The Tibetan Book of the Dead
Published:
Intro
- “The concept of sin, for instance, is inevitably associated with original sin, guilt, and punishment, which have no place in most Eastern teachings. Instead, Buddhism looks for the basic cause of sin and suffering, and discovers this to be the belief in a self or ego as the center of existence. This belief is caused not by innate evil, but by unconsciousness, or ignorance of the true nature of existence. Since we experience the whole of life from this falsely centralized viewpoint, we cannot know the world as it really is. This is what is meant by saying that the world is unreal. The remedy is to see through the illusion, to attain the insight of emptiness—the absence of what is false. Inseparable from emptiness is the luminosity—the presence of what is real, the basic ground in which the play of life takes place.”
- A story of a hermit who finds a leg of a lamb and wants to cook it. His teacher tells him to mark it, and the hermit later discovers the marking on his own chest. The glutton devours himself. This self-haunting is the development of hell.
Description of Hell in Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation: not punishment, but overwhelmed with terror described as a fiery landscape filled with heat and molten iron and fiery skies. “Even if you decide to run away you have to walk over this burning metal, and if you decide not to run away you are turned to charcoal yourself.”
Interesting, and as charcoal you feed the flames of others’ hell.
- The other type of hell is the revere, intense cold and ice. This intensity lies in a refusal to communicate at all, an indignation from intense pride and self-satisfaction. “It does not allow us to dance or smile or hear the music.”
- The view here seems to be that these are psychological states we inhabit in every moment.
- “When the perceived or activator begins to dissolve into basic space, then that basic space contains the dharma, contains the truth, dharma, contains the truth, but that truth is transmitted in terms of samsãra. So the space between samsãra and the truth, the space the dharma comes through, provides the basic ground for the details of the five tathägatas and the peaceful and wrathful visions.”
- Through sensing, perceiving, knowing, truth is transformed in some way, tainted by ego (sensing, perceiving, and knowing imply some separation, some moulding of truth to personal ends)
- “The [Tibetan book of the dead] says that the first time you awaken from the unconscious absorption in the body, you have a visual experience, minute and precise and clear, luminous and terrifying, rather like seeing a mirage in a spring field, and also you hear a sound which is like a thousand thunders roaring simultaneously.“
- The mythology of the peacock in eastern traditions is that it gains its beautiful colours through eating poison; symbolic of the transforming of suffering into resplendent wisdom. Peacocks apparently can eat small snakes and some toxic plants that other animals avoid.
The Great Liberation through Hearing
- Three Jewels: Buddha (principle of enlightenment, source of inspiration), Dharma (path to enlightenment, truth, how we breathe towards, expire, the way), Sangha (community of shared practice, conspiration)
- The liberation is in three parts: “showing the luminosity in the bardo of the moment before death, the great reminder of showing in the bardo of dharmata, and the instructions for closing the entrance to the womb in the bardo of becoming.”
- “The length of time during which the inner pulsation remains after respiration is just about the time taken to eat a meal.”
- Interesting. Sobering. Keep this in mind while eating meals.
- “…by means of this death, I will adopt only the attitude of the enlightened state of mind, friendliness, and compassion, and attain perfect enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings as limitless as space.”
- For the sake of all… forgiveness
- “O child of noble family, at this moment your state of mind is by nature pure emptiness [absence of what is false, i.e., existence], it does not possess any nature whatever, neither substance nor quality such as color, but it is pure empti-ness; this is the dharmata [essence of reality], the female buddha Samantabhadri. But this state of mind is not just blank emptiness, it is unobstructed, sparkling, pure and vibrant [luminous, pure presence]; this mind is the male buddha Samantabhadra. These two, your mind whose nature is emptiness without any substance whatever, and your mind which is vibrant and luminous, are inseparable: this is the dharmakaya [buddha-nature, body of truth] of the buddha. This mind of yours is inseparable luminosity and emptiness in the form of a great mass of light, it has no birth or death, therefore tho buddha of Immortal Light.”
- Bunch of presencing of brilliant luminosity that we turn away from in prideful pursuit of the more pleasing, softer lights. Anagogic. Plato’s cave.
