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The Tibetan Book of the Dead or the After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane
English translation by Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup. Compiled and Edited by W. Y. Evans- Wentz
The Process of Rebirth - The General Conclusion
By the reading of these properly, those devotees [or yogīs] who are advanced in understanding can make the best use of the Transference at the moment of death. They need not traverse the Intermediate State, but will depart by the Great Straight-Upward [Path]. Others who are a little less practiced [in things spiritual], recognizing the Clear Light in the Chönyid Bardo, at the moment of death, will go by the upward [course]. Those lower than these will be liberated — in accordance with their particular abilities and karmic connexions — when one or other of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities dawneth upon them, during the succeeding [two] weeks, while in the Chönyid Bardo.
There being several turning-points, liberation should be obtained at one or other of them through recognizing. But those of very weak karmic connexions, whose mass of obscuration is great [because of] evil actions, have to wander downwards and downwards to the Sidpa Bardo. Yet since there are, like the rungs of a ladder, many kinds of settings-face-to-face [or remindings], liberation should have been obtained at one or at another by recognizing. But those of the weakest karmic connexions, by not recognizing, fall under the influence of awe and terror. [For them] there are various graded teachings for closing the womb-door and for selecting the womb-door; and, at one or other of these, they should have apprehended the method of visualization and [applied] the illimitable virtues [thereof] for exalting one's own condition. Even the lowest of them, resembling the brute order, will have been able -- in virtue of the application of the Refuge — to turn from entering into misery; and, [obtaining] the great [boon] of a perfectly endowed and freed human body,1 will, in the next birth, meeting with a guru who is a virtuous friend, obtain the [saving] vows.
If this Doctrine arrive [while one is] in the Sidpa Bardo, it will be like the connecting up of good actions, resembling [thus] the placing of a trough in [the break of] a broken drain; such is this Teaching.2
Those of heavy evil karma cannot possibly fail to be liberated by hearing this Doctrine [and recognizing]. If it be asked, why? It is because, at that time, all the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities being present to receive [one], and the Māras and the Interrupters likewise coming to receive [one] along with them, the mere hearing of this Doctrine then turneth one's views, and liberation is obtained; for there is not flesh and blood body to depend upon, but a mental body, which is [easily] affected. At whatever distance one may be wandering in the Bardo, one heareth and cometh, for one possesseth the slender sense of supernormal perception and foreknowledge; and, recollecting and apprehending instantaneously, the mind is capable of being changed [or influenced]. Therefore is it [i.e. the Teaching] of great use here. It is like the mechanism of a catapult.3 It is like the moving of a big wooden beam [or log] which a hundred men cannot carry, but which by being floated upon water can be towed wherever desired in a moment.4 It is like the controlling of a horse's mouth by means of a bridle.5
Therefore, going near [the body of] one who hath passed out of this life — if the body be there — impress this [upon the spirit of the deceased] vividly, again and again, until blood and the yellowish water-secretion begin to issue from the nostrils. At that time the corpse should not be disturbed. The rules to be observed for this [impressing to be efficacious] are: no animal should be slain on account of the deceased;6 nor should relatives weep or make mournful wailings near the dead body;7 [let the family] perform virtuous deeds as far as possible.8
In other ways, too, this Great Doctrine of the Bardo Thödol, as well as any other religious texts, may be expounded [to the dead or dying]. If this [Doctrine] be joined to the end of The Guide and recited [along with The Guide] it becometh very efficacious. In yet other ways it should be recited as often as possible.9 The words and meanings should be committed to memory [by every one]; and, when death is inevitable and the death-symptoms are recognized — strength permitting — one should recite it oneself, and reflect upon the meanings. If strength doth not permit, then a friend should read the Book and impress it vividly. There is no doubt as to its liberating.
The Doctrine is one which liberateth by being seen, without need of meditation or of sādhanā;10 this Profound Teaching liberateth by being heard or by being seen. This Profound Teaching liberateth those of great evil karma through the Secret Pathway. One should not forget its meaning and the words, even though pursued by seven mastiffs.11
By this Select Teaching, one obtaineth Buddhahood at the moment of death. Were the Buddhas of the Three Times [the Past, the Present, and the Future] to seek, They could not find any doctrine transcending this.
Thus is completed the Profound Heart-Drops of the Bardo Doctrine, called The Bardo Thödol, which liberateth embodied beings.
[Here endeth the Tibetan Book of the Dead]
Footnotes
1. Text: dal-hbyor-phun-sum-tshogs-pahi-mi-liis (pron. tal-jor-phün-sum-tsho-pai-mi-lü): 'a perfectly endowed and freed human body'; 'freed' implying freedom from the eight thraldoms: (1) the ever-recurring round of pleasure concomitant with existence as a deva; (2) the incessant warfare concomitant with existence as an asura; (3) the helplessness and slavery concomitant with existence under conditions like those prevailing in the world of brutes; (4) the torments of hunger and thirst concomitant with existence as a preta; (5) the extremes of heat and cold concomitant with existence in Hell; (6) the irreligion or perverted religion concomitant with existence amongst certain races of mankind, or (7) the physical or (8) other impediments concomitant with certain sorts of human birth.
To win a perfectly endowed human body, one must inherently possess faith, perseverance, intellect, sincerity, and humility as a religious devotee, and be born at a time when religion prevails (i.e. when an Enlightened One shall be incarnate or when His teachings are the driving force of the world) and meet then a great, spiritually developed guru.
2. If a drain be broken, the continuity in the flow of the water is broken. The Teaching is, in its effects, like repairing the drain by insertion of a trough to conduct the water across the break (which is symbolical of the break in the stream of consciousness caused by death). Thereby is the merit of good deeds done in the human world made to carry the deceased forward: the continuity is re-established.
3. As a catapult enables one to direct a great stone at a definite target or goal, so this Doctrine enables the deceased to direct himself to the Goal of Liberation.
4. As water makes the moving of the beam possible, so this doctrine makes possible the conducting of the deceased to the place or state of existence most appropriate, or even to Buddhahood.
5. As with a bridle, controlling the bit and the course of the horse, so with this Doctrine the deceased can be directed or turned in his after-death progression.
6. This does not refer to animal-sacrifice for the dead, but to the non-Buddhist habit of slaying animals to provide meat for the lamas and the guests at the house of death while the funeral rites are being conducted. Unfortunately, this prohibition is often overlooked ; and, though no killing of animals may take place there, slaughtered animals may be brought from a distance—an observance after the letter, but not in the spirit of this Buddhist precept of non-killing.
7. Wailings and lamentations have been customary amongst Tibetans and related Himalayan peoples, as amongst the peoples of India and of Egypt, since immemorial times; but Buddhism, like the Islamic Faith, discountenances them.
8. Such deeds are, for example, the feeding of lamas and of the poor, almsgiving, the presentation of religious texts or images to monasteries, and the endowment of monasteries if the deceased left much wealth.
9. Lit., ' be recited always'.
10. Text: Bsgrub (pron. Dub): Skt. sādhanā, ' perfected devotion', which ordinarily requires the very careful performance of a ritual more or less technical and elaborate.
11. Fierce mastiffs are numerous in most Tibetan villages, and travellers protect themselves by special charms against them. This reference to seven mastiffs is purely Tibetan, and is additional internal evidence that the Bardo Thödol took form in Tibet itself, deriving much of its matter from Indian mythology and systems of Yoga philosophy.
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