The-Tibetan-Book-of-Living-and-Dying

SEVEN
Bardos and Other Realities
BARDO IS A TIBETAN WORD that simply means a
"transition" or a gap between the completion of one situation
and the onset of another. Bar means "in between," and do
means "suspended" or "thrown." Bardo is a word made
famous by the popularity of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Since
its first translation into English in 1927, this book has aroused
enormous interest among psychologists, writers, and philosophers
in the West, and has sold millions of copies.
The title Tibetan Book of the Dead was coined by its compiler
and editor, the American scholar W. Y. Evans-Wentz, in
imitation of the famous (and equally mistitled) Egyptian Book
of the Dead. 1 The actual name of the book is Bardo Tödrol
Chenmo, which means the "Great Liberation Through Hearing
in the Bardo." Bardo teachings are extremely ancient and
found in what are called the Dzogchen Tantras. 2 These teachings
have a lineage stretching back beyond human masters to
the Primordial Buddha (called in Sanskrit Samantabhadra, and
in Tibetan Kuntuzangpo), who represents the absolute, naked,
sky-like primordial purity of the nature of our mind. But the
Bardo Tödrol Chenmo itself is part of one large cycle of teachings
handed down by the master Padmasambhava and
revealed in the fourteenth century by the Tibetan visionary
Karma Lingpa.
The Great Liberation Through Hearing in the Bardo, the Tibetan
Book of the Dead, is a unique book of knowledge. It is a kind
of guide book or a travelogue of the after-death states, which
is designed to be read by a master or spiritual friend to a person
as the person dies, and after death. In Tibet there are said
to be "Five Methods for Attaining Enlightenment Without
Meditation": on seeing a great master or sacred object; on wearing
specially blessed drawings of mandalas with sacred
mantras; on tasting sacred nectars, consecrated by the masters
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