Monday, May 07, 2007

BEYOND REASSURANCE

Question: How does one get away from the need for reassurance?

Chogyam Trungpa: Acknowledge needing reassurance, acknowledge it as an effigy that looks in only one direction and does not look around. (It is) an effigy with
one face, possibly only one eye. It doesn't see around, doesn't see the whole situation. Do you see what I mean?...Whenever you need reassurance, that means you
have a fixed idea of what ought to be. And because of that, you fix your vision on one situation, one particular thing. And those situations that are not being observed
because of the point of view of needing reassurance, (those things) that we are not looking at, are a source of paranoia. We wish we could cover the whole ground,
but since we can't do that physiologically, we have to try to stick to that one thing as much as we can. So the need for reassurance has only one eye.

Question: And the way to get beyond that one-eyed vision...?

Chogyam Trungpa: Develop more eyes, rather than just a unidirectional radar system. You don't have to fix your eye on one thing. You can have panoramic vision,
vision all around at once.

From "Genuine Madness and Pop Art" in ILLUSION'S GAME: THE LIFE AND TEACHING OF NAROPA, pages 30 to 31.

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