it goes on and on selling the same old tired song and dance. A little flesh, a little subject, a little object and there you have it.
Search for fame, search for power, search for status, search for comfort, search for experience, search for pleasure, search for meditative vision, search for enlightenment, search search, search.
Someday when you get on with the process of sadhana for real – when it is not just another variation on searching for a better job – then you will encounter the 12 Vajra Laughters and then you will rock with mirth at the aeons you took the whole thing so seriously.
Each of the six realms is not an end in itself nor is it “evolving” toward some great destiny. Each of the realms is merely the expression of certain viewpoints.
Each one is the closed loop argument of a certain karmic vision. There is no wisdom in any of them. The six realms, including this human realm, is not any bit wisdom it is only fixity.
Wisdom is not found here, it is not discovered here, it intervenes in the form of sublime wisdom beings. It intervenes in the form of those who move beyond the whole game. It intervenes in those who become hopeless of the charade of being’s endless fictions and are moved to a different disposition altogether.
Then these realms simply fade away, then they never existed to begin with. Then these six realms of seeking and hoping, and gaining, and losing, and winning, and failing and fear and excitement and boredom are found to be nothing more than the six spaces of Kunzang Yab Yum. Then they are nowhere, made of nothing, just a moment of playful creativity. Luminosity and purity in motionless motion.
To those who seek to remain in this realm of delusion the Buddha’s argument is the most terrible thing. It is hopelessness. It is an insult and an affront. But to those whose hearts have already intuited the trick of smoke and mirrors which samsara is then it is the liberating roar of a lion.
To the cubs of a lion the mother lion’s roar is a joyous occasion. To the pups of a jackal it is only fear.
The Buddha arises in this world, as Wisdom Master, as Lineage, as Dharma, as authentic sangha, as methods, as your own intuition of going beyond, beyond, beyond and more beyond – gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.
The Buddha arises in this world as the intervention with mediocrity.
The Buddhadharma, the true Lama, the real Guru, is the instrument of transformation and liberation.
There is this force which is not confused by appearances, which sees the flaw in samsara’s logic, which can argue with the mistake in the heart and mind and set you on the path which your truest self intuits.
If you can find that force in the person of a Lama, or a lineage, then bind yourself to it.
But this is not for most. This is not for many at all. It is for those who have ears to hear, those who have eyes to see. “