Bardo Travels Part II - In the Wildernness

Bardo Travels, Part II: In the Wilderness

Joshua

As it turned out, my flight from San Francisco airport to the town where I used to live in Montana was uneventful. When I arrived at the small regional airport, it was so full of people that I had to literally push through the crowd just to make it from the gate to baggage claim. The airport had been significantly expanded before I moved away, five years ago, but at baggage claim it was the same situation: wall-to-wall people. It was the height of summer, a time when people come to experience the natural beauty of that country, but still: during almost twenty years living in that town, I had never seen anything like it before. Who were all these people? And where were they going?

Old friends had joked that the town had begun to feel like Los Angeles – the U.S. capital of not only the movie industry but of empty glamour and surface appearances more generally – but I was completely unprepared for the extent to which this was my experience during the visit. New restaurants, new hotels, huge new streets and neighborhoods and, most of all, many of the people -- seemed like they had been imported from a very different locale than the rugged cowboy country Montana had been since its seizure by European settlers a few generations ago. The friend I was staying with explained just how literal the “Hollywood-ification” of the town had been: apparently the hit TV series Yellowstone, which had spawned two successful spin-offs, had caused tourists to flock to what had been a small mountain community. It was now a common sight to see twenty or more fancy young women who had flown in from L.A. for a weekend of carousing in “cowboy country.” In just a few years, things had quite obviously changed.

If one were to identify a special spiritual expertise within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, it would surely be related to the transition out of this life. The tradition’s detailed understanding of the process before, during and after the death of the physical body, including their elaborate methods for identifying reincarnated lamas, is a remarkable example of cultural fluency in a specific aspect of spirit. The Tibetan word bardo literally means “gap” or “intermediate state” but commonly refers to the realms of experience the soul traverses after departing the body. One way I’ve heard the bardos described is that they are the place where you experience all the fixations and identifications your mind animated, during its earthly journey, projected outward and then reflected back at you in the form of vivid images, sounds, and scenes all vying for your attention. Something like you might experience in an incredibly vivid, incredibly convincing Virtual Reality video game. Or, perhaps, during each moment of a human life.

The dream-like nature of the bardos -- where things are constantly swirling, shifting forms, and presenting new tableaus to attract or repel you -- is perhaps different from our experience of waking life only in terms of its intensity and pace: a speeded-up, concentrated version of the events of our own lives would surely display the same drastic shifts that characterize the bardos: laughing our heads off one moment, swept into deep reverie or hysterical grief – or terror, or remorse, or passion, or joy -- the next. Every moment of our lives, transitions are occurring. And all of us, as the homeless man in San Francisco reminded me, are headed somewhere.

The meeting with my former teacher, who had been a central figure in my life for more than twenty years, was a sobering testimony to the passing of time. During the period when our lives intersected he was a bold, charismatic presence: the catalyst for a thriving spiritual community, someone who led profound healing work with inmates in maximum security prisons. But the years had taken a severe toll on his body and his memory. His spirits were good, during the evening we spent together, and it was sweet to see him: it seemed our few hours sharing a meal provided him some respite and enjoyment. But there was no getting away from the sorrow of his condition. I told a friend who knew him, and whose practice I admire, about the meeting, and their comment was, “How the universe humbles us.”

And then it was time for my mini-trek to the high mountain lake. My goal was to spend the night at the lake’s edge, at 3000 meters elevation, for the first time -- hence my large hiking pack with tent, sleeping bag, and sleeping pad inside. Once before I had brought all my gear with me, hoping to camp at the lakeside, but the snow had been too thick and I had to camp at a lower elevation. That year I didn’t make it to the higher lake, my real destination, at all.

The morning I was to set out, the heat in my former hometown was going to reach 38 degrees Celsius, 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The town itself is 1400 meters above sea level, about the same as Kathmandu, and heat of that kind would have been unthinkable when I moved there only twenty years earlier. Not only that, but the air that day was dry, with afternoon winds and possible brief thunderstorms predicted. The risk of a lightning strike cause a fire to break out was a real concern. It would be cooler once I arrived at higher elevation, but to get there in the intense heat, while carrying a large pack, was a daunting prospect.

In the end I chose to drive to the trailhead, pitch my tent and spend the night there, then make the hike in the cool early morning hours, returning late the same day. This meant that I had hauled my tent, sleeping bag, and sleeping pad through the downtown streets of San Francisco, and all the way to Montana, for nothing. But that’s how it goes sometimes. Reflecting afterwards, I realized how perfect it was that I didn’t get to spend the night beside the waters of the lake which, to me, represent the Goddess. She obviously hadn’t yet invited me to that level of intimacy. And the last thing I would want – not just out of healthy fear, but out of devotion as well -- would be to seek an intimacy that she had not invited.

Once on the trail, I was inundated with the exquisite aspects of Her earthly dream, a bardo of great beauty: stunning vistas of towering mountains and rushing streams, surrounded by trees and wildflowers. Their pristine beauty contrasted with the rapid changes in my former hometown, and the sad and sobering time with my former teacher: whereas there change had been drastic and painful, these natural phenomena seemed to be exactly as they had always been. And yet in the course of time – which is itself created, sustained, and eventually devoured by the Goddess -- even natural landscapes of such relative constancy would vanish back into the primal darkness that is Her very being. Surrounded by Her wildness and delicate beauty, it was sweet to be allowed to pay Her a visit. Even if I wasn’t allowed to spend the night.

When I reached the lake, the weather was more tranquil than on any previous visit. There were hours where the sun shone down, the water was still, and the shakti of the landscape, always potent, nevertheless felt calm in its potency. The highlight of my trip to Montana was, without question, sitting and doing my yatra sadhanas on the edge of Her waters. At one point, after completing my practice, I heard a loud splash from the other side of the lake. A huge bird rose from the surface of the water, criss-crossing in the air as it flew, and as it passed overhead I saw that it was a golden eagle carrying a large fish in its talons.

The Lakota people are the largest Native American nation in that region, and in their tradition the eagle is one of the most auspicious animal spirits. Because it travels in the sky and then swoops down to earth for its prey, it is associated with the combination of vast space (the sky, represented by the color blue) and pinpoint accuracy (the earth, represented by the color green). Off it flew, into the vast sky, headed somewhere, bringing the fish along with it.

May the twin forces of Shiva and Shakti – the vast space of pure consciousness and the endlessly changing world of phenomena – come together favorably as we make the journey, through the bardos of the phenomenal realm, to pay them our respect. Everyone – not only all human beings, but all sentient beings – are headed somewhere. We just happen to be headed to Mount Kailash.