The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 6 (30 page)

S:
It is still concerned with ego?

TR:
If it is concerned with pain and pleasure at all, it is always concerned with the ego, I’m afraid.

S:
So it is more in the realm of what you are wont to call spiritual materialism, Rinpoche?

TR:
Precisely, yes. As long as we talk in terms of greater achievement, or greater liberation, in terms of “me” achieving greater liberation, “me” experiencing greater pleasure, then the whole thing is related with that relative view, which doesn’t liberate at all. Therefore, if anything is concerned with that and this, relative situations, it is regarded as spiritual materialism because it has something to hang on to. You automatically try to destroy the handle, but at the same time, you provide another handle out of the absence of that handle.

Student:
I don’t understand the relation between bardo, or the concept of in-betweenness, and realm. When you say
chönyi bardo
, or the same of some other bardo, you’re not referring to any of the realms, are you?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Not necessarily, because you could say that all aspects of bardo have the same quality.

S:
Do you mean that all the realms are aspects of bardo?

TR:
They are all bardos, in between, because you are trapped in something. The whole idea of bondage or entrapment is that you are not there, not here. You are captivated somewhere; therefore it is bardo.

Student:
I had the opposite impression. I always had the impression that bardo referred to a gap.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes, gap. When you are born in the realm of the gods, or when you are born in the animal realm, you manage to be born in a realm by misunderstanding the gap.

S:
So is the bardo the time in between living in one realm and another, say between hell and the realm of animals?

TR:
No, not necessarily. Bardo is the realms as they are. You want to achieve absolute pleasure. At the same time, you demand that absolute pleasure because you experience pain. As the pain gets worse and worse, the pleasure becomes more demanding. So finally, you are not quite certain whether you are experiencing pain or pleasure. Then you are born in the realm of the gods, because you are completely bewildered into pleasurehood, or whatever it’s called, “godhood.”

Student:
You mentioned a bardo between death and birth. Is there a bardo between birth and death also?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes, it is called sipa bardo.

S:
So we are always in between.

TR:
You have been born and you are just about to die, or you have died and you are just about to be born. You are relating with birth—or death for that matter.

Student:
Is there a principle that creates the whole bardo experience and also the other experiences that we create?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
It comes from our living situation, life.

S:
So it is continuous, right? From birth to death, during that cycle?

TR:
I think so, yes.

S:
Is that sort of like ego being handed down?

TR:
Yes.

S:
Is that a subconsciousness being handed down?

TR:
Well, it is always a hidden wish or hidden fear which is the source of involving ourselves in continual bardo experiences.

Student:
Could you explain again what bardo is the gap between?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
A gap between two extremes.

S:
Then the bardo experience is not an experience of extremes?

TR:
In a sense it is continual experience, which also presents a meeting of the two extremes. Later we will be going into the details of the different realms, such as the realm of the gods, the realm of animals, and the realm of hell. We constantly go through these realms. We have some kind of trip going on all the time. These trips are brought about by the extreme meeting point of hope and fear. So we are constantly trapped in that product of our work, the product of our wish or desire.

Student:
Rinpoche, is the confusion between pain and pleasure that you’re talking about different from what Milarepa discusses as the nondistinction of pain and pleasure? He talks about recognizing the identical nature of the two extremes, not distinguishing between pain and pleasure.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
That seems to be an intelligent effort; but in this case, it is completely mechanical: one is uncertain whether one is experiencing pain or pleasure, and one is swept away. Because you are uncertain about pain or pleasure, therefore you are pushed and thrust into new situations automatically. Otherwise, if you are on the side of pain or the side of pleasure as it is, you cannot get into the bardo state at all, because you are in a meditative state at that moment. You regard pain as pain, pleasure as pleasure. Whereas the way we get caught into the extreme of the bardo state is that we are not quite certain whether we are actually experiencing pain as pain or whether we are experiencing pain as occupation, which means pleasure in some sense. So we are caught up in it. That is why we manage to hang on here, in this samsaric world. It is a very beautiful tactic somebody developed.

S:
What attitude should one have toward pleasure?

TR:
It doesn’t matter what attitude you have, it is what it is. Pleasure is pleasure, pain is pain. It does not matter about attitude. Attitude doesn’t play a part, particularly. Obviously you would have some intelligence in relating with your experiences. But that could hardly be called an attitude, in fact. It is just instinct.

S:
Rinpoche, how is the idea of the meditative state being the complete experience of pain as pain and pleasure as pleasure related to the statement I’ve heard that pain and pleasure are the same thing?

TR:
If you experience pain as pain in the fullest sense, then it is what it is—as much as pleasure could be. That is intelligent. You are not confused or uncertain as to what is pain and what is pleasure, but you are seeing things precisely, directly as they are. In that way, pain and pleasure are one in the realm of intelligence, realm of prajna, realm of knowledge.

S:
Rinpoche, does the opposite hold true, when you experience pleasure fully?

TR:
It is saying the same thing. True pleasure is true experience as much as true pain, for that matter. But that is not at all involved in a dream world; you are experiencing things really as they are.

