The Stages of Dying and After Death
Bardo in Tibetan means “intermediate state” or “transitional period.” In the context of teachings on the bardo, it mainly denotes the period between this life and the next. According to Buddhism, after we die there will be a bardo, a transitional period, and then we will take rebirth in another life.
Overall, people are here for only a few days, months, or years, and then they will be in the bardo and future lives for ever and ever.
Therefore, at this time, the most worthwhile thing to do is to learn how we will be traveling through the bardo to our future lives, and especially how we can turn those lives into everlasting joy and wisdom, for ourselves and for others.
The following is a summary of the four bardos:
(1) The bardo of life, meaning our present life,
(2) The bardo of dying,
(3) The bardo of ultimate nature, and
(4) The bardo of becoming.
Note: Parts of the following descriptions will be better understood by more well-versed Buddhist practitioners. Those segments, therefore, are optional and may be skipped for now. However, many beneficial and crucially important insights may be gleaned from this lengthy article by Tulku Thondup.
The Bardo of Life
The bardo of life starts from your conception and ends at the beginning of the death process. So your entire life is the bardo of life.
If you practice Dharma meditations in general and especially esoteric practices while you are in this bardo, you will be able to attain enlightenment, Buddhahood, possibly even in this very lifetime.
According to Dzogpa Chenpo teachings, in absolute truth the ultimate nature of the whole universe is oneness. It is the union of ultimate nature, total openness, or emptiness, and the five wisdoms with their natural power, the five intrinsic lights.
But by not realizing the truth, you discriminate between them as subjects and objects, becoming inflamed with emotions of attachment, aggression, and confusion, rooted in grasping at self.
As a result, the whole universe appears before your dualistic mind as the five emotions and five elements in the subjective and objective spectrum, and it becomes the source of pain and excitement.
If you realize and perfect the intrinsic awareness, the true nature of the mind, which is the union of the total openness, the ultimate sphere, and wisdom with its intrinsic lights, then even in this very lifetime you will become a Buddha, and there will be no need to go through the successive bardos.
In that case not only has your mind attained the fully enlightened state, but you have also attained an intrinsic light body of wisdom.
As a result, if you wish, you can transform your present gross body through various methods into a light body of one kind or another, including what is known in the scriptures as “rainbow body,” “light body,” and “great transformation.”
Or else you can go to pure lands without leaving your mortal body behind.
But you could also become fully enlightened without any physical display of supernatural signs.
Of course, these kinds of attainment are extremely rare, and we are not talking about them lightly.
In the bardo of life of ordinary human beings, you can have both the knowledge and ability to bring about a joyful and peaceful future.
But if you do not take advantage of it, you might fall into the experiences of confusion, fear, and pain in the bardos and the lives that are ahead of you.
So, without wasting any time, you must try to gain at least some spiritual knowledge, experience, and strength of opening, peace, joy, compassion, devotion, positive perception, and wisdom.
These are the only source for the creation of meritorious karma and inner wisdom, which will improve this life and equip you to face the next bardos and your future lives.
You should also try to see and feel this life as a bardo experience, to see and feel that it is unreal, just like a dream fabricated by your mind. This will help you loosen the grip of your grasping and craving for this life.
In this way, when the dying and after-death bardo experiences come upon you, you will be able to see them as dreams, and will find them familiar and handle them with ease.
For when you recognize dreams as dreams, the impact of nightmares becomes ineffective.
According to general Mahāyāna Buddhism, after securing a precious human life, first it is important to find a reliable, virtuous teacher.
After finding one, you should (1) learn the teachings, (2) think about them thoroughly and (3) gain experience in them through meditation.
It is important physically:
(1) to renounce mundane life and
(2) to open your mind in an enlightened attitude to all with love, compassion, joy, and evenness, and
(3) to train in the six perfections: generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, contemplation, and wisdom.
Jigme Lingpa aspires:
In the bardo of life, may I obtain a spiritual life,
Please the Lama,
Rely on the wisdoms of learning, thinking, and meditation,
And train in renunciation, enlightened mind, and the six perfections.
The Bardo of Dying
The bardo of dying starts from the beginning of the process of death and ends at the arising of the bardo of ultimate nature.
