H.H 17th Karmapa Ogyen
Trinlay Dorje

Ven. Khenpo Kathar
Rinphoche

Dying, Death and the Bardo

Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche

Tape 1

What I'm going to be explaining, starting this evening, is the interval between lives, or the bardo. As most of all of you know, the best known explanation of this is the book that is called The Great Liberation Through Hearing, in the Bardo.  And that book is a very complete and precise explanation of what happens in the bardo as well as what you can do to deal with it and what opportunities there are for liberation. However, because of the book's length and the relatively short amount of time that we have available to us this weekend, I felt it would be inappropriate to start something that we couldn't finish. Therefore, the text that I'm going to use as the basis for my presentation, is an aspiration liturgy, called The Aspiration for the Bardo. And although this text also is a complete treatment of the subject, it is brief enough that we will be able to complete it this weekend.

            The liturgy of aspiration begins with a stanza of supplication and the stanza says, "Those who are our refuge in this life, in future lives and in the interval in between, our guides, the gurus, I supplicate you. Lead us who, though negative karma, mistake the projections of our bewilderment to be real, out of our wandering through the six states within samsara."

            The first point made in this stanza is that the gurus, which means in this case, those that hold us and raise us onto the path, such as the golden garland of the Kagyu, and so forth, our gurus are our sources of refuge not only in this life, but in all future lives, and even in the intervals or bardos in between lives. So therefore, you begin by supplicating them expressly and by implication, the other sources of refuge, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and so on.

            The request you make in supplicating them is explained in the second two lines of the stanza. What is pointed out here is that it is through the negative karma that we accrue that we wander in samsara. But our accumulation of negative karma is caused by our mistaking our own bewildered projections or appearances to be real. That is to say that the appearances that appear for us or that we experience, are functions of our bewilderment and not independent realities. It is through mistaking them to be independently existent or independently real, that we become fixated, generate kleshas, accumulate negative karma and so on. It is this that causes us to wander through and be reborn in the six states, the realms of the hells, pretas, animal, humans, asuras, and devas. So our supplication is that we be led out of this. This introduces the whole aspiration, which is concerned with the discovery of the nature of bewildered appearances. And you will see as the liturgy goes through the various aspects of the bardo, that it is concerned with the penetration of appearances and the discovery of their true nature.

            The next stanza begins with a definition of the bardo as we usually use the term. The term interval or bardo simply means something that is in-between two other things. And it will be used and explained in different ways here. But generally speaking, we use it to mean the state in-between lives. And in the next line it is defined that way: the type of existence that one has in-between lives when one has not gone to or reached the next state of birth. So we usually use the term bardo to mean just that: to mean that state that we're in after death, before the next rebirth. What characterizes that state is explained in the next line, which says, "in that state, one has no freedom or control." A being in the bardo has no ability, for reasons that will become clear, to control where they go and so forth. You are driven about by the strong force of your karma. Your karma—your previous actions—becomes the thing that controls you in the bardo, and you are driven about by it, which means that you are thrown about violently from one place to another, without your having any ability to stop this.

            Now if that is what the bardo is like, what can we do about it? That is explained in the next line which says, "Through the instructions concerning special visualizations for use at that time, may I be able to practice all the various ways of bringing the bardo to the path."

            In order to gain control over the bardo one must practice in the preceding life. In the state of the bardo, because one has no control one doesn't have the opportunity to engage in practices. So one's aspiration here is, through recognizing what the bardo experience is, to be motivated by that recognition and to pursue those practices, which will give you the ability to gain control and ideally liberation, within the bardo. Now these practices consist of specific methods, types of focus or visualizations, and all of them are ways of bringing various aspects or stages of the bardo experience onto the path. Now, in using the term bardo here in the restricted sense, where it refers to the period in between lives, it will be used in other senses as well, as we'll see: it basically has three phases. And the methods, and this will be taught in detail further on, the methods, Rinpoche said, for dealing with these, involve learning to see the particular type of bewildered projection or appearance which characterizes that phase of the bardo as dharmata in the case of the first bardo, deity and mantra in the case of the second, and the nirmanakaya or emanation body in the case of the third. And again, this will be gone through in detail later on. But that is what you are referring to when you say, "May I undertake the specific practices that will bring the bardo onto the path."

            The next stanza describes the true nature of the bardo. It begins by saying, "If you examine it or analyze it, you will see that there is no beginning or end, therefore there can be no in between." It here refers to the beginningless and potentially endless cycle of samsaric existence. If you examine existence, you will see that it is without beginning. Furthermore if you examine any phenomenon, you will see that it has no true arising. Now that which does not truly arise does not truly cease and therefore cannot truly abide in between. Or, otherwise explained, because existence has no beginning, there is no abiding state that is in between. So, ultimately speaking there is no single state that is in between two other states because none of these other states have ever truly arisen or truly occurred. So therefore, ultimately, or in the context of absolute truth, what we call the bardo doesn't exist. However as the next line points out, it certainly seems to, to the person who is experiencing it. The line says, "Nevertheless, in the context of bewilderment, it arises as a mere interdependent appearance." In the context of bewilderment means experience as we know it, when the cognition that is experiencing is obscured and therefore bewildered, when you therefore take things that do not have true or independent existence to have such existence. The mere appearance of the bardo or interval, which is itself interdependent, (it is the mere appearance of interdependent conditions in that way) appears, and because your bewilderment consists of the mistaking of mere interdependent appearances as independent realities, you therefore mistake the bardo as an independent reality. In other words, although the bardo doesn't really exist, it seems to as long as you are bewildered. For example, for although we can say that no phenomenon ever truly arises, any phenomenon we could isolate is a mere interdependent appearance and therefore is empty of true origination, therefore we can say that no phenomenon truly ceases. That which never truly came into existence cannot go out of existence, and therefore no phenomenon truly abides or persists, in between origination and cessation, since it never originated. Although we can say that, we also have to admit that we experience the appearance of origination of phenomenon. They appear to start to exist. And we experience the appearance therefore of their ending, destruction or cessation and the appearance of their abiding. Now the origination, cessation and abiding of phenomenon are mere appearances, not truly existent events, but nevertheless, we do experience them in our bewilderment as though they were real.

Now, the bardo is not just the period in between lives. In fact we can say that, as the Buddha taught in teachings, all of samsara and nirvana without exception can be included in or summarized as the bardo. Because as long as there is a state of bewilderment, as long as there is fixation on duality, as long as there is the belief in the independent existence of what is experienced and the cognition that experiences it, as long as there are all of these different kinds of categories of twos: pleasure and pain, good and bad, samsara and nirvana, that arise for us, we are in some kind of bardo or interval.

            And so this stanza concludes with the aspiration, "May I gain trust in the Buddha's teachings, that all of samsara and nirvana are in this way included in this category of bardo, which does not truly exist, but nevertheless, appears to.

            The next two stanzas divide the bardo into two aspects, the bardo of the nature, or the true nature, and the bardo of appearance, manner of appearance. True nature here means how things are and appearance means how things seem or appear. So the first stanza says, "In absolute truth, things are beyond limit and their nature is the middle." Beyond limit means beyond the limits of existence or absolute nonexistence, and beyond the limits of having a beginning and having an end, having true origination and having true cessation. The nature of things, absolute truth, is that middle which transcends all kinds of conceptual elaborations. A conceptual elaboration is any kind of concept about reality that you can come up with. The nature of things is beyond that and therefore is called the middle because it avoids any such extreme. Therefore the nature of things actually is between or beyond all of our concepts and all of our dualism. Our bewilderment starts with the fixation on duality, the duality of self and other, of pleasure and pain and so on, and it includes the appearance of duality, the appearance of self and other as separate and so forth. But the true nature of all of these things that appear to us as dual is not dual, it is beyond that. And therefore, in the words of the liturgy, it is between that. And that nature of things which is between all extremes or limits is what's called the bardo of the absolute or true nature.

            The next line says, "Everything is that, and it is everything. There is nothing whatsoever that has any nature other than this." And therefore, in a sense you can say that this nature is everything that there is, everything that truly exists because it is the nature of all things. Therefore in this stanza you end by aspiring, "May I meet or see the face of the bardo of the true nature." See the face means not to merely understand it, but to gain direct experience of it through precise instruction and the intensive practice of meditation and other methods.

            The next stanza describes another aspect of the bardo, which is the bardo of how things appear. Relative truth and, Rinpoche here defined it, the term "kunzop" which is usually translated as "relative" or "relative truth," really means, "fake." But if you say "fake truth" in English, which would be actually a stricter translation, it sounds like an oxymoron. Relative truth is called fake because when it is viewed by an undiluted cognition, it is seen to be unreal, to not truly exist. So therefore what is relative truth? It is a continuous process of bewilderment and bewildered appearances. It is continuous in the sense that it is beginningless and it has never stopped and it is a continuous process of bewilderment and bewildered appearances or projections that is also constantly gaining momentum. The power of it is constantly increasing, causing our bewilderment to grow over time. So through bewilderment we experience relative truth, or fake reality, as real. What is this like? It is like someone in the audience of a skilled illusionist. A skilled illusionist, either through whatever method or through the power of casting spells, can cause their audience to see all sorts of things that aren't there. They can cause you to see people, horses, elephants, houses, whatever you want; none of these things are there, but as long as you don't realize that, you react to them with pleasure, pain, disappointment, happiness, enjoyment, fear and so on, just as though they really were there. Our experience of relative truth is this beginningless deception by the fakery or illusion of our own bewilderment.

