These Root Verses summarize the six betweens, each verse formulating the insights and resolves that are keys to the successful redirection of each being away from the continuing life-cycle between, toward liberation and enlightenment.

Hey! Now when the life between dawns upon me,

I will abandon laziness, as life has no more time,

Unwavering, enter the path of learning, thinking, and meditating,

And taking perceptions and mind as path,

I will realize the Three Bodies of enlightenment!

This once that I have obtained the human body

Is not the time to stay on the path of distractions.

Hey! Now when the dream between dawns upon me,

I will give up corpselike sleeping in delusion,

And mindfully enter unwavering the experience of reality.

Conscious of dreaming, I will enjoy the changes as clear light.

Not sleeping mindlessly like an animal,

I will cherish the practice merging sleep and realization!

Hey! Now when the meditation between dawns upon me,

I will abandon the host of distracting errors,

Focus in extreme-free experience, without releasing or controlling,

And achieve stability in the creation and perfection stages!

Giving up business, now one-pointed in meditation,

I won’t surrender to the power of erroneous addictions!

Hey! Now when the death-point between dawns upon me,

I will give up the preoccupations of the all-desiring mind,

Enter unwavering the experience of the clarity of the precepts,

And transmigrate into the birthless space of inner awareness;

About to lose this created body of flesh and blood,

I will realize it to be impermanent illusion!

Hey! Now when the reality between dawns upon me,

I will let go of the hallucinations of instinctive terror,

Enter the recognition of all objects as my mind’s own visions,

And understand this as the pattern of perception in the between;

Come to this moment, arrived at this most critical cessation,

I will not fear my own visions of deities mild and fierce!

Hey! Now when the existence between dawns upon me,

I will hold my will with mind one-pointed,

And increase forcefully the impulse of positive evolution;

Blocking the womb door, I will remember to be revulsed.

Now courage and positive perception are essential;

I will give up envy, and contemplate all couples

As my Spiritual Mentor, Father and Mother.

—ooo000ooo—

“With mind distracted, never thinking, ‘Death is coming,’

To slave away on the pointless business of mundane life,

And then to come out empty—it is a tragic error.

Recognition of necessity is the holy teaching of the gods,

So won’t you live this divine truth from now on?”

These are the words of the great adepts.

If you don’t put the Mentor’s precept in your mind,

Won’t you be the one who deceives yourself?

Source: Based on Thurman, Robert. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

by