If you are highly realized, without going into the experiences of the bardo of dying, through meditative power you can unite your intrinsic awareness, which is the nature of your mind, with the union of the ultimate sphere and wisdom, which is Buddhahood. If you have accomplished this union, through the meditation of the transference of consciousness you can transfer your consciousness into a celestial pure land of the Buddhas and take rebirth there.
Otherwise you will go through the experiences of the bardos, and that could include the following process.
When the dying process begins, the five vital energies of your body become disarrayed, and you go through two stages of dissolution.
The first stage is the dissolution of the energies of the physical elements and the impairment of the functions of the sense faculties.
The second stage is the dissolution of mental concepts and emotions.
For the dissolution of the physical elements, first, the earth element dissolves into the water element. At this time, you feel the loss of the earth energy or connection to the earth element in your body, which is solid, strong, and supporting. You feel yourself dissolving into or moving toward water energy. This is accompanied by a sensation of falling, that the ground underneath has opened up, and you cannot get up or stand, you lose your balance and become pale. That is why dying people often beg, “Please pull me up. I feel that I’m sinking.” It may feel as if you are sinking and cloudy, and you may witness mirage-like appearances.
Second, the water element dissolves into the fire element. At this point you feel the loss of the energy of or connection to the water element, which is wet and sustaining. You feel very thirsty. Saliva drips. Tears drop and then dry up. That is why the dying often ask, “Please give me water. I am thirsty.” You may feel suffocated and irritated and witness smoke-like appearances.
Third, the fire element dissolves into the air element. At this point you feel the loss of the energy of or connection to the fire element, which is warm, maturing, and burning, and you lose your body heat. The heat withdraws from the extremities toward your heart. You cannot see objects, and everything looks full of red sparks against a dark background.
Fourth, the air element dissolves into consciousness. At this time you feel the loss of energy of or connection to the air element, which is mobile and light. You struggle for your breath and your eyes roll up. Breathing generally ends with three long breaths, and on the third breath you exhale for the last time and cannot inhale again; that is the end of breathing for this life. At this time, you may see illusions in the form of various fearful or joyous visions and may witness flamelike appearances.
If your karma for living has not yet been exhausted and you are going through the dying process because of circumstantial reasons then, even having reached this stage, it is possible to be revived through medical or spiritual means.
But if you have gone beyond this stage, you cannot be revived. (There are, however, extraordinary circumstances in which people have gone much further than this point and have come back to life.)
For the second stage, the dissolution of mental concepts and emotions, when your breathing has stopped and your mind, the consciousness, has lost its connection with the energies of the physical elements, the collective energies of channels, energies, and essence in the gross body will also be dispersed.
As a result, three kinds of mental dissolutions or withdrawals will take place in three stages: subtle, more subtle, and most subtle. These dissolutions prompt three mental experiences, which in the texts are termed appearances, increase, and attainment.
First, consciousness dissolves into appearances [consciousness dissolves into space, and space dissolves into luminosity]. At this time, you perceive everything as white. It is not like daylight, luminous, or bright white, but just as if everything is whiteness or whitish, like moonlight in a cloudless sky. At that time thoughts of hatred or aggression cease.
Second, appearances dissolve into increase. At this time, you perceive everything as redness or reddish, like the light of the setting sun in a cloudless sky. At this time thoughts of greed or attachment cease.
Finally, increase dissolves into attainment, and everything becomes blackness, like the cloudless sky of a dark autumn night. Here, thoughts of confusion cease. Then the experience of the state of attainment leads you into a state of unconsciousness, the universal ground.
If you are realized, you will not fall into unconsciousness, and the experience of blackness of the attainment stage can dissolve into or arise as primordial luminosity.
How should these dissolution stages be dealt with by common people?
(1) First, you must realize that you are in the process of dying.
(2) You should try to take the experiences of dissolution as peacefully as possible.
(3) You should try to remember that all the bardo appearances and experiences are the fabrications of your own mind, like dreams.
(4) You should not be attached to them, get irritated by them, or be afraid of them.
(5) With peace and naturalness, you should watch or be one with the true nature of your own mind, calmly and clearly, instead of running after and grasping at thoughts and experiences.
(6) You should remember your spiritual sources, such as Buddhas, masters, teachings, and experiences, and use those experiences and memories as your spiritual support.
(7) Try to remember your own spiritual meditation and all your spiritual experiences and energies, and unite with them.
