Q: Have you accepted any spiritual master as a guru, any particular living spiritual master?
A: At present there is no one. I left my gurus and teachers behind in Tibet, physically, but the teachings stay with me and continue.
Q: So who are you following, more or less?
A: Situations are the voice of my guru, the presence of my guru.
Q: After Shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment, was there some trace of ego left in him so that he could carry on his teachings?
A: The teaching just happened. He did not have the desire to teach or not to teach. He spent seven weeks sitting under the shade of a tree and walking along the bank of a river. Then someone just happened along and he began to speak. One has no choice; you are there, an open person. Then the situation presents itself and teaching happens. That is what is called “Buddha activity.”
Q: It is difficult not to be acquisitive about spirituality. is this desire for acquisitions something that is shed along the way?
A: You should let the first impulse die down. Your first impulse towards spirituality might put you into some particular spiritual scene; but if you work with that impulse, then the impulse gradually dies down and at some stage becomes tedious, monotonous. This is a useful message. You see, it is essential to relate to yourself, to your own experience, really. If one does not relate to oneself, then the spiritual path becomes dangerous, becomes purely external entertainment, rather than an organic personal experience.
Q: If you decide to seek your way out of ignorance, you can almost definitely assume that anything you do that feels good will be beneficial to the ego and actually blocking the path. Anything that seems right to you will be wrong, anything that doesn’t turn you upside-down will bury you. Is there any way out of this?
A: If you perform some act which is seemingly right, it does not mean that it is wrong, for the very reason that wrong and right are out of the picture altogether. You are not working on any side, neither the “good” side nor the “bad” side, but you are working with the totality of the whole, beyond “this” and “that.” I would say there is complete action. There is no partial act, but whatever we do in connection with good and bad seems to be a partial act.
Q: If you are feeling very confused and trying to work your way out of the confusion, it would seem that you are trying too hard. But if you do not try at all, then are we to understand that we are fooling ourselves?
A: Yes, but that does not mean that one has to live by the extremes of trying too hard or not trying at all. One has to work with a kind of “middle way,” a complete state of “being as you are.” We could describe this with a lot of words, but one really has to do it. If you really start living the middle way, then you will see it, you will find it. You must allow yourself to trust yourself, to trust in your own intelligence. We are tremendous people, we have tremendous things in us. We simply have to let ourselves be. External aid cannot help. If you are not willing to let yourself grow, then you fall into the self-destructive process of confusion. It is self-destruction rather than destruction by someone else. That is why it is effective; because it is self-destruction.
Q: What is faith? Is it useful?
A: Faith could be simple-minded, trusting, blind faith, or it could be definite confidence which cannot be destroyed. Blind faith has no inspiration. It is very naive. It is not creative, though not exactly destructive. It is not creative because your faith and yourself have never made any connection, any communication. You just blindly accepted the whole belief, very naively.
In the case of faith as confidence, there is a living reason to be confident. You do not expect that there will be a prefabricated solution mysteriously presented to you. You work with existing situations without fear, without any doubt about involving yourself. This approach is extremely creative and positive. If you have definite confidence, you are so sure of yourself that you do not have to check yourself. It is absolute confidence, real understanding of what is going on now, therefore you do not hesitate to follow other paths or deal in whatever way is necessary with each new situation.
Q: What guides you on the path?
A: Actually, there does not seem to be any particular guidance. In fact, if someone is guiding you, that is suspicious. because you are relying on something external. Being fully what you are in yourself becomes guidance, but not in the sense of vanguard, because you do not have a guide to follow. You do not have to follow someone’s tail, but you sail along. In other words, the guide does not walk ahead of you, but walks with you.
Q: Could you say something more about the way in which meditation short-circuits the protective mechanisms of the ego?
A: The protective mechanism of ego involves checking oneself, which is an unnecessary kind of self-observance. Meditation is not based on meditating on a particular subject by checking oneself; but meditation is complete identification with whatever techniques you are employing. Therefore there will be no effort to secure oneself in the practice of meditation.
Q: I seem to be living in a spiritual junkyard. How can I make it into a simple room with one beautiful object?
A: In order to develop an appreciation of your collection you have to start with one item. One has to find a stepping stone, a source of inspiration. Perhaps you would not have to go through the rest of the items in your collection it you studied just one piece of material. That one piece of material could be a sign-post that you managed to confiscate in New York City, it could be as insignificant as that. But one must start with one thing, see its simplicity, the rugged quality of this piece of junk or this beautiful antique. If we could manage to start with just one thing, then that would be the equivalent of having one object in an empty room. I think it is a question of finding a stepping stone. Because we have so many possessions in our collection, a large part of the problem is that we do not know where to begin. One has to allow one’s instinct to determine which will be the first thing to pick up.
Q: Why do you think that people are so protective of their egos? Why is it so hard to let go of one’s ego?
A: People are afraid of the emptiness of space, or the absence of company, the absence of a shadow. It could be a terrifying experience to have no one to relate to, nothing to relate with. The idea of it can be extremely frightening, though not the real experience. It is generally a fear of space, a fear that we will not be able to anchor ourselves to any solid ground, that we will lose our identity as a fixed and solid and definite thing. This could be very threatening.
Surrendering
At this point we may have come to the conclusion that we should drop the whole game of spiritual materialism; that is, we should give up trying to defend and improve ourselves. We may have glimpsed that our struggle is futile and may wish to surrender, to completely abandon our efforts to defend ourselves. But how many of us could actually do this? It is not as simple and easy as we might think. To what degree could we really let go and be open? At what point would we become defensive?
In this lecture we will discuss surrendering, particularly in terms of the relationship between work on the neurotic state of mind and work with a personal guru or teacher. Surrendering to the “guru” could mean opening our minds to life-situations as well as to an individual teacher. However, if our lifestyle and inspiration is working toward an unfolding of the mind, then we will almost certainly find a personal guru as well. So in the next few talks we will emphasize relating to a personal teacher.