The action of the bodhisattva is like the moon shining on one hundred bowls of water, so that there are one hundred moons, one in each bowl. This is not the moon’s design nor was it designed by anyone else. But for some strange reason there happen to be one hundred moons reflected in one hundred bowls of water. Openness means this kind of absolute trust and self-confidence. The open situation of compassion works this way rather than by deliberately attempting to create one hundred moons, one in each bowl.
The basic problem we seem to be facing is that we are too involved with trying to prove something, which is connected with paranoia and the feeling of poverty. When you are trying to prove or get something, you are not open anymore, you have to check everything, you have to arrange it “correctly.” It is such a paranoid way to live and it really does not prove anything. One might set records in terms of numbers and quantities—that we have built the greatest, the biggest, we have collected the most, the longest, the most gigantic. But who is going to remember the record when you are dead? Or in one hundred years? Or in ten years? Or in ten minutes? The records that count are those of the given moment, of now—whether or not communication and openness are actually taking place now.
This is the open way, the Bodhisattva Path. A bodhisattva would not care, even if he received a medal from all the Buddhas proclaiming him the bravest bodhisattva in the entire universe; he would not care at all. You never read stories of the bodhisattvas receiving medals in the sacred writings. And quite rightly so, because there is no need for them to prove anything. The bodhisattva’s action is spontaneous, it is the open life, open communication which does not involve struggle or speed at all.
Q: I assume that being a bodhisattva means helping people, and people make specific demands. So a bodhisattva must perform specific acts. But how does this idea of being totally open fit in with the need to perform specific acts?
A: Being open does not mean being unresponsive, a zombie. It means being free to do whatever is called for in a given situation. Because you do not want anything from the situation, you are free to act in the way genuinely appropriate to it. And, similarly, if other people want something from you, that may be their problem. You do not have to try to ingratiate yourself with anyone. Openness means “being what you are.” If you are comfortable being yourself, then an environment of openness and communication arises automatically and naturally. It is like the idea of the moon and the bowls of water which we have been discussing: if the bowls are there, they will reflect your “moonness.” if they are not there, they will not. Or if they are only half there, then they will reflect only half a moon. It is up to them. You are just there, the moon, open, and the bowls may reflect you or not. You neither care nor do you not care. You are just there.
Situations develop automatically. We do not need to fit ourselves into special roles and environments. I think many of us have been trying to do that for a long time, limiting ourselves, pigeonholing ourselves into narrowly defined sets of circumstances. We spend so much energy focusing our attention in just one place that to our surprise we discover that there are whole areas we have missed.
Q: Can one act with compassion and still get things done as they need to be done?
A: When there is no speed or aggression, you feel that there is room enough in which to move about and do things and you see the things which need to be done more clearly. You become more efficient and your work becomes more precise.
Q: I believe, Rinpoche, that you made a distinction between the open path and the internal path. Could you amplify what differences you see between the internal and the external?
A: Well, the word “internal,” as you are using it, seems to imply struggle, turning back into yourself, considering whether or not you are a sufficiently worthy, functional and presentable person. In this approach there is too much “working on oneself,” too much concentration inward. Whereas the open path is a matter of working purely with what is, of giving up altogether the fear that something may not work, that something may end in failure. One has to give up the paranoia that one might not fit into situations, that one might be rejected. One purely deals with life as it is.
Q: Where does the attitude of warmth come from?
A: It comes from the absence of aggression.
Q: But isn’t that the goal?
A: As well as the path, the bridge. You do not live on the bridge. You walk over the bridge. In the experience of meditation there is automatically some sense of the absence of aggression, which is the definition of dharma. Dharma is defined as “dispassion” or “passionlessness,” and passionlessness implies absence of aggression. If you are passionate, you want to get something quickly to satisfy your desire. When there is no desire to satisfy yourself, there is no aggression or speed. So if a person can really relate to the simplicity of the practice of meditation, then automatically there is an absence of aggression. Because there is no rush to achieve, you can afford to relax. Because you can afford to relax, you can afford to keep company with yourself, can afford to make love with yourself, be friends with yourself. Then thoughts, emotions, whatever occurs in the mind constantly accentuates the act of making friends with yourself.
Another way to put it is to say that compassion is the earthy quality of meditation practice, the feeling of earth and solidity. The message of compassionate warmth is to not be hasty and to relate to each situation as it is. The American Indian name “Sitting Bull” seems to be a perfect example of this. “Sitting Bull” is very solid and organic. You are really definitely present, resting.
Q: You seemed to say that compassion grows, but it was implied that you do not have to cultivate it.
A: It develops, grows, ferments by itself. It does not need any effort.
Q: Does it die?
A: It does not seem to die. Shantideva says that every uncompassionate action is like planting a dead tree, but anything related to compassion is like planting a living tree. It grows and grows endlessly and never dies. Even if it seems to die, it always leaves behind a seed from which another grows. Compassion is organic; it continues on and on and on.
Q: There is a certain kind of warmth that comes when you start to relate with someone, and then somehow that energy becomes overwhelming and catches you up in such a way that there is no longer any space or room to move.
A: If the warmth is without implication and self-reassurance, then it is self-sustaining and fundamentally healthy. When you make yoghurt, if you raise the temperature or try to nurse the yoghurt more than necessary, you do not make good yoghurt at all. If you leave it at the right temperature and just abandon it, it will be good yoghurt.
Q: How do you know when to abandon it?
A: You do not constantly have to manage yourself. You must disown rather than attempt to maintain control, trust yourself rather than check yourself. The more you try to check yourself, the greater the possibility of interrupting the natural play and growth of the situation. Even if what you are doing is chancy, even if it seems possible that the whole affair will blow up and become distorted, you do not worry about it.
Q: What happens when someone creates a situation and you do worry about it?
A: Worrying does not help at all. In fact it makes things worse.
Q: It seems the process we are talking about requires some sort of fearlessness.
A: Yes, very much so. It is positive thinking, the mentality of wealth.