Chapter 9 Chapter 7 The Bardo and Other Realities

The bardo is called Bardo in Tibetan and refers to the "transition" or "interval" between the "completion of one situation" and the "beginning of another". Bar means "between" and do means "suspended" or "lost". The term Bardo became famous due to the popularity of the book "The Bardo Hearing and Teaching".Since the book was first translated into English in 1927, it has aroused the interest of Western psychologists, writers and philosophers, and has sold millions of copies. The English title of "Bardo Wenjiao Dedu" is "Tibetan Book of the Dead", and it is the translator of this book. American scholar Dr. WYEvans-Wentz imitated the famous "Egyptian Book of the Dead" (Egyptian Book of the Dead) book.Its original name in Tibetan is "Bardo Todrol Chenmo", which means that in the bardo stage, one can gain great liberation by listening to the teachings.The bardo teachings are very ancient and can be found in the Dzogchen Tantras.The inheritance of these teachings can be traced back to the primordial Buddha (Samantabhadra) before the human guru, who represents the absolute, naked, and primordially pure mind like the sky. "The Bardo Hearing and Teaching Dedu" is only a part of the vast teachings of Padmasambhava, which was made public by the fourteenth-century Tibetan practitioner Karma Lingpa.

"Bardo Hearing and Teaching Deduplication" is a good book with rich content.It is a travel guide to the realm of the afterlife, to be read to a person on his deathbed or after death by a teacher or a good teacher.Tibetans believe that there are "five ways to achieve enlightenment without practicing meditation": 1. Seeing a great master or holy object; 2. Wearing a specially blessed mandala with sacred mantras on it; 3. 1. Taste the nectar blessed by the master after a special practice; 4. Remember the transformation of consciousness (Phowa method) when you die; "Bardo Hearing and Teaching Dedu" is written for practitioners or those who are familiar with its teachings.It is difficult for modern people to go deep into its mystery, and there are many questions that cannot be answered without knowing its background.Some teachings, which are the key to the practice of the Bardo Hearing and Teaching Dedu, have not been written down and are only passed on orally from master to disciple. If you do not understand these, you will not be able to fully understand and use this book.

Westerners already have some understanding of these teachings through "The Bardo of Hearing and Teaching".Therefore, in this book, I will discuss this teaching from a broad and in-depth perspective. Bardo: Due to the popularity of "Bardo Hearing and Teaching Dedu", people usually associate the bardo with death.Yes, Tibetans use the bardo to refer to the intermediate state between death and rebirth in everyday Tibetan language, but it has broader and deeper meanings.In the bardo teaching, perhaps more than in any other teaching, we can see how profound and profound the Buddha's knowledge of life and death is; if we can fully understand what we call "life" and "death" from the perspective of enlightenment, One can realize how inseparable the two are.

We can divide the whole of human existence into four realities: this life, dying and death, after death, and rebirth.These are the four bardos: ·The "natural" bardo of this life ·The "painful" bardo at the end of life ·The "bright" bardo of dharmata ·The "karma" bardo of being born 1. The natural bardo of this life, encompassing the entire process between birth and death.Based on our current understanding, it seems that this period is not just a bardo, a transitional period.If we think about it and compare it to the long karmic history, this lifetime is actually quite short.The bardo teachings specifically tell us that the natural bardo of this life is the only and best time to prepare for death.The method is to become familiar with the teachings and practice steadily.

2. The painful bardo of dying, from the beginning of the death process until the end of the so-called "inner breathing"; finally, the revealing of the mind at the time of death, which we call "Ground Luminosity" (Ground Luminosity). ] 3. The bardo of the light of dharmata is the experience that includes the radiance of the mind after death. "Clear Light" or luminosity will manifest as sound, color and light energy. 4. The karmic bardo of rebirth, which is what we commonly call the bardo body, lasts until we are reborn as a new life. What defines and distinguishes each of the bardos is that they are intervals or periods in which the possibility of enlightenment specifically arises.Opportunities for liberation continue throughout life and death, and the Bardo teachings are an important tool in enabling us to discover, recognize, and take full advantage of these opportunities.

Uncertainty and opportunity: A central feature of the bardos is that they belong to periods of great uncertainty.Take this life as the main example!When the world around us becomes more chaotic, our lives become more fragmented.Out of touch and away from ourselves, we become agitated and constantly paranoid.A small crisis can burst the strategic balloon we rely on to hide.A painful moment can tell us how uncertain and fluid everything is.To live in the modern world is to live in the apparent bardo; you don't have to wait until you die to experience the bardo. The uncertainty that currently permeates everything becomes more severe and more intense after we die; the clarity or confusion after death, the masters tell us, is "multiplied seven times."

