(my commentary and thought processes inserted in italics)Before getting into details concerning Padmasambhava’s life and teachings, I think it would be helpful to discuss the idea of a saint in the Buddhist tradition. The idea of a saint in the Christian tradition and the idea of a saint in the Buddhist tradition are somewhat conflicting.
(or virtually the opposite) In the Christian tradition, a saint is generally considered someone who has direct communication with God, who perhaps is completely intoxicated with the Godhead
(possesed even? and by this definition then, would Jesus be considered a Saint and Savior?) and because of this is able to give out certain reassurances to people. People can look to the saint as an example of higher consciousness or higher development.
The Buddhist approach to spirituality is quite different. It is nontheistic. It does not have the principle of an external divinity. Thus there is no possibility of getting promises from the divinity and bringing them from there down to here. The Buddhist approach to spirituality is connected with awakening within oneself
(as in personal RESPONSIBILITY, the very root of existential belief, I AM RESPONSIBLE) rather than with relating to something external. So the idea of a saint as someone who is able to expand himself to relate to an external principle, get something out of it, and then share that with others is difficult or nonexistent from the Buddhist point of view.
A saint in the Buddhist contest – for example, Padmasambhava or a great being like the Buddha himself – is someone who provides an example of the fact that completely ordinary, confused human beings can wake themselves up; they can put themselves together and wake themselves up through an accident of life of one kind or another.
(Hmmm...accident? or deliberate choice/work/aim?) The pain, the suffering of all kinds, the misery and the chaos that are part of life, begins to wake them, shake them. Having been shaken, they begin to question: “Who am I? What am I? How is it that all these things are happening?” Then they go further and realize that there is something in them that is asking these questions, something that is, in fact, intelligent and not exactly confused.
This happens in our own lives. We feel a sense of confusion – it seems to be confusion – but that confusion brings out something that is worth exploring. The questions that we ask in the midst of our confusion are potent questions, questions that we really have. We ask: “Who am I? What am I? What is this? What is life?” and so forth. Then we explore further and ask: “In fact, who on earth asked that question? Who is that person who asked the question ‘Who am I?’ Who is the person who asked, ‘What is?’ or even ‘What is what is?’” We go on and on with this questioning, further and further inward. In some way, this is nontheistic spirituality in its fullest sense. External inspirations do not stimulate us to model ourselves on further external situations
(I am still working on exploring the scope of this statement, but my immediate thoughts go toward Art and the inspiration from my external environment, and yet, those influences generally result in internal reflection). Rather the external situations that exist speak to us of our confusion, and this makes us think more, think further. Once we have begun to do that, then of course there is the other problem: once we have found out who and what we are, how do we apply what we have learned to our living situation? How do we put it into practice?
(Yes! HOW? Indeed?)
There seem to be two possible approaches here. One is trying to live up to what we would like to be. The other is trying to live what we are.
(These two statements are paramount. Especially as an American, the aim is always to improve, to set goals, to make oneself better or the best version possible - by force if necessary. And, these statements seem to conflict almost with the basic principles of Buddhism and Existentialism - self-discovery, understanding and responsibility.). Trying to live up to what we would like to be is like pretending we are a divine being or a realized person, or whatever we might like to call the model.
(So then, only a divine being (which being atheist I do not believe exists)or a realized person should strive to live into their own expectations of themselves - to progress, to evolve? This also seems contradictory to the goal or desire to reach enlightenment). When we realize what is wrong with us
(is there really something wrong with us, or are we in fact asleep, but still in tune to a society that is overly critical. Wrong seems to indicate something that cannot be addressed.), what our weakness
(ahhh, yes, weaknesses can be addressed) is, what our problems and neuroses are, the automatic temptation is to try to act just the opposite, as though we have never heard of such a thing as our being wrong or confused. We tell ourselves: “Think positive! Act as though you’re okay.” Although we know that something is wrong with us on the level of the actual living situation, on the kitchen-sink level, we regard that as unimportant. “Let’s forget those ‘evil vibrations’” we say. “Let’s think the other way. Let’s pretend to be good.”
