Developing compassion and tender heart, staying in touch with the open space of awareness is always the foundation for a sane interaction with our surrounding world, with the world of family, friends, community, and outward to region, nation, world, and, not least, the life in nature. To some degree we will be able to see what needs to be done and how to do it. But Chogyam Trungpa took yet another step toward creating a fully human society. He brought to the West ancient teachings the knowledge of which can provide an active way of working with situations. These skills are known as the Four Dignities.

The Dignities: Tools for Knowing and Doing

Training the mind so as to gain insight into our habitual patterns of belief is a necessary first step toward creating a good society in which all people can live a full human life in a world that will be sustainable down through the generations. Social interactions not only create understanding but, unfortunately, often conflict. Instead of seeing others who may differ from us in culture, belief, race, religion, or social origins as different possibilities for human goodness to manifest, we often treat those who are different as problems to be contained, changed, or even eliminated. Thus, if we are to create a good life and sane society, we must first develop an undistorted knowledge of what already exists. The solidity of our neurotic minds is why the Shambhala view has not initially envisioned a program for creating some sort of social change. Like most revolutions that begin from narrow rational or emotional grounds, we would simply have created even more chaos. As we have found in previous periods of human change, aggression creates more aggression But if, over time, we create some ground of deeper understanding, then we could begin to put ideas into action. How in such an effort could we combine awareness and action? What are our choices?

The discipline through which we combine awareness with possible action has been described as four levels of insight leading to wisdom. Chogyam Trungpa named this progression the “Four Dignities.” which have their roots in very ancient traditions in Asia. From the viewpoint of perennial wisdom, mind is not reduced to a physiological process like the brain. Mind is present through the whole of reality and throughout the body. Investigating mind over the centuries, Buddhism has gained many insights into the ways in which we know. Although in the West we like to define discoveries in conceptual formulations that we can test experimentally, Buddhism, as well as other Asian systems of perennial wisdom, more often prefers to describe what it has experientially learned though metaphors and vivid images.

In some traditions these energies and colors are also associated with animals. Each of the animals has a particular nature and the image describes what the energy of that particular kind of feeling and awareness. We are not speaking of totem animals here, but images that convey certain kinds of energy which we can identify with and incorporate as attitudes. It’s important to remember that not everything we happen to know about that animal is relevant, but only the particular mode of its image in this context. Thus, the various attributes of the dignities are suggestive of ways of being in the world, so we work with them on the level of feeling/awareness rather than discursive mind.

The first dignity is called Meek, and it is symbolized by a tiger who walks confidently through his jungle terrain, observing whatever happens around her. The tiger, in this image is well fed and composed, confident, dignified, and curious about her domain, simply paying attention to whatever is happening. The dignity of Meek, as concrete practice, has the quality of fearlessness, confidence, openness and unbiased observation Take for example a business meeting where certain problems are being discussed and solutions sought. Working from the dignity of Meek would indicate non-judgmental listening to the different points of view. It would mean that we could hear the original data independent of our own fixed, habitual ideas. With all of our attention focused on listening, we are not trying to adjust the information to fit what we already believe, nor do we sit there formulating our answer in rebuttal to someone else’s presentation. However, the first dignity, Meek, is not simply a matter of being willing to listen to someone, which is how it usually appears in the various problem-solving modes of management theories. We realize that it is very difficult to suppress our automatic reactions to ideas different from those we believe in. So will power is not enough. Rather, developing Meek as a quality of mind is a matter of repeated practice in openness based on mindfulness/awareness.

The second dignity is called Perky, and it is symbolized by the snow lion. The snow lion is a very energetic image, since it is often portrayed as leaping from peak to peak in the Tibetan mountains. The individual who is working with Meek, might at some moment find his interest in the situation is attracted by some elements that seem to have possibilities. Some spark of intelligence in the situation is glimpsed, not because it matches his or her preconceptions, but because it genuinely is part of the actual situation itself. In other words, as we were saying about the warrior, he or she finds the situation to contain its own intelligence and possibilities for action. Thus, instead of working from an attitude of fixed ideas, he or she would be open to new, possibly unforeseen possibilities. This interest might lead to further inquiries. So Perky is connected with the intelligence of insight.

The third stage is known as Outrageous, which is not, as the term may sound, aggressive from the standpoint of ego. Rather, like the Garuda, or Tibetan eagle, which is said to command space, the individual is able to act freely in the open space to achieve some particular solution to the problem. The mindful individual at this point has a confidence and accuracy of perception that makes very penetrating and insightful action possible. The action, because it contains awareness of the whole situation, is not aggressive so that it might try to achieve a result in one direction while causing harm elsewhere. I think we are all used to that blind side to our usual ways of doing things. We dam a river to store water and then causes floods, or we build highways into the countryside and build subdivisions which gradually destroy the green spaces.

Finally, in the fourth stage, we have Inscrutable, symbolized by the dragon. Once again , we could invoke the warrior image. The dragon carries an image of the dynamic qualities of the natural world, the sequence of weather and seasons. It identifies with mind beyond ego, and not the petty grasping and clinging that mark our ordinary life in the world. The individual as warrior lets the consequences of his or her action be as they are. In one sense we could call it “letting go.” This fourth stage was often a problem when we taught a version of this view in a business course recently. After proposing an idea to the group, instead of letting go, several students wanted to hang on to their idea and fight for it, turning the seminar into another partisan struggle for a winner.

