Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

by Chögyam Trungpa

it is that he is reaching for. He becomes more discriminating, considers alternatives, thinks more, and t...

He does not simply grasp; he explores, feels textures, compares things.

he decides that he wants something, he tries to grasp it, draw it to him, and possess

In the human realm the monkey is always thinking about how to possess pleasurable things:

He is plagued by illness, old age, death—by frustrations and problems of all kinds. Pain is the constant companion of his pleasures.

So he begins, quite logically, to deduce the possibility of heaven, the complete elimination of pain and achievement of pleasure.

and he becomes preoccupied with achievement and competition. This is the asura realm, the realm of the jealous gods.

In his constant struggle to achieve perfection of some sort, the monkey becomes obsessed with measuring his progress,

able to manipulate

his world more successfully than in the human realm.

But his preoccupation with always being best, with always being master of a situation, make...

He must always struggle to control his territory, overcoming all threats to his achievements. He is always fi...

The ambition to gain victory and the fear of losing a battle provide a sense of being alive a...

The monkey constantly loses sight of his ultimate goal, but is still driven on by h...

He is obsessed with competition and achievement. He seeks out pleasurable, appealing situations that seem beyond his reach and tr...

So the monkey is caught in a world of unfulfilled ideals, self-condemnation, and fear of failure.

he begins to realize that he has

made it, that he is there, that he is in heaven.

he begins to relax, to appreciate and dwell upon his achievements, shielding ...

This blissful and proud state is the deva loka or r...

He realizes that he can achieve purely

mental pleasure, the most subtle and durable of all, that he is able to maintain his sense of a solid self continuously by expanding the walls of his prison to seemingly include the whole cosmos, thereby conquering change and death. First he dwells upon the idea of limitless space.

Then the next stage is concentration upon the idea of limitless consciousness. Here one does not dwell on limitless space alone, but one also dwells upon the intelligence which perceives that limitless space as well.

The empire of ego is completely extended, even the central authority cannot imagine how far its territory extends. Ego becomes a huge, gigantic beast.

Ego has extended itself so far that it begins to lose track of the boundary of its territory. Wherever it tries to define its boundary, it ...

Finally, it concludes that there is no way of defining its boundaries. The size...

conceived or imagined. Since it includes everything, it cannot be defined as this or that. So the ego dwells on the idea of not this and not that, the idea...

But finally even this state of mind is surpassed when the ego realizes that the idea that it is inconceivable and unimaginable is in itself a conception. So the ego dwells...

This idea of the impossibility of asserting anything is something which ego feeds on, takes pride in, identifies with, and theref...

Since his state of consciousness is based on concentration, on dwelling upon other, he must continually check and maintain his achievement.

“What a relief to be here in the realm of the gods. I finally made it. I have really got it now. But wait a minute . . . have I really made it? Ah, there it is. Yes, I’ve made it. I have made

Sooner or later the absorption wears out and the monkey begins to panic. He feels threatened, confused, vulnerable and plunges into the realm of the jealous gods.

But the anxiety and envy of the realm of the jealous gods is overpowering and the monkey becomes preoccupied with figuring out what has gone wrong. So he returns to the human realm. But the human realm is very painful as well: the continual effort to figure out what is happening, what has gone wrong, just increases the pain and confusion. So the monkey escapes

the hesitation and critical perspective of the human intellect and plunges into the animal realm where he just plods along, ignoring what is around him, playing deaf and dumb to messages that might challenge the security of following narrow, familiar ways. But messages from the environment break through and a hunger for something more develops. Nostalgia for the god realm becomes very strong and the intensity of the struggle to go back to it increases. The monkey fantasizes enjoying the pleasures of the g...

The hunger goes on and on, until finally he is overwhelmed by the frustration of his recurring hunger and plunges into a still more intense struggle to fulfill his desires. The monkey’s aggression is so intense that the environment around him responds with equal aggression and an atmospher...

This perpetual cycle of struggle, achievement, disillusionment, and pain is...

It is in the human realm that the possibility of breaking the karmic chain, or the circle of samsara, arises.

question the whole process of struggle.

Instead of simply struggling, he begins to experience the struggle and see its futility.

the world was never outside of himself, that it was his own dualistic attitude, the separation of “I” and “other,” that created the problem.

himself is making the walls solid, that he is imprisoning himself through his ambition.

to be free of his prison he must give up his ambition to escape and accept...

It is very paradoxical that, the more you dislike the wall, the stronger and thicker the wall becomes,

and the more you make friends with the wall, the more the wall disappears.

see the absurdity and irony of trying to achieve pleasure by rejecting pain,

too busy continuously trying to reinforce his own existence.

no room for inspiration, no room to see other aspects, different angles of the situation.

From the monkey’s point of view t...

is ...

You have to see the confused aspect completely in order to see through it, to see the absurdity of it.