Anyone who takes an honest look at life can see that we often live in a state of suspense and ambiguity.Our hearts are always going in and out between chaos and clarity.If we've been in confusion, there's at least some kind of clarity.What really confuses us about life is that, although chaotic, it is sometimes very clear, which shows the meaning of the bardo: the boundary between clarity and confusion, confusion and wisdom, certainty and uncertainty, wisdom and madness. A constant, discouraging restlessness.Just like we are now, wisdom and confusion arise in our mind at the same time, or what is called "co-emergent".This means that we are often faced with an alternative state, and everything depends on how we choose.

This constant state of uncertainty may make everything depressing and hopeless; but if you look deeper, you will find that its essence is to create gaps, and there are many opportunities for transformation in this space. Appear - if they can be seen and grasped. Because life is nothing but a perpetual flow of birth, death, and transitions, bardo experiences happen to us all the time and become an essential part of our psychological fabric.However, we always forget about the bardos and their intervals, because our mind, passing from one so-called "concrete" situation to the next, habitually ignores the transitional stages that occur all the time.In fact, as the bardo teachings say, every moment of our experience is a bardo, because every thought and every emotion arises from the nature of mind and then returns to the nature of mind.The bardo teachings make us aware, especially in times of strong change and transition, that our sky-like, primordial nature of mind will have the opportunity to manifest.

Let me tell you an example.Imagine coming home from get off work one day to find the door of your house pried open and hanging from its hinges.You have been stolen.Go inside and find all your belongings gone.You froze, stunned, disappointed, and frantically wondered what you had lost, and then your frantic, agitated heart froze and your thoughts faded away.There was a sudden, deep silence, almost a joyful experience.No more struggling, no more trying, because it won't help.Now you have no choice but to give up. So, one moment you lose something precious, the next moment you find your mind resting in a state of deep stillness.When this experience occurs, don't rush to find answers right away.You should stay in that stillness for a while and let it be an interval.If you do rest in that space and look inward, you will catch a glimpse of the immortality of the enlightened mind.If during this life we ​​become more sensitive and alert to the opportunities for transformation that such intervals and transitions provide, we can better prepare ourselves internally for the stronger and less controllable conditions that will occur at death. preparation.

This is very important because the bardo teachings tell us that there are times when the mind is freer than usual, there are times when it is stronger, there are times when there is very strong karma to transform and change, and in the end The climax is at the moment of death.Because when the physical body is abandoned, we have the greatest chance of liberation. No matter how good our practice is, we are still limited by the body and its karma.But at death, we are liberated from the physical body and have a very good chance of fulfilling our spiritual and life goals.Even for a master who has attained the highest level of enlightenment, the ultimate liberation is found only when he passes away. This is called parinirvana.That's why in Tibetan tradition, we don't celebrate the birthdays of our masters; we only celebrate their passing away - the moment of final enlightenment.

