The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (36 page)

Student:
How do we relate to ourselves if we find ourselves behaving like jealous gods?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I suppose that you could relate with yourself as being willing to step out of the comfort of being in such a state. That is very, very hard to do, because you have found your style, which for a long time you were looking for. We want to become somebody, which automatically means we would like to have our own style, our own dignity. Everybody longs for that. We admire people who have character; we admire people who have a style of their own, and we want to become like them. So once you have found a style of some kind, whether it is a realm-of-gods style or asura style, it is quite a delightful situation in the beginning that at last you are
somebody.

But then, if we realize it is an asura—at that point we have developed a term for it and a frame of reference for it. We have labeled it as being that particular type of samsaric realm. So I suppose we are supposed to get the message, and be willing to step out of that comfort of creating a style of our own, and be willing to get back to the confused state where we did not have any style. It is very hard to give that up.

S:
Did you say that all six bardo states are a resource that someone following the style of any one of the six realms can draw upon at any moment in order to continue his particular style of maintenance?

TR:
No doubt, yes. That generally happens, but that is not regarded as being stuck in a realm, necessarily. You are acting on your potentials. You are trying to pull out, rather than actually being stuck in a realm. That seems to happen constantly all the time with everyone and anyone. It is not regarded as your actually being in a realm as such, but you are exploring your possible ways of defending yourself.

Student:
But how does the dream state reinforce any of the realms, because dreams have a tendency to point out what the real situation is to us, to remind us of the things that we’ve been forgetting while we were in the human realm. So in that sense, the dream state seems to me to be trying to tug you out of whatever realm you find yourself in at the moment.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, dreams relate to either something that you would like to happen in the future or something that happened to you already in the past. It may not be a particularly accurate picture at the moment, but it gives you tremendous room to venture around. The bardo of dreams is kind of the realm of the imagination rather than dreams per se—imagination and possible ideas. It is completely devoid of relating with the physical situation, but it is the idea of purely relating with the phenomenal situation. All these realms have an unreal quality in them as well. Because you are trying to hold on so tightly, so hard, because it is so real; therefore sometimes it becomes very loose and very dreamlike, mirage-like, at the same time. That is one of the characteristics of bardo states—that confusion between seriousness and looseness. And then occasionally, one has to bring oneself back to it.

Student:
Perhaps if a person is in this realm, and in a meditative state or a dream state where there is that kind of looseness, there is the possibility of communicating with that person for a split second.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, that is a very sneaky way of communicating. It could work, but at the same time, if you raise too much alarm, quite possibly they might jump back onto their solid ground and pretend they are not dreaming at all. But it is highly possible. That seems to be one of the ways the buddhas communicate with them. The buddhas of each realm communicate by using the teaching of the situation. For instance, they might be sharing the same situation at the same time—like walking on a very shaky bridge where they both have to walk carefully. So you can communicate from that.

Student:
Asuras seem so defensive.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
The asura realm in particular is very much on guard. Their ultimate fear is that this is what people do, try to get you; and they are very much on guard for that particular style.

S:
Is there a way to outsmart them?

TR:
I don’t think so. As far as asuras are concerned, they have worked everything out very methodically. And that could be said to be the same with the other realms as well. The whole thing is worked out very methodically. You may come on as though you are using the other person as a guinea pig, but the other person is not a guinea pig at all. He or she is a professional person in the six realms of the world—so he could come back at you and use
you
as a guinea pig.

S:
What about nonverbal communication?

TR:
That is also very tricky. They could also reject your vibrations, or whatever you would like to call them.

S:
It sounds very important to be on the side of such a person, rather than being in any way opposed to him.

TR:
Well, even that makes it a very suspicious thing—you may be trying to sabotage him.

Student:
Rinpoche, what would you say to the technique of intensifying the paranoia so the paranoia becomes real?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
There has to be a balance of how to deal with that. I mean, that kind of tactic in particular could only be used once. If you misuse it once, then you fail all the rest of it. So that is an expensive thing.

Student:
Rinpoche, you used the term
schizophrenic
in relation to people in the asura realm. And then you also said, in one of the answers to the questions, that such a person, in order to maintain himself, is seeking to develop a character or personality or identity. Now, I think that when psychologists talk about schizophrenia, they say that one of the schizophrenic’s qualities is that he doesn’t have a character, he doesn’t have an identity, he doesn’t know who he is, and so he doesn’t feel comfortable with himself. You are saying the schizophrenic person is seizing on his identity, and the psychologists are saying he doesn’t have an identity. It seems to be a conflict.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, in one sense, he doesn’t have an identity in the same way ordinary people have a permanent identity as such. But he does have some kind of identity, because he is a professional at his game, and whenever he realizes he doesn’t have an identity, he jumps back to his game. So he has this extremely skillful, professional kind of approach. The same thing could be said of the asura realm: fundamentally you are insecure; therefore your security is without security. That situation gives you a tremendous sense of occupation, something to do. You are kept busy at it all the time so you don’t have to think of your insecurity anymore. You are kept busy constantly playing games. But at the same time, you know
how
to play games. It is obvious to you, you do not have to think or strategize anymore at all, it just comes naturally to you, spontaneously you just do it.

S:
So the schizophrenic person has a deliberate quality about his seeking?

TR:
Yes, and an impulsive quality—which is very confident, as far as their game is concerned.

