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The '''Bardo Thodol''' (Tibetan: ''bardo'' "liminality"; ''thodol'' as "liberation"^[1]), 'Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate State', is a funerary text that describes, and intends to guide through, the experiences of the consciousness after death during the interval known as bardo between death and rebirth. It also includes chapters on the signs of death and rituals to undertake when death is closing in or has taken place.
It is the the most internationally famous and widespread work of Tibetian Nyingma literature.^[2]
It is commonly known by its traditional but illiteral title: ''The Tibetan Book of the Dead''.
Fremantle (2001: p.20) states:

...there is in fact no single Tibetan title corresponding to the ''Tibetan Book of the Dead''.^[3] The overall name given to the whole terma cycle is ''Profound Dharma of Self-liberation through the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones'', and it is popularly known as ''Karma Lingpa's Peaceful and Wrathful Ones''.^[4] It has been handed down through the centuries in several versions containing varying numbers of sections and subsections, arranged in different orders, ranging from around ten to thirty-eight titles. These individual texts cover a wide range of subjects, including the dzogchen view..., meditation instructions, visualizations of deities, liturgies and prayers, lists of mantras, descriptions of the signs of death, and indications of future rebirth, as well as those that are actually concerned with the after-death state. the [''sic.''] Tibetan Book of the Dead as we know it in English consists of two comparatively long texts on the bardo of dharmata (including the bardo of dying) and the bardo of existence.... They are called ''Great Liberation through Hearing: The Supplication of the Bardo of Dharmata'' and ''Great liberation through Hearing: The Supplication Pointing Out the Bardo of Existence''.^[5] Within the texts themselves, the two combined are referred to as ''Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo'', ''Great Liberation through Hearing'', or just ''Liberation though Hearing'',^[6]....

Contents

Background

English translations and related teachings

See also

Notes

External links

Background

The Bardo Thodol is recited by lamas over a dying or recently deceased person, or sometimes over an effigy of the deceased. It has been suggested that it is a sign of the influence of shamanism on Tibetan Buddhism. The name means literally "liberation through hearing in the intermediate state".
The ''Bardo Thodol'' actually differentiates the intermediate states between lives into three bardos (themselves further subdivided):
# the ''chikhai bardo'' or "bardo of the moment of death"
# the ''chonyid bardo'' or "bardo of the experiencing of reality"
# the ''sidpa bardo'' or "bardo of rebirth".
The ''chikhai bardo'' features the experience of the "clear light of reality", or at least the nearest approximation to it of which one is spiritually capable.
The ''chonyid bardo'' features the experience of visions of various Buddha forms (or, again, the nearest approximations of which one is capable).
The ''sidpa bardo'' features karmically impelled hallucinations which eventually result in rebirth. (Typically imagery of men and women passionately entwined.)
One can compare the descriptions of the ''Bardo Thodol'' with accounts of certain "out of the body" near-death experiences described by people who have nearly died in accidents or on the operating table - these typically contain accounts of a "white light", experienced as, somehow, a living being, and of helpful figures corresponding to that person's religious tradition.
The ''Bardo Thodol'' also mentions three other bardos: those of "life" (or ordinary waking consciousness), of "dhyana" (meditation), and of "dream". Thus together the "six bardos" form a classification of states of consciousness into six broad types, and any state of consciousness forms a type of "intermediate state" - intermediate between other states of consciousness. Indeed, one can consider any momentary state of consciousness a bardo, since it lies between our past and future existences; it provides us with the opportunity to experience reality, which is always present but obscured by the projections and confusions due to our previous unskillful actions.
According to Tibetan tradition, the ''Bardo Thodol'' was composed by Padmasambhava, written down by his wife, Yeshe Tsogyal, buried in the Gampo hills in central Tibet and subsequently discovered by a Tibetan terton, Karma Lingpa.^[7]

English translations and related teachings

★ Graham Coleman with Thupten Jinpa (editors). ''The Tibetan Book of the Dead'' [''English Title'']. ''The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States'' [''Tibetan Title'']. Composed by Padma Sambhava. Revealed by Karma Lingpa. Translated by Gyurme Dorje. Penguin Books. 2005. (The first complete translation). ISBN 978-0-140-45529-8.