(8) Feel that the Buddhas, teachers, and deities are present with you all the time and that they are protecting and guiding you.
(9) From them, let the light of peace, openness, strength, and joy come to you, fill you, and transform you into the body of peace, openness, strength, and joy.
(10) Then try to relax in that spiritual body throughout the bardo process.
(11) One of the most important points to remember is not to be attached to, irritated by, or scared by any happenings in the bardo, but to see everything as an illustration of spiritual views and a source of spiritual experiences.
(12) Use any spiritual approach and experience with which you are acquainted in your lifetime, for those are the ones that will be easier and more effective for you.
Guru Rinpoche advises us to practice and pray not to get attached to anything at the time of death, to remember our meditation, and to merge our ultimate nature of mind with the ultimate sphere:
When the bardo of dying is dawning upon me,
Abandoning attachment and grasping at everything,
I will focus on the clear instructions without wavering,
And transfer my unborn intrinsic awareness (true nature of the mind) into the space of the ultimate sphere.
The bardo of dying is also one of the important times for using the phowa practice (“transference of consciousness” to pure lands).
If you are a phowa meditator, you can do it for yourself by yourself.
Otherwise, someone else can effectuate phowa for you.
If someone else is performing phowa for a dying person, the performer should be careful about doing it, waiting until the dying person has completed the first stage of dissolutions – the dissolutions of physical elements – as the dying person might still be resisting death, and there might be hope that she or he will come back. In that case the performance of phowa might increase the chances of the person’s dying.
In phowa practice, with compassion, faith, devotion, calmness, and one-pointed mind, visualize yourself as a divine form, such as Vajrayoginī (or as your ordinary form) in the center of the beautiful and joyous Blissful Buddha Land (Sukhāvatī). Visualize Amitābha, the Buddha of Infinite Light, above your head.
Jigme Lingpa writes:
All my perceptions spontaneously arise as the totally pure Buddha Land,
The fully arrayed Blissful Buddha Land.
In the center of it, I visualize myself as Vajrayoginī,
With one head and two arms, transparently red.
I hold a curved blade [symbolizing wisdom] and a skull [bliss].
My legs are in the advancing posture and my three eyes are glancing upward into the sky.
In the center (of my body) is the central channel,
Of the thickness of a bamboo arrow shaft,
Empty, clear, hollow, and luminous.
The upper end of the central channel is open at the cranial aperture,
And its lower end reaches the navel.
On the knot at the heart
In the center of a green sphere of air [energy]
Is my awareness [mind] in the form of a red letter HRĪḤ
At the length of a forearm [two feet] above my head
I visualize Amitābha Buddha [the Buddha of Infinite Light]
Adorned with most excellent signs and marks. I pray to him with strong devotion.
Then with the energy of total devotion, pray many times to Amitābha Buddha and other Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and enlightened masters.
At the end, with one-pointed concentration, again and again shouting PHAṬ or HIK, visualize and feel that your mind, which is in the form of a HRĪḤ letter, is shot upward by the force of devotion and by the force of air [energy], again and again, through the central channel and merges into the heart, the center of the form of Amitābha Buddha, like water poured into water. Believe, feel, and remain in the experience of being one – oneness with the Buddha.
You can perform phowa for yourself, someone else can do it for you, or both of you can perform it for you.
But as I said before, we should have good training on it in advance, otherwise when the time of great pressure arrives, if you look for an unfamiliar approach it might even be hard to remember the practice.
Bear in mind also that realizing oneself as the Buddha, realizing oneness with the mind of the Buddha, or realizing the true nature of mind, as taught in different trainings, are absolute phowa trainings, the method of transferring one’s mind to the Buddha lands.
The Bardo of Ultimate Nature
The luminosity of the basis or the luminous primordial wisdom of the basis arises after the cessation of the outer breathing, but while the inner breathing has not yet ceased, as a little heat is still present at the heart.
If you realize the wisdom of the basis and maintain it, you will be liberated from the three bonds of samsara, namely (1) the bond of physical body, (2) the bond of phenomenal appearances, and (3) the bond of conceptual mind.
Because of our past karmic effects, we have been born with this gross body and have thereby trapped ourselves in the bond of the physical body.
