The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (17 page)

S:
You mean like a woman trying to give birth and keep the baby at the same time?

TR:
Exactly. Yes. It is so action-conscious.

S:
Is it a sense of having too much energy?

TR:
Too much energy, yes, because the ground for this particular bardo of birth and dwelling is the realm of the asuras. The whole environment of the jealous god realm is very much action-conscious, all the time rushing. But you get more than that action at the asura level, you get a peak experience: you have to push yourself into some particular peak experience, and you would like to hold on to that, grasp it.

Student:
If you see somebody going crazy, is there anything you can do, or should you just leave them alone? They might be destroying themselves or trying to destroy others.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
You can do a great deal. But to start with, it is better not to do anything at all. It is better not to try to use any system or psychological school or concept—Freudian, Jungian, Buddhist, Christian, or whatever. You see, one problem is that when we come across somebody who is absolutely mad, our immediate response is to try to do something with them, rather than trying to understand the basic ground. So you have to allow yourself space and not allow the situation to be completely controlled by them. You should allow space and not associate with any category of philosophical or psychological school.

You should not analyze at all—that’s the last thing you would like to do. That’s the source of what’s been wrong in the past. Without trying to fit things into pigeonholes of that category or this category, but with an open mind, you can relate with the situation of the moment—the person, the background of the person, as well as
your
own state of mind, whether that situation is your imagination or whether it actually exists independent of your imagination.

From that level, once you get a clear perception of the situation, then you can proceed to relate with the person. You can do a great deal, because generally madness is the ultimate concept of frustration, and frustration needs to work, or communicate, with some kind of external situation. Even though the person who is in a state of madness appears to be completely, absolutely incommunicative, absolutely going wild—at the same time, the wildness depends on the external situation, or the internal situation of mind being sparked up by the external situation. So nothing could be said to be completely impersonal. In other words, the point is not to relate with that person as an impersonal thing, but as something still living and continuing. In that way you will be able to relate with the person and go along with the situation.

Another important point is not to be either too compassionate and gentle or too aggressive. You should be aware of the “idiot compassion” aspect of being too kind, and at the same time, you should be aware of laying your trip on the other person. It is an individual matter and you should work along with it. These little details can’t be generalized; they depend on the individual situation. But you can do great deal to help. There is a moment when you should let the person be what they are, and there also will be a moment when you shouldn’t let them be what they are. That is individual inspiration, how you relate with that person. It also depends on how much space you allowed at the beginning, that you didn’t rush in immediately.

S:
I saw somebody who wanted to stick their hand in a fire to prove that they could withstand pain, and it was a thing for me to watch their hand swell up like a marshmallow. Then I had to say, “No, you can’t do that.”

TR:
Well, you use your basic common sense. Actually, there is a particular mentality involved when you are dealing with people like that: the whole thing is regarded as a game. You analyze the person’s every activity and appreciate its symbolic quality, and you let them do what they like. But completely letting the person do what they like is somehow too self-indulgent. One should use some common sense in the process, definitely. In other words, one should not expect any miracles. If a person says he can’t feel heat and his hand is invincible, that person is trying to imagine himself as more than he is. Quite possibly he would like to become what he imagines he should be rather than what he is, and one should realize that situation. The earth-grounding quality is very important.

Student:
How can you respond when a maniac attacks you?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
You can stop it, generally speaking. But you have to deal with it individually, whether the person is attacking in order to get some reaction from you or because he would like to release himself. It depends on the situation.

S:
Sometimes they attack without knowing why they attack, because they are in a crisis. In this case, you can’t say you respond according to what the person wants, because you don’t know. Even the person doesn’t know what he wants.

TR:
It seems that often you have some knowledge of the person as the person is, in any case, unless it’s somebody you just met that very moment on the street. If the person is a friend, then there will be some idea of that person’s state of mind—not necessarily just that person as insane, but his aspects of sanity as well and his particular way of handling himself in terms of sanity.

S:
No, but this is a case where my friend has to go to the hospital. She’s completely out of herself—she can awake in the middle of the night and do anything, and if she doesn’t go to the hospital she might kill herself.

TR:
Quite unlikely.

S:
How can you deal with that?

TR:
You can deal with the given situation. If you are her friend, then you must have some understanding of her—not necessarily from the technical point of view of a psychiatrist, but in terms of being able to deal with her particular aspects and go along with them. You
can
deal with it, of course. It is exactly an aspect of the normality of the person—so you go along with
that.

S:
But then sometimes you have to use violence.

TR:
Sure, you can. That also depends on the situation. I don’t mean to say that you have to be completely gentle all the time—that’s another weak point, trying to be too kind. In fact, a person needs reminders, shaking back—violence, in this case. So violence can be a reminder of sanity—presuming, of course, that you who are going to work with her are yourself sane. One has to use a sane kind of violence, not insane violence.

Student:
What happens if you’re the one who’s really feeling crazy, if you’re the person who feels out of control?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
You don’t purely have to live in your dream world, dealing with your imagination and your neurosis by yourself. You have something else to relate with—the actual physical world outside. And if you are going too far, your physical world will act as a reminder to you. That’s a very important point: the only way to deal with yourself is through your relationship with the actual physical world outside. Therefore, the body is very important in this case, in human life.

