The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (44 page)

Student:
Rinpoche, to what use can we put the things that we have learned in this seminar?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
What do you think? Do you have any idea?

S:
I’ve thought of them as giving a sort of a matrix by which we can be aware of our own patterns of behavior.

TR:
Yes. Well, it is the same as the presentation of the four noble truths. Suffering should be realized; the origin of suffering should be overcome; the cessation of suffering should be attained; and the path should be seen as truth. It is the same kind of thing. You see, one of the problems or one of necessities of hearing the teaching is that we generally have a confused picture, completely unmethodical and chaotic. We can’t make heads or tails of what is actually happening, what is the process, or what is the situation. But in this case, we are putting that confusion into a pattern. Confused nature has a pattern. It is methodically chaotic.

So this seems to be a way of seeing those patterns as they are. It seems to be a necessity of learning that you begin to have a sense of geography, a road map of some kind, so that you can relate with such patterns. That brings more solidity and confidence. So you don’t have to look painfully for some kind of stepping-stone; instead, a stepping-stone presents itself in your life. You have the confidence to start on the first thing that is available within your experience—if you know the geography or road map of developmental psychological structures.

Student:
Rinpoche, it seems that it is the energy of the situation that determines the realm of existence. Is it the same order of energy that determines the bardo state?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think so. You see, the bardo states are the constituents of the realms, so they all have to function within some basic space or energy.

Student:
Are there predominant bardo experiences for each of the realms?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, we could look at it that way, as we did in the Allenspark seminar on the six realms. That is another way of looking at the whole situation, seeing each state of bardo as being connected with a different realm. But at the same time, each realm should have all the bardo experiences. In the human realm, for instance, in our lives as human beings, we have the experience of all six bardos happening to us all of the time. And the other realms could be seen in the same way. From this perspective, no particular extreme, or bardo, is related with any particular realm, necessarily. But each realm contains birth, death, spaciousness, watching and observing yourself, having a conclusion of yourself.

S:
How could all six bardos be going on at the same time?

TR:
The reason the six bardos could function simultaneously is because within these six types of bardo experience, the constituents, or the styles, are always the same.

Student:
In the meditative state there are two kinds of intelligence: one is crude, which is the watcher; the other is more subtle, a perceiving kind of intelligence. Is that watching, or feedback, basically a healthy thing?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
None of the six bardos or realms are being evaluated as unhealthy or healthy. We are just purely presenting a picture of them as they are, their general makeup. For instance, we are not discussing whether having a head is a healthy thing or having arms is a healthy thing.

S:
There’s no sense in evaluating?

TR:
No. It is a neutral situation, and basically mechanical. Maybe it is misleading to call samten bardo meditation, the meditative state. It isn’t meditation in the sense of the practice of sitting meditation or awareness practice or the cultivation of jhana states. It is a natural function.

S:
But when you refer to self-consciousness, I usually have the feeling that it is not such a good or healthy thing to always be so self-conscious.

TR:
Well, you see, the self-consciousness we are talking about is quite different from the watcher in the actual practice of meditation. It is related with the basic mechanism which perceives and which works things out. It is that which makes you aware that you are sitting and meditating. In a very, very minute and very subtle way, you have some understanding that you are actually meditating, whether crude self-consciousness applies or not. Even if you transcend crude self-consciousness, you still have the sense that you have overcome the crude self-consciousness; that still goes on. That is the basic perceiver. It is a mechanically necessary situation.

Student:
You spoke at times about stepping out of the bardo states, and about doubt being the point at which you would just step out. Are any of these six states connected with that sense of doubt?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
All of them have to exist in some kind of basic space. So all of them have equal possibilities of stepping out of intense bardo experience. They each exist in a particular fashion, a particular form—but these forms could exist only in relation to space.

S:
What is space?

TR:
Space is where they could be accommodated; it is the basic environment where these six types of bardo could exist. The very idea of the existence of such experiences automatically brings up the natural function of the space where they could exist as well.

Student:
Does the clear light that you talked about exist in space?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
The experience of clear light exists in space, and when clear light ceases to become an
experience
, then that itself
is
space. When we talk about the bardo of clear light, it is still bardo, because it is experienced as bardo. Space has been perceived as space, seen as space.

Student:
Can somebody who is in the realm of hell actually say they are? Can they make that statement? Or in any realm?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think so, definitely, yes. That is where you are. You have an intense experience going on. You cannot just miss that altogether; it exists very solidly there.

Student:
Rinpoche, what’s the big difference between me and a tulku?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
You are one.
Tulku
means a person who has been reborn.
Tul
means “manifestation,”
ku
means “body”; so
tulku
means “body of manifestation.” Everybody is a tulku.

S:
In the appendix of your book
Born in Tibet
, you describe the birth and death process of the tulku as not the same as for the ordinary persons.

TR:
Well, I suppose that is
a
tulku as opposed to
the
tulku.

S:
What do you mean when you talk about
a
tulku?

TR:
That’s yourself.

S:
I’m talking about tulkus in the sense that, for instance, people say the Dalai Lama is supposed to be a manifestation of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. In other words, there is a force operating other than the karmic force.

