Transcending Madness

Tibetan thangka painting of The Wheel of Life by Sherab Palden Beru

The article below is Judith Lief’s editor’s foreword to Chögyam Trungpa’s book Transcending Madness. This book consists of two seminars: The Six States of Bardo and The Six States of Being. The Library has released recordings of all the talks in both seminars, which are linked below in the playlist.

Click here to jump to talk playlist

In 1971, the Vidyadhara, Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, gave three seminars in rapid succession on the topics of the six realms, the bardo experience, and The Tibetan Book of the Dead, one is Colorado and the other two in Vermont. At a time when there was great fascination with the notion of reincarnation and life after death, Trungpa Rinpoche emphasized the power of these teachings as a way of pointing to the traps and opportunities of present experience, rather than as fodder for intellectual speculation. At that time, he was also working on a translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which he described as a detailed and sophisticated map displaying the potential of confusion and awakening in each moment of experience. These three seminars, two of which form the body of this book, were to be pivotal in the development of the Vidyadhara’s early students.

Chögyam Trungpa, Gold Hill, Colorado, 1970

In the early seventies, Trungpa Rinpoche had attracted many students with a background in higher education, psychology, and the arts. These early students were strongly interested in integrating their Buddhist training with their practice of Western disciplines. Those with background in the arts studied “dharma art” teachings, which explored the connection between meditation experience and the creative process. The Vidyadhara worked with these students in a number of ways, ranging from holding theater conferences, creating theater exercises, and writing and producing plays, to establishing the arts programs in the newly formed Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. At that time, the Vidyadhara’s two bardo seminars were the core teachings studied by students preparing to establish a therapeutic community. The community he established, called Maitri, or “loving-kindness,” later evolved into the clinical psychology program at the Naropa Institute.

By familiarizing ourselves with our own insanity and making friends with mind in all its variety and extremes, we can learn to accommodate others and work with them without fear.

The Vidyadhara presented teachings on the realms and bardos as a way of understanding madness and sanity and learning to work directly and skillfully with extreme states of mind. Based on direct observation of mental patterns, these teachings provide a way “to see our situation along with that of our fellow human beings.” As is usual in the Buddhist approach, such a study is not done as though one were studying rats in a laboratory, but begins with oneself and one’s state of mind. By familiarizing ourselves with our own insanity and making friends with mind in all its variety and extremes, we can learn to accommodate others and work with them without fear. So the process begins with a detailed exploration of our own mental states and of how we color our world through our preconceptions, expectations, hopes, and fears.

When we have developed the courage to look at ourselves without blinders, we can also begin to see others more clearly. We can connect with people, because we learn not to fear our mind, but to work with it through the practice of meditation. It is an approach based on nonviolence and acceptance, rather than on struggle or the overpowering of others. The acceptance of our experience with all its complexity and uncertainty provides the basis for any real change.

This volume could be considered a practical guide to Buddhist psychology. It is based on the interweavings of two core concepts: realm and bardo. The traditional Buddhist schema of the six realms — gods, jealous gods, human beings, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings — is sometimes taken to be a literal description of possible modes of existence. But in this case the schema of the six realms is used to describe the six complete worlds we create as the logical conclusions of such powerful emotional highlights as anger, greed, ignorance, lust, envy, and pride. Having disowned the power of our emotions and projected that power onto the world outside, we find ourselves trapped in a variety of ways and see no hope for escape.

The bardos are the ultimate expression of the entrapment of the realms. Yet it is such heightened experience that opens the possibility of the sudden transformation of that solidity into complete freedom or open space.

The six realms provide a context for the bardo experience, which is described as the experience of no-man’s-land. The bardos arise as the heightened experience of each realm, providing at the same time the possibility of awakening or of complete confusion, sanity or insanity. They are the ultimate expression of the entrapment of the realms. Yet it is such heightened experience that opens the possibility of the sudden transformation of that solidity into complete freedom or open space. So even within the most solidified and seemingly hopeless accomplishment of ego’s domain, the possibility of awakening is ever-present.

Cover of Transcending Madness (Shambhala Publications, 1992)

The two seminars included in this book approach the topic of the realms and the bardos in two very different ways. The first seminar associates each realm with a characteristic bardo state. In this case, the realms are pictured as islands and the bardos as the peaks highlighting each island. In contrast, the second seminar emphasizes the process of continually cycling through the bardos. (It should be noted that the second seminar introduces the bardo of dharmata, thereby increasing the list from six to seven.) From this perspective, each realm contains the full cycle of bardos, which serves as a means to strengthen and sustain its power. By looking at the same topic in two contrasting yet complementary ways, we can begin to understand and appreciate the richness and complexity of these teachings.

In general, Trungpa Rinpoche placed great emphasis on dialogue and discussion with his students. In order to preserve that flavor, the extensive discussions following the talks have been included in this volume. In that way, readers who wish to follow the flow and development of the teachings through the two seminars may do so. Others may prefer to concentrate on the talks themselves.

May these subtle and practical teachings strike home and thereby help to alleviate the confusion and suffering of these current times. May they spark humor and gentleness in dealing with our states of mind and those of others.

Transcending Madness Playlist (1971, Audio.)

The Six States of Bardo (Allenspark, Colorado)

The Six States of Being (Karmê Chöling, Vermont)

ARticle:

Lief, Judith. Editor’s Foreword to Transcending Madness: The Experience of The Six Bardos by Chögyam Trungpa. Boston and London: Shambhala Publications, 1992. (Reprinted with permission of Shambhala Publications)

Learn more:

Transcending Madness: The Experience of The Six Bardos by Chögyam Trungpa

Transcending Madness book summary by Carolyn Gimian