Because of our past habits, we have been enslaved by the objects that we perceive and have thereby trapped ourselves in the bond of phenomenal appearances.
Because of our mental consciousnesses, we have embroiled ourselves in dualistic and emotional thoughts and have thereby trapped ourselves in the bond of conceptual mind.
The intrinsic awareness of your mind exits through the cranial aperture and unites with the ultimate sphere. This is the attainment of the union of enlightened wisdom and the primordially pure ultimate sphere. Then no succeeding stage of bardo will arise for you.
In the bardo of ultimate nature, first the state of attainment dissolves into luminosity, which is clarity and openness, like the pure sky of an early autumn morning. It is called “the luminosity of the basis”, and it is the luminosity of Dharmakāya, the primordial purity.
As every being possesses Buddha nature or is Buddha in his or her true nature, when all the concepts and emotions are dissolved (such as at this time), the primordial purity and luminosity shine forth for every being.
Even a small insect will have the experience of primordial purity and luminosity at the time of death.
For realized and experienced people, this period presents the opportunity for them to recognize it and become enlightened.
For unrealized people, although they will experience it, they may not even notice it, and its arising will not make any difference to them.
Then the luminosity dissolves into union. It is the union of openness (emptiness) and appearances (light).
In this, the images of the wrathful deities will appear. We hear the roar of loud sounds, like thunder. Although these luminous appearances are the natural power arisen from the natural purity and the openness of our own mind – in the form of oneness and enlightenment – and the sounds are the natural expression of our own natural mind, unrealized people may faint out of fear.
The whole universe appears as a world of radiating lights, with the beautiful light images of the peaceful deities in infinite circles of five-colored lights. Chains of light with numerous sparks of light come from the heart of the deities and reach our hearts.
Finally, we feel that they have all merged into us. Then union dissolves into wisdom). In this, we first see that from our hearts a very thin beam of light extends deep into the sky. Then we will see in the sky broad beams of light – blue, white, yellow, and red – one above the other. Each beam is adorned with a circle of light of corresponding color, the size of a mirror, which is again decorated with five circles of light, the size of peas.
These are the wisdom lights of the (1) wisdom of the ultimate sphere, (2) mirror-like wisdom, (3) wisdom of equanimity, and (4) discriminative wisdom.
Above that, we will see a parasol of five-colored lights of the five wisdoms, like a parasol of peacock feathers. Then the wisdom dissolves into the state of the spontaneously accomplished knowledge holder. In this, we will see that the four beams of light merge into the parasol-like five lights above. Then the following symbolic images appear as a luminous reflection in a mirror. We feel that we are seeing the appearances of the Dharmakāya, the primordial purity, symbolized by the cloudless pure sky above in space.
Below that, we see the pure lands of the Sambhogakāya, the spontaneous accomplishment, symbolized by images of wrathful deities and peaceful deities.
Below that, we see the pure lands of the Nirmānakāya, the natural presence, in various manifestations.
At the bottom of these, we see the world of beings of the impure six realms.
At this time, we may also experience many Buddha virtues present in our minds, such as the five fore-knowledges.
Most beings will have all these experiences, but unless we are realized, they could just be like a flash; we might not even notice them, and they would not be of much benefit to us.
But if, when we experience the luminosity of the basis and the luminous appearances we recognize them as they are – openly and in oneness without discrimination, designations, or grasping – then we will be liberated into Buddhahood, and all the appearances will be liberated as the natural power of Buddhahood.
If not, then we will again trip off to the next stage of bardo.
The most important meditation throughout the experiences of all the bardos, and especially for the bardo of ultimate nature, is to recognize the true nature of the luminosity of the basis and its appearance, the intrinsic lights.
When we see lights or various forms and sounds, if we could recognize them as the energies of our own enlightened mind, they would arise as the spontaneously present five wisdoms and the Buddha mandalas, inseparable from the enlightened mind itself.
But if we see the light forms and sounds as objects separate from the mind itself, by grasping at a self with dualistic concepts, they arise as various phenomena of gross concepts, emotional afflictions, and the world of the five physical elements.
In addition to recognizing the nature of the light, forms, and sounds, it is also important to recognize the intrinsic awareness, the nature of our own mind as it is, as if we were meeting an old intimate friend again. For then we will realize the true nature of everything. Then we will transcend the concepts of existing and not existing and will attain Buddhahood, the ever-liberated state.
