The Bardo Thodol, Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate State, sometimes incorrectly called the Tibetan Book of the Dead, is a funerary text that describes the experiences of the consciousness 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". Funerary texts or funerary literature feature in many belief systems. ... The Tibetan word Bardo means literally intermediate state - also translated as transitional state or in-between state. In Sanskrit the concept has the name antarabhava. ... According to Buddhism, there is a cycle of death and rebirth that can be transcended by the practice of the Eightfold Path. ... Lamas debating in Tashilhunpo Monastery. ... A shaman doctor of Kyzyl. ... Buddhism is a religion and philosophy focusing on the teachings of the Buddha Śākyamuni (Pāli:Sakyamuni), born Siddhārtha (Pāli: Siddhattha) of the Gautama (Pāli: Gotama) gotra, who probably lived in the 5th century BCE. Buddhism spread throughout the ancient Indian sub-continent in the five centuries...

The Bardo Thodol actually differentiates the intermediate states between lives into three bardos (themselves further subdivided):

1. the chikhai bardo or "bardo of the moment of death"
2. the chonyid bardo or "bardo of the experiencing of reality"
3. 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). A stone image of the Buddha. ...

The sidpa bardo features karmically impelled hallucinations which eventually result in rebirth. (Typically imagery of men and women passionately intwined.)

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. Ascent in the Empyrean (Hieronymous Bosch) A near-death experience (NDE) is the perception reported by a person who nearly died or who was clinically dead and revived. ...

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. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

English Translations

• 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 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, ISBN 0-394-73064-X
• Robert Thurman (Translator), Huston Smith (Introduction), The Tibetan Book of the Dead
• Francesca Fremantle, Luminous Emptiness : A Guide to the Tibetan Book of the Dead
• 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 Ed edition (October 27, 2005) ISBN 0713994142

This article is about the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. ... Eberhart (Edward) Julius Dietrich Conze (1904 - 1979) was born in London of mixed German, French, and NetherlandsDutch ancestry. ... Chögyam Trungpa (1939? - April 4, 1987) was a Buddhist meditation master, scholar, teacher and artist. ... Guru Rinpoche, the patron saint of Sikkim. ... Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman (born October 14, 1932 in New York City) is the Je Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and is the co-founder and president of Tibet House New York. ... Huston Smith is among the preeminent religious studies scholars in the United States. ...

See also

• Six lower realms
• Bardo

In traditional Mahayana Buddhist cosmology, the six lower realms are six of the ten spiritual realms; these six realms compose the region known as samsara. ... The Tibetan word Bardo means literally intermediate state - also translated as transitional state or in-between state. In Sanskrit the concept has the name antarabhava. ...

External links

• History article
• Description of the travel