The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (38 page)

Student:
It sounds as if the human realm is the only realm we talked about.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That is why it has been said that the human realm is the land of karma. It has a kind of mentality or intelligence which the other realms do not possess. Either they are too intelligent, like the realm of the gods and the asura realm, which are highly stuck, completely involved with their own scene; or else they are like the animal and the hungry ghost realms, in which things are very down, oppressive, and there is no chance of looking at it. So the human realm is the most painful and irritating realm. Therefore, it is more fertile.

Student:
Is the doubt that you feel in the human realm the doubt that you can ever achieve your ideal? Is this the doubt that you are talking about? I’m not sure about the doubt that takes you out of the human realm.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
It is doubt as to whether your occupation is valid or not, whether it is going to help you or harm you, and also doubt as to who is putting this into practice. The first doubt is doubt of the goal, the effort, or the ambition; you are uncertain whether your ambition to put things into practice is the right one or not. The second doubt is the doubt as to who is actually putting this into practice. You are beginning to develop a sense of uncertainty as to the existence of ego or not. That kind of doubt is a secondary one. It is a very profound one, that second type of doubt.

Student:
In the classification system we had, as we travel through the bardos, we established that leaving one and entering another is the spot to leave that game. On another level, you also said that there is this birth-death continuum. I’m wondering, does that have spaces in it as well, in going from a dream state to a birth state or something like that? I’m wondering how they intersect.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
These are the styles of our daily habitual pattern. For instance, in our living situation we sleep and we get up and we walk and we wash and we eat food. The situation of our existing in a realm is based on a dreamlike quality, birth, death, and gaps of all kinds.

S:
So there are gaps between those?

TR:
Yes, there are gaps between one occupation and another occupation.

S:
So in the passage between one and the other, there are also points where we can get a flash of the whole situation.

TR:
Until the intensity becomes overwhelming. The intensity becomes overwhelming, and there is a sense of irritating space where you feel you have to get on to the next one. That could possibly be a problem. Otherwise, there are obvious gaps. But those obvious gaps could become irritating, so much so that we immediately have to latch on to another gap, another topic, so to speak.

S:
That’s the problem with all spaces.

TR:
Yes, yes.

Student:
You said that the other realms happen simultaneously in the human realm. Does that mean that during each moment all the realms are happening at the same time, or are they independent?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
It could be said that they happen in all kinds of ways, either simultaneously or in an intensified situation of one realm at a time. That depends on how much you collect different means to maintain your ego. If you have to intensify your jealousy as well as intensifying your grasp at the same time, you are in both realms, the human realm as well as the realm of the jealous gods. And if you find that is not efficient enough, sufficient enough, then you pick up other realms to help as auxiliary ways of maintaining your ego. So that could also happen. I mean, there is really no regulation of any kind. It is not a fixed thing, it could happen in all kinds of ways.

S:
Are they present together or consecutively?

TR:
Both.

Student: Rinpoche, if a young child and his parents fall into different realms, is he hopelessly pulled into their realm, so in a sense he reflects back to you what realm you as a parent might be in?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
It depends on how much the child has developed a sense of himself as an independent concept. I mean, up to that point, it is possible to be pulled in in that way. Your pet animals, for instance, could be pulled into the same scene as well. That is exactly what happens when you have a national leader who is in one of the realms—the whole nation becomes part of that realm.

Student:
Do all of the realms develop out of each other and have a common root?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
The one common root is the bewilderment of ego, uncertainty. You feel you are losing ground unless you do something, so the obvious next move is to try to get into one of those realms.

Student:
Rinpoche, you said that the six realms can contain the bardo state as well as the gap? Is that gap the same as dharmadhatu?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes. Dharmadhatu seems to be the instigator of all the problems. At the same time, it provides the basic space for all of them as well as for the enlightened state. It is all-pervading; that is why it is all-pervading.

Student:
Rinpoche, you spoke of this realm as being less inherently prideful than some of the others. Yet it seems to be extremely critical, and we are generally negative toward the majority of people around us in the human realm. Can you explain that problem a little further? You said that someone in the human realm is generally very critical of everyone who doesn’t seem to match his or her style; and there are a smaller number of people who seem extremely attractive and whom one would like to magnetize. Yet you say that this realm is less involved with pride than the others.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
There is less pride in the sense of thinking you have found a definite occupation. For instance, in the case of the realm of the gods, you can dwell on your sense of absorption; and in the case of the asuras, you also have a sense of occupation, you are living on jealousy. It seems that the human realm hasn’t found a fixed, definite occupation, except trying to magnetize whatever is available around you. But that is a very, very scattered situation. The situations around you are very unpredictable. They just present themselves, and you try to get hold of them, but at the same time they go on constantly. So your mind is constantly shifting between expectations of the future and memories of the past. That creates projections. So you haven’t found a really definite occupation as such. That is why particularly the human realm has the possibility of receiving a teacher and being able to hear the teachings. Because you are not fixed on definite solid ground, you do not become deaf and dumb like the other realms. In a sense, it is a more open situation.