Guru Rinpoche advises us to practice and pray as follows:
When the bardo of ultimate nature is dawning upon me,
Abandoning all fear and terror,
I will recognize all the happenings as self-appearing intrinsic awareness (the energies of the true nature of the mind) itself,
And I will realize it as the mere (imagined) appearances of the bardo.
Jigme Lingpa writes:
If you analyze the bardo of ultimate nature,
There are many aspects to be analyzed.
But, instead, if you just analyze the analyzer itself,
It exists nowhere.
Then liberate the concept of not existing also.
This is the ever-liberated state.
Longchen Rabjam writes:
A yogī who is attaining liberation in this very life,
Dissolves the earth element into water, water into fire, fire into air, air into consciousness, and consciousness into luminescence;
Then, uniting with (the union of) wisdom and the ultimate sphere
She/he secures permanence in the state of primordial (Buddhahood).
For the benefit of others, like a dream, wisdom with two Buddha bodies
Appears to sentient beings as the Buddha qualities that serve them.
You may have heard and read books on near-death experiences. They are amazing! The Tibetan tradition of bardo is at least a thousand years old, and near-death experiences are a new topic, but many aspects are the same in both literatures; they speak in an almost identical language.
However, the bardo teachings go much deeper. They show the causes and results of various stages of the bardo and get to the bottom of them, instead of merely giving an initial idea.
In particular, the bardo teachings guide us in how to prepare for and deal with circumstances in order to improve our bardo experiences and future lives.
In the bardo of dying and the bardo of ultimate nature we witness various kinds of lights and phenomenal appearances.
But for many, and especially for realized people, they are not in a subject–object mode of perception.
Realized beings see and feel them as oneness. You can see or feel hundreds of things together simultaneously. You can see or feel everything, not necessarily through the eyes, but with totalness, as if it all is before you. All is joy, bliss, oneness, and openness – no discrimination, limits, conflicts, or pain. The higher your realization is, the more you can see thousands of things simultaneously.
On the other hand, many people in such circumstances experience only complete pain, fear, and suffering.
When I said “light,” you probably thought about beams of light or sunlight-like phenomena coming from somewhere.
But in true realization you are not realizing those lights as objects – the objects of the eye consciousness and so forth. You are realizing the light as a clarity and luminosity, which is also peace, joy, bliss, openness, oneness, and all-knowing wisdom. And you are the light and the light is you, oneness. This is the union of openness nature (emptiness) and the spontaneously arising wisdom and appearances (intrinsic light).
This principal is the very basis from which esoteric Buddhism speaks of nonduality, natural light, clarity, spontaneous arising, spontaneously present, simultaneous awareness, self-arisen, unborn, and fully enlightened.
In the bardo your mind has disconnected from your physical energies, and the structure of the physical body does not control or influence your mental movements.
If you have made a good spiritual preparation in your lifetime, then in the bardo the power and impact of your spiritual realization will be more effective in improving the course of your life than it is now. Your mind will be more powerful and open to moving toward whatever goal you will focus on, as it is totally together.
Even if you have not realized the true nature of bardo experiences, if you could just think with a devotional mind, “They are Buddha nature and Buddha manifestations,” or in simple words, think of them as positive phenomena, then they will cause peace, joy, and relaxation in you. As a result, you will gain in spiritual strength and wisdom. You will be able to handle the bardo process and will be led to a better rebirth.
At least you should try to avoid being scared, confused, or attached to any experiences or appearances by thinking, “They are all not real. They are mere fabrications of my mind.”
Then try to remember your spiritual supports, such as masters, teachings and, above all, your meditative experiences, with faith, trust, devotion, and joy. Again, this will enable you to handle the bardo process and will lead you to a better rebirth.
Generally, for common people, the experiences of both the bardo of dying and the bardo of ultimate nature can last from a fraction of a second to many minutes, but they might feel them to be much longer.
The perception and experience of time is not necessarily measured according to one conceptual system, namely the concepts we have at present.
The Bardo of Becoming
In the popular sense, among common Tibetans, this is “the bardo.”
This is also the bardo that will have the longest duration among the latter three bardos, since for many the second and third bardo experiences can last only briefly.