            Now the term that we usually translate as existence literally is possibility. And I need to interject that because of the next line and Rinpoche's comment on it. The next line says, "In this possibility, nothing is impossible." So the nature of existence, which is synonymous here with samsara, is that because it is all founded on bewilderment, it is all founded on delusion, it is all of the nature of illusion and bewildered projections, anything is possible. Any form of bewilderment, any form of hallucination can occur, just as an illusionist can cause you to see just about anything. So this stanza ends with the aspiration, "May I gain strong certainty about the bardo, or interval, of how things appear." And that means, may I gain the strong certainty, that all of these appearances, the mere appearances, the projections of bewilderment that make up what we call relative truth or fake truth, are nothing more than the bewildered projections of a mind that is captivated by fixated belief in the duality of that which does not possess duality.

            Next the text turns to a presentation of different aspects of the bardo and it divides the bardo, types of bardo, types of interval, initially into three and then divides the third of these again into three because it's the third with which we are primarily concerned here. The first type of bardo or interval described here is called the interval between birth and death and it means exactly what it sounds like it means: it means the period of time that starts with when you are born and ends with when you start to die in that life. What demarcates this interval or separates it out of the course of someone's existence is obviously physical events or physical transformations: the transformation of being born into a certain life and of that life decaying and culminating in death. Also, the experience of this interval, the interval between birth and death, is marked by physical activity and physical transformations of all sorts of appearances and all sorts of pleasant and unpleasant things that you hear and that you say. And all sorts of positive and negative, pleasant and unpleasant experiences and thoughts and so on. What needs to be understood about this first interval, the interval between birth and death, is that none of its appearances are reliable. They are unreliable because they are ephemeral; they do not last; they are constantly changing. It is a state of constant change, therefore, ultimately speaking, the appearances of this life have no more existence than magical illusions or dreams because they are mere fluctuations, they are changes, they are not the persistent existence or abiding of anything. So the aspiration connected with this first interval, the interval between birth and death, is that you come to recognize all of these appearances of this life as merely the fluctuating hallucinations of an interval or bardo.

            Now, how do you do this? You do this in the best cases by practicing intensive meditation to the point where you can rest in even placement within the direct experience of the illusory nature of phenomenon, or of the emptiness, which is their true nature. If you cannot do that, it is important at least to gain certainty, through examination, of the appearances of this life, in their being ephemeral, illusory and unreliable.

            The second interval or bardo that is described here or isolated is the interval of dream, and this is what we normally call the dream state. It consists of experiencing appearances that don't really exist but that seem to because you are asleep. Now what we call sleep is a physical state, so therefore this interval, like the other one, is demarcated by physical changes. In this case the physical change is that when you fall asleep, your senses stop functioning. You stop hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and feeling to a great extent, therefore the images that arise in your mind take on an appearance of reality because there is no sense experience to overpower them. So in dreams, you seem to do all the things that you do while you're awake, and while you are dreaming you take these things to be really there, you think you're actually doing these things, you're actually seeing and hearing the things you seem to be seeing and hearing, but in fact, while you are dreaming, you're not seeing or hearing anything. You're not doing anything. And when we wake up from dreams, even though we realize that it was just a dream, we further fixate on the appearances of the dream by investing dreams with significance. We think, was it a good dream, was it a bad dream? What does it mean? And we solidify the illusory dream images even after we have awoken from them. So the aspiration here is expressly that all of this bewilderment connected with the dream state, its primary bewilderment, thinking that dreams are real while you are dreaming, and its secondary bewilderment, thinking that they're important after you wake up, that all of this bewilderment be removed. Now that is the express aspiration, but by implication this refers to how we experience in general, because although we can extinguish the dream state from the waking state, by the physical factor, or physical transformation of sleep, our cognition fundamentally functions in the same way: it is deluded; it is hallucinating. The bewildered appearances of dreams are easily understood by us to be unreal, once we are awake. But if you think about it carefully, the bewildered appearances of the waking state, in their unreliability, in their being ephemeral, impermanent and so on, are no more real and are just like dreams or magical illusions. So really, what this stanza of aspiration is pointing out, is that by eradicating the bewilderment of taking dreams as real, you can move toward eradicating the bewilderment of taking conventional appearances, daytime or waking appearances, as real as well.

            Following that, starting the next stanza, we come to the third interval. And it is this third interval that is usually what people mean when they talk about the bardo and therefore it is the principal subject of the rest of our text. Here, it is called the interval of possibility and it is divided into three, which is simply called the first part, the middle part and the last part. And they correspond to dying, being dead, and approaching rebirth. These are called the interval of possibility because they are the state in which the various possible rebirths can happen, as you will see.

 Now, the paths through which you prepare for the three phases of the interval of possibility are: the path of the clear light through which the nature of the first bardo is recognized to be dharmakaya; the path of the illusory body through which the nature of the second interval is realized to be samboghakaya, or the body of complete enjoyment; and the path of the nirmanakaya, where you transform the final phase of, or the third interval, into birth as nirmanakaya. So you make the aspiration initially, all summarized into one stanza, "May I traverse or complete these paths and thereby achieve liberation in these intervals." Now, what does this mean? Whatever form of meditation we may believe ourselves to be practicing, whether we say we are practicing Mahamudra, "I meditate on Mahamudra," or we are meditating on the Great Perfection, "I am a Great Perfection practitioner," or we meditate on the profound Middle Way, whatever it is we may think we are doing, what we are supposed to be doing in any of those three systems of practice, is coming to a direct realization of the true nature of all things. In terms of what that nature is not, you could say that nature is not inherent existence. In terms of what it is: you can say it is the freedom from true inherent or independent existence, and it is that which is called the "clear light." So the purpose of meditation in general is to gain the direct experience of the clear light and to gain sufficient experience to achieve liberation during the first part of the interval at death. So if you can truly realize that all things are empty of existence, true existence, then that is the path bringing liberation in the first interval.

In case that doesn't work, you also meditate on pure appearances. That is to say that from within that state of emptiness, the nature of all things, the deity arises. This may involve the deity arising from a syllable and/or a scepter and so on, and whatever deity it is, Vajravarahi, or any other, you identify yourself completely with this utterly unreal and yet absolutely vivid and clear utterly pure appearance. By doing this you gain the possibility of liberation in the samboghakaya of that deity in the second phase or the second interval.

In case that doesn't happen, you also prepare for taking a rebirth as emanation: which is to say, through the force of love and compassion, and the force of your aspirations for appropriate rebirth, to be able to stop inferior birth, inappropriate birth, and choose a birth through which you will be able to continue the path and be of benefit to others. And that is how you achieve freedom of birth in the third and final phase of the interval of possibility. So that stanza summarizes what is going to be presented throughout the rest of the text, since the text is primarily concerned with the interval as we usually mean it, the interval between lives.

Now, the text turns to the first of the three parts of the interval of possibility and this is called the first interval and it consists of the entry into the clear light at the time of death. It starts with the dissolution with what are called the elements. The elements are qualities of physical matter—solidity, cohesion and so on—and when your body starts to break down, and the breaking down of your body is what we call dying, these things start to fall apart or dissolve. Now, they are presented usually in a certain sequence as they are in this text, however Rinpoche said they don't always break down in the same sequence; there are several places in what we are going to go through now where these things can vary from person to person. There is a standard sequence that they are presented in based on the majority of processes, but they are not always the same.

            When the earth element (solidity) dissolves, you become unable to support your physical body. Rinpoche says for example this is what happens as we get older and you become weaker. That is the breakdown or the dissolution of the earth element. When the water element dissolves, you mouth and sense apertures like your eyes, and nose and so on start to dry up. You start to have a dry mouth, you don't have enough natural fluids or moisture. When the fire element dissolves, your temperature decreases and your warmth starts to withdraw from the ends of the limbs inward, toward the center of your body. And when the wind element dissolves, you stop breathing externally. Now this doesn't mean that you become unconscious yet. You may remain conscious and your consciousness is still seated within your body, but at that point you stop breathing and your pulse will come to a halt. This is one place, Rinpoche said, where the order can vary. What's going to follow after this is a three-part sequence, which precedes the entry into the clear light, that's called appearance, increase and attainment. It sometimes happens that the breathing doesn't stop until people have already experienced both appearance and increase. And we know this because individuals have described their experience of it as they are dying and while they are still able to talk, which means that they are still breathing.

            But nevertheless the classical order, for clarity and based on the majority of dying people, is that the four elements dissolve and then there is appearance, increase, attainment and then the clear light.

            When appearance dissolves, the first of the three stages that follows the dissolution of the elements, what happens is that appearances for you, what you see as the dying person, subside and become a bright, fairly uniform, eventually uniform bright whiteness or white light. That is the appearance associated with this stage. There is a cognitive state that accompanies that. And the accompanying cognitive state is that your awareness, your mind becomes a little bit vague, like mist or smoke, which means that, in this case, Rinpoche said, it means that you can sometimes focus and sometimes you can't. Now, many people experience this as they are dying before, or at least start to experience it, before their breathing stops. Rinpoche said he knew an old Lama who was dying in Darjeeling who was describing all of this stuff up to this point and a little bit beyond it, as he was dying. And also, Michael Doran of KTD definitely experienced the first stage, appearance, before his breathing stopped, because Rinpoche said that as he was dying he said, "Where is all this light coming from?" And this is not uncommon. When this happens what it means is that the dying person is experiencing what is called "appearance". Or here, the dissolution of appearance. Now, there is a third thing that happens along with appearance. It's a suppression of a certain type of thinking. The thirty-three different forms of anger, thirty-three different thoughts that are aggressive, or angry, in short all types of being angry stop. "Stop" however means that they are suppressed. They become dormant. It doesn't mean that the dying person has purified the affliction of anger. It means that the physical condition of dying has shut down the biological mechanism that supports the emotion of anger. So temporarily, anger is suppressed.

