Free The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 4 by Chögyam Trungpa Page B

ourselves and what the teaching is doing to us is absolutely important, absolutely important. Without that critical background, we cannot develop even the slightest notion or flavor of enlightenment.
    Enlightenment is based on both prajna, or discriminating awareness, and compassion. But without cynicism, we do not have either. We do not have any compassion for ourselves because we are looking for something outside of ourselves, and we want to find the best way to get it. We also do not have any prajna, or clarity. We become completely gullible, and we are liable to be sucked in without any understanding, none whatsoever.
    Transmission is like receiving a spiritual inheritance. In order to inherit our spiritual discipline, in order to have a good inheritance, we should become worthy vessels. In order to become worthy vessels, we have to drop the attitude that we are going to be saved, that there is going to be a magically painless operation, and that all we have to do is pay the doctor’s fee. We have the notion that if we pay the doctor, everything will be taken care of. We can just relax and let him do what he wants. That attitude is simple-minded. It is absolutely necessary to think twice. The questioning mind is absolutely necessary; it is the basis of receiving transmission.
    I am not stressing the importance of critical intelligence because Buddhism is just now being introduced to America and the West. It is not that I think students here might be more gullible. Buddhism is a strong tradition that has existed for twenty-five hundred years, and throughout the ages students have been given these same instructions. Throughout the ages they have contributed their neuroses and their mistakes to help shape the methods and means of the Buddhist lineage. A learning process has been taking place for twenty-five hundred years, in fact, even longer. And we have inherited all of that experience. So this approach is ages old rather than a sudden panic. It is an old way, very old and very traditional.
    One of the responsibilities of the lineage holder is not to give an inch, but to keep up the tradition. At this point, tradition does not mean dressing up in robes and playing exotic music or having dakinis dancing around us, or anything like that. Tradition is being faithful to what we have been taught and to our own integrity. From this point of view, tradition is being awake and open, welcoming but at the same time stubborn.
    According to tradition, the teacher should treat his students in this stubborn way: He should require that his students practice properly, in accordance with the tradition of the lineage. There are problems when a teacher is too kind to students who do not belong to the teacher’s race and upbringing. Some teachers from the East seem to be excited by foreignness: “Wow! Finally we are going to teach the aliens, the overseas people.” Because of this fascination and out of a naive generosity, they make unnecessary concessions. Although such teachers may be liberal enough to include Occidental students, to take them to heart and be very kind to them, their extraordinary kindness may be destructive.
    Such teachers regard Westerners as an extraordinary species, as if they came from the planet Mars: “Well, why don’t we teach them, since we have a captive audience of living Martians here?” That misunderstanding is an expression of limited vision, of failing to see that the world is one world made up of human beings. A person who lives on this earth needs food, shelter, clothing, a love affair, and so on. We are all alike in that regard. Westerners do not need any special treatment because they invented the airplane or electronics. All human beings have the same psychology: They think in the same way, and they have the same requirements as students. The question is simply how one can teach students no matter where they come from.
    In that respect we can follow the example of the Buddha, who presented the