Heaven and Hell

Q Rinpoche, I’ve seen a pattern in myself, where I dampen my own enthusiasm so I won’t be disappointed. I say: “Wait a second. Calm down. Don’t be disappointed. You’re going to be disappointed.” For so many projects where I have initial gusto, I dampen my own enthusiasm. I’m much more willing to listen to other people’s enthusiastic qualities than my own. That’s pretty weird.

R It is certainly self-protective – but it is not unusual. This is merely what we do when we ‘do’ samsara.

Q What happens is that instead of maintaining moderate enthusiasm for a project, I maintain moderate disappointment.

R Yes. It is called ‘cold-comfort’.

Q So how do I get out of that kind of purgatory?

R Purgatory . . . I do not think it is a purgatory. The idea of purgatory is that you serve your time there before eventually being promoted to heaven. It would be more useful to look at this state from the perspective of bardo – in terms of the alternative gestalts we could inhabit. It depends on whether you are prepared to go for the ‘bardo of alternating heaven and hell ’ instead of the bardo of an ‘interminable intermediate’ state. I feel that the bardo of ‘Alternating Heaven and Hell’ is preferable to the ‘interminable intermediate’ bardo. In the bardo of ‘Alternating Heaven and Hell’ the pleasure is immediate and the pain is immediate – and that is eminently workable from a Vajrayana point of view.

Q Right [laughs] at least you get the ‘heaven’ occasionally.

R Yes . . . but that is not quite the benefit I had in mind. It is true however—as you say—that with the ‘interminable intermediate’ you never get anything – but the ‘heaven and hell’ scenario I am presenting is not some kind of ‘deal’ in which you endure hell in order to get ‘heaven’. The ‘Alternating Heaven and Hell’ I am discussing is one in which both are appreciated as the ground of experience.

Q Wouldn’t you get burnt out with that?

R That is quite possible – but the ‘interminable intermediate’ also burns you out, it is merely that the ‘interminable intermediate’ is a slow cooker rather than a charbroil situation. It merely appears a little less severe in the short term. It feels as if it can be endured merely because it is protracted low level pain.

Q And in the long term?

R [laughs] It is the same – or in all likelihood, it is worse. You see – you can either rip the plaster off, or you can peel it slowly – pulling out one hair at a time.

Q So . . . we try to make the ‘interminable intermediate’ the ground then . . .

R Yes. We try to make a deal in which we surrender pleasure in order to avoid pain.

Q That still sounds preferable in some way – but maybe I am just afraid of pain?

R There is certainly not more pain in the alternating Heaven and Hell bardo than there is in the bardo of purgatory – even if it is sharper, it is more short-lived. And then you find out, when you hit the hell-buffer, that hell is empty of Hell. Heaven is empty of Heaven. I can move. The space beyond ‘I’ is indestructible. Hell does not torture me, because there is no ‘me’ to be tortured. Heaven does not bliss me out, because there is no ‘me’ to be blissed out. There is only the moment.