12/09/2025
This is a section from the “Open Way” chapter of the book *Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism*. Any student of Trungpa Rinpoche would want to read this book, and most have read it more than once. This particular chapter, the first of two chapters in the book which explicitly addresses the bodhisatva path and the 6 paramitas, should of course be read and discussed in its entirety. I don’t like memes or excerpts, but this particular chunk has been an inspiration to me since 1977 when I first encountered it as a young person in 1977. “For I was young and foolish then / I’m old and foolish now.” [Not Trungpa Rinpoche] I don’t believe Trungpa Rinpoche ever discussed the subject of compassion, obviously central to the mahayana Buddhist teachings, without also discussing genuine communication, which is a necessary aspect of compassion. "If your love is moving with the same speed and drive as other people’s hatred, then something appears to be wrong. It would seem to be the same as calling darkness light." From the “Open Way” chapter:
“...the main theme of the open way is that we must begin to abandon the basic struggle of ego. To be completely open, to have that kind of absolute trust in yourself, is the real meaning of compassion and love. There have been so many speeches about love and peace and tranquility in the world. But how do we really bring love into being? Christ said, ‘Love thy neighbor,’ but how do we love? How do we do it? How are we going to radiate our love to the whole of humanity, to the whole world? ‘Because we must, and that’s the truth!’ ‘If you don’t love, you are condemned, evil; you are doing a disservice to humanity.’ ‘If you love, you are on the path, you are on the right track.’ But how?
Many people get very romantic about love, in fact get high on it, at the very word. But then there will be a gap, a period when we are not high on love. Something else takes place which is embarrassing, a private matter. We tend to seal it off; it is ‘private parts,’ shameful, not part of our divinity. Let’s not think about that. Let’s simply ignite another love explosion and on and on we go, trying to ignore those parts of our being we reject, trying to be virtuous, loving, kind.
Perhaps this will put off a lot of people, but I am afraid love is not really the experience of beauty and romantic joy alone. Love is associated with ugliness and pain and aggression, as well as with the beauty of the world; it is not the recreation of heaven. Love or compassion, the open path, is associated with ‘what is.’ In order to develop love – universal love, cosmic love, whatever you would like to call it – one must accept the whole situation of life as it is, both the light and the dark, the good and the bad. One must open oneself to life, communicate with it.
Perhaps you are fighting to develop love and peace, struggling to achieve them: ‘We are going to make it, we are going to spend thousands of dollars in order to broadcast the doctrine of love everywhere, we are going to proclaim love.’ Okay, proclaim it, do it, spend your money, but what about the speed and aggression behind what you are doing? Why do you have to push us into the acceptance of your love? Why is there such speed and force involved? If your love is moving with the same speed and drive as other people’s hatred, then something appears to be wrong. It would seem to be the same as calling darkness light. There is so much ambition involved, taking the form of proselytizing. It is not an open situation of communication with things as they are.
The ultimate implication of the words ‘peace on earth’ is to remove altogether the ideas of peace and war and to open yourself equally and completely to the positive and negative aspects of the world. It is like seeing the world from an aerial point of view: there is light, there is dark; both are accepted. You are not trying to defend the light against the dark.”
