Bardo Thodol

The *Bardo Thodol*, sometimes called the Tibetan Book of the Dead, is a funerary text that describes the experiences of the soul after death during the interval known as bardo between death and rebirth. It 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.

One can compare the descriptions of the *Bardo Thodol* with accounts of certain “out of the body” 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”, 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 unskilful actions.

References

• Wikipedia (2004). [Bardo Thodol](http://www.wikipedia.org/Bardo_Thodol) (*http://www.wikipedia.org/Bardo_Thodol*). Retrieved Oct. 19, 2004.