True Perception

True Perception was a book I was given for Christmas about Dharma art. Given the name you’d be forgiven for thinking its a book about art, though in many ways it is, more appropriately it’s about the art of right living - with art as the vehicle.

Trungpas is an eloquent writer and his content is easy to read; this is in part probably due to his clear semantic framing, though he rarely settles for stable definitions instead offering multiple perspectives on the same thought object.

An example of this is the definition of “Dharma Art” itself which he describes in three different ways within the first chapter alone:

• non-aggression and total confidence,
• unselfconsciousness and directness,
• vision and operation.

Here he makes it clear that art is not supposed to be exhibitionism, which is clumsy and aggressive, instead he asserts that it should be the production of beauty - though not at the expense of others. He draws a distinction between Dharma Art and elegance, and that work for others brings delight while work on the self brings elegance. This brings out what is honest, real and earthy.

From here we move into a discussion on vision; differentiating between “Great Eastern Sun” and “Setting Sun” - which are defined from a number of perspectives. Great Eastern Sun is:

• Fearless (Power, energy, strength)
• Wakeful (No doubt, hesitation or regret)
• Brilliant (all pervasive goodness)

This vision is also described as having a sense of dignified confidence that is peaceful and non-aggression. Trungpa says that Great Eastern sun is a fearless victory over the three worlds of man, heaven and earth - though peaceful and shows the path, so we must develop ourselves first before we can properly engage.

Due to this development, there forms a goodness in the self which projects decency and creates trust with an audience due to the purpose of affirming an enlightened society. This wakefulness consists of luminosity, energy and brilliance - without doubts, hesitations or regrets.

Setting Sun on the other hand is described as a lack of bravery and complete cowardice, a constant fear that’s deliberately suicidal and wants to go to sleep; this is egoistic passion, ignorance and aggression.

This brings us on to the notion of “Basic Goodness” which is foundation of man heaven and earth. Man in particular should be generous and brave (dyad), wakeful, open minded and enlightened (triad) - which is the first set of Bhuddist iconographies.

It would seem that this gives rise to harmony which is described as plentiful, rich and minimal. Or alternatively as luscious, rich, open and spacious; “like a Jewish mother in a Japanese home” - which is in itself a pretty fearless caricature.

To reach such basic goodness Trungpa asserts that a meditation practice is needed; preferably in the Shamatha Vipashyana tradition, which means ‘mindful’ and ‘aware’. The realisation being that Form and Dharma are non existent and therefore cant mix, similarly there is a fuzzy boundary between openness and action. In this way art is an awareness practice that opens perspective to create focus, as opposed to a mindfulness excersize. This “Art in Everyday Life” is non possessive and non aggressive.

By the time we get to the chapter on “Ordinary Truth” we are at a point where we are prepared for the discussion of theistic symbolism and non theistic symbolism… or as Trungpa puts it “cosmic trips” and “everything has a place”… yes, it seems that’s indeed a shot in the foot for this blog. Oh dear.

Regardless, this is elaborated on in the chapter “Empty Gap of Mind” as Absolute symbolism (no reference point) and Relative symbolism (symbolic references). The former is passionless, egoless and has no discursive thought. The latter he claims is based on passion, demandingness, restlessness and aggression.

Absolute symbolism, Trungpa claims, has a nature like the sky or space, in that it’s unborn and unceasing, though it lives in the hearts of all sentient beings. It cannot happen if there’s no place to birth it, hence a nature like space - or eternity.

From this place we start to “colour our world” which is essentially letting go of the ego, or little “I” of aggression, passion and ignorance (setting sun). Ignorance being a state of basic panic, pain and bewilderment that stem from an allergy towards ourselves.

Having discarded these maladies, we begin to develop new sight and see things clearly, properly and directly. But what does “the process of perception” represent? That seems tricky…

“The question of reality is confusing. Nobody knows. But everybody knows that somebody knows…”

If nobody knows but there is an answer out there somewhere, we have to rely on ourselves and learn to develop our own capacity to interpret ideas, suggestions and information. Reality is both comforting and confusing for these reasons as the real world is full of anxiety, pain and chaos. Trungpas remedy is a sitting practice to make friends with ourselves. He suggests that from such a place of non-aggression we can begin to see things without making demands and trying to buy or sell to others.

In this chapter, it would be wise to take Trungpas advice of thinking for ourselves onboard when he offers a description on how our perceptive process unfolds.

