I was invited to teach in a situation with the
Sawang, Trungpa Rinpoche’s eldest son, in which it
wasn’t exactly clear what my status was. Sometimes I
was treated as a big deal who should come in through
a special door and sit in a special seat. Then I’d think,
“Okay, I’m a big deal.” I’d start running with that idea
and come up with big-deal notions about how things
should be, and then I’d get the messages back, “Oh,
no, no, no. You should just sit on the floor and mix
with everybody and be one of the crowd.” Okay. So
now the message was that I should just be ordinary,
not set myself up or be the teacher. But as soon as I
was getting comfortable with being humble, I would
be asked to do some special something or other that
only big deals did. This was a painful experience be-
cause I was always being insulted and humiliated by
my own expectations. As soon as I was sure how it
should be, so I could feel secure, I would get a mes-
sage that it should be the other way.
Finally I said to the Sawang, “This is really hurting.
I just don’t know who I’m supposed to be,” and he
said, “Well, you have to learn to be big and small at
the same time.” I think that’s the point. We can al-
ways get comfortable being either big or small, either
right or wrong.
Although we think that wrong is bad, if we get into
the habit of thinking that we are wrong, that can be
quite comfortable too. Any ground will do; we just
want to be able to get our ground, either as a loser or
The Big Squeeze 177