As a child and growing up in Tibet, I heard many stories about great practitioners, or even seemingly ordinary yogis and laypeople, dying surprising and dramatic deaths.They must wait until the last moment to demonstrate the power of enlightenment and the power of their teachings. The bardo teachings, derived from the ancient Dzogchen Tantra, refer to a mythical bird called the Garuda, which is fully developed at birth.This image symbolizes our true nature, which is inherently flawless.Garuda's baby birds are already fully feathered in the egg, but they cannot fly before the egg is hatched.It has to wait until the eggshell is broken before it can rush out and soar into the sky.In the same way, the master told us that the Buddha nature is hidden by the body, once the body is abandoned, the Buddha nature will shine brightly. Why is there so much opportunity at death?This is because the nature of the mind at that time, the radiance of the earth or clear light will naturally manifest itself, vast and magnificent.If at this critical moment, we can recognize the light of the earth, we will be liberated. Unless you are really familiar with the nature of mind through practice when you are alive, you still cannot be liberated.This is why in the Tibetan tradition, a person who is liberated at death is considered liberated in this life, not in the bardo after death, because the main realization of clear light occurs in this life.This is an important point that everyone must understand. Other realities: I said that the bardo is an opportunity, but what is the bardo that allows us to seize the opportunity?The answer is simple: they are all different states of mind and different realities. In Buddhist training, we prepare through meditation to correctly discover the various relevant aspects of the mind and to access the different levels of consciousness skillfully.Throughout the cycle of birth and death, there is a clear and definite relationship between the various bardo states and levels of consciousness that we experience.Therefore, whether we are alive or after death, when we pass from one bardo to another, our consciousness will change accordingly; through practice, we can understand these changes very personally, and finally master them fully. The processes that unfold in the bardo of death are buried deep within us, so they also manifest on many levels of the mind while we are alive.For example, our subtle consciousness in sleep and dream is very similar to the three bardos related to death: Falling asleep is similar to the bardo of dying, a time when various elements and thought processes dissolve into an experience of earth luminosity. ·Dreaming is similar to the bardo of being born. In the bardo of being born, you have a keen awareness and a very active "mental body" (mental body), which will pass through various experiences.In the dream state, we also have a similar body, called the "dream body" (dream body), which will pass through various dream experiences. · Between the bardo of dying and the bardo of birth, there is a very special state of clear light, which I call "the bardo of dharmata".This is an experience that happens to everyone, but only a few people notice it, and even fewer experience it fully, because only those who are experienced in the practice can recognize it.This dharmata bardo is relatively equal to the stage after falling asleep and before dreaming. Of course, the bardo of death is a deeper state of consciousness and a moment of greater power than the sleep state, but their various subtle levels are related to each other, just like all the different levels of consciousness.Masters often use this particular comparison to show how difficult it is to maintain awareness in the bardo.How many of us perceive a change in consciousness when we are asleep?How many people are aware of the moment before dreaming after falling asleep?How many of us even realize when we dream that we are dreaming?So imagine how difficult it is to maintain awareness in the chaos of the bardo of death! What kind of mind you have in your sleep shows what kind of mind you would have in the corresponding bardo, for example, the way you currently react to dreams, nightmares and difficulties shows how you might react after death. This is why dream yoga plays such an important role in preparing for death.What a true practitioner should do is to be constantly aware of the nature of the mind day and night, so that he can directly use the different aspects of sleep and dreams to know and be familiar with what is about to happen in the bardo of dying and after death. So, we find that there are two other bardos that are also included in the natural bardo of this life: the bardo of sleep and the bardo of meditation.Meditation is a practice during the day, while dream yoga is a practice at night.In the tradition to which Bardo Hearing and Teaching Dedu belongs, these two bardos are added to the above four bardos to form the six bardos. Life and death are in their palms: Each bardo has its own unique teachings and meditation methods that correctly address those realities and each unique state of mind, so the practice and training designed for each bardo enables us to take full advantage of these Chance was freed.The point of understanding the bardo is that it is possible to realize these states of mind while alive, as long as these spiritual disciplines are followed.We do experience them here and now. It may be difficult for Westerners to understand what it means to fully recognize the various levels of the mind, but this does not mean that it is impossible! Kunu Lama is a qualified guru from the Himalayas in northern India.As a young man, he met a lama in Sikkim who persuaded him to go to Tibet to study Buddhism, so he went to Kham province in eastern Tibet to receive teachings from some of the greatest masters, including Jamyang Khyentse.Kunu Lama's knowledge of Sanskrit earned him the respect of others and opened many doors for him.The masters were enthusiastic about teaching him, hoping that he could bring these teachings back to India and pass them on, because they knew that these teachings were almost lost in India.During his sojourn in Tibet, Lama Kunu was already very learned and enlightened. Finally he returned to India and lived a life of ascetic practice.When my master and I left Tibet for a pilgrimage to India, we looked for him everywhere in Benaris.It turned out that he was living in a Hindu temple.No one knew he was a Buddhist, and certainly not that he was a guru.All he knew was that he was a polite, sage-like yogi, and that he was offered food.Whenever I think of him, I always say to myself, "This must be St. Francis of Assisi, Italy." When Tibetan monks and lamas began to flee to India, Kunu Lama was chosen to teach grammar and Sanskrit in the school founded by Guru Lama. Many knowledgeable lamas attended his classes, studied with him, and regarded him as an excellent teacher. language teacher.One day someone asked him a question about the Dharma, and his answers were very in-depth, so they kept asking questions and found that no matter what they asked, he knew the answer.In fact, he can speak on any question.Later he became famous and before long he was teaching various traditions to members of various traditions Therefore, the Guru Lama respected him as a teacher and learned the teachings and compassionate actions from him.In fact, Kunu Lama is a living example of compassion.Even after becoming famous, it still hasn't changed.He still wore the same plain old monk's robes and lived in a small house.Whenever anyone gave him a gift, he passed it on to the next visitor.If someone cooks for him, he eats, and if no one cooks for him, he doesn't eat. One day a master asked Lama Kunu some questions about the bardo.This guru is a professor, very proficient in "The Bardo Hearing and Teaching Dedu", and also has a lot of practice experience in this area.He told me how he asked questions and then listened obsessively to Kunu Lama's answers.When Kunu Lama described the bardo, it was as if he was showing how to get to Kensington Street, or Central Park, or the Champs-Elysees Avenue, as vividly and correctly as if he was there himself. Kunu Lama points out the bardos directly from his own experience.A man of his caliber has traveled through all the different planes of reality.Precisely because the states of the bardo are contained within us, they can be revealed and liberated through bardo practice. These teachings come from the wisdom minds of the Buddhas who can see life and death like the palm of their hand. We are also Buddhas.So, if we can practice in the bardo of this life and go deeper and deeper into our mind, then we can discover the knowledge of the bardo, and these teachings and truths will naturally manifest in us.This is why the natural bardo of this life is the most important.The whole preparation for all the bardos happens here and now, and the bardo teachings say, "The highest preparation is right here—enlightenment in this life."