Firstly he suggests that we see an object, secondly we mentally smell it as some kind of commentator comes along in the back of our head, then we hear the object from all around, before finally forming a relationship with it through touch and making some kind of judgement or decision. Indeed this seems based on the four term system of the “Karmas”, and such systems are representative of actions and decisions, rather than a full blown process of perception - which would likely take the form of a seven fold system.

With that caveat noted, Trungpas position that Dharma Art’s not really concerned with this “process”, at the end of the chapter, actually makes a lot more sense. This he suggests is like a frog sitting in the rain as a puddle forms around it with what amounts to essential indifference. However this doesn’t explain the process of perception as promised by the chapter title, though the next chapter “Being and Projecting” moves us towards such an understanding.

This begins with a description of the 12 Ayatanas, which are a symbolic reference to the sense perceptions and sense objects. The perceptions are thinking, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, while the correspondent objects are mind, eye, ear, body, nose and tongue.

If we start with this position of “Frog in the Rain” or a sense of essential indifference, Trungpa suggests that we begin to project ourselves outwards in order to prove our existence, which then leads to a dance with the projection as it begins to unfold.

Reading between the lines here, we can determine that there are the six sense perceptions through which the dynamics of projector and projected interact. When placed together, this seems to form the outline of an enneagram; a triad within a broken hexad. Perhaps this implicitly gives rise to the “process of perception” promised by the chapter title? From the fragmets at the end of the page it would seem so.

The next chapter on “Lost Horizons” seems in many ways contradictory to Trungpas earlier statements - though the information still seems relevant; he starts by discussing relative symbolism and says “this does not refer to some superspiritual-materalistic vision based on altered neurological perceptions. It simply means an experience that transcends the common phenomena of good and bad, promises and threats” - which is effectively a 180º turn from the earlier affirmation that it was a “Cosmic Trip”.

This updated view suggests that it’s a form of visual perception developed through meditation and “without such taming of the mind, we either misjudge situations or are overpowered by them. We are unable to percieve things as they are in the fullest sense”. This feels like a more tempered perspective, given Trungpas own cognitive semantics are a form of relative symbolism. At the same time we can also note a change of attitude from being (‘frog in the rain’, ‘sitting bull’) to doing, such as jumping into “brilliant high energy pools” - though this is still distinguished from beautiful, fantastic and colourful.

The Tibeten Book of the Dead also says that if you go along with the bright and penetrating visions, you might be saved; whereas if you are facinated by the beautiful, fantastic, colorful visions, you might be trapped in the samsaric rebirth cycle again and again.

Its worth paying close attention to the semantics of the words used at this point as for a laymen like myself the terms can be easily conflated. It seems the words bright and penetrating are likely used in reference to the five wisdoms; mirror like awareness, discernment, sameness, knowlege of the phenomenological dimension and acomplishment. Rather than what Trungpa would probably call a ‘Cosmic Trip’ (as beautifully illustrated by this very site ;).

Whatever the case this chapter is a radical call out about substituting the real for the imaginary, and never quite catching the fish in the net. What Trungpa calls the lost horizon, which sends a few shocks.

The remedy to this he suggests is “Giving”, though this is not what you might think it means. The chapter starts by noting that the desire to learn more and more is questionable as a form of agression is taking place and how such posessive demands makes us deaf, dumb and blind - a veil preventing absolute symbolism.

Insted Trungpa recomends giving up, opening up and surrender as a means of ridding ourselves of agression. Paradoxically, this may actually mean giving into agression in order to let it go because you couldn’t care less. It consequentially seems the point is giving in all senses, exhaling everything to the point that scales fall from your eyes and your (true) perception becomes clear, direct and precice.

“Once we stop rejecting the world, it begins to pounce on us. Symbolism is imposed on us”

Now, we get into the realm of “self existing humour”, which as a first principal is otherwise cosmic and breaks down the distinction between you and I. The ground from which it arises is a sense of all pervasive space or ground thats not messed up, paired with an appreciation of the play of phenomenona - perhaps otherwsise termed “Lila”. For me this resonates, as I’ve been many characters in the course of my journey and am starting to see them back. By no means do I have mirror like awareness, but at times I find myself getting frustrated at charaters I’ve been before - which when noticed on reflection is actually quite a hillarious CirKus or cosmic ecology!

This really is an odd teapot of energetics, totally nuts, but bringing it back to Trungpa he suggests that peaceful energy is harmless, benevolent and pacifying - arising from warmth and encouragement. While wrathful energy is mocking and exposing. Sometimes our caricuture is savage and deadly, other times dignified and powerful. It’s not a lonely trip either, somebody else has been through it before and in many ways it’s all an act - yet an entirely real one!