TR:
Those things are highly colored by the wishful thinking of the congregate. It doesn’t mean that the Dalai Lama is the one and only tulku of Avalokiteshvara. His character, his basic makeup, contains that compassionate quality.

S:
Is that by accident or by will?

TR:
It seems to be both. If you try to create something by will, you have to use accidents as a way of channeling yourself.

S:
Considering the various principles, you could, for instance, identify with the bodhisattva of compassion. Is that so?

TR:
I suppose so, yes. Each person has his or her own particular buddha family. And obviously somebody could decide to proclaim their relationship with their buddha nature, that they are what they are. Somebody could even became Avalokiteshvara.

Student:
I’m not really clear about the bardo states. Did I understand you to say that the bardo states coexist simultaneously when a realm is present?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That’s right, yes, as the mechanics or the context of the realms. In order to exist you have to be born, you have to die, you have to have dreams, all kind of things. So that is what it is. And in this particular context of bardo, the highlights of one’s experience are divided into six types.

S:
Should I not be satisfied with my experience until I am able to realize that these coexist and that my feeling of one succeeding the other is just a partial view?

TR:
They automatically present themselves to you, you can’t miss them. They are such powerful experiences in every way: birth and death are very obvious.

S:
Yes, but sequentially, not coexisting.

TR:
Not necessarily. They all exist simultaneously in the sense that birth means death—and it also means dream, and clear light, and the bardo of meditation. If you make a pot, for instance, you have to have clay, you have to have water, you have to have heat. So those elements exist simultaneously within one pot. It is the same kind of thing.

Student:
Where did this information about the bardos and the realms come from? Was it brought to Tibet by Padmasambhava and Tilopa?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Historically, the basic idea developed out of the Pure Land school in Tibetan Buddhism, which was particularly strong in the study of death and bardo experiences.

S:
Is that the devotional school?

TR:
Not in the popular sense that it exists today in Japan. Instead it is the idea of studying your death. Amitabha’s realm is regarded as a way of relating to your after-death experience in terms of limitlessness—
Amitabha
means “limitless light.” Many sutras of Amitabha talk about the death experience being connected with the living experience as well. In addition to the Pure Land teachings on death, there are also tantric expositions of hallucinations and mental objects becoming overwhelming in life, as in the visions of the bardo experience described in the
Tibetan Book of the Dead.
In these two teachings—the Pure Land school and certain tantric texts—the experience of the living world is seen as a pattern of solid, colorful situations. What we are discussing seems to be an amalgamation of those two principles working together, which was presented particularly by Padmasambhava. These teachings are also related with the exposition of the twelve nidanas, the twelvefold causation of the samsaric chain reaction, the process of samsaric development. So it is a further amalgamation. In a sense you could say it is an amalgamation of the abhidharma experience of psychological patterns and the mystical experience of tantric awareness of deities, which are seen as types of emotions, or of human ego mentalities. Death is seen as being birth; after-death is the same thing as life. You live in the birth-death process constantly. That is the experience of the Amitabha sutras, which are an amalgamation of all these put together and which developed this particular formula.

It seems that these principles were in the teaching already when Buddhism developed in Tibet, but they were brought forth in particular by a teacher called Karma Lingpa, who lived around about Gampopa’s time. He introduced in particular how to relate with the dying person in terms of the living person. I think Karma Lingpa was probably the instigator, or the one person who brought into living form the practice of the teachings of bardo.

Student:
I have two questions: one is, why do you always arrive late? Is there any particular reason?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I arrive late!

S:
Thank you. The second question is, whenever you make any statement, you stay it
seems
that this is so, but even then, the way you say it has such an air of definiteness about it. Why do you use that particular prefix?

TR:
Well, it seems that what is presented is more like a supposition, because we can’t agree on any one particular thing very solidly. If there are sixty people in the audience, they will have sixty types of experiences. So you can’t make things too definite. And again, conclusions should come from individuals. It could be said to be a possible attempt to present the case without trying to preach.

Student:
Do you think that these same ideas or similar ideas to those you have elucidated during this seminar can be found in Western traditions? And particularly, do you think that recent Western psychology can throw more light on it? Would it be useful to try to work with the two together?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
It is quite possible that these different realms have definite psychotic qualities. For instance, the realm of hell is claustrophobic, and the asura realm could be said to be schizophrenic, and the realm of the gods could be said to be religious maniacs. All kinds of things could be said about it, and I’m sure that some day it would be interesting to tie them all together in that way.

S:
But most Western psychology places a very strong emphasis on the early years of life, say from birth to the age of four or five, as opposed to perhaps the idea of karma or anything like that. I haven’t heard you talk too much about that formative period in a person’s life. Is there a conflict there, would you say?

TR:
I think there seems to be a problem there, if you purely study the case history. “Because you have had a case history of unfortunate situations, therefore you experience pain now”—that seems to be an attempt to make the study of psychological states extremely scientific. It seems to be a form of protection psychologists developed, which they don’t necessarily have to do. And generally, that kind of psychological analysis based on case history is unhealthy, because you don’t feel the openness or the spaciousness of the present or the future. You feel you are trapped forever and that it is a completely hopeless situation. So I think there tends to be a conflict with that approach, which is so pastoriented.