The Cult of Tara

MAGIC AND RITUAL IN TIBET
He then examines this thing, and he decides that it is good or
bad, as appropriate: this second stage is that an event increases as
a real thing.
Through his delusion—not knowing the object neutrally to be
Empty form—it becomes, if good, an object of desire which he
makes plans to get or, if bad, an object of aversion which he
makes plans to avoid: this third stage is that an event becomes a
real thing.
His joy at getting an object of desire and at no one else getting
it involves lust and pride. His chagrin at someone else getting it
and at not getting it himself involves hatred and envy. It is
through his not knowing the object to be Empty that he tries to
get what is good and avoid what is bad—that he has joy or
chagrin at whether he or someone else gets it or not—so all of
those involve delusion. Thus the five poisons are ever present in
a single object of desire, and it is the same for his avoiding or not
avoiding an object of aversion. Thus the five poisons are ever
present in any object that he first takes to be a real thing; hence
he is ever reborn in this world; hence he experiences interminable
suffering; hence there occur the intermediate states between the
birth and death of appearances which are inversions of the Clear
Light: this fourth stage is the way in which an event culminates
as a real thing.
There is an intimate connection between the Clear Light and these
intermediate states which are its inversions, for it is the Clear
Light that shines through the "shifting interstices" in the stream of
events, any stream of events, macro- or microcosmic, depending
solely upon the scope of the context. There are thus intermediate
states between two moments in the movement of a single thought,
and between the dissolution and recreation of the cosmos; and, in a
"medium context," Ngawang zangpo mentions three special bardos
—intermediate states—"between the death and birth of an event":
the "dream bardo" between sleeping and waking, the "waking bardo"
between two thoughts, and the "bardo of dissolution into Emptiness"
at the moment of death. This last is also called the "bardo of dying"
between death and the illusory body-awareness of the "illusory
bardo" which occurs in turn between death and the next life.
We may note here the level distinctions, the continuous process
of subdivision. Since there is an intermediate state between lives,
an earlier conception that served as the model for all the other bardos,
there is an intermediate state between the moment of actual death
and the first intermediate state, and so on (sometimes the foetus in
the womb is considered to be in a bardo between that last intermedi-