Allen's Park Seminar, Bardo, from Clarke Warren

The Bardo Teachings Created Their Own Environment   I haven't yet listened to the "Transcending Madness" seminar with Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche , but am looking forward to it with great relish, after having reread the book and listened to the "Let Loose" interview with Khyentse Rinpoche.  I too was present at the 1971 Allen's Park seminar on the Bardos.  After rereading Transcending Madness and being utterly amazed, I commented to some friends, "I wish I had been there, even though I was!"   To this day, whenever I drive by the camp in Allen's Park where the seminar was held, it stirs deep reverberations in me, as though I were cruising by Rajagriha, Vulture Peak Mountain. I was the assistant head cook and baker at the seminar, under Chuck Nowick.  There was great anticipation about this impending teaching with Trungpa Rinpoche, the first in-residence intensive seminar in Colorado. In retrospect, the environment of the seminar was in line with the subject matter of bardo.  There were little bardo-like experiences popping up often.    One night, David Bolduc convinced me to climb the mountain behind the camp with him and sleep out under the stars.  I had just recently saved enough to buy a good Eddie Bauer goose down mummy sleeping bag, which was my pride and joy.  When we reached the top of the mountain and bedded down for the night, it was too hot to stay zipped into my minus 20 degree bag.  But when I unzipped it for air, legions of mosquitoes moved in to feed on me.  It was a miserable night!  In addition, I had to wake up at 3:30 AM, as I was on kitchen duty to prepare breakfast for the entire seminar.  After hardly a wink, at 3:30 AM I packed my bag into its stuff sack, put it in my day pack, left David snoozing in his cooler bag, and made my way in the dark down a pathless forest maze of tangled stumps and fallen branches.  I had failed to bring a flashlight with me. Somewhere along the way, I realized that my sleeping bag had fallen out of my pack while bush whacking.  I panicked, and went running, weaving back up the hill.  I thought, "If I wait until daylight, maybe I can find the sleeping bag, but if I don't continue down the hill now, there will be no breakfast for everyone. What to do?" As I was utterly freaking out in this way, I tripped and fell. Everything seemed hopeless. I got back up and continued to wander furtively and aimlessly in the dark.  A few moments later, I realized that what I had tripped on was soft!  I turned back and groped around on hands and knees in the area I thought I had fallen in.  Then I found it, the sleeping bag I had tripped on!  I paused for a moment of utter exultation, and then continued straight down the hill to make breakfast for everyone.  It wasn't exactly finding the nature of my mind in the bardo, but maybe it was good practice! That afternoon, the teachings were particularly poignant.   Clarke Warren