S:
Sometimes you begin seeing things in the physical world that aren’t there, hallucinations.

TR:
That means that you are not seeing the physical world as it is, completely. One should take a second look.

Student:
What is openness?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Openness is without paranoia, I suppose, to begin with. You don’t have to put up barriers or a boundary to your territory: in your territory, others are welcome as well. That doesn’t mean that a person has to be absolutely polite, diplomatic, just acting. It is a genuine welcoming. Your territory is not defended territory but it’s open territory—anyone can walk into it. By doing that, automatically the other person will be able to walk into it without putting out any territory of his own.

Student:
Is bardo experience possible in the awakened state?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
In the awakened state there will be the experience of the essence of the bardo, which is the constant act of compassion. A continual loosening process, either in terms of the other person or yourself, is taking place all the time.

Student:
Could you speak further on the difference between surrender to the guru and a life insurance policy?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
An insurance policy automatically talks of what could go wrong and how you can guard against it. An insurance policy often talks about being a guardian, in other words, sort of exorcising the danger. In the case of surrendering to the guru, the emphasis is not so much on the danger aspect, but that the danger could be transmuted into creative relationships. Everything that comes up in the pattern is a continual creative process. Both negative and positive could be used as stepping-stones on the path, which the guru could point out to you as long as you don’t try to hide from the guru. That’s the ultimate meaning of surrendering, surrendering all aspects of yourself to the guru. And then you learn from that.

Student:
It seems to me that there is a boundary between the generosity of openness and self-defense. Sometimes you can’t be generous without harming either yourself or both yourself and the other person.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
You see, the general idea is that if you open yourself to what the given situation is, then you see its completely naked quality. You don’t have to put up a defensive mechanism anymore, because you see through it and you know exactly what to do. You just deal with things, rather than defending yourself.

S:
But then the feeling might be that you have to refuse somebody.

TR:
Sure, yes. Openness doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to make yourself available to the other person all the time. Openness is knowing the situation—if it’s healthy and helpful to the other person to involve yourself with them, or if it is more healthy not to involve yourself, if showing this kind of commitment is not healthy for the other person. It works both ways. Openness doesn’t mean you have to take everything in at all; you have a right to reject or accept—but when you reject you don’t close
yourself
, you reject the situation.

S:
But maybe the other person doesn’t want to reject the situation.

TR:
Whether you accept or reject it depends on whether it’s a healthy situation for the other person or not; it’s not purely what they want. Openness doesn’t mean that you are doing purely what the other person wants. Their wantingness may not be particularly accurate. They may have all sorts of ulterior motives and neurotic aspects to their desire, and often it’s not recommended to encourage that. So you just work along with what’s valuable there.

FIVE

The Bardo of Illusory Body

W
E HAVE BEEN TALKING
about bardo at a very personal, as well as a more general, experiential level. The third bardo, the illusory body bardo, is extremely experiential and particularly personal. The illusory body bardo, or body of illusion, starts from the river of passion and desire of the human realm. Such passion is very intimate. Everything is experienced purely at the naked flesh level—as though our clothing, masks, and skin had been peeled off. And this very personal, sensitive, and touchy aspect continues with our state of being all the time. We react to situations emotionally, and these emotions are so sharp and penetrating that we can’t bear to see them.

It is very sharp. But at the same time, because of that experience of sharpness and because the intimacy of desire and emotions is so intense; automatically, of course, we put on the natural device of masks, skin, and clothing. That is the problem. The minute we begin to put on masks or clothing, we have second thoughts. After all, we
do
like to experience these passions and emotions in their naked quality—but at the same time, it seems to be more manageable, pleasurable, to put some masks or clothing over them. There’s that kind of ambiguity. In other words, we are not quite certain where we are at. On the one hand, we want to indulge, to dive into this experience completely. On the other hand, it is too embarrassing, even to ourselves, to do that. Having some kind of mask is good, from that point of view. That kind of uncertainty is an ongoing problem in life.

In talking about the human realm, in connection with the bardo of illusory body, a lot of problems and conflicts come from preconceptions and expectations. We have expectations of achievement, expectations of fulfillment. We remember that driving force, the energetic and speedy experience of the world of the asuras, the jealous gods. There’s the nostalgic quality of wishing to go back to that level, where everything happened so efficiently. But in the case of the human realm, nothing happens very efficiently. We would like to imagine something before we get into it, and then we would like to create situations out of our imagination. We push that imaginary home, that imaginary convenience or luxury. We try to re-create them, to produce them physically as actual situations of now. The problem is that we are not able to achieve that, which brings us frustration.

Another factor involved with the human realm is choice. Choice is based on irritation. Without irritation there wouldn’t be any choice but a choice between one particular category and another. In the human realm, for instance, there is a choice between the personal experience of analyzing oneself, or intellectualizing oneself, and the personal experience of instinct. Depending on a person’s situation, one will automatically tend to pick one of those two. We may feel uncertain unless there’s an explanation or analysis. Or else, in a situation based on instinct, analyzing it causes the experience to become uninspiring. Analysis doesn’t allow any room for inspiration; one would like to have a pure state of passion.