If you are a highly or even moderately realized person, you will have attained enlightenment in the bardo of life or at least in the bardo of ultimate nature, and will not go through the bardo of becoming.
If you are a person of a little realization, you can go through the bardo of becoming very briefly, but with no experience of suffering; then, by remembering your meditative realizations, you will be reborn in a manifested pure land. There you will receive the blessings of the five Buddha families and attain Buddhahood.
If you are an unrealized person and your consciousness is not transferred to a pure land by any other means, such as phowa, you will move to the next bardo, the bardo of becoming.
Common people in the second and third bardos might have experienced falling into unconsciousness (instead of experiencing the luminosity of the basis, as it is) and become terrified by the appearances of the sounds, lights, rays, and images of the deities.
You might not even have dared to see or feel your own true nature and the appearances of your true nature, but instead you would have struggled with them as objects – objects in the form of conflicting forces.
Then from the force of not realizing the ultimate nature, the luminosity of the basis, you feel the arising of the energies of air, fire, water, and earth elements in yourself, and they are followed by thoughts of confusion, desire, and aggression.
Your consciousness, or mind, will exit from your gross body through one of the nine doors. (The best door to exit through is the cranial aperture or fontanel at the top of the head.)
By the joining together of those energies and your consciousness, you will mentally feel that you have a body with all the sense faculties.
Some scriptures even talk of having a subtle body (or soft light body), but most agree that it is a mental or imagined body, without any real form.
Nevertheless, you will feel that you have a body with some light of its own, and you will not feel the sunlight or moonlight.
Thereafter, you may go through the following experiences:
(1) You will have no stability or solidness in your life and mind, and everything will change from moment to moment, according to the changes of your thoughts and the influences of your karmic forces.
(2) You will reach any person or place that comes into your mind, unless it is beyond your karmic range. If you think “New York,” you will be there instantly, without spending any time or effort in traveling there.
(3) It is hard to stay in one place and to focus on any thought, as you are always moving, floating, and being driven about.
(4) You are constantly running, flying, and moving, like a feather in a storm, with no stability.
(5) Your mind will be much sharper than an ordinary person’s and will have some sort of clairvoyance, knowing other people’s thoughts; but you will have less reasoning or analytic power, because of the lack of mental stability.
(6) Your mind may go through many changes of happiness and suffering, hope and fear, peace and pain in every single moment.
(7) Sometimes you imagine danger from the elements, as if you are buried under houses, caves, or collapsed earth, falling and sinking in water, burning in a fire of wood or houses, and being blown about in stormy air.
(8) When the dead see their dead bodies, some get attached to them, while others dislike them.
(9) Yet others do not recognize their corpse and mysteriously see it as a different form, such as the dead body of an animal.
(10) You could be seeking food all the time, but be unable to enjoy any food unless it is dedicated to you.
(11) Mostly you will just be able to enjoy the smell of that food. [This is the reason that sur (food burning) offerings are usually dedicated to a deceased person for many weeks after his or her death.]
(12) You will feel lonely and insecure and will always be looking for shelter and stability.
(13) As you are tired of being swept about by karmic, mental, and emotional storms, you are always eager to gain shelter or to find a birth, with little care about what kind of situation you are going to be trapped in.
(14) Every week you might experience the process of death all over again and again, especially if it was a tragic death.
(15) Also, at the beginning, you may not realize that you actually have died for a long time, as you have little reasoning power.
(16) You might go to friends, but they will ignore you.
(17) You might go to the dining table, but no one will give you a chair or serve you food.
(18) The duration of this bardo is generally from about a week to seven weeks, but it could be shorter or in some rare cases even longer.
(19) During the first half, you will feel that you have the body of and connections to your previous life, and then during the second half, you will feel that you have the body and experiences of the coming birth.
(20) Around the middle of the stay in this bardo, many experience going to the court [according to accounts by Tibetan Delogs (“returners from death”)] of the Lord of Death, the King of the Law, where the place of your rebirth will be decided by checking the records of your past virtuous and unvirtuous karma.
(21) These people witness defenders and prosecutors pleading for or against their virtues and demeritorious deeds, supporting their arguments with various proofs measured by pebbles, scales, and mirrors.
(22) In addition, from around the middle of this bardo you will start seeing the lights of different colours, the energies of your karma and emotions, which indicate your rebirth realm.
