No instruction Book of Life…
we figure it out from our parents’
mistakes, then make our own.

Read enough philosophy…then you’ll know
no one knows squat, except for the Buddhas
that Know Nothing.

Rules are for the ruled….any criminal
or CEO will tell you so. There is a music
to the world, however, you can dance to.

If there wasn’t basic goodness, we wouldn’t
dance at all…simple as that. We wouldn’t feel
the music in our hearts and bones.

Find the music…dance your way through the
illusion of freedom…past that, see the world
as Great Dance Hall.

Now you’re getting somewhere!

JACKALOPE
For Chökyi Senge Trungpa XII Rinpoche

We only talk about a self
Because we believe in self –

But a self is make-believe
And there is no such self –

Since a self never existed
How can it be gotten rid of –

Isn’t that like getting rid
Of the horns of a rabbit –

Thank you…YES!!! Ever since sending out this latest news letter, I’ve encountered all sorts of interesting directions of thought. Many good ideas to be talked about; even just issue related with what is happening in Surmang. It isn’t an adversarial situation, just ideas. I was also thinking about adding a web page about “women in Tibet, Surmang, etc.” that would take some good planning and some research, but would be really interesting.

So there is all of that, but as well, I just wanted to spread the word as much as possible about the work being done there…. since so many people who read this are probably not on Sangha Announce or on our mailing list.

Personally, I feel this work is very relevant to our path as students of Trungpa Rinpoche.

I don’t know under which topic to post this notice. I would like to reach out to the Greater Sangha Beyond…which RFS seems to represent:…. and call attention to the work that Konchok Foundation is doing at Surmang. We have been at this even before the ground was first cleared for building of the shedra in 2003. …. And now, we feel that we are finally beginning to reap the rewards of our work there:

*The coming of age 12th Trungpa Tulku who is beginning to take his seat at Surmang,

*A step by step Education program Plan at Surmang, that will culminate in classes for boys and girls in the Fall, and eventually a finished Lhakang (Shrine room), able to hold Dharma programs for monks, nuns and lay people…

* A re- energizing of the Surmang community in general, in its anticipation of the Shedra and the good things to come. (Education, Dharma, Vitality of the community)

Please read our Spring Newsletter: “THRESHOLD YEAR FOR SURMANG SHEDRA”

at http://www.konchok.org/

This is only the beginning!!!!! We are very energized this year about our potential progress at Surmang., Please help our dreams come true.

Thank you,
Ginny

It is interesting that you are mentioning class at this stage in the discussion re Chris’s comment.

Coming from one of the most class-ridden societies in the world that is the UK – I can see many disadvantages to the class system. Mainly in the UK the ineffectuality of the system and the stasis in affairs that it promulgates. Class in the UK keeps people in their place and in their own little worlds – it leads to disharmony and not harmony in society.
At times too it threatens the stability of society particularly in the sixties when there were various upper-crust moves to threaten the Labour government of Harold Wilson by an army takeover which I think could still happen in the UK if we ever did get our act together in the sense of having a radical government.

Of course there are jobs to be done in society but they should not be done and awarded on the basis of class or private education ie many of the lawyers in the UK went to private schools for education.

No it seems to me that a way forward for an enlightened society in the realm of class would to be nip it in the bud –maybe this would call for a higher rate of tax for people who earn more so that people of whatever profession could have access to basic needs ie one of which could be meditation programmes –so that you did not have to bankroll a Buddhist or Shambhala organisation to kingdom come!
.
Trungpa I think also said he would have no problem working in a factory –yeh that’s true but if he got his hand stuck in machine he would have to have a way for legal redress against the firm –hence the construction of a society based on needs and not total overwhelming profit.

In addition Trungpa in the UK I think though he mixed with many upper-class people was indeed classless in that he also had friendships with people of ‘lower classes’. Alf Vial a close friend of Mike Hookham who was your basic working-class person told of how Rinpoche tore up his notes as ‘advice’ on giving a talk on the Buddhadharma. I also heard that Trungpa was the one who cleared the rats from Samye Ling in the early days ie poisoned them! So yes this was definitely a person who did what was required for the situation and was beyond class. As to having respect for him –I don’t think he much cared for that in a total Brit sense rather he wanted you to be yourself with him warts and proverbial all!