The next stage and the last phase of the dying process we'll be looking at this evening, is called "augmentation" or "increase." And it refers to the increase of the appearance of death, which arose during appearance. It has an appearance, a cognitive aspect and also an aspect of suppression or dormancy. The appearance is that the dying person sees everything go red. Before everything was white, now everything just becomes a uniform field of red. Their cognition becomes like fireflies, which in this case, Rinpoche said, means that it's sporadic, it flashes on, flashes off. Sometimes their mind is lucid and clear and focused and sometimes it's obscure. The suppression aspect is that when this stage of dying is reached, all forms of desire, lust, attachment, craving, hankering, all things, wanting, any form of that, all of it, stops. Again, it has not been purified. The forty different types of desire are merely suppressed because of the biological dying process. According to our text, most people realize at this point that they are dying. Rinpoche said, the fact that it says "most" in the text, with our understanding that the order of sequence is indefinite to begin with, means that some people will realize that they are dying. Those who realize that they are dying at this point also recollect what they have done. If they've led good lives in which they can take satisfaction, then they will start to feel happy at this point, and if they've led lives full of harming others and so on, then they can start to be terrified. Often people will at this point start to have visions of their future parents and the place of their subsequent rebirth and different sorts of events in their future life or the circumstances and so on. For example, it is not unknown that at this point, if they can still speak, butchers (butchers in Tibet doesn't mean like the guy behind the meat counter, it means the guy who kills the animals) and others who have harmed beings will have terrifying hallucinations that may indicate their future rebirth and also the sense of things coming to get them. Like they'll say, "get these animals out of here, they are going to get me," and so on.

In short, at this point, the dying person may become aware that they are dying and may also recollect their previous actions. Therefore it is at this point that intervention is of the greatest benefit. What sort of intervention? At this point, when appearance has dissolved into increase (the red appearance), the dying person's cognition can be steered, somewhat. In other words, their mind is like fertile soil. Anything that is planted in it at that time can have a very powerful effect on what happens to them in the rest of the interval and therefore in their next life. So it's at this point that it's a good idea to recite the names and mantras of buddhas or of the fathers and sons of the lineage, great gurus, and so on. Now, ideally, Rinpoche said, this means if the person, him or herself, can actually recite these things, can bring these things to mind at least, that will be the most powerful thing. Otherwise, whoever is assisting them through the dying process can intervene at this point by reciting these things with their mouth actually right next to or even touching the person's ear. And in that way, what you are trying to do is remind them of those to whom they supplicate and also you can remind them of their previous practice, instructions can be given at this point, and so on. And also, it is at this point, that the ejection of consciousness can be performed for the person's benefit with the greatest benefit, because it is at this point that the consciousness can be ejected from the body but it is still in the body, and therefore can be gotten hold of and moved.

            So this is the critical time when interventions of all kinds will be of the greatest benefit. Please recite the dedication and aspiration with the wish that through the virtue of this session that all beings, having received authentic instructions from eminent teachers, come to recognize the clear light at the time of death, and achieve the state of omniscient liberation.

end of tape 1

tape 2

Continuing from where we left off last night, we had finished looking at the stages of dissolution, the stages of dying, up through the first two of the three stages which precede the experience of the clear light, and these were appearance and increase. The third stage, what ensues upon or follows after increase is called "attainment." And attainment refers to the final shutdown or dissolving of the physical processes of the living body and this shut down or dissolution causes a corresponding set of experiences. The appearance is called utter blackness. However, Rinpoche said, in fact, it's not really the appearance of blackness, it's no appearance at all. Previously there was brilliant whiteness and then brilliant redness and now it's called utter blackness because it is the utter absence of such appearances and this is happening because the functions of the body and mind, which support or allow appearance are shutting down. The corresponding cognitive experience is that your cognition, your awareness, your mind, becomes like a butterlamp in a vase.

Now, a butterlamp that is placed in a vase may be lit and burning and therefore producing light, but none of the light will escape the vase. From outside it would appear to be just a dark vase. In the same way, there is a continued bare or mere lucidity of your cognition, but it is divorced from any kind of contact with any object such as an object that appears or an object that is cognitively apprehended. So it is a state of mere lucidity without the apprehension, either with the senses or with the cognition itself of any object. Because this is the state your cognition is in at this point in the shutdown or dissolution process, the final seven of the eighty types of thoughts stop. Previously we saw that the thoughts connected with anger, the varieties of anger, and the thoughts connected with desire, stopped. Now the last seven, which are the seven varieties of stupidity, or bewilderment, cease. And they don't cease or stop in any final sense. They are suppressed and become dormant. And as with the previous two states of suppression, the suppression is caused by the simple fact that the biological processes that support them, and enable them to arise in connection with their respective objects, are simply not functioning at the moment and therefore these thoughts stop, but they have not been purified; their tendency has not been in any way uprooted.

During this whole process of dissolution, there has been a gradual withdrawal of the cognitive faculties. And cognitive faculties here refers to the six main functions of consciousness: the apprehension by the eye consciousness of visible forms, the apprehension of sounds by the ear consciousness and in the same way, the apprehension of smells, of tastes, or tactile sensations, and of objects of mind.

            These six functions of mind or consciousness have gradually dissolved and therefore all appearances, not only visual appearance, but also auditory and other appearances, have gradually, during this dissolution process, diminished in intensity, or clarity, and then finally disappeared altogether. This is something that we can often observe happening with the dying person. Sometimes, they will say, "Come closer, you're so far away," because they actually perceive you as being a greater distance away from them physically than you are, at the bedside, simply because of what's happening to their eye consciousness. Or they'll say, "Speak louder, I can't hear you." And again, it's a corresponding thing happening with the ear consciousness, and so on.

            At this point, at the conclusion of the three-fold shutdown of appearance, increase and attainment, all of the elements of your conventional being, your body and mind, that is to say your aggregates, your physical elements and your senses, all of these have become dormant, and have temporarily, in the words of our text, entered the mandala of absolute truth. Which means that they are temporarily absent as obscuring factors. Again, they have not been purified or uprooted, they are merely dormant. However, because of their dormancy, because you are not seeing or hearing anything and so on, there can arise various hallucinations at this point. One sort of hallucination is that people who have led nasty lives, who have done bad things, will often have terrifying hallucinations of yamas or demonic beings, executioners and so on, coming to get them. People who have led predominantly virtuous lives, may have some experience of well-being, such as fleeting glimpses of very pleasant things: pleasant environments, pleasant people and so on at this point. Remember however that these appearances, because of the withdrawal of the consciousnesses, are entirely subjective like dreams. Because of their entire subjectivity, as is the case with dream images, they have no stability and can fluctuate, change from one thing to another, and in any case don't last very long.

            At the end of all of this process of shutdown, the final events that constitute death occur. What keeps you alive, that is to say, what keeps your mind biologically seated in your physical body, is a wind or energy that is called the life wind. And the life wind abides within what is called the avadhuti or the central channel of your body. Now, the conditions for your becoming a biological being were the ovum from your mother and the sperm from your father, obviously. The original seeds, which led to you as a resultant physical, biological being, are still present within your body. They are held in place by the life wind. They also contain the life wind and keep it in the body and the way this works is as follows. What's called the red element, which is the remaining seed essence of the ovum, is present during your life, while you are alive, in the center of your body, below your navel. And what's called the white element, which is the seed essence of the sperm of your father, is present in the center of your body, at the very top of your head. These things are held in place, they're held apart, forced apart, as it were, by the life wind, which fills the central channel in between them, inflating it, the way, for example, Rinpoche said, something we inflate like a tire is held inflated by the air within it. Not only does the life wind hold these things at the upper and lower ends of the central channel, but these things trapped in those places, also contain the life wind between them, in other words, keep it from escaping.

What happens at this point is that with the shutdown of everything, the last to shutdown is the life wind itself, which is the most basic factor of your being alive in the conventional sense. As it shuts down, it withdraws into the heart area. Now, what happens is similar to deflation except the central channel doesn't deflate, but the pressure within it is withdrawn. As a result, the red and white elements move for the first time. The red element rises up because there is nothing forcing it down. It rises up toward and eventually comes to rest in your heart. At the same time, the white element, that you have received from your father, descends, or falls down from the top of your head until it also reaches your heart. What ends up happening is that five things that form the essence of your being come together in one place. The most basic mind, the all-basis consciousness and the life wind, which previously filled the entire central channel and all of the potential cognitive functions, those three things, and the white and red elements, all of these five things come together at the very center of your heart, in the midst of the central channel. Because of this, when they come together you could call that the actual moment of death. When they come together, because of their doing so, because all possible types of thoughts or conceptuality are temporarily dormant or have ceased, you have an experience that is a cognitive experience, not a sensory experience, but that is in quality like the experience of boundless, clear or cloudless sky. And this is the experience of what is called the fundamental or ground clear light. What you experience at that moment, you experience not because of any meditation you may have done. You experience it because it is your true nature. Therefore it is not experienced only by people. It is experienced at this point in the death process, even by small insects. And it is experienced simply because all beings have buddha nature, and what you are experiencing at this point is buddha nature itself.