(23) If you are going to take rebirth in the god realm you will see a soft white light. Likewise, you will see soft red for the demigod realm, soft blue for the human realm, soft green for the animal realm, soft yellow for the hungry-ghost realm, and a smoky light for the hell realm.
(24) You might also see the realm of your birth in symbolic terms, which may include the following:
(a) If you are going to take rebirth in the god realm, you might feel as if you are going into a mansion.
(b) Likewise, you may go into a wheel of light or of war for the demigod realm, empty caves or huts for the animal realm, a forest, logs, or black blankets for the hungry-ghost realm, and a dark pit or a metal town for the hell realm.
(c) For the human realm you could feel as if you are going into a lake with swans, horses, or cows, or into a mist, houses, cities, or a crowd of people.
(25) When the time of rebirth arrives, you will see your parents engaged in intercourse, and you may feel jealousy toward your father and desire toward your mother, if you are going to become a male; or you may feel the reverse if you are going to be born as a female.
(26) That emotional feeling will trigger you to enter into the womb of conception.
(27) For egg birth, moisture birth, and also miraculous birth, your birth will usually be triggered by the force of the emotions of hatred or desire.
How should we handle the bardo of becoming?
First it is important to realize that you have died.
(1) If you do not have a reflection in mirrors, footprints on sand or snow, a shadow beside your body, and if people are not responding to you, then you are in the bardo.
(2) Try not to get sad and shocked.
(3) But try to concentrate on any of the following three important points:
(a) First, realize that you are at the most important juncture of all of your future lives and cannot waste a moment.
(b) Second, feel joy about whatever spiritual path you have pursued in your lifetime, as that will be the great source of light, joy, and peace of today.
(c) Third, remember any one of the following three practices, according to your experiences in the past, and then stay with that practice without distractions. (If you are a highly realized person you would have already been enlightened.)
(i) If you are a person who has some esoteric meditative experience, you should see those lights as bright wisdom lights, or turn them into bright lights of wisdom. Also, you can see the Buddhas of the five Buddha families, as mentioned in Thötröl [“Liberation by Hearing” – is a series of texts, with The Tibetan Book of the Dead being one of them. They were discovered as Terma by Karma Lingpa], and attain enlightenment. If you try to see with faith, you will see them as such, as all are creations of the mind in the bardo. So, remember your devotion to the Buddhas, masters, and meditation. Realize all those experiences as oneness, and that all the forms and sounds are the manifest power of that oneness. Be one with them, without grasping or struggling through a subjective and objective standpoint. Then remain relaxed in that realized state. Merge into it again and again.
(ii) If you are not a realized or experienced meditator, but a spiritual person, first you should try to calm your mind, be stable and focused on your spiritual supports, instead of being driven everywhere, as bardo beings always are. In Tibetan tantric Buddhism, there are many rites a Lama will perform for the deceased. Through the power of prayers, merit making, devotion, and contemplation, the Lama brings the mind of the deceased person to an image (or an object) and stabilizes him or her with it. Then the Lama gives teachings and bestows the empowerments in order to lead the mind of the deceased person to Buddhahood, or at least to a good rebirth. If the Lama’s meditative rites are powerful, and if there is proper virtuous karma in the deceased person, the rites will be most effective.
Remember and remain in whatever faith, meditation, or spiritual thoughts and feelings you are familiar with.
If you could remember and invoke the compassion and powers of the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, saints, sages, spiritual masters, and meditation, your spiritual experiences will be powerful and beneficial at this lonely crossing.
Whatever spiritual thoughts, memories, or experiences you have, they will generate the force of peace, joy, devotion, compassion, pure perception, and wisdom (which is the realization of the ultimate nature and its luminous appearances) in you.
That force will cause you to be led to enlightenment or to a better rebirth (just as negative emotions cause birth in a lower mundane realm).
That force could divert the path of your rebirth in inferior realms, even if it has been chosen. Whatever spiritual experiences and strength you have had in your lifetime, they will certainly bear their fruits at this time of need.
(iii) If you have no spiritual experience, when you go through all those happenings, try not to become angry, upset, and afraid, but see them as mere fabrications of your mind, like a dream.
No one is putting up all these bardo arrangements for your arrival; they are just illusions imagined by your own mind and mental emotions.
