In love with the world - 18. Coming thru darkness

Contributors

Christophe, Carles?

Summary of the chapter 

The previous chapter and this one are an exploration of the bardos. For memory, the 6 bardos are:

1. the bardo of this life,
2. the bardo of dream,
3. the bardo of meditation,
4. the bardo of the moment of death,
5. the bardo of dharmata,
6. the bardo of becoming.

In the previous chapter, YMR uses the bardo of dream to introduces us to emptiness, to the fact that objects are not as solid as they seem, yet are not nothing.

In this chapter, YMR shows that the last 3 bardos are actually stages to every new endeavour that we make. “The point of making these parallels […] is to recognize the continual process of our own dying and rebirth.” Familiarising ourselves with this process helps us to live a joyful life.

The last 3 bardos apply to any situation as follows.

• First, we enter the new situation. And “to be completely open and available to what it offers, we must let go of our cherished ideas of how things are supposed to work” (e.g., comparison with the past, expectations about the future). Often we idealize how the new situation will unfold, or we are weighted down by past issues, or we carry on perfectionist fantasies,… If we let our habitual patterns dominate, we cannot really flourish in this new situation. We can choose to let go of our attachments. This parallels the bardo of dying where we have to let go of our bodies… bu we choose to let go of our attachments or hold on to them.
• In stage two, the new situation is still in flux and this is an opportunity for creative incentives. This parallels the bardo of dharmata where we experience dreamlike appearances.
• In the third stage, the bardo of becoming, “translucent dream forms begin to resemble our previous flesh-and-blood bodies, and the old tendencies strengthen”. In this stage, as YMR says,

we become resigned to repetition,

we may normalize argumentation in our partnership,

we feel trapped,

we loose access to the imaginative resolves that might liberate us.

However, an important point is that, though it's harder than in the previous two stages, change is definitely possible. In fact, “change is always happening” and YMR goes on to even say “feeling trapped, stuck, immobile — these are self-fabricated stories”.

In the rest of the chapter, YMR gives a perspective on this from an experiential point of view and how everything can be a support for meditation, how everything can be a tool for transformation. Within the recognition of awareness,

• he acknowledged the sound of rain, the bad smells,
• not reaching out towards sensations,
• not withdrawing,
• not getting lost,
• he diminished his picking and choosing, especially when related to avoidance,
• he accepted his “own essential emptiness, and the emptiness of all phenomena” which in turn helps to diminish the “impulses to hold tight things that cannot really be held.”

Question

Could you remember a situation where you felt stuck (studies, relationship, job). How would have been if you remembered that change happens all the time?

Meditation

Dying and newborn

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