The reason you can experience it under those circumstances and the reason you don't normally experience it is that normally it is masked, or covered by thought. All thought has become dormant, has ceased at this point, therefore there is nothing masking the experience of buddha nature. That's the good news. The bad news is that unless you have trained yourself assiduously in the recognition of the clear light during the preceding life, you won't recognize it. Because everybody experiences it and obviously that isn't sufficient. What happens if you don't have any experience or have insufficient experience in its recognition is that you are kind of stunned by it. You are like a small child looking at the murals in a temple. When a child looks at a mural in a temple—and that's often a good analogy, here it's a bad analogy—they see the same colors and shapes that an adult does, but they have no way to recognize these as depictions of one thing or another. They cannot make the judgements, "This is well painted, and this is ill painted." Nor can they think this is this deity, this is that deity and so on. They are completely ignorant of what they are seeing. In the same way, if you have not familiarized yourself with the clear light during the preceding life, through practice, although the ground clear light will appear to you as it does to each and every sentient being at the moment of death, it won't do you any good. It will appear, you will experience it, you will not recognize it and it will only last a moment. You will move from that experience to the next thing in a moment. Now, Rinpoche said, moment here doesn't necessarily mean a specific unit of time, like a fingersnap or something. Moment here means the duration of an action that is uninterrupted by any other action. So for the time that you are immersed in the experience, you remain immersed in it, but as soon as, failing to recognize it, your mind emerges and moves on to something else, it's finished.

            So, what is necessary above and beyond all else, is to familiarize ourselves with the clear light, through hearing, through thinking or reflection and above all through meditation. Through understanding what will happen at death, the process that we will go through, and thereby being prepared to recognize it, through cultivating the faculties of recollection, and alertness, through meditation practice, especially through meditation practice that is based upon the profound instructions of one's guru, so that you become able, you develop the familiarity and the faculties of mindfulness and alertness that will enable you to recognize the ground clear light when it arises.

Now, you do this by meditating upon the traditions, which teach you how to meditate on the clear light: the Middle Way, the Mahamudra and the Great Perfection. In anyone of these you go through a sequence or series of practices that culminate in the ability to experience to some degree, in this life, the clear light. Now what you experience as a meditation practitioner is called the path clear light or the child clear light. It is something that is experienced through conscious and assiduous cultivation. Only through such cultivation, do you have a chance of recognizing the fundamental or natural or mother clear light at the time of death. But the aim of such cultivation, these meditation practices and these entire systems which culminate in these practices, the aim of the practice where you rest in a state free of all mental elaboration, in that way, is to gain such familiarity with the path or child clear light, that at the time of death, because you are familiar with it, you recognize the ground or fundamental clear light, the mother clear light, just as you recognize someone you had seen before.

Rinpoche said, a modern analogy that's even more apt is a photograph. There is a difference between the cultivated child clear light and the actual or ground mother clear light, just as there is a difference between someone's photograph and the person. But if you've seen a good photograph of someone, you can later recognize the person from having seen that photograph. In the same way, if you cultivate an authentic experience of the path clear light in this life, you can recognize the ground clear light at the moment of death.

            In the cultivation of meditation practice during this life, meditative state is marked by three characteristics: well being, lucidity and no thought, nonconceptuality. But the way we normally experience these things during this life is quite imperfect. It is imperfect in that it is fleeting and it is imperfect in that it is to a certain degree and not beyond that. We experience some degree of well being, some degree of lucidity and some degree of freedom from conceptualization. The ground clear light, which is experienced at the moment of death, is endowed with these three characteristics to the ultimate degree. It is absolutely and perfectly blissful or endowed with well being. It is utter and pure lucidity, and it is totally and completely free of thought or conceptuality of any kind. In order to recognize it, because being endowed with these characteristics makes it so different from our normal state of mind, you must cultivate a meditative state endowed to some extent with these three characteristics in this life.  So in this life you have to cultivate what's called a child luminosity that is a one-pointed samadhi or meditative absorption endowed with the characteristics of the ground clear light itself.

            Now the ground clear light is called the ground or fundamental or basic clear light. It's called the mother clear light. It's called the natural clear light. It's called these three things because it is the true nature of all things. And it is, in and of itself, utterly and completely pure, and has been utterly and completely pure and perfect from the very beginning. In fact, it is utterly unchanging. It is indestructible. It is unaffected by anything. And it never has changed, never does change and never will change. The only change is whether or not it is experienced and whether or not it is recognized when experienced. If you have cultivated a familiarity with the child clear light during the preceding life, then what happens when the ground clear light appears is like a child recognizing his or her mother. And this is called the meeting of the mother and child clear lights. At that point because you experience the true and natural clear light, you recognize it based on your cultivated experience of the clear light and what you previously experienced and what you experience at that moment, mix together like water being poured into water and that is the best type of liberation. It's called the liberation at the moment of death, for those of the highest capacity. And although in a sense you could call this the beginning of the interval, because it's the first interval, it's also called "before the interval." It's the first opportunity for liberation and is liberation in dharmakaya, to be achieved by those who've familiarized themselves with the clear light.

            It's important to understand that the type of liberation where someone recognizes the ground clear light at the moment of death is complete and full. It is actually the achievement of perfect awakening, or buddhahood at the moment of death. And this means that when someone achieves this, they achieve that buddhahood that has all of the qualities for which it is so renowned, not only the liberation of the person, him or herself, but the ensuing and permanent all-pervasive ability to be a consummate benefit to others in every possible way until each and every other being has likewise, achieved perfect awakening. Recognizing therefore, the value of attempting to achieve such a state of awakening and liberation through the recognition of the ground clear light at death, you should abandon all the distractions of this life. Distractions refer to all of the things with which we normally concern ourselves. Things which are either of no use whatsoever, immediately or in the long-term, or are actually destructive and negative, or at best, are of temporary and largely only physical benefit. Such things are distractions because involvement with them prevents you from engaging in the type of assiduous practice that is necessary in order to achieve this liberation and awakening. So in order to achieve it you have to abandon such distractions and abide in solitude, which means practicing in isolation, like for example, Jetsun Milarepa: remain in a state of three-fold stillness.

Three-fold stillness means that your body is utterly still. It is free from unnecessary movement of any kind and especially from unnecessary and meaningless physical activity. Stillness of speech means that you are silent. Your speech is still and undisturbed. Your faculty of speech is undisturbed by the meaningless babble of conventional speech. And stillness of mind means that your mind is in a state free of elaboration. This refers not merely to state of tranquility or shinay, but to a state of insight where your mind is withdrawn from all forms of conceptual elaboration or thought. In short, in order to experience and thereby be able to recognize the clear light, you have to cultivate a meditative state that is the conjunction of lucidity and emptiness without fixation.

Now the lucidity spoken of here is your mind's defining characteristic. Your mind is defined by the fact that you can cognize. You can experience. You are aware. So therefore we would say that the defining characteristic of your mind is cognitive lucidity. But your mind is not just mere lucidity, because it is not a substantial brilliance like that of the sun or the moon or something like that. The mind is, while lucid, utterly insubstantial. It is empty of any kind of substantial characteristic or entity whatsoever. Furthermore this lucidity and this emptiness are not two different things. They are inseparable. So resting in a state where you experience, just as it is, your mind, the union of lucidity and emptiness, and do so without any kind of fixation, which means without any kind of fixated or conceptualized apprehension, is called a state of "great even-placement." In general even-placement can refer to either the perfect meditation of tranquility or that of insight. Here it refers to that of insight. It is more than a state of tranquility because it is a state where the mind is resting completely and utterly within a direct experience of its own nature. It is therefore called "great even-placement."

Remaining within that state, you are practicing what is called, "the conduct of extreme simplicity." Conduct of supreme simplicity refers to a mode of life where you are free from the elaborations or complexities of not only mundane activities, distractions and disturbances, but even conceptual functions of mind and thinking itself. So the aspiration you make at this point, is to perfect this practice—the conduct of extreme simplicity—so as to be able to achieve the supreme liberation, liberation in the dharmakaya and perfect awakening at the very moment of death.

Now, another thing about this liberation that you must understand is that this is not something that is purely legendary. It is not the case that when we speak of this liberation we say, in the good old days, people used to achieve this, but nowadays it doesn't happen. It does happen. In fact, it happens all the time. Rinpoche said, "In my lifetime, and even to be more specific, since I left Tibet, there have been several instances of this in my ?????? [end of side one; something got lost]

Side 2

[cont.]…at the refuge camp in Buxa where we were all living. Having died he remained in state of meditative absorption for three days. Now, in order to understand what happened to him and to his body, you need to understand that he had been very sick before he died and feeble. But at the end of his life, just before his death, he sat up perfectly straight, seemed completely comfortable and at ease, dismissed his attendants, those who were helping them, said, "You all go outside and play." Asking merely for his outer robe and his meditation hat to be brought to him, he put these on and he started to do his daily practice book. He chanted the first half of it and left the second half undone and in that state, he passed away.

This was happening at a time when it was extremely hot in Buxa. And as you know, dead bodies rot and stink very quickly in hot weather. But his did not. For the three days of his samadhi, he remained seated upright, without the slightest appearance of decay, either visible or olfactory, and in fact it wasn't just the heat of the time and place, because people were offering butterlamps, as many as a hundred in the room, in which his body was left, and the double heat of that still didn't cause any kind of scent of decay. And as far as how he looked, generally speaking when someone dies, to say the least, his or her complexion is no longer rosy. But his complexion actually improved. And he looked more florid, more lively after death, than he had while he was alive.

