What Else Does the Tiger Do? An Interview with the Tiger of Meek

Seamus: Good Morning Tiger. I'm delighted you could appear for this interview. It seems a long way from your jungle to my home in Binnacle Bog. I would like to hear some stories about your everyday activities.

Tiger: Not at all, I was glad to come, but we should understand that there is no distance at all between my jungle and Binnacle Bog, which is to say, the jungle is everywhere and always, and appears whenever we reflect on it. It's a bit like the picture on a television set. Where is it when the set is turned off? Is it back at the station? Is it hidden in the set? Neither, of course, the picture exists virtually in space, and when we turn on the set, it appears. But that is a small matter and the analogy is not all that precise. So what did you want to know?

S. First of all, could you tell me something of your life, what it's like and how you become a part of our experience?

T. Well, in a way, I actually have no existence apart from your experience. I am a manifestation of how you live day to day, hour by hour, minute by minute. On the other hand, I do exist, as potential principle for ordering your experience. In that mode, I have been given to students as the "teachings of the Dignities" by Chogyam Trungpa. But these teachings, as they stand, are abstract, though in action they are concrete and real. To be understood, they have to be enacted in our lives.

S. Could you give me some examples of how you enter into people's lives?

T. Well, that's a big order and a bit misleading, since every life is different and unique. No one would embody the energy of meek in quite the same way. However, if that is understood, we could use one typical case of conflict in marriage that I have run into lately as an example.

S. This begins to sound like you have a sideline as marriage counselor. Is that legitimate?

T. No, marriage counseling generally begins with egological assumptions, that is, begins to find out "what the partners want." If they want to be together, then the counselor helps them work with their conflicts; if they want to be apart, he helps them come to that decision. From my vantage point in the Cosmic Mirror, I can, of course, watch all that happening. But no, by invoking the Dignities we are not trying to solve a problem, in fact, we start with a presumption of "no fruition."

S. I don't understand. If you are not trying to help, why get involved. I've always felt that notion of "no fruition" to be a little sneaky, even deceptive. It's like saying "well, I'll give up trying to get what I want. -- then I'll get what I want."

T. The key to understanding my role, as of all the dignities, is that our energy begins with open space. By open space, I mean space beyond this and that, beyond concepts of me and other, or in this particular case, beyond the whole history of the marriage experience, the entire dialogue of who's right and who's wrong that occupied this particular couple. Without this fundamental intuition of openness, there is no possibility of understanding what is really happening. If one sees through the continuous mental discourse, the mental models of reality that we all carry with us during our lives, then, the way to connection opens up. Sometimes it seems like magic.

S. That sounds convincing. The trouble with you tigers is that you make it all seem so neat, so simple and easy. When I think "openness," it feels so light and airy, like floating through space, but when I look at my life, there is all this debris, this chaos, much of it involved with other people who seem to complicate my life immensely.

T. Perceiving openness is mainly a matter of practice. First of all, there is meditation practice, which teaches you to begin to see through your thoughts. That is, you begin to see that the world you are creating is a bit hollow. Things are not what they seem. Then, you can begin to apply this to everyday experience when you are off the cushion. If you re-read The Path of the Warrior, you will notice that he gives very thorough instructions for looking at our everyday lives in terms of the binding power of habitual mind - what he called cocoon. Of course, as far as cocoon goes, you have all barely begun to scratch the surface. But I'll get back to that more concretely later. Where was I?

S. You were talking about the marriage dialogue.

T. Ah yes, forgive me, the teachings of openness always seems to fascinate me, it's like my ancestral home, you could say. Though in actual practice it is more like background than foreground. You see, my everyday activities are extraordinarily concrete. We are not talking about the recipe or the menu, but about the actual dinner.

S. I'd like to hear some more about this actual marriage you mentioned.

T. Well, you see, people when they are close to each other over time, get so caught up in the minutiae of everyday decisions and non-decisions, they lose track of the larger picture, including, in a very simple way, what they both want. On this occasion, a Level Two of Shambhala Training was being taught. It was Saturday morning. The participants, some fifteen people, had just finished coffee and a few bagels and were about to go into the meditation hall to begin meditation when the doorbell rang. The Director had just gone into the interview- room getting ready to go in and give meditation instruction when the coordinator knocked and entered. She told the Director that a couple was at the door, and that they wanted to say that they would be unable to attend the weekend because of some complications in their home life. The Director invited them in to talk to him (they were reluctant at first) and they sat down. At this point, he invited me to take part in the proceedings, which is to say, that he adopted the attitude of "meek" in listening to their difficulties. So you might say that I conducted the interview, so that’s how I’ll tell the story.
The gist of it all was that they had quarreled before leaving home, an argument that continued all the way to the center. As it unfolded, I could hear that it was an old argument with very solid opinions on both sides. I asked them why they couldn't attend the weekend; they replied that they had to go home and "settle the argument." I then asked a simple question, which arose out of the situation without bias to either. "When you discuss a disagreement like this do things usually get better? "No," they answered, after some hesitation, "they often get worse." "Very well," I replied, "why don't we try this? Sit and do your meditation practice for the weekend without much talking. Then we'll see what happens." Well, they did, sitting on opposites sides of the meditation hall at first, then after lunch together. By late Saturday afternoon they were holding hands. On Sunday they were both smiling.

S. That's very interesting. Were they too participating in "meek," even though they had not as yet heard of the explicit teaching?

T. Clearly so. For you see, the long period of sitting helped to empty their minds of the dialogue in which their misunderstandings were embodied. To put it another way, sitting in empty space opened each of them up to the basic goodness in the other. This goodness is indestructible, but our busy minds can shut it out as a working basis for relationship. Sitting for the weekend didn't make the conflict go away, but it made it seem much less important compared to the other very positive values in their relationship, including their love of their children and their attraction toward each other as man and woman.

S. What happened later to these people, after the weekend. Were you able to stay with them, or did they send you back to the jungle?

T. Obviously it would be simplistic to think that one weekend could remove all of the clogged arteries of understanding. They had some hard work left, but I felt that they wanted me to stay around, be available as it were, when difficulties arose. Of course, you realize, when I say calling me up or bringing me around, it isn't as if I came from somewhere else. The dignities are a part of our natural heritage. I am both part of them and separate from them all the time.

S. What about therapy? Perhaps they needed to get some help with neurotic problems.

T. I have nothing against therapy. We tigers have learned to give full credit to all the various human efforts to solve problems The point is, married couples don't know how to open themselves up to more basic energies, so they get caught in a life which is poverty stricken and miserable. One or the other is always saying "oh, oh, oh, I'm so miserable. My spouse doesn't give me anything that I truly need." This "I want" is the source of much misery, but it is really simply a function of one part of our mind that we have over identified with. The way out is to realize openness through mindfulness awareness practice. Then they will find I can always be available to them through life’s difficulties