From here we move into a chapter called “Outrageousness” which seems to be the existential pole related to the essence of “non-agression”. Trungpa defines outrageousness as a direct conviction with a feeling of intense humour, energy and power penetrating inside - which makes a good deal of sense from the cosmic perspective of mirror like wisdom. There are a couple of traps here of course in relation to self-centredness, aggression and self-consciousness; in particular the presentation of the art or truth one has discovered (or is discovering).

“The basic point is that there is a sense of continuity in your understanding of life. If you know who you are, what you are, where you are, and have something to say about that, you could share it with your fellow human beings. That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you don’t want to publicize it. And even if you do want to publicize your embryonic discoveries, you don’t spell out the whole thing at once. It’s very tempting to spell everything out, which proves one’s legitimacy, one’s wisdom, or one’s artistry.”

Outrageousness instead seems to be a sense of fearless celebration, which leads smoothly into the chapter on being a “Wise Fool”, who is open and inquisitive without frivolity or aggression; in other words a connection with reality and the phenomenal world that’s proper, gentle and generous.

In learning to interact with the world essentially, the discussion moves on to the “Five Styles of Creative Expression”. In many ways however, it may be better to interpret this core iconography as four styles with a neutral middle - which represents the all encompassing spaciousness and basic ground of the Bhudda (symbolised by the colour blue). We then have four other semantic coordinates.

• Vajra, representing water with its clear and precise reflections. Its crisp like winter with colours of blue, white and gold. Its austere, cold and desolate, aliminium and metalic. It is the dawn rising in the east.

• Ratna, representing earth with equinamity thats expansive and extending. It has a crisp Autumnal yellow to it. A rich and powerful sense of giving that’s dignified, opulent and regal, as well as a fertile, restless, earthyness thats solid and definite. It has a southern orientation.

• Padma, representing fire with a discriminating perception that sees detail. It has a spring facade to it that is red. It has no solidity or texture but is full of colour and glamour. It is concerned with output rather than input, with no concern to health or survival. It is connected with sunset and values reflection over being, art over science and practicality. It is brilliant, lucious and colourful, curvy and shapely like a lotus with a connection to wild flowers and roaming animals.

• Karma, representing wind and the automatic fulfilment of action. It’s colour is a summer green. It’s efficient, self-maintaining, active and growing with a sense of competition towards birthing something. Consequentially it has a sense of thunder and hail that can feel demonic and black, like a panther or understanding a thunder cloud.

Inverse to enlightened states, these houses also have neurotic states: Bhudda can be spaced out rather than spacious Vajra can be angry with intellectual fixation and ridgidity Ratna can be fat and ostentatious, indulged to insanity Padma can be overly passionate, grasping, posessive with a desire to seduce the world Karma can be jealous, comparative and envious.

Beyond this Trungpa distinguishes three levels of perception; experience, emptyness and luminosity. Experience just is - where “white is white” - while emptyness can be vacant or overcrowded (paradoxically leaving a lot of room, due to all the jostling life), lumonisoty then is something thats realised on the spot; which I personally interpet along the lines of creative improvisation - though it may be otherwise.

He says that perceptions are shifty, that they cant be reduced to words so much as their articulation takes us further from the reality - yet they are sharp, precise and tend to bring clarity. Open awareness should have a sense of connectivity, that everything is related to everything.

In choiceless magic he starts to speak of individuality, and with it the sense of confusion, uncertainty and chaos that arises. Here we have the choice of using the anxiety by making everything smooth, beautiful and fantastic - or turning the world into a training groundto learn more, which is suggested as preferable. This seems point at the experience of absolote symbology.

One key point in this chapter is in relation to the unification of everything, a group of individuals forming an organisation where everybody gets ‘turned on’ he considers a trip as such uniformity neglects individuality; in other words a consensus that “we are all playing the same game” is not considered Bhuddadharma. Same for the emulation of individuality.

With all this said, Trungpa does assert that there is a basic iconographic pattern to the universe, and that the intention should be to heighten individuality within the framework of some common world - which gets acknowleged as problematic at this point. Probably because of questions regarding frame. At this point, my mind wanders into the teachings offered at H3uni.org and John Bennets work on General Systematics aka Qualsystems. Indeed, here is a community of individuals here holding a toolbelt of common frames; such frames are indeed a method of compressing and expressing reality into a low dimensional topology - much like bhuddist iconography.

Such models are useful in that they enable communication - though of course higher dimensional topologies do exist (like reality itself). “In the end, all barriers are broken through and bondages ‘annihilated’ - at that point there is room for that and this to be one”. Of course, such a perspective also has wider implications in relation to wholeness, morality, and the wider psychological enviroment of humanity.