These indications, specifically the lack of decay, the florid complexion, in other words the appearance of circulation and so on, are considered definite signs that someone has achieved liberation in the dharmakaya, and in fact, perfect buddhahood at the moment of death. Another example of this was a retreat master that I knew who in the same way passed away and he also remained seated with the same signs for the same period of three days. There was also a lama called Karma Norbu who had done a retreat at Palpung Monastery and was also a disciple of Chatrul Rinpoche. He lived in an isolated place in a small house where water was scarce, causing disputes between him and his neighbors in Nepal and yet when he died multi-colored light, like the light of a rainbow, started to emerge from his body and from his house, filling the surrounding area. It was also noticed that his body was getting a little bit smaller as time went on. His neighbors of course recognized this as what it was and felt somewhat regretful about their having fought with him in the past and they prostrated to his remains and they venerated him properly.

A lama who lived for sometime in the West, Lama Ganga, who passed away at Thrangu Monastery, after his death, remained seated in samadhi, in meditative absorption for no less than five days, and I saw that, Rinpoche said, myself, because I was there when he died. My point is that there are many instances up to the present day, of people achieving perfect awakening, through these means. And in fact, this happens so commonly that in a sense, people are so used to it that they don't even bother to report it all time. They simply say, well that's what happens if you practice dharma, that's dharma's blessing. But we shouldn't be that casual about it, because when you consider what it is, it is definite and irrefutable proof of the possibility of perfect awakening at the moment of death.

I mention all of this and comment on it at length because it's important that you understand that as bad as the times are, dharma is not affected or diminished by it in any way. We do indeed live in an age of decadence. But the dharma is not decadent. Dharma is the same as it always was. For example, the land of Tibet has suffered greatly throughout the preceding century, and yet all of the things that have happened there, while they have caused great suffering to the people and great diminishment of resources of practice, have not affected the power or authenticity of dharma in any way. The compassion of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, their blessing, these things are utterly unaffected by the circumstances of the times we live in. Therefore, dharma is always effective. It will always work. You simply have to do it. I say this because I am completely confidant that if someone practices these things properly, they will definitely achieve this result of which we are speaking. It is infallible. And I want to leave you with and inspire you with this confidence, this same knowledge that, "If I practice this, I will achieve this."

It is that simple, and it is that infallible because our basic nature is the ground clear light. That is our true being. Therefore the only other thing that is necessary for us to achieve awakening, is to familiarize ourselves with that nature through meditation on the path clear light. Now, this of course is the big question: the difference is made entirely through whether someone does or does not meditate assiduously on the path clear light during their life. That in turn obviously depends upon being taught how to do so and that in turn obviously depends on having access to a spiritual friend. If someone has no access to a spiritual friend and receives no instruction, they will not do any meditation and therefore they will not achieve liberation and awakening. But once you have access to the spiritual friend, once you have access to instruction on how to cultivate familiarity through meditation with the path clear light, you simply have to do it and if you do it assiduously enough, the achievement of liberation and awakening at the moment of death is a certainty.

            If you have not achieved sufficient familiarity with the clear light during the immediately preceding life, then you won't recognize the ground clear light. And the moment after it appears, you'll move on to the second part of the interval of possibility. And the second part of the interval of possibility is the main part of the interval. It is again what people think of when they use term bardo or interval. Previously, at the moment of death, your all-basis consciousness and the remnant of the life wind and the potential for other cognitive functions and the white and red drops, all collected together at one place in the center of your heart; if you don't recognize the ground clear light, then they separate again. And two of them    , the basic consciousness and the life wind together, the basic consciousness mixed with or riding the life wind, leave your body. They leave your body through one or another of nine apertures: the navel, between the eyebrows, the aperture at the very top of your head, the nose or ears, the mouth or eyes, the anus or urethra. From anyone of these, the consciousness, riding this wind, will leave your body. And once the consciousness has left the body, then it's not going back in. It is as soon as the consciousness leaves your body, that the appearances of the interval proper start to arise.

Now, in our text it says, "Starting from that point onward, you have the appearance of your subsequent body." Rinpoche said this is actually put this way because the text is after all very brief. In more detail, what is usually explained is that for the first half of the period of the interval, you will appear to yourself to have the body you had in the preceding life. For the second half you will appear to have the body you're going to have in the subsequent life. The reason for this is that this appearance is a purely mental body. It is therefore made from habit. You initially have the appearance of your preceding body because you have the habit of having that body. That's what you're used to. That's what you expect. On the other hand, the karma that put you in that preceding life and kept you in that life is exhausted. It was used up; that's why you died. So therefore the karmically bound habit of that life is also going to lose momentum, or diminish during the period in the interval. So therefore what happens is that initially you have a very vivid impression of having the same body you had. So in other words, you think of yourself as the person you thought you were before. Rinpoche said, for example, I would think of myself as Karthar. I would think, "I have Karthar's body," and so on. So you have that at the beginning but it starts to gets vaguer and less distinct as the interval continues and then after the middle of the interval (so if the interval is going to last for 49 days which is the usual period of time), then for the first half of that, after that first half has finished, you will start to have an initially vague and then more and more vivid impression of having your subsequent or future body.

            In either case, whichever body you appear to possess, the body has certain characteristics. Don't forget it is utterly illusory. It is like a magical illusion. A hypnotic or other hallucination. It is therefore independent. The body is independent in a sense that it is independent of physical causes. It didn't grow; it wasn't produced by anything, so it is independent of any kind of physical origin. Therefore it is independent of most physical conditions. It is also different from your present body in that whatever is particularly wrong with or defective in your present body will appear to have been restored. So for example, if one or more of your senses is malfunctioning, for example if you only have one working eye, or you can't hear out of one of your ears, or one of your legs has been removed or doesn't work and so on, you will appear, in the bardo, to have gotten that back.

Bardo beings, interval beings, never seem to have defective senses. They appear—of course they don't have physical sense organs at all, which is why this is the case—they appear to themselves and to other interval beings to have a full set of the senses of their particular species. Because it is a mental body, you can pass through solid matter the way flies can pass through a beam of sunlight. Flies will fly through, buzz their way through a beam of sunlight without being in any way impeded by it. In the same way, an interval being can fly through solid matter, even the hardest rock. It's not that they actually have miraculous powers; it's simply that they are a purely mental body, and your mind can go anywhere, do anything. It doesn't require physical or verbal effort or exertion. So therefore an interval being will actually find themselves instantly in any place they think of.

From one point of view you could say this is miraculous, but don't forget it is impulsive; it is spontaneous in the negative sense of the word. It is not under control. They are driven about by whatever occurs to them. And there is no physical body to prevent them immediately being driven to that place. Having no physical body, interval beings cannot use clothing and cannot eat food. They do however, have the habit of hunger and thirst and suffer from it, but they can't eat and drink. The only thing that they can consume is scents or smells. And they cannot be nourished by just any smell. The only smells that they can actually consume and experience as nourishment are the smells of substances consecrated to them. The best way to do this is therefore to burn consecrated herbs and other substances and edible substances together and specifically dedicate them to beings in the interval. And this is why as a regular, daily observance, and especially so, or more elaborately when dealing with a recently deceased person, we perform what's called the singed offering in the evening. And this consists of the singing of consecrated substances and other edibles and the dedication of this to interval beings and to others.

            Who can see these beings? They can see themselves and they can see one another. And a being in the interval can see other interval beings. We cannot, normally. The exception to that are individuals who have achieved the divine eye through meditative prowess and interval beings themselves also have a limited form of this. They have a certain type of supercognition that is not necessarily as good as it sounds, because again it is compulsive and impulsive. For example, they might know that something is going on such as a dharma teaching by a teacher and so on, and they might go there, but their response to it is not necessarily going to be positive.

            Once beings have been in the interval long enough that they're starting to assume the appearance of their subsequent, rather than their previous body, there are clues, aside from their appearance, in other words, what species they appear to be, but also their position, their spatial position. There are clues as to where they are going to be born. Beings who are going to be reborn in a higher state, as humans, devas or asuras, will generally be facing upward, so the head is facing toward the sky rather than the ground and will be moving upward. Beings that are going to be reborn in a lower state, as animals, as pretas, or as hell-beings will generally be facing downward and moving downward. Because interval beings have no physical bodies and therefore do not have the basis for the perception of physical light, they do not see sun and moon. They can experience an environment similar to ours and appear to be in a place, but they will see no light from the sun and moon. And their bodies cast no shadows.

 Now it is at this point, once the consciousness of the deceased person has emerged from their body, after they have failed to recognize the ground clear light, and once what is called the intermediate existence has begun, that the pure appearances of dharmata will arise. And the pure appearances of dharmata will consist especially of the appearances of the peaceful and wrathful deities. The forty-two peaceful deities, the fifty-eight wrathful deities and the pure vidyadharas. And these appear because the person's consciousness has left their body. They appear emerging from the body. Now, the way they appear to the person, although they are part of the person him or herself, they appear in front of or external to the person, as though the person and they have separated as they left the body.

They appear as magnificent deities, samboghakayas or bodies of complete enjoyment, with their respective appearances, peaceful and wrathful, very bright, brilliant and surrounded by intolerably bright light of many colors. In fact, the reason why we don't achieve liberation upon their appearance in general is the intolerable brilliance of their light. Because at the same time, five other types of light are appearing. And these five other types of light are the pathways to the five types of rebirth. The five are the six states, but in this case, because they are types of birth rather than species, the asura, or jealous gods are divided into the two beings of which they can consist in terms of species, which are in some cases devas and sometimes animals.

