Wonderfully Hopeless

"Whether we are attacked or praised,

We do not follow the conventional pattern of hope and fear..."

Someone who truly knows my heart gave me such lovely gifts today -- the Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, and a marvelous, framed photograph of him.

"[A]s far as we know, nobody in America has a complete understanding of even the hinayana level of Buddhism. People have hardly any understanding at all. They have a completely schizophrenic attitude: they conceive of a divine, enlightened personality that is opposed to their confused version of themselves. As a result, people regard themselves as abandoned people, completely bad people. Or else they might have some hope, but that again is based on some kind of spiritual pride that does not leave any leeway for confusion at all. So we're hopeless. I'm afraid we're hopeless."

--vol. 5, p. 159

While it might be dangerous to take anything a mahasiddha says out of context, one could argue that because it is said by a mahasiddha, context becomes universal.  The next time you are struggling with attitudes of "I got this right," or, "I got this wrong," or what is much, much worse... listening to some equally befuddled jackass bray about right and wrong... you might take some small comfort from the idea of wonderful hopelessness -- and press on.

Now that 2009 is wonderfully hopeless, there is nothing whatsoever standing in the way of your enlightenment save your own deconstruction of deconstruction.

Don't let Christmas stand in your way, or New Year either, for that matter.

Press on.