[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: Peak Experience

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

December 1, 2008 

PEAK EXPERIENCE

At the very moment of enlightenment, the Buddha experienced hosts of maras, or obstacles, attacking him with aggression and trying to seduce him with beautiful girls. That is a peak point, or (what is called) a moment of bardo experience. The point is that once we have achieved some higher state, a so-called higher state or more profound state of something, the negative aspect, or the mara aspect, is also going to be there -- equally, exactly the same. And they both become more subtle. The subtleties of awakeness are exactly the same as the subtleties of sleepiness or confusion. Such subtleties continue all the time, side by side. Therefore, samsara and nirvana are like two sides of a coin. They occur together in one situation, simultaneously. Such bardo experiences happen all the time with us. We don't have to have a peak experience or a dramatic experience -- in ordinary everyday situations as well, we are not quite certain whether we are learning something or whether we are missing something. There is that particular point of doubt.

From "The Bardo of Birth," in TRANSCENDING MADNESS: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE SIX BARDOS, page 77.


Of interest to readers:
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, prominent Buddhist teacher and the author of What Makes You Not a Buddhist, taught a public seminar to an audience of 550 this past weekend in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Rinpoche commented on teachings on the bardos, using Transcending Madness: The Experience of the Six Bardos, Chogyam Trungpa's book on the bardo states and the six realms.  For a review of the weekend and links to an interview with Dzongsar Khyentse RInpoche, go to:

         http://www.shambhalasun.com/sunspace/

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

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Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week: teachings by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Taken from works published by Shambhala Publications,  the Archive of his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.
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