Student:
Would someone who didn’t have a neurotic state of mind still be experiencing these different realms?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes, in terms of display. You cannot exist without a world of some kind to exist in. But that doesn’t mean you are confused between the two worlds.

S:
Between which two worlds?

TR:
Pain and pleasure. For instance, you are not confused about the pain of the hungry ghost realm or the pleasure of the hungry ghost realm. You just see the hungry ghost realm as what your world is, precisely and clearly.

Student:
How do you see yourself in that? Do you separate yourself at all?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
You do not separate yourself from it. You begin to see that you are part of that world entirely, fully, thoroughly. That is why you begin to see it, because if you see yourself as separate from it, then you fail to see it—you are too self-concerned, too self-conscious.

Student:
The description of the neurotic state implies oscillation, whereas the description of pain as pain, pleasure as pleasure, indicates a fixed point. We also perceive through oscillation. Does that have any relation to all this?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Relating with the world is the key point. Relating with the world could be said to be the idea of complete involvement, seeing pain as pain and pleasure as pleasure; whereas whenever there is distance between you and the world, whenever there is failure to connect, or absent-mindedness, then automatically confusion begins to crop up, because you have failed to relate with things as they are. That brings bewilderment and confusion. You begin to lose track of it—which brings the bardo experience. Then that bardo experience goes to the extreme—it becomes an absolutely extreme and rising crescendo of confusion, big pain and big pleasure. You go up and up and up, because you have lost track. It is as if you have lost your anchor and you are floating in the ocean endlessly, constantly, because you have lost contact, lost any real way of relating with things as they are.

S:
If you can hold the point where you see things as they are, what then causes the shift from one world to the next? How do you go from, say, the realm of the hungry ghosts to the realm of humans? What causes that jump?

TR:
You cannot live in one world constantly. Whether you are involved with an aggressive or a pleasurable situation in your living world, it seems that the situation demands a change, not that you make a change. It is like traveling from one place to another. The place invites you to adapt to your situation there, rather than you trying to adopt a new situation by force.

Student:
If you remain in the meditative state, do you eliminate the bardo experience?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Constantly. At the same time, you still have to relate with the living bardo potential from other people’s points of view. So you can’t reject it altogether. In other words, if you are in a meditative state constantly, you do not get into the bardo state as such, but you share the bardo experiences or environment of other people.

Student:
What state are
you
in?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Any state.

S:
If you don’t get into the bardo state as such, if you share other people’s bardo state, what state are you in?

TR:
You are in
their
state. If you are in America, you are in America. You share the American experience with Americans.

Student:
You said that when you begin searching for pleasure, pleasure and pain build up simultaneously, so you have this confusion. In what way does this happen? I’m not clear about that.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Well, partly the situation demands that process, and it is also partly the state of mind which brings it.

S:
Why do you seek more and more pleasure? Is that innate? Do you just naturally seek more and more pleasure?

TR:
You don’t necessarily search for pleasure. If your whole world is based on pain, you just try to swim through that pain. Each stroke of your hand could be said to be directed toward pleasure, but you are not getting pleasure, you are just roaming about in that particular painful realm.

Student:
Oh, so the problem is that you’re seeking to be something that you are not, rather than accepting at that moment exactly what you are.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Yes. Supposing you were starved, following the mentality of the hungry ghost realm, just swimming in this tremendous hunger. There is a possibility of satisfying your hunger, but that doesn’t seem to be your aim or object at all. Instead you are just maintaining your own hunger as it is. You try to roam about constantly and as much as possible. You may swim faster and faster, or you may try to give up on swimming and float about, but in either case you are in it already. You have managed to raise a kind of excitement onto the surface, because you regard the whole situation of being in such hunger and thirst as your occupation. You begin to develop the limitless quality of this ocean of hunger; it is constant, everywhere. If you begin to see mountains or land beyond your ocean, probably you won’t like it. Although you want to be saved, at the same time there is some irritation about that because then you would have to adapt to a new situation. You would need to get out of the ocean and climb up on the land and deal with the natives. You don’t like that at all. You would rather float. But at the same time, you don’t really want to drown in it. You would rather just exist in it, float about.

S:
Why does one seek to maintain one’s state of being?

TR:
Because that is the comfortable situation at the time.

S:
Do you mean someone can be in pain and really have a good time?

TR:
Yes. That is what is meant by pain and pleasure happening simultaneously: the security of the pain becomes pleasure.

Student:
Where is the motivation for compassion if everybody is having a good time? Why disturb them?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Why disturb them? Because fundamentally that is not a healthy place to be. I mean, you do not belong to the water, you belong to the land. That is the whole problem: if you want to help someone, that also is going to cause them pain, tremendous pain. That is precisely what it is. You don’t want to be too kind, to save them from pain. You have to take that pain for granted. It is like an operation: in order to remove the sickness, you have to cut them, you have to take things out, the illness or growth or whatever.

S:
As far as their own pleasure-pain situation is concerned, they are already happy.

TR:
They are not really happy. They are not really happy, but they have accepted their involvement as an occupation.

Student:
If you are not projecting any bardo and if you are with someone else who is likewise not projecting any particular bardo trip, is there any state which exists?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I suppose you could say clear light.

S:
That would be a true meeting of minds?