The Song of the Owl Headed Dakini

Question Rinpoche, can you talk about how becoming drunken with primordial wisdom is clarity?

Ngak’chang Rinpoche It is twilight language – like vajra pride, vajra rage, vajra lust, vajra anxiety, and vajra stupidity. We invert the language of duality.

Q Turn negative terminology inside out or back to front?

R Almost. We link the neurosis with that from which it has become a distortion. Becoming drunken with primordial wisdom is not possible in terms of inebriation. From the perspective of duality a sober yogi or yogini might appear drunk. From the non-dual perspective a sober person might appear inebriated. A regular drunk might not care much about how they act, or where they vomit – they act in an offensive manner without knowing it. Someone who is drunk with primordial wisdom acts in an offensive manner towards duality – he or she is not careful about the constructs of duality and might vomit joy over you.

Q And they have allowed it to take them over in terms of their sense of order and stable-self.

R Order and stable self? Could you elaborate a little? Could you tell me about ‘allowing it to take them over’?

Q Well . . . apart from identity, I am not sure I can say any more than that.

R Ah. You see—this may be semantic—but primordial wisdom does not ‘take you over’. It is not separate from you in the first place. It is more that you understand that you are not separate and that you are not going to drown by drowning or get drunk by drinking.

Q With duality there are all kinds of things that are very important and crisp and have to remain in place. When you get drunk, you get sloppy and allow things to fall apart.

R Quite so – the primordial drunk is sloppy with the neat and tidy constraints of duality. This does not mean however, that we become sloppy – but that all the things that are so important to other people, in terms of life being what it is, become meaningless. That is not to say that you cannot play with sober dualists in terms of their conventional constructs – but they do not mean the same to you. It could be highly offensive to somebody, that it does not disturb you that somebody has stolen your wallet. It might really upset somebody else. I remember people being obviously quite upset when I was speaking with a lady who was dying in hospital. Not that I was making light of the fact that she was dying. I was talking to her about the colour shadows on the wall – cast by the rubber plant. She said: “Yes, I’ve been looking at that – there’s a rich depth to them.“ She had been at Art College; she was an Art College model and an artist – so she knew what I meant. Then I took my ngakru out of my bag and showed it to her; because I thought she would like to see such a thing. I knew that she liked cunningly crafted items – and the ngakru had a beautiful old Tibetan box chain. She played with it through her fingers and said: “Ooh, snaky . . . ”

Q She obviously enjoyed it.

R She did – but an atmosphere was evolving, emanating from the three other people in the room. I could see from the expressions on their faces and their fidgety demeanour that they were thinking: “Why are you doing these things . . . This woman is dying; and you’re showing her this thing you got out of your bag.” No one said anything, because they were too embarrassed. That is interesting isn’t it? We were simply conversing, but that was a problem for those who could not converse about what was there. I know that I had taken the ngakru especially to show her – but the rubber plant was just gratuitously there. Just because someone is dying, does not mean a conversation is out of bounds – but the other people in the room were becoming vexatious and anxious about the fact that we appeared to be having a fairly ordinary conversation. They were embarrassed because they did not know what to say.

Q And of course that’s the norm – that you did not know what to say. Or you would have to say something emotional; or you would have to make some kind of statement about something – that it was a very, very serious situation.

R That is maybe an example of being offensive towards duality. There is actually nothing offensive in conversing – but something innocuous can be highly offensive to the tight constraints of dualistic convention. I was speaking once with a gö kar chang lo Lama in Switzerland—Phur-tak Rinpoche, the ‘phurba tiger’—he was talking about Trungpa Rinpoche and alcohol. He spoke of how from a yogic point of view it can be an offence against samaya to withhold from getting drunk – because when you get drunk, you are intoxicating duality, you are intoxicating deluded rationale.

Q That’s what we thought, too, when we used to take drugs: ‘This is as real as the rest of it!’

R It is not particularly that there is no truth in that - it simply does not lead anywhere in particular. Phur-tak Rinpoche was speaking from a yogic perspective – and drunkenness from that point of view is somewhat different from what we usually take it to mean.

Q When you discover that you are doing something or holding some view that is a breakage of the vows . . . [interrupted]

R . . . the best thing to do is to lie in the middle of the floor, and you ask the rest of the sangha to kick the hell out of you for five minutes.

Q [laughs] Maybe that would really be the best thing . . . is it enough—as Trungpa Rinpoche used to say—to just instantly correct yourself. Does that repair the samaya?

R Yes. You simply stop for a moment in that awareness. Whatever the motivation is, you allow that to become transparent to itself – simply through wordless observation. Observing is all you need, to stop whatever it is. Sometimes however – if you stop whatever it is, then you have lost an opportunity. Restraining yourself is not actually always useful. It is preferable to simply sit with whatever it is; and to observe it moving: its shape, its form, its pattern. That leads to dissolution anyway. It is however, more a matter of understanding why I want to do this, where this is coming from . . .

Q But you have to actually stop yourself at the level of speech or something, if that is going to have an effect on someone else?

R Sure. I am speaking more of isolated personal phenomena. With respect to others – stop yourself from causing pain or harm. If you are aware, then negative impulses dwindle of themselves – and there is then nothing that has to be artificially stopped. With awareness, there is no need for a rule. With awareness, one acts perfectly.

Q And if you have to apply a rule and stop yourself – you have no awareness.

R Even with experience of awareness though – you have to know yourself well enough to say: “In this area of my life, I have heavy patterns and therefore I need a temporary rule. Hopefully I will also practise awareness there; so one day this behaviour will be natural – it will spring from a state of awareness.”

Q That would apply to diet, for instance?

R Yes. The reason that I do not take that baseball bat and belabour Miles around the head with it—I saw that in a movie once—is not that I am restraining myself. It is because I have no desire to do such a thing. It does not occur to me. I can formulate the idea – but the idea has no effect on me. But if I were aware that I had this strong desire, then I would have to apply some rule. That rule would be: “When the idea of bludgeoning Miles’ head with a baseball bat arises in my mind, I will not do it. If it becomes too strong, I will ask others to tie me down until such desires abate.”

Q So at the level of rule is one is applying concept in the moment to help one alter whatever is happening. Because applying awareness is totally non-conceptual. You just realise it’s empty.

R Yes. Or one sees the pattern and understands how the pattern arises. When one understands how the pattern arises, the pattern is immediately ridiculous.

Q Usually we don’t catch what’s arising till it’s there fully.

R Yes. With more experience of practise however, one catches patterns at earlier stages.

Q2 It’s like lha-tong, isn’t it?

R Yes.

Q It seems to come down to shi-nè; the essence of shi-nè. Like, there it is – it’s coming up. There it is – it’s going down.

R Yes. The ’ug gDong mKha’ ’gro sNying thig mDo precepts concern the application of awareness in our daily lives – either as a rules, or as perceptivity. The ’ug gDong mKha’ ’gro sNying thig mDo is pattern that spreads from the point-instant of awareness to all aspects of life. Essentially the ’ug gDong mKha’ ’gro sNying thig mDo precepts are the five principles of awareness which infuse the sense-fields. They are the five elements manifesting as the space from which behaviours arise and dissolve according to Bodhicitta.