So the five types of rebirths are those of devas, humans, animals, pretas and hell-beings. And the lights that are the pathways to those rebirths are white, red, yellow, blue and very, very dark blue, very, very dim blue--almost non-existent, almost darkness, respectively. I asked Rinpoche is this designation of one to one in that order consistent? He said, "That's what it says here." It's not always absolutely consistent. The point is, the worst the realm, the less brilliant the light. And the reason for this is the light of the pure appearances, which can be of any color: white, yellow, red, blue green--is very, very bright. It's intolerably bright, so that we run from it. We perceive it as threatening, dangerous, destructive. The light of the six realms, the five lights of the paths of these types of rebirths, is all very soothing in appearance. They are muted and it is because we find them soothing and the light of the wisdom irritating and terrifying that we choose the soothing light of one of the six states. In fact, even worse than that, the lights of the lower states are more soothing than the lights of the higher states. That's why beings predominantly—I mean the reason we find them soothing is because of karma and so on, but that's the condition for the predominance of rebirth in lower states over rebirth in higher states. So, what you want to do if you have gotten to this part of the interval, which is like the first part of the second part, is choose the threatening, brilliant, vivid lights, over the soothing, muted ones. And, in order to do this you need to prepare for this by thinking of this during this life, that the really, really bright scary lights, the brilliant ones, are the wisdom ones, and the soothing, muted ones, are going to lead to samsara and probably to lower states.

            Initially, in fact, you will probably just see the rays of brilliant lights and not the deities. So the rays themselves, and their brilliance and their sharpness will seem to be like weapons to you. It's important to prepare for that experience. If you choose the paths of the wisdom lights, you achieve liberation in the respective realm. And if you choose the path of one of the samsaric lights, as we all evidently did, you know what happens.

            In general, at this point, because you have a mental body that seems to be the body you had in your last life—now it may have restored senses and so on, but you won't immediately recognize that it's that different—it's important to prepare yourself to recognize the signs that indicate that you're dead. Now why is that important? Because in order to choose what to do in the interval the first prerequisite obviously is knowing that you're in the interval. If you don't know that you're in the interval, you're not going to make the right choices. So what are the signs that you are in the interval? Generally it's that the signs of the interval are the appearance of sounds and forms that are utterly unfamiliar. Most of these are pretty scary and they get scarier and scarier as it goes on and you become more and more agitated, which means the chance of liberation tends to decrease over the period.

Scary sounds like a billion thunderclaps at once and forms of different sorts of beings, not just wisdom deities but also different sorts of terrifying beings, the size of huge mountains, and so on—all sorts of scary things. And all sorts of different things that you've never seen before. So the point at this point in the interval, is first of all, to recognize that you are in the interval. And in order to be able to do so, you need to cultivate a familiarity with what the signs are of being in the interval. Having recognized that, to make the right choice, to choose the path of the five wisdoms, one of the lights of the five wisdoms and not the paths of the five types of samsaric rebirth. If you don't know that you're in the interval, you won't make the correct choice and you'll just go with instinct, which will lead you towards the soothing lights and so on.

Now, at this point, as the interval experience continues, time is passing with you in a mental body. Not being in any way restrained or governed by the solidity of a physical body, your mind becomes more and more anxious and agitated. And as in life, you respond to anxiety with kleshas. Your kleshas therefore grow in intensity as the interval continues. They came become like a blazing fire that totally possesses you. You are, don't forget, blown about by the wind of your previous actions, which arise in the form of impulsive thoughts which send you from one place to another without your control. As your anxiety and kleshas increase, this becomes more and more turbulent, worse and worse. And you have less and less leisure to think about anything. You become more and more frightened and more and more saddened and the hallucinations degenerate. You start to become more and more frightened, see more and more frightening things, respond to them more and more with anxiety and kleshas and so on. You have no control whatsoever at this point, unless you have cultivated a preparation and familiarity with what's going to happen, you're simply unprepared to deal with this and you have no control over what's happening. You're just blown about and there is nothing really to help you. So it is important to familiarize yourself with and thereby prepare yourself for the experiences of this part of the interval as well.

            We are going to stop here for this morning. Understand however, that this is the point when we talk about the liberation through hearing in the bardo or interval. It is that the opportunities for liberation in the interval which occur can only be taken advantage of by someone who has heard about them and familiarized themselves with them. By hearing about all of this and by growing familiar with this, you do have the opportunity of making the right choices in the interval, which specifically means choosing the lights of the five wisdoms over the muted lights of the five types of samsaric rebirth and by making these choices, achieving liberation. So please dedicate the virtue of this session, to the achievement by all beings by such familiarity and their subsequence entrance into the paths of wisdom and achievement of liberation.

end of tape 2

Tape 3 begins

Question: Rinpoche, if we are beginners on the path and we're not maybe capable of having the ability of the body, speech, and mind or training this way, what can do to train for the time of death?

Answer: There are several things you can do to prepare for death and the interval after death. These include the accumulation of merit, the purification of obscurations, the cultivation of as much love and compassion for other beings as you can, and also regular contemplation of what will occur in the interval through studying the Great Liberation Through Hearing in the Interval and so on, preparing yourself for it by imagining what it is you are going to be going through at that time. This could also involve meditation on the forms of the peaceful and wrathful deities and the repetition of their mantras, and in that case should also include the reinforced recognition that these deities are innate to you and although they appear outside you in the interval they are not separate of you but they are part of you. Of especial importance is to dedicate the merit of whatever dharma practice you do to the rebirth of yourself and all others in Sukhavati, the Realm of Amitabha, because this is supreme among all pure Buddha realms. It is greatest in its qualities. It is also easiest to achieve rebirth in for anyone who wishes to. In that way we can insure that although we may not be capable of achieving liberation in the dharmakaya at death, we can achieve liberation in either the samboghakaya or nirmanakaya.

Question: Rinpoche you mentioned ejection of consciousness at one point in the dying process and I'm wondering if you could talk more about that and when it is done, what it means?

Answer: The ejection of consciousness refers to the practice through which the emergence of consciousness from the body of the dying person is controlled and directed. Specifically the consciousness is directed so that it emerges or is ejected out of the aperture at the top of the person's head. The value of this is that if the consciousness emerges out of the top of the person's head, even if the dying person led a rather evil existence, they will at the very least be reborn with a precious human body, and if they were a dharma practitioner, they will very likely be reborn in a pure realm. So there's great significance and advantage to this practice.

In general there are two ways that the ejection of consciousness can be achieved or performed. In one way, the dying does it for him or herself, the other way is when somebody else assists them by doing it for them. In terms of practicing the ejection of consciousness for your own benefit you need to receive the instructions and then perform the practice assiduously until the signs of having gained the ability to eject your consciousness in this way, have arisen. There are many systems of ejection practice. The most convenient for use in general is the system for ejection associated with the Amitabha cycle of teachings. When the person has practiced it to the point where the ability to eject their consciousness has been achieved, there will be physical signs of this, specifically itching or other irritation of the aperture at the top of the head and possible eruption or exuding of lymph and blood and fluids like that. Then, that person, having been trained in that way, would later on, when it's absolutely certain that they're dying, actually perform the ejection of consciousness and would be able to do so successfully. Exceptions to this are, if the dying person, although they were trained in the ejection of consciousness, has subdued faculties, where for example, their mind is dull because of medication or the illness, or if they are so terrified by death that they forget to do it. Under those circumstances they require the assistance of someone else. The assisting the person, that is to say, someone who performs the ejection of consciousness for another, needs to have practiced it him or herself, until they achieve the signs of the ability. Only thereafter will they have the ability to do it to somebody else. In any case, they perform the ejection of consciousness for the dying person at this critical moment, and it must not be done before then. It is of great benefit if it is performed at the right time. Especially if the person for whom it's performed is a practitioner, someone who trained in the ejection of consciousness, him or herself, the benefit will be certain and far greater than the benefit even of the ejection of consciousness of an ordinary person.

            It's of the greatest importance, however, that the ejection of consciousness not be performed before the death process is irreversible. If it is performed when there is still hope of resuscitation, or of the person reviving or surviving, then if you do it to yourself, it's suicide and if you do it to another person, it's murder.

Question: I have two questions. One is, you talk about the consciousness leaving the body and then after that the person in the bardo has ideas and visions of himself as certain things. Like he sees himself in the body that he used to have and he sees himself in the body that he is going to have and I'm just wondering, if he doesn't have his consciousness, what part of him is actually perceiving that.

Translator: What do you mean, "doesn't have his consciousness?"

Question: Well the consciousness leaves the body.

Translator: The person we are talking about is the consciousness.

Question: So when the consciousness leaves the body, then that's where they go?

Answer: The person is the consciousness, not the body.

Question: The other question I have is a little more personal. I'm right now caring for someone who's aged and she's experiencing lots of delusions and lots of demented experiences. And when you were describing some of the experiences and the frightening, fearful experiences in the bardo it really reminded me of some of the things that she's been going through. And I was wondering if in the dying process there isn't some sort of—something of the bardo that enters into that and also attached to I'm wondering what Rinpoche might be able to suggest that I could do for her.

Answer: Well, she's not experiencing any phase of the bardo. She's experiencing hallucinations that Rinpoche said are caused by the deterioration of the parts of the brain that are resulting in the condition. And because the condition consists of a deterioration of the channels, and so forth within the brain, it makes communication with the person and therefore helping them in a meaningful way, very challenging. So it's hard to know exactly what you can do. But she's not experiencing the bardo yet.

Question: Rinpoche, I'm still a bit confused as to when you talk about ejecting the consciousness. What part, when, at what point would you know that it's time to do it for another person? How can you tell?

