Now when the bardo of this life is dawning upon me,

I will abandon laziness, for there is no time to waste in life,

Enter the undistracted path of hearing, thought, and meditation,

Making mind and appearances the path, I will manifest the trikaya.

Now that for once I have obtained a human body

This is no time to linger on diverting sidetracks.

Literally, this bardo is called the “place” or “state of birth,” which does not refer just to birth itself, but to its result, the condition of life into which we are born. It can also be translated as “birth and remaining.” It means this particular birth, this life.

Another name that is sometimes used for it is the bardo of birth and death.

Some traditions actually interpret the birthplace as the womb and recognize a separate bardo of gestation, but here, according to the verse, it clearly indicates this life.

It lasts from birth until death and covers the whole of our ordinary, waking existence.

We can also think of it as any moment or situation that occurs during waking life or as the lifetime of any mental state, however short or long it may be.

Anything whatever, after it has arisen and before it passes away, takes place within the bardo of this life, appearing to exist and to be absolutely real.

Trungpa Rinpoche said that this state is based on speed, the momentum of keeping things going. If a flaming torch is whirled around fast enough in the air, it appears to be a solid circle of fire. If an airplane loses its speed, it will stall and fall out of the sky.

In this case, speed is necessary to keep up the illusion of what we are; it keeps us believing in the solidity and permanence of our individual existence and of the external world.

The essence or peak point of this bardo is when a gap suddenly occurs; our speed falters for a moment and the continuity is broken. At that very instant, there is a possibility of seeing through the illusion, but this may well seem terrifying, like falling out of the sky into empty space.

The verse reminds us that birth as a human being is extremely rare and precious, and that we should use this opportunity to follow a spiritual path, which is the whole purpose of life.

Hearing, thought (or contemplation), and meditation are the three indispensable aspects of the path in Buddhism.

First, of course, one has to hear about it. In a general sense, this means studying and learning about it from any source, which may include reading books and watching films or videos.

But literally hearing, listening with an open mind to the words of a living teacher, produces a very different effect. This is especially important in vajrayana, where the guru embodies the presence of the whole tradition and transmits its energy and inspiration. We have already seen how this power of transmission applies to the text of Liberation through Hearing.

Second, one should think carefully about what one has heard, ask questions about it to clarify its meaning, and test it against one’s own experience. Then one should reflect deeply on the teachings and recall them as often as possible so they permeate one’s whole mind. Buddhism has great respect for the intellect and believes that it must be trained and used in the proper way, as a tool for its own transcendence. The various views put forward in Buddhist philosophy are never purely theoretical. They are meant to guide one’s thought into the correct framework for the experience of meditation. All these teachings and practices sometimes seem extremely complicated, but this is only because of the complexity of our conditioned minds.

For countless lives, we have been living under the influence of ignorance, and so it is not easy to clear away all the obstructions to understanding or to reach the deeply hidden layers of confusion. Through careful thought and reasoning, we can become convinced of what is true and gain confidence in the path.

Finally, what has been heard and thought about must be put into practice through meditation. This is much more than contemplation of the teachings or understanding them intellectually.

At this point, the rational, conceptual aspect of the mind must let go, allowing a breakthrough into direct, intuitive experience.

Meditation means working directly with the mind and inner energies in accordance with whatever technique one is following.

By this process, delusions are cleared away, the chain of karmic cause and effect is interrupted, and the mind is transformed.

It brings about an actual change in one’s mode of consciousness, so it is counted as a bardo in its own right, the bardo of meditation occurring within the bardo of this life.

In each of the bardos, the essence of the practice is to use the particular circumstances of that state as a means of awakening.

The verse tells us to make mind and appearances into the path.

Appearances means everything that arises in the fields of the senses; appearances and mind together constitute our whole experience. We take that experience itself as a path so that it becomes the basis of our practice.

External appearances seem to be quite separate from the mind, because of our dualistic habit of dividing experience into subject and object, but gradually we come to see that they are indivisible and that all appearances are the spontaneous play of the mind.

The guru reveals the true nature of the mind by a process of direct transmission, a meeting of minds that can most readily take place during this bardo, our present lifetime.

The trikaya literally means the “three bodies,” the three dimensions of the awakened state: (1) its absolute empty essence, (2) the visionary expression of its luminous nature, and (3) its actual appearance in this world. …

By following the path, we come to realize that the true nature of both mind and appearances is the primordial state of buddhahood.

We ourselves are intrinsically buddha, and therefore we naturally manifest the three aspects as the spontaneous expression of our own being.

The bardo of dream and the bardo of meditation both take place within the bardo of this life.

Dreaming intensifies the illusory nature of life, whereas meditation presents a way of seeing life as it truly is.

In the book Luminous Emptiness,I am reversing the traditional order and taking the bardo of meditation first in order to introduce certain ideas that are also relevant to the bardo of dream.

Source: Based on Fremantle, Francesca. Luminous Emptiness. Shambhala. Kindle Edition.

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