Start Where You Are

Feeding the ghosts. So far we’ve described two of the
practices in “Four practices are the best of methods”:
accumulating merit and confessing our neurotic
crimes, or purifying our neurosis through this four-
fold process. The third practice is to feed the ghosts.
This involves relating to your unreasonableness. The
way you relate to it is by making a relationship with it.
Traditionally, you make a little torma—a little cake—
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and you offer it. Maybe you offer it during a cere-
mony, maybe you put it out each morning, but in any
case you physically offer something to the ghosts, the
negative aspects of yourself.
When Trungpa Rinpoche talked about feeding the
ghosts, he talked about unreasonableness that just
pops up out of nowhere. Out of nowhere we are un-
bearably sad. Out of nowhere we’re furious and we
want to destroy the place. He said, “Your fists are at
your wife’s eyes.” What an image! Without a warning,
unreasonableness just comes up out of nowhere—
Bang!—there it is. Frequently it comes first thing in
the morning, and then the whole day has that angry,
pissed-off feeling. It’s the same with sadness, the
same with passion.
This sudden unreasonableness that comes out of
nowhere is called a dön. It wakes you up, and you
should regard that as best, rather than try to get rid of
the problem. So, on the outer level, you give the dön
a cake. On the inner level, you see that a dön has
risen, that it has all this force, but you refrain from
blackening anybody’s eyes, from acting it out, and
you also refrain from repressing it. You take the mid-
dle way yet again and let yourself be there with the
full force of the dön. Being there has the power to pu-
rify you. That’s a description of 100 percent mindful-
ness.
Just as you accumulate merit by going beyond
hope and fear and saying, “Let it be,” the same with
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the dön; there’s some sense of “let it be.” There is
even an incantation that says, “Not only do I not want
you to go away, you can come back any time you like.
And here, have some cake.”
Personally, when I read that, I got sort of scared.
The commentary said that you invite them back be-
cause they show you when you have lost your mind-
fulness. You invite them back because they remind
you that you’ve spaced out. The döns wake you up. As
long as you are mindful, no dön can arise. But they’re
like cold germs, viruses; wherever there’s a gap—
Boom!—in they come. The dön will refuse your invi-
tation to come back as long as you’re awake and open,
but the moment you start closing off, it will accept
your invitation with pleasure and eat your cake any-
time. That’s called feeding the ghosts.
Offering to the protectors. The fourth practice is to
offer to the protectors, or ask the protectors to help
you with your practice. The protectors protect the
principle of enlightenment; they protect our inher-
ent wisdom, our inherent compassion. In thangkas—
Tibetan scroll paintings—they appear as wrathful
figures with flames coming out of them, big teeth
and claws, and necklaces of skulls. The protectors
are protecting against unkindness, against lapses of
wisdom, against harshness and petty-mindedness,
against fundamental insanity of any kind. The reason
they appear so wrathful is that they’re not going to
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buy that stuff. And who is it that’s not going to buy
that stuff? In truth, it’s your own wisdom.
Under this slogan comes the teaching on learning
to appreciate the giant No. Again, this is based on
respect for yourself, loving-kindness for yourself,
which is to say, confidence in your basic goodness.
When you start to close down and shut off, an
abruptness occurs, which is basically the giant No. It
is not authoritarian in the sense that somebody’s out
to punish you. It is inherent encouragement not to
spin off into neurotic stuff.
When anger or any other klesha arises, its basic
energy is powerful, clean, and sharp and can cut
through any neurosis. But usually we don’t stop at
that. We usually spin off into what’s been called neg-
ative negativity, which is pettiness, resentment, ag-
gression, righteous indignation. Then this protector
aspect of the mind that protects your basic wisdom
rears its flame-covered head and says No. Learning to
appreciate the giant No comes out of compassion for
yourself and is very similar to regretting, refraining,
taking refuge in the three jewels, and resolving not to
do it again.
Let’s say you’re all upset, you’re yelling at someone
and they’re yelling back, there’s a big fight going on,
you stomp out the door and slam it on your finger.
That’s the essence of the protector principle. It
wakes you up.
The outer practice is to offer to the protectors,