(Herein lies the dilema, when I participate in the creation of my day, by setting a positive attitude or intention, I create that. Whereas if I choose to exists in mere reality, I experience mere reality, not growth. In my humble opinion, I believe there is a distinction between denying reality and realizing reality while choosing something better. This, I feel is where Existentialism and Buddhism conflict.)
This approach is known in the Buddhist tradition as spiritual materialism, which means not being realistic, or to use hippie jargon, spacing out.
(Oh those darn hippies! Actually, hippies in their truest most authentic selves, were beacons of change - they saw what was wrong with the world and tried to change it, they asked a "What if" question and then lived it. They questioned.) “Let’s forget the bad and pretend to be good.” We could classify as spiritual materialism any approach – such as Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, or Christian – that provides us with techniques to try to associate with the good, the better, the best – or the ultimately good, the divine.
(This highlights a very valid and relevant point: it important to relinquish the need to classify everything as either good or bad. Sometimes life just is. Being creatures of discernment, we tend to perceive our world and everything in it as either worse than or better than us. Very rarely do we come out equal. And yet, it is my belief that all souls weigh the same; have the same value.)
When we begin associating ourselves with the good, it makes us happy. We feel full of delight. We think, “At least I’ve found an answer!” That answer is that the only thing to do is regard ourselves as free already. Then, having established the position that we are free already, we just have to let all things flow.
Then we add a further touch to reinforce our spiritual materialism: everything that we do not know or did not understand in connection with our spiritual quest we connect with descriptions in various scriptures about that which is beyond mind, beyond words, ineffable – the ineffable Self, or whatever. We associate our own lack of understanding about what is going on with us with those unspoken, inexpressible things.
(This is where fear, ignorance and prejudice come in: a lack of understanding.) This way our ignorance is made into the greatest discovery of all.
(As the saying goes: Only a fool knows everything. A wise man knows how little he knows.) We can connect this “great discovery” with a doctrinal supposition; for example, “the savior” or some interpretation of the scriptures.
Whereas before we didn’t know anything at all, now we “know” something that we actually don’t know. There is something ahead of us now. We cannot describe it in terms of words, concepts, and ideas, but we have discovered that, to begin with, it is a matter of twisting ourselves into the good. So we have this one thing to start with: we can directly and deliberately translate our confusion as being something that is not confused.
(Where does this desire to solve come from?) We do this just because we are seeking pleasure, spiritual pleasure. In doing it, we affirm that the pleasure we are seeking is of an unknowable nature, because we actually have no idea what kind of spiritual pleasure we are going to get out of this maneuver. And all the spiritual interpretations of the scriptures referring to the unknowable can be applied to the fact that we do not know what we are trying to do spiritually. Nevertheless, we are definitely involved in spiritual conviction now, because we have suppressed our original doublets about who we are and what we are – our feeling that perhaps we might not be anything. We have suppressed that; we may not even know about it any more.
(So, in order to avoid discovering who and what we are, we seek an unknowable nature that we think might bring us spiritual pleasure? Wow.)
Having suppressed this embarrassment of ego that provided us with steppingstones to the unknown, that nature of which we did not understand, we end up with two games of confusion going on: a game of the unknown and a game of the transcendental unknown. Both of these are part of spiritual materialism. We do not know who or what we are, but we do know that we would like to be someone or something.
(Why? Why must we be something other than what we already are?) We decide to go ahead with what we would like to be even though we do not know what that is. That is the first game. Then on top of that, in connection with being something, we would also like to know that there is something about the world or the cosmos that corresponds to this “something” that we are.
(Existentialism in a nutshell: being able to create and assign meaning to our individual existance.) We have a sense of finding this something that we want to know, but we actually can’t understand it, so that becomes the transcendental unknown. Since we can’t understand it, we say, “Let’s make that bigger and more gigantic confusion into the spirituality of the infiniteness of the Godhead,” or something like that. (Makes perfect sense).
This should give us some understanding of spiritual materialism. The danger of spiritual materialism is that under its influence we make all kinds of assumptions. First, there are the domestic or personal-level assumptions, which we make because we want to be happy. Second, there are the spiritual assumptions that are made because that transcendental, gigantic, greater discover is left mysterious. This brings further great assumptions: we do not know what we are actually going to achieve by achieving that unknown thing, but nevertheless, we give it some vague description, such as “being absorbed in to the cosmos.” And since nobody has yet gone that far, if anybody questions this discovery of “absorption into the cosmos,” then we just make up further logic or look for reinforcement from the scriptures or other authorities.