Student:
What about energy? Is there only one energy, or are there different types of energies for each realm?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, I suppose you could say there are different textures or different colors, like the different energies of the five buddha families. But all of those energies are governed by ego. Therefore the general quality of the energy is the maintenance of ego; all the effort is given to that.

Student:
Rinpoche, I’m trying to compare this with what you said about bardo in the seminar in Allenspark. There I got the impression that you hang out in one of the six realms, and when the experience characteristic of that realm becomes particularly intensified, you peak out in what you call the bardo. And at that point, where you peak out, there is the possibility of freaking out or the possibility of receiving something, catching on to something. Here I get the impression, on the other hand, that most of the time we go about maintaining ourselves and we sort of hang out in the bardo state; and only some of the time are we open and looser about it. So the bardo state, rather than being a place where you might possibly receive something, is a place where you are just stuck.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
The whole point is that you have to have a sense of extreme case. In the situation of an extreme case, there is the likelihood that you could intensify the bardo experience and switch into a nonbardo state. But that cannot really be helped by anything at all—by an external situation or by teachers or anything. You have to do it yourself. Either you do it yourself or it doesn’t happen. So it is a very manual situation—you do it by yourself. On the other hand, there is the possibility that the intensification of the bardo experience could be reduced by occasional doubt and occasional gaps, and you could come back from one realm and then maybe enter into another one, or reenter the previous one. That kind of situation goes on all the time. But they are both intense situations: one intense situation brings you back; the other intense situation frees you completely. However, at this point we have not yet touched on that particular topic and on the details of relating with the different types of wisdom of the five buddha families and the different realms associated with them—in terms of intensifying the extreme of confusion, and that confusion bringing realization.

FOUR

The Human Realm

T
ODAY WE COULD DISCUSS
the human realm, which is associated particularly with passion. The human realm is not necessarily the literal state of human life as such. There is something to keep in mind in discussing all of these states, or realms: in a sense they are all aspects of human life, which contains six types of world, or realms, within itself. The human realm in these terms is also a certain state of mind, and we tend to get stuck in this extreme as much as in that of the asuras or the realm of the gods.

So the human realm seems to have two possibilities. One is actual human life, which contains tremendously open karmic possibilities in which we could function intelligently and make choices, in which we could study and meditate, and in which we could change the karmic situation as we evolve. But the other type of human realm, the human realm as part of the six realms of the world, is an extreme case of the human realm, which is an effect of a certain extreme chaos. From that extreme chaos, related with passion, this extreme human realm begins to develop—much the same as in human life we may develop the animal realm, the hungry ghost realm, the jealous gods realm, or whatever.

The human realm in this sense is a process of grasping, extreme grasping in which a certain amount of intelligence functions. In other words, intelligence in the sense of logical, reasoning mind functions. The reasoning mind is always geared toward trying to create happiness, pleasurable situations. And there is an immediate tendency to separate the pleasure and the experiencer of the pleasure. There is also a sense of being lost, a sense of poverty, often accompanied by nostalgia, trying to re-create past pleasurable situations as well. This is a result of an extreme dualistic split: projections are regarded as the ultimate answer to bring about some kind of comfort, and therefore you feel inadequate, as the projector. You are not strong enough or magnetic enough to draw these extremes of external pleasure into your realm. So you try your best to draw them in. Often there is a tendency to be very critical, to have a critical attitude. There is a critical attitude toward other people in this human realm; you see them as imperfect. And you begin to see your own situation as one of perfecting. Achieving ideal perfection becomes a fantastic, sensational target to reach. So there is constant striving.

The human realm is associated, in terms of the buddha families, with the padma family mentality of magnetizing. It is a selective magnetizing in which if you are to magnetize, you have to have discriminating vision: you want to magnetize the best qualities, the highest or most pleasurable situations, the most sophisticated and most civilized. That style of magnetizing is quite different from the magnetizing process involved in the asura realm, which, again, is connected with jealousy. In the asura realm magnetizing is very blind; it is not as selective and intelligent as that of the human realm. The human realm altogether contains so much selection, and also the rejection of certain things as not your style. There is a tremendous sense that you have your own ideology and you have your own style and you magnetize situations in order to enrich your basic being. That way of magnetizing has to be precise. So in this case, the human realm seems to be extremely selective and fussy. You have to have the right balance of everything.

The human realm is also accompanied by a comparative intellectual understanding of others. On the one hand, others may have your style. On the other hand, other people may not meet your taste, your style, so they could be criticized, condemned. Another possibility is that they might meet your style, and in fact be much better at your style, sort of ideal, superior to you. You wish to be one of those people who are much more intelligent than you and have very refined taste. They are leading pleasurable lives or getting the right things you would like to have, but which they actually managed to do. This could happen either in terms of historical persons, which could be said to be mythical persons at that point, or in regard to your contemporaries. You have observed them, you have seen them, you have been with them, and you are highly impressed by those who have perfected things intellectually, convincingly, from a practical point of view. You are also envious. They have gotten everything together and you would like to be one of them. This could be said to be like the jealous god mentality, in general point of view, but it is not quite so. It has the quality of grasping; this mentality is based on grasping, or trying to draw others into yourself. So it is more than just envy, it is more than jealousy. It is ambitious jealousy, or you could say it is realistic jealousy. You do not just become jealous of a person, but you would like to compete with them. So it is a very practical jealousy, an extremely ambitious kind of jealousy.