★ W. Y. Evans-Wentz (editor) Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup (translator). ''Tibetan Book of the Dead: Or, The After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane'', Oxford, 1927, 1960. ISBN 0-19-500223-7 This was a long-term best-seller in the 1960s. Evan-Wentz came up with the title based on the previously published famous ''Egyptian Book of the Dead''.

★ Edward Conze provides a precis in ''Buddhist Scriptures'', Penguin, 1959.

★ Francesca Fremantle and Chögyam Trungpa, ''The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo by Guru Rinpoche according to Karma Lingpa'', Shambhala, 1975, 2003, ISBN 0-394-73064-X, ISBN 1-59030-059-9

★ Robert Thurman (translator), Dalai Lama (Foreword), ''The Tibetan Book of the Dead, as popularly known in the West. Known in Tibet as The Great Book of Natural Liberation Through Understanding in the Between, Composed By Padma Sambhava Discoverd by Karma Lingpa'', Harper Collins, 1994, ISBN 1-85538-412-4

★ Fremantle, Francesca (2001). ''Luminous emptiness: understanding the Tibetan book of the dead''. Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Shambhala Publications, Inc. ISBN 1-57062-450-X

★ Timothy Leary ''Psychedelic Prayers'', a loose interpretation of the book.

★ Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Richard Alpert, '' The three hallucinogenic drug pioneers and researchers authored this book strongly influenced by some parts of the 'Tibetan Book of the Dead'. It was intended for reciting during hallucinogenic drug sessions. 1964. ISBN 0-8065-1652-6.

★ Jean-Claude van Itallie, ''The Tibetan Book of the Dead for Reading Aloud''

★ Graham Coleman (Translator), Gyurme Dorje (Translator), Thupten Jinpa (Editor) , ''The Tibetan Book of the Dead'', Penguin Classics; new edition (2005) ISBN 0-7139-9414-2

★ Lati Rinpochay and Jeffrey Hopkins, ''Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth,'' Snow Lion, 1985.

★ Lama Lodo, ''Bardo Teachings''. Snow Lion, 1987.

★ Chokyi Nyina Rinpoche, ''The Bardo Guidebook,'' Ragjung Yeshe, 1991.

★ In 2007, The History Channel released a documentary film, ''Tibetan Book of the Dead'': "The Tibetan book of the Dead is an important document that has stood the test of time and attempts to provide answers to one of mankind's greatest questions: What happens when we die? Interviews with Tibetan Lamas, American scholars, and practicing Buddhists bring this powerful and mysterious text to life. State-of-the-art computer generated graphics will recreate this mysterious and exotic world. Follow the dramatized journey of a soul from death...to re-birth. In Tibet, the "art of dying" is nothing less than the art of living."^[8]

See also

★ Bardo

★ Six realms

★ Reality in Buddhism

Notes

1. Fremantle (2001: p.21) states that: Liberation is synonymous with the Sanskrit word ''bodhi'', which means awakening, understanding, or enlightenment, and with ''nirvana'', which means blowing out or extinction: the extinction of illusion.
2. Dorje, Gyurme. 'The Tibetian Book of the Dead'. "A Brief Literary History of the ''Tibetian Book of the Dead''. (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, 2007).
Translated by Gyurme Dorje. ISBN 978-0-14-310494-0.
3. Information about these texts and others relating to death can be found in Detlef Ingo Lauf, ''Secret Doctrines of the Tibetan Books of the Dead'', Boulder, Shambhala, 1977.
4. In Tibetan, ''zab chos zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol'' and ''kar gling zhi khro''.
5. In Tibetan, ''chos nyid bar do'i gsol 'debs thos grol chen mo'' and ''strid pa'i bar do ngo sprod gsol 'debs thos grol chen mo''.
6. In Tibetan, ''bar do thos grol'', thos grol chen mo, and thos grol.
7. Evans-Wentz (1960), p. liv; and, Fremantle & Trungpa (2003), p. xi.
8. The History Channel: ''Tibetan Book of the Dead''

External links

★ History article

★ Description of the travel

★ The Tibetan Book of the Dead - Ebook