Answer: The actual point at which the ejection of consciousness proper should be performed is when the breathing stops and the usual criterion for this is to observe when the pulse in the neck stops. And after that pulse has ceased, then you can perform the ejection of consciousness. Up to that point, you should prepare for it through the preliminary recitation of the names of buddhas and the various liturgical practices associated with it that prepare the person to receive the guidance, and so forth.

Question: Just one more question. Also, why is it that it's more beneficial to eject the consciousness from the upper apertures? What determines that? I'm just curious why it's the upper ones and not…

Answer: First of all, ordinarily people's consciousness never leaves from that [upper] aperture. It leaves out of one of the sense doors or the lower gates and the only exception to this, the only circumstances under which someone's consciousness will naturally emerge out of the aperture at the top of the head is if they are someone with extraordinary virtue or merit or they are someone who has familiarized themselves to some degree with the ejection of consciousness. Otherwise, it simply won't go out from there and the reason is that the departure of the consciousness from the body in that direction is the avenue to the rebirth in a pure realm. More often that not, a person's consciousness leaves out of the lower parts of their body and this is almost invariably an indication of a lower rebirth.

Question: My cousin died this past week and she's someone that was close to my family. We saw her....she was almost like a sister. But she didn't practice any of this, or was not exposed to any of this. So now she's in the bardo. I asked for a lamp to be lit for her for 49 days. And I'm wondering how I'm helping her or how somebody who has no exposure or connection to these teachings is helped in the bardo?

Answer: In such cases the intervention of someone like yourself with sincere compassion for the deceased and especially your dedication of virtue and merit to them, actually helps them in spite of their previous absence of connection with Dharma. There are many instances of this. For example it is said that even if you say the names of buddhas or certain mantras in the ear of an animal recently dead, that will prevent that animal from being born in lower states. Now that animal certainly had no connection with dharma in that life but nevertheless can be benefited in this way.

Question: My question is, what would appropriate practices be when we are with someone at the moment they die. You just suggested I think one, reciting mantras and names of deities. Are there any kind of appropriate things we can do at that moment?

Answer: Well, the type of thing you would do would depend basically upon your degree of knowledge, but at the very least you could certainly recite mantras and the names of buddhas and so on with an attitude of love and compassion for that person and that would actually help them. This type of spiritual assistance is the most important thing to do for someone who is dying, because at that point, up to that point, your primary effort is to make them comfortable and so on, but they are getting to the point where that's no longer an issue.

Question: Rinpoche, about twelve years ago, I was visiting a friend of mine in the hospital and he had Aids and as I visited with him with two other friends, he asked me to meditate with him. So I did, I just made something up which would help him relax because I knew that he was very angry because he had Aids. And so I led him in a very brief meditation, mostly with the idea…because I didn't think he was going to die right then, but as it turned out, after I meditated with him, he closed his eyes. I stepped away, and joined my friends, but I kept an eye on my friend Peter and it probably wasn't even five minutes after that I saw that he was no longer breathing. So I went right over to him and I just whispered to him--I had heard of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, but I didn't know to say anything so I just whispered to him--it's okay, don't be afraid, don't be afraid, it's okay, Peter.

That's what I did and I did that for maybe five minutes, then they called the nurse in and he was dead. And I always felt okay about that, in fact I felt very fortunate that I was right there when he died. For some reason I just felt that way. I never thought I would. Now, that's the first part, I just wanted a little response about that, if you had any insight into that.

 And now, I'm thinking about this for myself because I'm getting older and my practice is just okay. I'm not a great practitioner, yet the dharma is always on my mind and my behavior with others—I always have the dharma in mind, so I do the best I can with that. And sometimes I do well and sometimes I don't and I regret it. But now I'm faced with, "Well, you've not been that great a practitioner and this is serious. My friend said, "Isn't this enjoyable?" and I said, "Well I wouldn't call it that." And I always enjoy your teachings but I can't put the word enjoyable on this. It's touching me too closely. But on the other hand, I can imagine that if I was doing a good practice, that I could look forward to when I do die with a certain amount of confidence, that it will be an okay death. And I know that that does happen. So from that point of view maybe it could be enjoyable. Anyway, I think I've said enough. And also if there are any people around who are prepared to be with someone who is dying, I'd like to know about who they are.

Answer: To answer your first question, the assistance you gave your friend was both altruistic and caring and therefore it could only have been helpful, especially your conveyance to him of assurance and the reduction of his fear would actually have helped him in the interval after death. Rinpoche said, I can't guarantee that he achieved liberation, but what I can tell you is that by making him less afraid at the beginning of the interval, you created a greater chance for him to do well in the interval.

With regard to your second question, I'm a lot older than you are so I've got more to worry about. So, therefore this is of great concern to me too, so I'll tell you what I really think. The single best preparation that we can have for dying is to recite the mantra OM MANI PEME HUNG. If you make the commitment to yourself, "I will recite 100 million OM MANI PEME HUNGs, whether or not you complete it in this life, your having that commitment, from the day you make it until the day you die, will have tremendous benefit and tremendous effect on you. As for what you meditate on, you should always visualize above you head, either the Buddha Amitabha, or the Bodhisattva Chenrezig, it doesn't matter which and think that the deity is the embodiment in one form of all sources of refuge and especially of all of your spiritual teachers. Continually visualize them there, above your head, day and night, and resolve at death you will dissolve upward, your consciousness will dissolve upward into them, so what you meditate on, what you visualize is your teacher in the form of Amitabha or Chenrezik above your head and what you recite is the mantra OM MANI PEME HUNG. And that is the best preparation.

Question: Rinpoche, I'm concerned about the possibility of having impaired mental functions at the time of death due to medication or to illness. What is the best thing to do if this is the case? What if one's functions are so reduced like if they're in a coma and can't practice at all at the time of death, let alone for possibly ten or fifteen years before the time of their death. If their mental functions are so incredibly impaired, what is the best thing? I wonder is there any hope for them to improve their situation at the time of death or are they just left to their karma completely at that point, as if they hadn't practiced at all during that lifetime?

Answer: It's by no means the case that if you're in coma or have otherwise impaired faculties at the time of your death that this will wipe out the benefit of your practice previous to that time, but it is the case as you indicated in your question, that it will be practically very difficult to make immediate use of the practice or what you learn through your practice, because you won't be conscious. However, if a person who is in a coma or whose faculties are impaired either by illness or by medication has an attending lama at their death, then the lama will be able to communicate with them because when the dissolution or shutdown process of dying has reached the point where their mind is, although still within the body, no longer biologically seated in it, then their mind becomes independent of the physical conditions which have produced the impairment.

Usually a state of coma or unconsciousness, or a state of diminished faculties is produced by physical conditions such as damage to the brain or medications and so on that prevent brain functioning, but once the body has shut down, then their consciousness has an alertness that is independent of these physical conditions so the person would become conscious at that point, although it wouldn't be physically evident. At that point, the lama could perform the ejection of consciousness, could also communicate with the person, give them guidance and they would be able to understand it.

It's also possible that the person could at that point, where their mind has biologically separated from the body, it's possible that they could become conscious. But you can't bank on that, you can't depend on that, because it's also possible that other habits would intervene and the person's previous habits of practice might not reassert themselves. So the dependable resort under those circumstances would be to have an attending lama.

Question: Rinpoche, you mentioned before about the ejection of the consciousness through the crown and how that sometimes manifested with some sort of physical appearance. Is it always the case that when the consciousness does eject through one of the gates of the body a physical manifestation occurs and how would it occur through some of the other gates or orifices?

Answer: There is some confusion—the physical evidence, such as the exuding of lymph and blood and so on—this is not a sign that the consciousness has been ejected. It's a sign that the person has gained the ability to eject it. When the consciousness is actually ejected either from that gate or from any other, there will be no such swelling or sign.

Question: Rinpoche, how about in the case of some people who are from a different religious orientation and they have a very strong concept about that religion, and if you recite the Buddha's mantras which are very foreign to them, I heard that this would also be very scary for them because they have fear about other religions, so how would you work with that?

Answer: Well, what you say is very true. In those situations you have to do whatever you do for their benefit silently, such as the cultivation of compassion for them and silent visualizations or meditations, because if you recite the names of Buddhas or Buddhist mantras, in the hearing of someone who is a staunch adherent of another religious tradition, at the very least they are going to feel disoriented and possibly betrayed. They'll think, "Well, they are denying my source of refuge or my savior and trying to appeal to another," and that will anger them. So you have to be silent.

Question: Rinpoche, speaking of my own death, if I'm lucky enough to be able to go through it and not have it be sudden, when you're dealing with pain, I'm understanding that it's better to do it without medication and so I can be clear, but also, when I'm dying is it better to try to sit up and maintain a meditative posture, or there's also the left and right side that you lay on to prepare for death and I was curious about that too.

Answer: With regard to the use of pain medication, if someone has a very strong practice such that they, by maintaining the full clarity of mind during the dying process, they will be able to achieve liberation, then they should avoid any pain medication that will excessively dull their faculties, if possible. Otherwise, if the person doesn't have that kind of strong practice, it's better that they will receive whatever medication will alleviate their suffering. As far as physical posture at the time of death, of course if someone can, it's excellent to die sitting up straight, but most people can't because after all you are dying. So in that case, it's better to lie on the right side in the posture that the Buddha adopted at his death.

Question: Rinpoche, I had a question about the process that you described about the red and white elements and the life wind withdrawing into the heart center. When that occurs is that process an irreversible process or is that something that someone might experience during a near-death experience where the life functions appear to have ceased, but they are then revived?