“One Stroke” continues along these lines with a discussion on forms of culture; pure culture derived from lineage and noncultural aesthetic expressions of meditation and devotion. This takes us into modern times and the lack of artistic lineage; since we lack a real teacher student relationship, Trungpa suggests the best path forward is to meditate a lot so that things become clearer and we develop a sense of continuity, dignity and mindfulness. Inspiration then comes from opensess and clear vision - the original Buhdda mind which is blank, nonterritorial, noncompetative and open.

From this place it seems we can partake in “The Activity of Nonagression”, from which dignity emerges - a sense of gentleness and authentic-presence, which enables four actions or karmas. These seem to be synonomous with the Bhudda families above, with some expansion on the terms. Pacifying has a sense of pure perception without sharp edges, and is related to a blue circle. Blue is related to pure sky with lots of space, and pure fresh air. Gentle and innately good, absent of neurosis and sees the world at its best.

Enriching has a sense of richness, depicted as a yellow square with sharp corners. This relates to earth which creates boundaries for us, though also direction and has a sense of being, harmony and a well settled situation. There is also dignity, which relates to the intrinsic energy of our mind and mental state.

Magnetising is depicted as a red half circle which is representative of emotions connected to the square earth, rounding it with reference points. This brings out passion, like an embrace or kiss, though also the meeting of minds. Richness without poverty allowing us to let go and be generous.

Karma is depicted as a green triangle connected with activity and destruction. Green represents the strength and power of wind that is fearless. The triangle represents a dynamic balance between positive, negative and neutral - too much fearlessness becomes intellectual, too little becomes cowardice, which points to reconciling balance. Destruction relates to liberation and freedom as well, making it simple and clean cut.

By combining these colours we get lemon yellow and purple, imperial colours across history; the former connected with strength and the king principal, the latter with the ultimate feminine or queen principal.

Now we arrive at a “State of Mind”, a form of wakeful magic that arises from our attitude in relation to ourselves, others and the world. Art involving a relation to ourselves and our phenomenal world gracefully. Grace implies none agression, gentleness and upliftedness - the basic attributes of cheerfulness, which enable us to beautify the world.

Where things go wrong is poverty - as despite talent, inteligence and vision artists have to struggle for money. Attitude and integrity become important. Trungpa suggest starting without the aim of money making, pure craft, and in working with others they begin to notice you as genuine, interesting, dedicated and brave. From such a place of gentle goodness, dedication and trueness, our work rises to another dimension - one that is uplifting visually, audibly and psychologically - visual Dharma that gives one a sense of composure that inspires richness, beauty and decorum. This can then hold the world together without causing schism.

Seeing is distinguished from looking; first thought best thought, second thought maybe preferable. Impressions and then going beyond with a threefold logic of perception, appreciation and presentation; the ground, the path and then fruition. This logic can also be seen as the heaven, earth, human principal or the bodies of Tibetean vajrayana Bhuddism - dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya. However they are described, they can be seen as background manifestation, potential manifestation and finally manifesting altogether.

In the Shambala tradition its “Heaven, Earth, Human”:

• Heaven is the coming down to earth with a sense of goodness, gentleness and togetherness. Looking down and conquering space with an unyeilding regality thats open and playful. The darkside is that tripping out on it could con you into situations through self-deception, so best start with first mind best mind - just a little dot on a blank page like primordial consciousness thats wakeful, delighted and briliant. From this state of mind and the right attitude and experience of space, comes what is known as blessing or sacredness. With no struggle we can relax and discover the sacred world without being smart or clever, whether mathmatically, technically or politically. This sacredness binds the heaven principle.

• Earth is then grounded and encompassing. Its first principal is the ‘absence of neurosis’ - defined as fixation or clinging that can be further articulated as passion which is too gluey or gooey, agression which is too sharp, threatening or rejecting, and ignorance, which is a state of stupour that cant discriminate black from white. As it is absent qualities the second principal suggests its ‘thorougly relaxed, soft and wholesome’. The third principal is ‘absence of lazyness’ so has a certain drive to achieve - no half-visions - as that would be breaking the morality and dicipline of artistic endevour. However as Earth is so gentle however, it may become overly domestic, or accomodating of everything - including chaos.