If we look briefly at the complementary aspect of the dignities, the wisdom energy on different levels, we could picture a society in which different levels of understanding, different levels of wisdom, worked together to bring the whole society to higher levels of realization. Leadership would depend on something more than simply authority over others. It would require insight, understanding, awareness as a foundation and from that insight would arise holistic vision as well as skill in managing details. In order for such wisdom to be beneficial to our society or for that matter even to be visible, the level of understanding of the whole society would have to be raised above the usual ego oriented fixation on the good for ourselves and those closest to us. Our suspicion of leadership, which we are inclined to see as authoritarian, actually blocks our ability to work skillfully with our whole situation.

To review the dynamics of perceiving the dignities, from within mindfulness/awareness practice, meek feels like open space. But it is space which is very much alive, vibrant. For example, one quality associated with meek could be absence of projects. Ego (discursive mind) and its speed is held in abeyance. As a result, no sharp boundaries divide self and other, or self from what needs to be accomplished. Because of the openness and the projectless quality, there is a sense of intelligence that is on the spot, that doesn't have to be pursued or protected.

Then, from that open space, perky, outrageous, and inscrutable naturally evolve as possibilities. I think one sees the dignities rather as footprints of past actions than of conscious present choice, though one might act and then at the same moment realize "perky" or "outrageous." They depend for their absolute quality or ground on openness, and openness is "meek." One moves from meek to perky to outrageous because of the need to help the world, including our selves. The space of meek opens up the channels of energy or enriching and authentic presence. From this ground, enlightened action is possible, that is, the other dignities emerge, a kind of evolutionary process.

The point is that the dignities are immensely practical. If we look back on some innovative activity, we might see the dignities as the basis and guide to the energy of the action. A business decision that requires innovation and daring starts with meek as openness, inquisitiveness, and genuineness. These are also at the heart of Shambhala vision. If we contemplate them and understand their dynamics, we might have an easier time of guiding both ourselves and others through situations that requires fresh thoughts.

In one sense, they describe a very simple evolution in dealing with particular situations. In another sense, they have a strong reference to different aspects of a higher kind of wisdom. Some levels of this higher wisdom are familiar to us as human beings. We recognize it in various people at different times. It may actually be what physicist David Bohm saw as the goal of a revolution in consciousness. Such wisdom might include a saintly person like Mother Teresa or the Dalai Lama or a mill owner who kept his workers on the payroll even after a natural disaster destroyed his plant. On the other hand it could describe high levels of full spiritual realization. The latter are the saints and holy people of every religion.

The spiritual term for the sense of openness, a state without our usual discursive logic and preconceptions, as we saw earlier, is egolessness. This is a difficult term for a culture so wrapped up in individual rights, with exaggerated wants and needs. One meaning is very simple, becoming aware of the connection we have with everything else and being willing to put that awareness ahead of our own selfish demands. We are willing to live without closing ourselves off, even though openness, may create considerable anxiety. The anxiety comes from keeping our barriers strong as a way to deal with fear. Daring, Chogyam Trungpa said, is the virtue that allows us to stay with awakened mind and do whatever has to be done. Daring is brought to a higher level by being combined with gentleness, fearlessness, and patience, which are the warrior qualities we spoke of earlier. Finally sense of humor reinforces a quality of egolessness which is the equivalent of crazy wisdom Shambhala style. We are not afraid to be a fool.

The result of working with the dignities is realizing Authentic Presence, which is connected with a higher knowledge suggested by the terms intuition and charisma. It is authentic because it is undistorted by ego preoccupations and present because that is the characteristic of mind as awake in the very moment. If we combine our human sense of charisma with the experience of being awake in the present moment, we would come close to the meaning of authentic presence. Or, we could imagine a kind of global vision, seeing the parts and their relationships from a holistic standpoint and, at the same, time understand how cause and effect work on even the most mundane levels of our experience,. In our own times we might be talking of a man like Mahatma Gandhi, who had these qualities of large vision and while retaining an interest in the small details. When we admire a man like Gandhi, we also recognize a special quality of the man himself, who has somehow stepped beyond ordinary human hope and fear. We could begin with the ways in which the dignities are able to deal with particular situations.

The Dignities in Everyday Life

The dignities have two aspects or qualities. They are first of all internal states of understanding. Secondly, they are a way of responding to situations in the external world. By all means, the foundation of our actions must be based on the dignity of meek. Although the dignities exist all at once, so to speak, it is meek that allows us to gain insight into what is actually happening. Meek resembles the technique for group communication called listening. But it goes much deeper because it touches levels of intuition that simply be willing to listen doesn’t touch. The first quality of meek is a sense of confidence and inquisitiveness. We don’t start from a feeling of ignorance and poverty but with a sense of richness. Nevertheless, we can’t mistake that richness for knowing all the answers. That would be arrogance. So, when something comes up we maintain a sense of friendliness, both to ourselves and to others.

Friendliness is based not so much on agreement, though it doesn’t exclude that, but on respect for our own and others basic goodness. Since we have surrendered to the situation, dropping our personal armor, we have also gone beyond aggression, which is maintained by trying to control our territory. So, we relate to the situation with perfectly open mind, without prejudice and without any agenda. We have become touchable, alive, and interacting. This posture enables others to open to us and through that communication we begin to understand the mind of others more clearly.

These, then, are the modes of action for the warrior. They provide a means and technique, or weapons in warrior language, for examining the ways in which our institutions function. They can suggest ways in which salutary changes can be accomplished.