The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Glimpses of Space; Orderly Chaos; Secret Beyond Thought; The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Commentary; Transcending Madness; Selected Writings [NOOK Book]

From
Chapter
2:
The
Six
Realms
of Being

Generally
there is

the
basic space to operate, in terms of creative process, whether you are confused
or whether you are awake. That basic space acts as the fundamental ground for
the idea of bardo. Many of you may also have heard about the development of
ego, which is exactly the same pattern as the operation of bardo. The
experience of bardo is also operating on the basis of that evolution of ego.
But the discovery of sudden glimpse, or the experience of bardo, is a momentary
thing, impermanent. So fundamentally we might say that the teaching of bardo is
closer to the concept of impermanence.

Bardo
is that sudden glimpse of experience which is constantly developing. We try to
hold on to it, and the moment we try to hold on to it, it leaves us, because of
the very fact that we are trying to hold on to it, which is trying to give
birth to it. You see something happen and you would like to give birth to it.
You would like to start properly in terms of giving birth, but once you begin
to prepare this birth, you realize you can't give birth anymore. You lost your
child already by trying officially to adopt it. That is the kind of bardo
experience which happens in everyday life. It is operating in terms of space as
well as in terms of ego.

Bardo
is generally associated with samsaric mind, not necessarily with the awakened
state of being. There is a background of bardo experience, which is like a
river. A river does not belong to the other shore or to this shore; it is just
a river, a no-man's-land. Such a no-man's-land, or river, has different
characteristics: it may be a turbulent river or a gently flowing river. There
are different categories and types of rivers—our basic situation, where we are
at, our present psychological state of being—which make the bardo experience
more outstanding. If there is an impressive little island, by being in the
middle of a turbulent river, it

becomes
more outstanding. An island in the middle of a gently flowing river is also
more impressive and outstanding. At the same time, the shape and condition of
the island itself will be completely different, depending on the river and the
background. Therefore it seems necessary to go through these patterns, which
are called the six types of world: the world of the gods, the world of the
jealous gods, the world of human beings, the world of animals, the world of
hungry ghosts, and the world of hell. Before we get into the bardo experience,
it is very important to know these particular types of worlds. They are not
purely mythical stories or concepts of heaven and hell; they are also
psychological pictures of heaven and hell and all the rest.

We
could begin with heaven. The notion of heaven is a state of mind which is
almost meditative. Heavenly psychology is based on a state of absorption in
something, or spiritual materialism. It is complete absorption, which
automatically, of course means indulging ourselves in a particular pleasurable
situation—not necessarily material pleasure, but more likely spiritual
pleasure within the realm of ego. It's like the notion of the four jhana
states. Traditionally, the thirty-three god realms are based on different
degrees of jhana states, up to the point of a completely formless jhana state
containing both experiencer and experiencing. But if there is an experiencer
and also an experience, then that experience must be either pleasurable or
painful—nothing else could exist beyond those limits. It could be an extremely
sophisticated experience, seemingly transcending pain and pleasure, but there
is still a very subtle and sophisticated experience of some
thing
going
on. The thingness and the awareness of self continue. That is the realm of the
formless gods—limitless space; limitless consciousness; not that, not this;
not
not
that, not not this—the full state of absorption in a formless state. Other
states as well are inclined toward that state of mind, but they become less
sophisticated as the experience is on a more and more gross level. The first
state, therefore, the realm of spiritual pleasure, is so extremely pleasurable
that you can almost afford to relax. But somehow the relaxation doesn't happen,
because there's an experiencer and an experience.

That
is the realm of the gods. And in that god realm, as you can imagine, in such a
state of spiritual materialism, there is a weakness. The intensity of your
experience is based on collecting, possessing further experiences. That means
that fundamentally your state of mind is based on give and take. You are
developing immunity to temptation and fascination in order to seek pleasure and
try to grasp hold of the pleasure more definitely.

As
that state of mind develops in terms of the six realms of the world, we are
talking about regressing from that sophisticated state of spiritual materialism
in the world of heaven down to the world of hell— regressing. Such a state of
pleasure in the world of heaven, that complete meditative absorption into the
jhana states, automatically brings up temptations and questions. You begin to
get tired of being extremely refined, and you want to come down to some
raggedness. Jealousy or envy or dissatisfaction with your present state comes
up automatically as an obvious next step, which then leads to the realm of the
jealous gods, the asuras.

