Do you know that thing when you are dead and you are in the bardo realm and you have badness in you and you keep reacting to the mind-projections with hatred and dislike? Well that’s what’s happening to me right now. I’m dead and I’m in the bardo realm. That’s my situation right now. I’m reacting helplessly to the projections in the mind-zone, and all zones are the mind-zone when it comes down to it. All zones are the mind-zone. Welcome my friends, welcome to the mind-zone! Something tells me you’re going to be very happy here…
I find myself reacting with hatred – there are figures walking by, figures that have been created by my own mind, and I’m full of hatred towards them. Instinctive, automatic hatred. Meaningless hatred, if I may put it like that. Perfectly meaningless hatred. I watch these figures suspiciously as they walk by and I am full of ill-intent. I am seething with it…
It’s the badness within me you see. It’s the badness that does it. Day by day the badness grows, isn’t that what they say? Day by day, day by day. Until one day it takes over. Until one day it takes you by surprise – a monster you never saw coming. It has become vast, it has become incalculable in its vastness. It has become so strong and you have become so weak. You can’t even put up a fight; you haven’t even the strength to put up a fight. You haven’t got what it takes. And so now you’re the puppet of that meaningless hatred, only you’re not really a puppet as such because there’s nothing left of you any more, nothing at all. It’s an ignominious situation of course, it’s a thoroughly ignominious situation.
It’s all very sorrowful this talk isn’t it? All very sorrowful. So very sorrowful, so very sorrowful. People don’t like sorrowful stuff, do they? It’s not what they want to be hearing – they’re looking for the happy ending, they’re looking for the ‘feel-good factor’. They certainly don’t want to be hearing about being in the mind-zone reacting pointlessly to your own projections over and over again. That’s just not inspirational enough for folks now is it? Folk love inspirational stuff – that’s one thing at least that we won’t have to disagree about anyway! People love that old inspirational stuff. Are the flavours and nuances of sorrow richer than those of joy, I wonder? Do they hold more secrets?
If I were able, I’d like to be able to question my own life. I’d like to question myself about it. I’d like to ask myself what I thought I was doing at the time. Simple enough question, right? Perhaps I could go back in time and interview myself. ‘How are you doing good buddy,’ I’d say, ‘I’m just wondering where you think you are with your life at this point in time? What’s going on for you? Have you got any thoughts about it?’ I’m only being sarcastic here of course. I’m being sarcastic at my own expense, the point being – needless to say – that the time to question your life is at the time and not in retrospect. No point in questioning your life in retrospect is there? That’s not going to get you anywhere…
There’s no point in fighting against the badness because you are the badness, right? The decent part of you is long since gone, long since gone. I never noticed it leave because I was busy at the time. Busy with other things. ‘What were those things?’ you ask, momentarily intrigued. Needless to say I don’t remember. There’s nothing to remember – it was all just nonsense. It was only nonsense. That’s the thing about nonsense, that there is actually nothing to remember. It wasn’t anything, it never was. It never was anything anyway and yet – at the time – it held a very great fascination for me. Of course it did. I was all about it. And then a little while later there would be some new nonsense to be fascinated with, some new, improved nonsense. Can you hear the advert? ‘New improved nonsense,’ the ad says in a big hearty voice, ‘get some while stocks last. One-time offer only. Never to be repeated offer.’
And so now the upshot of all this is that here I am now. Here I am now in the bardo realm, hissing veangefully at my own mental projections. ‘Hey that’s cool, guy!’ you yell out enthusiastically from the other side of the room, ‘that sounds real fun! Cut me in for some of that action would you? Cut me in for some of that great, great action…’ Here I am now, here I am now. Blown helplessly from one benighted place to another by the winds of karma. Isn’t that what they say? You’re completely powerless. You’re being blown unceasingly by the winds of karma, like a morsel of fluff in a gale, like a speck of thistledown in a hurricane. All that old nonsense karma, all that old nonsense karma….