The result of all this is that we end up confirming ourselves and confirming that the experience we are proclaiming is a true experience. Nobody can question it. At some stage, there’s no room left for questioning at all. Our whole outlook becomes completely established with no room left al all for questioning. This is what we could call achieving egohood, as opposed to achieving enlightenment.
(I know I've achieved egohood and even still quest to be Queen.) At that point, if I would like to practice my aggression and passion on you and you don’t accept that, then that’s your fault. You do not understand the ineffable spirituality, so you are at fault. The only way left for me to help you is to reduce you to a shrunken head, to take out your brain and heart. You become a mere puppet under my control.
This is a rough portrait of spiritual materialism. It is the first of the two possible approaches: trying to live up to what you would like to be. Now let’s talk about the second possible approach, that of trying to live what you are.
This possibility is connected with seeing our confusion, or misery and pain, but not making those discoveries into an answer.
(I like to call this acknowledging the obvious without getting into relationship with it.) Instead we explore further and further and further without looking for an answer. It is a process of working with ourselves, with our lives, with our psychology, without looking for an answer but seeing things as they are – seeing what goes on in our heads directly and simply, absolutely literally.
(Which, would seem impossible as a Self.) If we can undertake a process like that, then there is a tremendous possibility that our confusion – the chaos and neurosis that goes on in our minds – might become a further basis for investigation. Then we look further and further and further. We don’t make a big point or an answer out of any one thing. For example, we might thing that because we have discovered one particular thing that is wrong with us, that must be it, that must be the problem, that must be the answer.
(Guilty.) No. We don’t fixate on that, we go further. “Why is that the case?” We look further and further. We ask: “Why is this so? Why is there spirituality? Why is there awakening? Why is there this moment of relief? Why is there such a ting as discovering the pleasure of spirituality? Why, why, why?” We go on deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, until we reach the point where there is no answer. There is not even a question.
(And no spoon!) Both question and answer die simultaneously at some point. They begin to rub each other too closely and they short-circuit each other in some way. At that point, we tend to give up hope of an answer, or of anything whatsoever, for that matter. We have no more hope, none whatsoever. We are purely hopeless. We could call this transcending hope, if you would like to put it in more genteel terms.
This hopelessness is the essence of crazy wisdom. It is hopeless, utterly hopeless. It is beyond hopelessness. Of course it would be possible, if we tried to turn that hopelessness itself into some kind of solution, to become confused again, to say the least.
The process is one of going further in and in and in without any reference point of spirituality, without any reference point of a savior, without any reference point of goodness or badness – without any reference points whatsoever! Finally we might reach the basic level of hopelessness, of transcending hope. This does note mean we end up as zombies. We still have all the energies; we have all the fascination of discovery, of seeing this process unfolding and unfolding and unfolding, going on and on. This process of discovery automatically recharges itself so that we keep going deeper and deeper and deeper. This process of going deeper and deeper is the process of crazy wisdom, and it is what characterizes a saint in the Buddhist tradition.
The eight aspects of Padmasambhava that we are going to discuss are connected with such a process of psychological penetration, of cutting through the surface of the psychological realm and then cutting through a further surface infinitely further surfaces down through every further depths of further surfaces down through ever further depths of further surfaces, deeper and deeper. This is the process we involve ourselves in by discussing Padmasambhave’s life, the eight aspects of Padmasambahava, and crazy wisdom.
(So then is this a quest to discover, know and understand the true Self or to overcome and destroy the reference point of the Self?) In this contest we see that the Buddhist approach to spirituality is one of ruthlessly cutting through any chance we might have of confirming ourselves at any particular stage of development on the spiritual path. When we discover that we have made some progress on the spiritual path, that discovery of progress is regarded as a hindrance to further progress. So we don’t get a chance to rest, to relax, or to congratulate ourselves at all. It is a one-shot, ongoingly ruthless spiritual journey. And that is the essence of Padmasambhava’s spirituality.
Thoughts?