The
realm of the asuras is highly energetic, almost in contrast to that state of
spiritual absorption. It's as if somebody had been far away a long time from
their civilization, in the middle of a desert island, and they suddenly had a
chance to come down to the nearest city. Automatically, their first
inspiration, of course, would be to try to be extremely busy and entertain
themselves, indulging in all sorts of things. In that way the energetic quality
of busyness in the realm of the asuras develops.

Even
that experience of tremendous energy, driving force, trying to grasp, trying to
hold on to external situations, is not enough. Somehow you need not only
rushing, but you have to pick something up, taste it,

swallow
it,

digest
it.

That
kind of intimacy is needed. You begin to feel tired of rushing too hard, too
much, and you begin to think in terms of grasping and taking. You would like to
take advantage of the situation and the intimacy of possessing, the sexual
aspect, the tenderness. You try to use it,

chew
it.

That
is the world of human beings. (In this case, when we talk of the world of human
beings or the world of animals, it is not necessarily human life or animal life
literally, as conventionally known. It's the psychological aspect.) So the
human realm is built on passion and desire.

Somehow,
indulging ourselves in passion and desire is again not quite enough—we need
more and more. You realize that you can come down to a more gross level, a
cruder level. And realizing that, you begin to yearn for much more real and
obvious experience as a way of putting into effect your emotional need. But at
the same time, you are tired of relationships. You are tired of relating to
experience in terms of pleasure, and you begin to find all sorts of facets of
your experience are involved with just that. You begin to look for something
simpler, a more instinctive way of dealing with things, in which you don't have
to look for the complicated patterns of that passion, that desire. Then you are
reduced to the animal level. Everything is put into practice in an instinctive
way rather than by applying intellectual or emotional frustrations as a way of
getting or possessing something.

Then,
again, such a state of mind, in which you are purely acting on the impulsive or
instinctive level of the animal realm, is not gross enough. You begin to feel
that there is a tremendous weakness in your state of being, in such animal
mentality. You don't want to give away anything, but you would like to take
more. So far, all experience from the realm of the gods down to the animal
level has been a kind of exchange constantly, a balancing act or play. And
somehow you begin to realize and come to the conclusion that exchanging or
commuting between two situations, even at the blind level, is too exhausting.
Then you look for a highly crude form of maintaining yourself. That is the
world of the hungry ghosts. You don't want to give away anything, but you just
want to take. And since you do not want to give anything away, since you would
purely like to take in, the mentality of that world becomes an extremely hungry
one, because unless you give, you won't get anything. And the more you get, the
more you want to receive. In other words, you do not want to give or share any
experience. There's so much hunger and thirst, me-ness, unwillingness to give
an inch, or even one fraction of a moment, to relate with the world outside. So
the hungry ghost realm is the height of poverty.

Ultimately
that sense of poverty leads to aggression. You not only do not want to give
anything away, but you would like to destroy that which reminds you of giving.
That is the ultimate world of hell, or naraka, an instant and extremely
powerful state of aggression or hatred.

All
these six states, these six different aspects of the world, are the rivers in
which the bardo experience is taking shape. In terms of the realm of the gods,
it's a very dreamlike quality. The realm of hell is very aggressive and
definite. It

would
be good to think about that process of the six types of world and become
familiar with those different states of mind before we get into bardo
experience itself. That would be very helpful. Having already developed that
ground, we can pinpoint the different experiences of bardo and fit them into
these different types of rivers, samsaric rivers. It would be much easier to
work on at that level.

And
strangely enough, these experiences of the six realms—gods, jealous gods,
human beings, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell—are
space,
different
versions of space. It seems intense and solid, but in actual fact it isn't at
all. They are different aspects of space—that's the exciting or interesting
part. In fact, it is complete open space, without any colors or any
particularly solid way of relating. That is why they have been described as six
types of consciousness. It is pure consciousness rather than a solid
situation—it almost could be called unconsciousness rather than even
consciousness. The development of ego operates completely at the unconscious
level, from one unconscious level to another unconscious level. That is why
these levels are referred to as loka, which means "realm" or
"world." They are six types of
world.
Each
is a complete unit of its own. In order to have a world, you have to have an
atmosphere; you have to have space to formulate things. So the six realms are
the fundamental space through which any bardo experience operates. Because of
that, it is possible to transmute these spaces into six types of awakened
state, or freedom.