| |
The Bardo Thötröl, the Tibetan title for the Book of the Dead, is one of a series of instructions on six types of liberation composed by Padmasambhava, who according to legend buried the texts in the hills of central Tibet. The Bardo texts were later discovered by Karma-Lingpa.
''This scripture . . . was traditionally read aloud to the dying to help them attain liberation. It guides a person to use the moment of death to recognize the nature of mind and attain liberation.
''It teaches that awareness once freed from the body, creates its own reality like that of a dream. This dream projection unfolds in predictable ways in ways both frightening and beautiful. Peaceful and wrathful visions appear, and these visions can be overwhelming. Since the awareness is still in shock of no longer being attached to and shielded by a body, it needs guidance and forewarning so that key decisions that lead to enlightenment are made. The Tibetan Book of the Dead teaches how one can attain heavenly realms by recognizing the enlightened realms as opposed to being drawn into the realms of seduction that pull incorporeal awareness into cyclic suffering.''[1]
|
The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Liberation through Hearing in the Bardos[2] is a very specialized teaching and not central to modern Tibetan Buddhist practice. I discovered, for example, that knowledge of the Liberation through Hearing and an understanding of the Bardos were by no means required in order for someone to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk or nun.
And so it is perhaps useful for us to find out about this work from individuals who are not concerned with the teaching's finer esoteric points. For in this way, we will learn the aspects of this teaching that are accessible to those of us who have not made of it a life's work.
In this connection, we will hear from Kamil Hill, a Tibetan monk from a monastery near Young, Arizona, and René Larrabee, a Tibetan Buddhist adept for 16 years who helps run the Kunzang Palyul Chöling center in Sedona, Arizona. Both of these beautiful people graciously spoke with me about their own understandings of Tibetan Buddhist teachings on death and dying.
But first, let's take a look at the Tibetan Book of the Dead itself: not what it means, but what it is. For what it is holds fascination and a great mystery.
Transporting One's Consciousness to the Pure Lands
Tibetan Buddhism teaches that at the point just preceding death, through a lifetime of training just for this one, single moment, we can transport our consciousness to Dewachen — The Pure Lands. This is a place where one's Soul may abide and learn its remaining lessons without needing to return to a physical body, even though enlightenment, or ''realization,'' was not attained during one's life.
But what if someone is experiencing fear at the moment just before death? Or unconsciousness? What if the mind has been confused by serious illness? What if, for whatever reason, the dying person has suffered a loss of self-awareness? All of these possibilities may be referred to by the single word ''fainting,'' which has the special meaning of forgetting one's ability to control the unruly brain. So what if we do ''faint'' at the moment just before death? Are we then doomed to continue on the karmic wheel?
Not, according to this teaching, if we are fortunate enough to have at our bedside a teacher who can speak to us, bring us out of our fainting condition, remind us of Who We Are, and guide us to the meditative practice that can free us to seek the place of Limitless Light. Through ''hearing'' our teacher in this first Bardo of the moment before death, we may remember Who We Are, and achieve liberation.
Hearing in the Bardos
But sometimes the dying person does not hear or does not heed, and leaves the body without transporting its consciousness to Dewachen. Still, all is not lost. In fact, departed beings have several days in which to remember their practice and transport their consciousness as they have learned to do in the preceeding lifetime.
But it becomes increasingly difficult to remember, at first because one is seduced by images of solace and comfort, and later because the departed being is assaulted with images that induce terror and revulsion.
In fact, these after-death ''Bardos'' actually consist of a series of realms which correspond to all of the psychological states that keep us attached to the illusion of separation. ''Bardo'' means ''gap'' — it is a moment between one consciousness and the next where we have the opportunity to make a choice.
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, for example, the Soul meets with images of greed and need — poverty and its opposite, satiety. The feeling in this realm is of never being able to get enough. And until all such experience can be recognized as images proceeding from one's own brain (not the physical one, which is dead, but the etheric equivalent), then liberation cannot occur. And when liberation does not happen, then it's on to the next: the Animal Realm; the Realm of the Jealous Gods; the Realm of Hell, and so on.
As we have said, some of the Bardo images are attractive, comforting. They seem to offer haven or refuge. And for each possible realm, for each possible type of experience that the Soul may encounter, the Book of the Dead contains a text which the teacher reads into the ear of the departed's body. This text exhorts the Soul to abandon its interactions with illusion and instead seek the land of the Buddha, of love and compassion, of Limitless Light.
