The Tibetan Book of the Dead (The Great Book of Natural Liberation Through… (1927)

The Liberation Through Hearing During The Intermediate State (Tibetan: bardo "liminality"; thodol as "liberation", sometimes translated as Liberation Through Hearing or Bardo Thodol is a funerary text. It is often referred to in the West by the more casual title, "Tibetan Book of the Dead," a name which draws a parallel with the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, another funerary text.

The Tibetan text describes, and is intended to guide one through, the experiences that the consciousness has after death, during the interval between death and the next rebirth. This interval is known in Tibetan as the bardo. The text also includes chapters on the signs of death, and rituals to undertake when death is closing in, or has taken place. It is the most internationally famous and widespread work of Tibetan Nyingma literature.

According to Tibetan tradition, the Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State was composed in the 8th century by Padmasambhava, written down by his primary student, Yeshe Tsogyal, buried in the Gampo hills in central Tibet and subsequently discovered by a Tibetan terton, Karma Lingpa in the 12th century. There were variants of the book among different sects.

The Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State is recited by Tibetan Buddhist lamas over a dying or recently deceased person, or sometimes over an effigy of the deceased. The name means literally "liberation through hearing in the intermediate state."

The Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State differentiates the intermediate state between lives into three bardos:

1.The chikhai bardo or "bardo of the moment of death," which features the experience of the "clear light of reality," or at least the nearest approximation of which one is spiritually capable.
2.The chonyid bardo or "bardo of the experiencing of reality," which features the experience of visions of various Buddha forms (or, again, the nearest approximations of which one is capable).
3.The sidpa bardo or "bardo of rebirth," which features karmically impelled hallucinations which eventually result in rebirth. (Typically imagery of men and women passionately entwined.)
The Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State also mentions three other bardos: those of "life" (or ordinary waking consciousness), of "dhyana" (meditation), and of "dream" (the dream state during normal sleep).

Together these "six bardos" form a classification of states of consciousness into six broad types. Any state of consciousness can form 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 that are due to our previous unskillful actions.

Beautiful, visual, brave. ( )

An interesting, and informative, read. ( )

The so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead is my true Penelope. Thurman's translation is my least favorite of the translations of the Bardo Thodol (except for the W. Y. Evans-Wentz/Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup version, which I don't even count as a translation) because of his experimental coinages which, to my mind, make it difficult to follow the terminology outward from this text to other works, including but not limited to Shi Tro practice.

All that means is that I don't think the coinages work. Otherwise, as usual, Khenpo Thurman is fantastic and deliriously wonderful. (He doesn't actually have the Khenpo degree, but I'll explain why I call him that if you're curious). And the pictures are lovely.

If you're interested in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, I suggest reading multiple translations. Include this among them. Oh oh, mixed messages!

This review applies to the Robert Thurman translation of the Bardo Thodol. ( )

Amazing. I have read it through twice now and will read it through again many times. I find spirituality impossible to rate so know that my rating means simply that if you are a seeker of enlightenment, this is a stone you must turn over many times to look under. ( )