Answer: The full process where all of the pressure exerted by the life wind is gone and the drops completely descend and ascend respectively to the heart and combine there, that entire thing doesn't happen unless the person has reached the irreversible stage which is the third stage of attainment. Up to that, where there is merely some weakening of the life wind and therefore there could be some movement but not the full thing and there could therefore be the first two stages of dissolution, the white appearance [TAPE 3, SIDE 1 ENDED HERE AND SOMETHING SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN LOST SUCH AS THE REST OF THIS ANSWER]

Tape 3, side 2

Translator: The first thing, I was basically just checking out because I think there were a couple of things that maybe I didn't put clearly or something. The preparation in this life for the recognition of the ground clear light does not normally consist of simulation of the process of disolution, but of the generation of a state of even-placement where the mind is immersed in what's called, "the path clear light." So it's not necessarily connected with the process of shutdown or dissolution. The border between the first and second parts of the interval of possibility, the whole dying and death process, is the appearance of the ground clear light. The appearance of the ground clear light is the fourth state of dissolution, the fourth moment. It's the actual moment of death and if it's not recognized, then one enters what we call the bardo proper.

Question: I have two questions. The first has to do with the descending and the

ascending in the central channel of the life wind at what I'm going to call the heart center and I've always thought that somehow I have to think of this in my mind as being that the central channel is symmetrically in the center of one's physical body and we know that our heart is asymmetrically placed in our body, so I just want to make sure that I'm clear that I'm thinking of, when we say, the heart, we're talking about a place in the central channel at the same level of the heart but symmetrically in the center of our body.

Answer: It means the central channel at the height of the heart.

Question: My other question is having to do with the time from the moment of death through 49 days. And I know I've heard that 49 days is a general number within which the whole process of rebirth can take place, so it's hard to pin down exactly what. There are two parts to this question. One is kind of technical: when do you start counting? For instance the first three days are said to be good to do certain practices, the seventh day, what constitutes that seventh day? Do you start counting from, one is the day you die, or the person dies? That is the first part of the question and the second part is, do most of the things when you talk about the sort of, you compared it last night to the dharmakaya, samboghakaya, nirmanakaya experience possibility, within that 49 days, do those first two, like the possibility for recognizing the ground clear light, generally happen right away in that 49 day period?

Translator: In your question, did you just equate the first two of those with the recognition of the ground clear light?

Question: No. Ground clear light I'm connecting to dharmakaya, deities to samboghakaya….

Translator: Okay, good.

Answer: Well, to answer or in fact, further obscure your first question, there are two systems for reckoning the 49 day period. One system is, if you die today, the first day starts with sunrise tomorrow. So that's day one, and then you count from then on.

The other way, and this is based on the fact that people are only sporadically conscious for the first three days after death in the bardo, as will come up, Rinpoche said, tomorrow, in the rest of our text. The other system therefore, discounts the first three days and so again, to get the three days, you start sunrise tomorrow, call that days A, B, and C and then you start day one of the 49 on the fourth day, fourth sunrise, after death.

However, these are not so much different opinions about how they should be counted, as different ways they can be applied depending upon what happens to the individual. Some people, and this is assuming that there is no recognition of the ground clear light, some people if there is no recognition of the ground clear light, become unconscious, but stay in the body and they'll remain unconscious for two or three days and then their consciousness will leave the body. For those people, it's better to reckon it with the three days excluded.

Other people, with slightly different channels, who also don't recognize the ground clear light, leave their body as soon as the ground clear light has passed. For those people it's obviously better to start counting the morning of the next day. The problem is, there is no obvious way to tell, Rinpoche said, which is happening, because although there are signs of someone recognizing the ground clear light, as we went through, there are no really obvious signs of whether the person's consciousness has remained or left after failing to recognize it. So what that means is that basically there are two customs and one or another will be applied arbitrarily.

As far as the correlation between the 49-day period and the opportunity of the three kayas, the dharmakaya opportunity, the opportunity to achieve liberation in the dharmakaya is the ground clear light. If someone recognizes that, then they will remain immersed in that for the period of their ensuing samadhi, which is normally three days but can be longer. And they're in a totally different category, I mean, they are not in the bardo and so on. Assuming that they don't recognize it, the dharmakaya window, the dharmakaya opportunity is gone, as soon as they don't recognize it, because the ground clear light will cease; they'll move on to this next stage. So the next stage is what's called the opportunity to achieve the samboghakaya….[Rinpoche interrupts here to clarify something.]

The samboghakaya window has two aspects to it. Generally speaking, the way that we classify the samboghakaya window is twofold and generally in most Kagyu presentations they are not totally sequential: in other words, window one and window two, within the samboghakaya. Obviously window here is not literal but I think it's the best word. The two things are this: the one opportunity for liberation in the samboghakaya is the appearances of spontaneous presence, which means the rays of wisdom light and the peaceful and wrathful deities. According to the Great Liberation Through Hearing in the Bardo, this goes on for several days and Rinpoche said that if you consult that book, you'll see that there is actually a schedule for what happens on what day, and there is a progressive coarsening, and therefore a greater difficulty of liberation and he says he doesn't remember the exact schedule but it is clear in the book and it lasts for a couple of weeks.

At the same time, there is the opportunity for another type of liberation in the samboghakaya and this is what's going to presented tomorrow, where the practitioner is able to arise, cause their mental body to arise in the form of a deity, in which case they achieve liberation in the form of that deity. In the Kagyu tradition, we classify both of these as samboghakaya windows and we don't think that it's first the one and then the other. The opportunities for either are more or less simultaneous.

The opportunity for the achievement of nirmanakaya begins when one is approaching rebirth and one's principal effort is in stopping an undesirable rebirth and choosing one's rebirth. But, as for exactly how long that period lasts, this brings up the whole issue of the 49-day period as a whole. The 49-day period is considered an average time or duration of the interval, the whole thing. But it's by no means certain that any specific individual, is going to remain in the interval for that long or only that long. Generally, speaking, Rinpoche said, the stronger one's karma in one direction or another, good or bad, the more quickly one is likely to achieve rebirth, to the extent that if someone has cultivated extraordinary virtue, there will be almost immediate rebirth in a pure realm. If they cultivated great evil, there could be almost immediate rebirth in a lower realm.

If someone's balance of wrongdoing and virtue is pretty well even—causing their rebirth to be less certain, the karmic propulsion to be less focussed—they might remain in the interval for even longer than 49 days. In any case, the nirmankaya opportunity is over when the person either successfully or unsuccessfully enters their next place of birth. Successfully means that they have used this period of the interval to achieve the nirmanakaya, which in this case means, that through the forces of aspirations, moral discipline, love and compassion, they have consciously chosen a rebirth that will be of benefit to themselves and others. That's what the achievement of the nirmanakaya means in this particular context. Unsuccessful means uncontrolled rebirth. In either case, that's when it ends.

Question: Rinpoche, from what you said earlier, I have the impression that your rebirth is determined largely by the choices you make in the interval state, when you see the five lights of wisdom and the five lights of samsaric rebirth. I always heard that it was your karma that determines your rebirth, so how do you reconcile this. Is is your karma that propels you to make one choice over another?

Answer: Well, that question actually brings up the primary significance of the interval. Birth is called the full ripening of karma, in other words, when you are conceived or born, when you enter the place of birth, you become locked into the results of previous actions. Once these have in that way ripened as the aggregates of a certain life, once you have a certain birth, there's not much you can do about it. You can't all of the sudden change it. It may change through adventitious circumstances, but basically you are, for as long as you remain alive in that life, limited by those circumstances and you have no choice about it.

What happens when you die, is the karma which propelled you into a certain life, which allowed you to take a certain rebirth, has been used up. Now there remains some habit for that type of life, as is evidenced for example, by perceiving yourself as having the previous body and so on, but nevertheless, the actual karma is gone. The karma which will cause your next rebirth has not yet taken effect. And because you have several different such karmas within your being, it may not even be certain which one you're going to take yet.

In a sense, therefore, when you're in the interval between lives, you are in a gap that is in between karmically determined, or karmically locked circumstances. Therefore, in between, you can, if you know how to do so, actually make some changes and make some choices, which you cannot do once you have entered the place of birth and are locked into the next life. That's why the power of a virtuous state of mind in the interval is tremendous because it can actually bring an immediate and great change to what happens to you.

Question: Rinpoche, I'm wondering what one can do when someone dies, like I'm thinking of my parents. How to stay calm enough to do practice….with some ways to think about it, because that's what I'm afraid of: I'll be too upset to be effective. I thought of going on a retreat after one of them dies to do practice and I remember Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche gave an empowerment at KTD. It was a shortened version of the peaceful and wrathful deities with the OM RAPASANADI mantra, and that's what I do for the people that have died in my life so far. So I'm wondering about that mantra in regards to the OM MANI PEME HUNG. And if you do go on retreat, for someone is that a good idea and how long, which practice to do? Stuff like that and how to stay calm?

Answer: First of all, Rinpoche said, he thinks the mantra that Jamgon Rinpoche gave, the short mantra for the peaceful and wrathful deities is not the one you mentioned. It's AH AH SHA SA MA HA, not the ARO PAT SAMADI mantra, but anyway, as far as the state of sadness or grief that results from the deaths of people we love, of course this happens to us. The best thing you can think when you are going through this, is to reflect upon the fact that death is natural, that everyone dies, that everyone at some point is going to die and they are not going to be here anymore. In that way that parting and separation from those we love, is simply a fact of life. And continuing in that way of thinking you should reflect upon the fact that you also, are going to die, exactly like those for whom you are grieving.

By thinking in those terms, you transform the potentially paralyzing grief into a source of inspiration. Because the best opportunity for someone to practice is when some event such as the death of one of