Journey Without Goal
The Tantric Wisdom of the Buddha
By Chögyam Trungpa
“The student of Tantra should be
in a constant state of panic. That panic is electric and should be
regarded as worthwhile.... Panic is the source of open heart and open
ground. Sudden panic creates an enormous sense of fresh air, and that
quality of openness is exactly what Tantra should create. If we are
good Tantra students, we open ourselves each moment. We panic a
thousand times a day, 108 times an hour.”
Journey Without Goal was the first of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s publicly available books to speak explicitly on the
subject of Buddhist Tantra from beginning to end. It was based on
lectures given to a general audience at Naropa Institute in 1974; thus
it includes no specifics about Tantric practices and presumes no
familiarity with them. Instead the book gives what might seem to be an
impressionistic overview of the Tantric approach – what Trungpa
Rinpoche himself calls ‘finger-painting’. Only toward the
end does he reveal that the entire presentation has been from the
perspective of ‘Maha Ati’, or what students of Aro
recognize as Dzogchen: “openness and spaciousness and
inevitability.”
Topics covered include the experience of emptiness or
non-existence as the prerequisite for entering the Tantric world, the
crucial role of the vajra master, visualisation practice, abhisheka, the three kayas, the five Buddha Families, and the four yogas of
Mahamudra (slipped in ‘in disguise’ as the
“four levels of magic”). Trungpa Rinpoche gives thumbnail
descriptions of three of the Tantric yanas (according to the Kagyüd system): kriyatantra, yogatantra, anuttaratantra; and then ati
yoga.
The book is, however, more useful as a source of sanity than as a
source of information. The final chapter on maha ati includes Trungpa
Rinpoche’s famous image of the sky turning into a blue pancake
and falling on one’s head – the futility of attempting to
escape from the vastness of what is. Characteristically, the author
closes with an urgent recommendation for meditation practice as the crucial
ground: “sit and do nothing.”
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