• Human has two principals, the first being ‘freedom from subconscious gossip’; if our minds are full of thought it is due to a lack of relation to the heaven or earth principals. Executing work is one way to cut this. The second principal is ‘absence of regret’ be they in the past or future, looking back and forward all the time as a kind of slick but deep rooted depression that obscures heaven and earth - making us unproductive. The Human principal need not reference either heaven or earth, its just individual existence taking place, but when it does to binds heaven and earth together the universal monarch emerges. This king principal arises as a dynamic all three dharmas. Going back to “Basic Goodness” you might in other languages say this is the alchemical child; one that is both cute and daring, yet with openness and strength! “Endless Richness” emerges from this reconcilliation and things begin to flow. Like any craft you work with a technique for a long time and it then falls away. You just relate to the object of perception and adapt when things go wrong. An example of a participative movie is offered, which would require the interrelation of a lot of space, speed and richness. Which should make suggestions rather than feed information so they have to work and think about the presentation. Just a corner of knowlege. This modality is related to teaching. Someone doing so by information alone may say wise and beautiful things, yet not know how to handle the gaps. Someone that lives the teaching however won’t fidget or blush, the teaching is engrained in their being so theres no embarassment at mistakes, things just go on and on, like waves of the ocean in endless richness. You recieve a lot, without feeling ‘dumped on’ because theres clearly much more to be said.

“Back to square one” points at a moon that in turn points back at us with a mirror like essence. We shape our world in accord with our ideas, beliefs and dreams, which in turn haunt us and shape our being. He says that people get trapped in this creation and get trapped, seeing it as unjustified or undeserved. We then go so far as to discuss the suestion of spirituality, the ultimate level of judgement and the question of being fair to everybody. Perhaps this is the metaphor of Hungry ghosts?

Thinking before action is advised, though like everything this unfolds into questions of how to think, what to think about, why to think and so forth as you can think anything you want. He suggests that it should be directed, but not with dogma, philosophy or concepts. Instead we are “Back to Square One” - who or what thinks and whats the thinking process? It seems we must see ourselves and our thoughts to be genuinely uncoloured. Square one “is what it is”; desolate, spacious and without feedback. When we are forced to pounce, which will happen, we mess it all up - so staying with it and holding our ground seems to be the lesson, especially as theres no way to get out.

When you have one, that indicates that you have two and three and four. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are going to get to square two and the rest of it. Then you have zero, which is not any kind of figure. It denotes nothing, I suppose. We want to be something, right? Even if we are back to square one, we are there, we are somethi. We dont’t wish te be nothing and we constantly try to avoid that. That is the problem. So the only alternative–not even alternative, but only choice, so to speak–is to be zero. So square one is the basic ground from which we function, and square zero seems to be beyound even our functioning. Isness, without any definitions. It is not so much branching out, but branching in. There is still resistance to going back to zero, and it has always been a problem that square one could be the excuse for you not to have to go back to zero. At least you have the number one to clench on to; at leas there’s that first number you made. You achieved your identity at square one, and that seems to be the problem. So ultimately, one has to return to zero. Then you begin to feel that you can move around. You can do a lot of things, not be numbered. You’re not subject to your own numbers, and you are not confined to a pidgeonhole. So your situation can be improved if you know that you have nothing bet vero, which is nothing. There’s no referenc point anymore, just zero. Try it. It is an expression of immense generosity and immense enlightenment.

From zero, we can go to one - “Art Begins At Home” - Dharma art as natural awareness. Phrased another way, the Greek word “oikos” comes to mind, which is the root of economy and ecology. How we do one small thing is how we do everything - hence Dharma Art as a state of natural awareness.

Perhaps this is the “Human” principal, which reconciles “Heaven and Earth”? Why do we label ourselves artists? Or cling to our mediums? Trungpa suggests that Dharma means “norm” or “truth” that is at peace and cool, reducing the heat of neurosis - a state before touching our brush or instrument.

“For instance, you might go up in the mountains and catch a baby monkey and bring him home, hoping that little baby monkey can play on your shoulder, run around your courtyard, and play in your kitchen. You hope he will relieve your claustrophobia, the heat of your neurosis. When he first decides to come along with you, that baby monkey might behave himself. But over time he begins to become an extension of our neurosis… the same way as your artwork does”

Talent then comes from the appreciation of basic beauty and basic goodness arising from the fundemental peace and coolness of dharma, at which point conflict begins to subside to clear perception. The purpose of a work of art is bodhisattva action; meaning that our production, manifestation, demonstration and performance should be geared towards waking people up from neurosis.

Finally we are brought back to the closing statement on art and society “in Dharma art, what we are trying to do is tame our society, including ourselves”. Great Eastern Sun, Trungpa asserts, is humble and gentle with some additional qualities of precision, warmth, kindness.