Student:
Is the clear light state a desirable state to be in, in the human realm?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
It depends on what you mean by desirable. It is not a particularly comfortable situation in the ordinary sense, but it is definitely a non-ego state. The clear light experience begins with deprivation: you have lost your occupation. A certain amount of fear begins because you do not have anything to hang on to. It is complete all-pervading space, everywhere, irritating.

S:
So that is how it differs from, let’s say, the gap—it has an irritating quality to it?

TR:
Right, yes, precisely. It is the irritating quality of the gap. You have seen the clear light state, but you are not in it properly. You just perceive a sense of clear light, rather than being in it. So clear light is the sense of desolation of complete open space. You have nothing to hang on to. Therefore, your automatic reaction, instead of getting into it, is to try to latch on to another thing that you can hang on to, which is one of the realms.

Student:
You said there was a choice in the human realm; but in the Allenspark bardo seminar you proved that there was no choice.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That is saying the same thing in a sense. There is no real choice; you have to accept the given situation. But if you accept the given situation, then that could be said to be a choice: because you have accepted the choicelessness of that moment, you can get on to the next situation. It is up to you whether you get into it or not.

S:
How is that particular to the human realm?

TR:
Because the human realm has less sense of fixed occupation. It is uncertain, extremely uncertain, and filled with all kinds of anxieties, possible failures, possibilities of all kinds.

Student:
If you have a sense of the clear light experience, how do you go from that point to dwelling in the clear light instead of running away from it?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, you see, that is the thing: you cannot dwell on clear light. That is what I mean by losing your handle, something to hang on to. Usually when you try to get into some psychological state, you could dwell on it, you could keep it up. But in terms of clear light experience, there is nothing to dwell on—which is an extremely foreign idea to the ego. The whole idea is that if you would like to get into that state, you have to give up all hope of getting somewhere or attaining something. You have to give up hopes and fears of all kinds.

S:
If you got to the point where you gave up all hope of getting away from the sense of clear light, would that be the same thing as giving it up?

TR:
That is where clear light becomes part of you. If you disown the clear light, you become part of it.

Student:
But there is a separation, or a difference, between clear light and the bodhisattva’s state. The clear light is still a bardo state, but you described the bodhisattva’s state of giving up as a desirelessness and nongrasping.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, the style of the bodhisattva path is the same, but the clear light experience is a very concentrated state. There is automatically something vivid and threatening. In the case of the bodhisattva ideal of giving up attaining enlightenment, it is more giving up as a path rather than as the full experience.

S:
So in the clear light state there is still something to be irritated? You are still going in there with something?

TR:
At the beginning, yes. You see, in order to merge two into one, you have to have two to begin with, as compared with one. Then the second one ceases to exist as an independent entity, you get into oneness. So you have to have two things happening in order to become one.

S:
If that goes all the way, then there’s only one?

TR:
There is only one, yes—which is that you have nothing to hang on to. In the case of bodhisattva experience, there is still something to hang on to—which is the occupation of the bodhisattva. Bodhisattva activity is spontaneous action without purpose, without any idea of attaining enlightenment—but it is still an expression of duality. It is an occupation with no goal, no attitude.

S:
You can have a goalless occupation?

TR:
You could, yes. That is a very healthy situation for the bodhisattva; he or she does not experience any disappointment anymore.

S:
But by definition, the bodhisattva is one who vows to renounce nirvana until all sentient beings are enlightened.

TR:
That’s right, yes.

S:
That is not a goal?

TR:
No, because all sentient beings are limitless.

Student:
Rinpoche, you described the embryonic situation leading to the breakdown of the realm of the gods as hope becoming fear and fear becoming hope; and in the asuras, the question beginning to become, “Who’s defending whom?” What is the direction of the breakdown of the human realm and the possibility of coming to the gap?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I suppose it is the repetitiousness of familiar situations being re-created constantly. At some stage you begin to lose heart and the whole thing becomes too familiar, including your games of maintaining yourself. It becomes too repetitious. That automatically invites depression as well, in the human realm. So it is sort of like familiarity breeding contempt.

Student:
Does the bodhisattva path ever cease to be an occupation?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes, and at that point, the bodhisattva becomes part of the occupation. His action becomes part of the occupation—his whole being. He doesn’t have to occupy himself with anything at all. He just does it.

Student:
Rinpoche, you spoke about the accommodation of change. Would that have to be the practice of letting go of emotions?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think so, yes.

S:
And there is the possibility of change to the degree that one is able to give up?

TR:
It is not a question of giving up, but it is a question of seeing beyond; it is a question of seeing that there is no direction anymore, rather than that there is no direction. The one who experiences direction does not have any interest anymore, so that kind of direction is redundant.

Student:
Rinpoche, I’m not exactly clear on the clear light and the bodhisattva. When you attain the clear light state, do you naturally become a bodhisattva?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Clear light seems to be the meditative state of a bodhisattva, and the bodhisattva’s idea of giving up is the path, or the practice, of a bodhisattva. You see, meditative experience could be said to be clear light; it does not have any aim, object, or goal, because you become part of the clear light. But that does not become the permanent experience of bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas flash back on the clear light constantly, but they still have to occupy themselves with something.

S:
So the clear light is one aspect of the bodhisattva’s being?