- “Do not take pleasure in the soft smoky light of the hell-beings. This is the inviting path of the veils of error, accumulated by your violent aggression. If you are attracted to it you will fall down into hell, and sink into the muddy swamp of unbearable suffering from which there is never any escape.”
- “Do not take pleasure in the soft blue light of human beings. That is the inviting light-path of unconscious tendencies, accumulated by your intense pride. If you are attracted to it you will fall into the human realm and experience birth, old age, death and suffering, and never escape from the muddy swamp of samsãra.“
- “Do not be afraid, do not be attracted to the soft yellow light of the hungry ghosts. That is the light-path of unconscious tendencies accumulated by your intense desire. If you are attracted to it you will fall into the realm of hungry ghosts, and experience unbearable misery from hunger and thirst.”
- “Do not be afraid of it [wisdom in some form or other]. It is the spontaneous play of your own mind, so rest in the supreme state free from activity and care, in which there is no near or far, love or hate. At the same time, together with the wisdom light, the soft red light of the jealous gods, caused by envy, will also shine on you. Meditate so that there is no difference between love and hate. But if your intelligence is weak, then simply do not take pleasure in it.”
- “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 [all steps end with this sentence of warning].”
- “…the pure innate wisdom, shining with the five colored lights like colored threads twisted together, flashing, vibrating, shimmering, luminous and clear, sharp and terrifying, will come from the hearts of the five vidyadhara lords and pierce your heart so that the eye cannot bear it.“
- Epic.
The Great Liberation through Hearing
- “Do not be attracted to the soft green light of the animals, do not yearn for it; if you are attracted to it you will fall into the animal realm of ignorance and experience the extreme suffering of stupidity, numbness and slavery, from which there is no escape; so do not be attracted to it.”
- Soft white light of gods -> soft smoky light of hell-beings -> soft blue light of human beings -> soft yellow light of the hungry ghosts -> soft red light of the jealous gods -> soft green light of animals
- After these come another chance. The deities now present in fearful forms, gruesome, violent, horrific, no longer shrouded in brilliant light but revealed in awful grotesqueness. Once again, the weak turn away. Those who turn away from the various chances at liberation wander into the bardo of becoming.
- “Most people, whether they were much or little adept in meditation, are very confused by fear during the bardo of the moment before death, and so they have no means except this “Liberation through Hearing.” To those who have meditated a lot, the bardo of dharmata (essence of reality) comes suddenly when their mind and body separate. Those who have recognized their own mind and become experienced while they were alive are very strong when the luminosity appears during the bardo of the moment before death, therefore practice during life is most important. And those who, while they were alive, have meditated on the generation and perfection stages of the tantric deities, are very strong when the peaceful and wrathful visions appear during the bardo of dharmata. Therefore it is extremely important to train the mind thoroughly in this “Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo,” especially during one’s life.”
- “There will be sounds of mountains crumbling, of lakes flooding, of fire spreading, and of fierce winds springing up. In fear you will escape wherever you can, but you will be cut off by three precipices in front of you, white, red and black, deep and dreadful, and you will be on the point of falling down them. O child of noble family, they are not really precipices, they are aggression, passion and ignorance.”
- Clinging to anger in the bardo of becoming leads to the becoming of a hell being. Clinging to possessions left behind after death leads to the becoming of a hungry ghost. Entreaties to offer up those possessions to the Three Jewels.
- “Well! My projections must be impure; how can there be impurity in Buddha’s words? These are caused by my own impure projections, like seeing the faults of my own face reflected in a mirror.”
- The interpretation is impure due to our sinful, ignorant nature.
- Many wombs will present themselves. Agression towards father and love for mother leads to birth as a male, envy towards mother and love for father leads to birth as a female.
- The wombs of various realms will appear (gods, jealous gods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, hell-beings). They will appear as places with certain qualities, some more alluring than others. A violent tempest will come and provoke fear, causing the wanderer to hide in one of the wombs and take refuge there.
- Taking refuge in pleasure rather than the Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha
- “If you are going to be spontaneously born in a filthy dung-heap, you will perceive that fetid mass as sweet-smelling, and you will feel attracted to it and be born there; so whatever appears, do not trust it, but put an end to the signs of desire and hatred, and choose a womb-entrance.”
- What should be disgusting, what leads to disintegration and unholiness will be misperceived as holy, delightful, pleasant. Perennial pattern.