So class –interesting……..its mentioned in the Fromm book –only got third of the way through –getting to the part where he gives history of capitalism now. Read it people – Rinpoche really enjoyed the book –it should be required reading for debating about the way forward and the construction of an enlightened society.

Best
Rita Ashworth

This understanding of anarchy was very threatenting to hierarchies and kings and so they made it associated with something “monstrous”.

“Well established hierarchies are not easily uprooted;
Closely held beliefs are not easily released;
So ritual enthralls generation after generation.

Harmony does not care for harmony, and so is naturally attained;
But ritual is intent upon harmony, and so can not attain it.

Harmony neither acts nor reasons;
Love acts, but without reason;
Justice acts to serve reason;
But ritual acts to enforce reason.

When the Way is lost, there remains harmony;
When harmony is lost, there remains love;
When love is lost, there remains justice;
But when justice is lost, there remains ritual.

Ritual is the end of compassion and honesty,
The beginning of confusion;
Belief is a colourful hope or fear,
The beginning of folly.

LaoTze Tao de Jing

Interesting comments about anarchism. I don’t normally like that word, but maybe there’s more to it for me to learn. There was one thing that concerned me:

Chris (Gary Snyder?) writes:
This last aspect means, for me, supporting any cultural and economic revolution that moves clearly toward a free, international, classless world.

Lots of people these days are without any class.

Ok, that was a joke. But seriously, what’s wrong with class (in the sense used in this quote) or with authority? I feel CTR was more of a warrior than me, and I think it’s fine to acknowledge that, to acknowledge the differences between people, to acknowledge that some are superior to others, and to allow people to be in different “classes”. I think in a proper society, someone like CTR would not be in the same “class” as everyone else.

I’ve heard stories that in the early says, CTR’s students sometimes called him “Rimp the Gimp” and might put a pillow on the floor for him to sleep on if he was a guest.

Perhaps that’s a fun way to treat an equal– I enjoy calling my friends nicknames sometimes, if I think they’re taking themselves too seriously. But if we admire someone as a teacher, I wonder if it can’t help to treat the person with a little extra respect? This is often done in martial arts classes for instance, to help create an atmosphere conducive to learning.

A classless society– one where no one is superior to anyone else– seems like it would be a society without class (i.e. without respect for each other). So I hope I never see a classless society. Of course, in some sense that’s already what we have.

. . . .

It seems like everyone is interested in politics these days. And our politics is always about trying to take resources away from our neighbor, it seems. “I’m non-violently and spiritually going to eliminate all class in my world, and pull everyone more fortunate than me down to my level, so I can get some of what they have.”

What would be interesting is a politics where we learn to appreciate what we already have rather than covet what our neighbor has. Compared to some people in the world– being born with a crack addiction, sleeping each night under an overpass, or lying in a hospital bed with no health or friends– we might be fantastically wealthy, but completely unaware of our wealth if we’re too focused on a feeling of poverty.

I wonder if crazy wisdom is a feeling of complete wealth, that everything in our experience is a resource.

Anarchism literally means “no arch” or no hierarchy or authoritarian religion, government , state overriding the individual and that limits the basic goodness spontaneously present in the individual. Anarchists were talking about the “basic goodness” of human beings before we even heard of the word connected with the dharma
When an institution is proclaiming to be “expanding on the teachings of CTR, and using him to perpetuate a lie,( i.e the lie that this current situation is even remotely connected to his teachings), we must speak out against this horrible distortion every chance we get, in my opinion, or we are breaking samaya with him.

Interestingly, the anarchists of the early 20th century were beginning to have a glimpse of voidness themselves. They found that violent anarchists,caught up in violent struggles with the state, were so off the mark because they believed in the “world out there” as having an essence, which true anarchists did not. They were beginning to understand that there was no essence inside or outside, so there was nothing to push against violently, nothing to be afraid of. That humans were inherently good, if authoritarian hierarchies could be seen through and thrown off by simply reclaiming our birthright and saying NO to every form of repression of the human spirit.

We need to appreciate our own Western anarchist origins, (and buddhist anarchist origins such as the Tao, and zen and dogen and radical dzogchen and of course Buddha himself) .. It was no accident that East met West in the way when CTR’s crazy wisdom teachings came to America. What a far cry we are now from the Allen Ginsbergs and the Gary Snyders of Trungpa Rinpoche’s mandala.