Here, to illustrate, is a portion of that text which is to be read to the departed being who finds itself in the Realm of the Jealous Gods:
Do not be afraid of it, do not be attracted to the soft red light of the jealous gods. That is the inviting path of karma accumulated by your intense envy. If you are attracted to it you will fall into the realm of the jealous gods, and experience unbearable misery from fighting and quarreling. It is an obstacle blocking the path of liberation, so do not be attracted to it, but give up your unconscious tendencies. Feel longing for the luminous, brilliant green light [of wisdom].[3]
In each section of the text, therefore — which may be read to the departed body for days on end — the Soul is repeatedly exhorted to realize that nothing negative is real, that nothing which appears to offer comfort or solace is required. That we are Unlimited, unassailable, needing neither comfort nor solace. Our only task is to see all of these images as simply bits of the unrealized Self, and then to become One-With whatever is there.
For this is Enlightenment. The Realization that all proceeds from our own mind.
As Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche says in his Commentary,[4]:
It is like the story of the hermit who saw a leg of lamb in front of him, and wanted to pick it up and cook it. His teacher told him to mark it with a cross, then later he discovered that the cross was marked on his own chest. It is that kind of notion; you think there is something outside to attack or fight or win over . . . [but] . . . you are the anger itself, so there is nowhere to run away.
The Practice of Phowa
The purpose of Phowa is to learn how to transport one's consciousness to the Pure Land of the Amitaba Buddha, or Dewachen. As Kamil Hill explained it, ''Because of the extent and number of prayers that the Amitaba Buddha has done, it is said that in his Pure Land, even though one has not been realized during life, one may attain liberation.''
Kamil stresses that learning this practice requires transmission from a qualified practitioner. But how can we help someone who is dying, someone who has not practice Phowa? How can we help ourselves? ''By seeing death,'' Kamil said, ''as an opportunity. Actually using death as an opportunity to achieve realization.''
And we can best help people who are dying, he said, by letting go of fear and helping the loved one to do that. Even in the absence of esoteric practice and years of training, he said, ''Love and trust can go a long way. The less attachment to anything, the better. We want to face death with a mind that is relaxed and stable.''
René Larrabee agrees. It helps, she believes, to have a teacher. ''At the point of death, for many practitioners, a strong relationship with one's teacher can be powerful, influential.'' The teacher, she said, can create ''merit'' for the person who is dying or who has died.
This does not mean that a teacher, or anyone, can liberate us. ''If a teacher could make someone more enlightened,'' René said, ''it would all have been done a long time ago! That is something we must all do for ourselves. But the teacher can add an ingredient that gives one more choices.''
But are we not here to learn? Don't we have a mission? Do we really want to just go on and leave everyone behind? What is the point of all this?
''There is no point.''
No one to be helped? No one to benefit from the success of our supposed mission? All Self?
''Once upon a time,'' she said, ''something looked at itself and thought it was Other. I was watching my dog the other day, chasing its own tail. It was looking at that tail and thinking it was Other. It's like that. There is no point.''
The Phowa of Habits
The pun is intended. For it is by training our minds not to become seduced by lower-dimensional thinking that we develop the habit of transcending. Then when we are faced with the fearful products of our own thinking, we will have the habit of turning away and transporting our consciousness to the Pure Lands. Without this habit, we may get stuck in the Bardos.
And we need this habit because, René said, after death, thoughts manifest instantaneously. ''The very thought produces an effect — it's there!''
I asked René whether she thought that, since thoughts also manifest instantly in the dream state, the practice of ''lucid dreaming'' might help us through the Bardos. I was reminded of a time when I was caught up in a horrible nightmare, then became lucid and told the monsters, ''You do not exist. Everything is God, and God is Love.'' And the horror just disappeared. I woke up to a roomful of music and rainbow lights dancing before me in the darkness.
''Yes,'' René agreed. ''There is a story of the Hell Realms, saying that a Boddhisatva can become caught there, can stray into a world of eternal torture and horror. And yet we are taught that one moment of compassion, and the Soul becomes liberated instantaneously. That's all it takes. One moment of compassion.
''Our whole life,'' she said, ''can be a training for that one moment.''
Footnotes:
- Taken from commentary at the The Reluctant Messenger website.
- Quotes from The Tibetan Book of the Dead are taken from the version translated with commentary by Francesco Fremantle & Chögyam Trungpa, Shambhala Publications, 1975.
- Ibid. p. 114-115.
- Ibid. p. 13.
Top of Page  Print Version
|
|
|