Try to be open, positive, stable, and peaceful, instead of having a grasping concept, a negative perception, rushing and struggling with emotions of hatred, desire, or confusion.
Feel compassion for others who are also driven about in this unknown bardo. If you can create or regain and maintain such a positive state of mind and spiritual energy, it will bring stability to your mind, release the negative energies or karma in you, and a spiritual peace and light can blossom in you, bearing the fruits of rebirth in a happy realm.
You should also try to reverse the process of taking inferior births, if you face any of them. When you see the signs of inferior birth, the soft lights and signs, or the place (or the parents) of birth in an inferior birth, the most important thing is not to get into emotional thoughts of grasping, craving, attachment, hatred, jealousy, fear, confusion, and so on.
Instead, see all with a spiritual mind, a mind of peace, oneness, and openness.
See them with peace by realizing them as the fabrications of your own mind, or see them as the images of male and female Buddhas.
Pray to the Buddhas and spiritual masters for their blessing and guidance.
Your friends can help by (1) performing spiritual practices, such as phowa practice, (2) making merit, (3) purification of demeritorious deeds, (4) invoking the blessings of the Buddhas, (5) saying prayers, (6) chanting mantras, (7) giving charity, (8) making offerings, (9) saving lives, (10) making Buddha images, (11) writing Dharma scriptures, (12) building spiritual monuments, (13) refraining from demeritorious deeds, and then (14) dedicating all the merit of these actions to you and to all mother beings for their happiness and enlightenment.
Whatever merit they will make and dedicate to you will benefit you, as you are inspiring them to make and dedicate them to you and to all mother beings with love, openness, and beneficial minds.
It is important for your friends not to think and, especially, not to say or do things that could trigger any negative thoughts, feelings, or emotions in your mind, but to think and, especially, say or do things that will inspire peace, joy, and strength in you.
In this life, the mind is relatively stable because it has stationed itself in this earthy, physical structure. It is therefore easier to gain spiritual views and habits through meditation.
But it is also harder to make a big change or improvement precisely because the mind is trapped and programmed in the system of your rigid, earthy body.
In the bardo, however, the mind is rapidly changing in a powerful transitional junction without the conditions of the physical body.
It is thus easier to change or improve your future journey.
But it is also harder to find a new unfamiliar path and focus on it, since your bodiless mind floats rapidly and constantly rushes about at high speed.
So, if you could focus your mind on gaining spiritual views and experiences in this lifetime, while you still have a stable basis, in the bardo the habits of those experiences will easily affect your journey into a future life, ensuring a future of great peace, joy, and wisdom.
Today, fortunately, you are alive and I am alive.
We have the opportunity to prepare for our bardos and our next lives.
If we have experienced peace, joy, strength, and wisdom, then when the day of death comes to us, we all will be able to welcome it, thinking “Oh, wonderful, I am ready for it!”
The mind of bardo is much clearer and more powerful, and its experiences are much sharper than today’s mind, which is programmed in this particular system of human perceptions and trapped in the structure of the body of flesh and blood.
So if we have gained some Dharma experience in our lifetime, in the bardo we will be enjoying the fruits of great peace and light, and rejoicing and celebrating for what we achieved when we were alive in this world.
If there is peace, openness, and wisdom in our minds, all our mental states and the phenomena around us can arise as positive appearances.
The five emotions of our minds arise as the five wisdoms, and the five physical elements as the five intrinsic lights, the Buddhas and Buddha lands, the natural energy of wisdom.
Or, at least, images of the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, saints, sages, Lamas, Dakinis, and Dakas will lead us through the clear sky to the most peaceful and joyful Buddha lands with a great display of magical offerings, peaceful music, and joyful dances, filling the whole atmosphere.
Now we will be acquiring the power of bringing that peace, light, and joy to all our mother beings.
[Note: According to Buddhism, every being goes through the transmigration of an infinite number of successive lives. So, in the process of our numerous past lives, each of the infinite number of beings has been our own parents and spouses, as well as enemies, numerous times. So, as mother is the symbol of love and care, Buddhist teachings see and illustrate every being as a “mother being” in order to bring the spiritual openness of gratitude and love in us toward all beings without any discrimination.]
Source: Based on Thondup, Tulku. Enlightened Journey: Buddhist Practice as Daily Life. Shambhala. Kindle Edition.
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