The Cult of Tara

WORSHIP 139
ate state and actual birth). Tibetan, not to mention Western, theorists
have spent much time and ingenuity in the elucidation, with
charts, of these states, but for our purposes the most important
thing to bear in mind is that all these intermediate states are the
shifting interstices through which one can get a glimpse of the
Clear Light. Each bardo reveals the Emptiness that lies behind the
appearance.
Thus there is a sort of natural awareness of the Clear Light
between two thoughts, especially in those instants of great mental
tension when there is a break in the otherwise continuous flow of
mental events, moments of great anger or rage or of sexual orgasm,
or during the change of state from sleeping to waking, or in dreamless
sleep—those familiar times when thought slows down or stops
for an instant, and one gets a misty glimpse of the light behind the
thought. As T. S. Eliot writes: 201
Our gaze is submarine, our eyes look upward
And see the light that fractures through unquiet water.
We see the light but see not whence it comes.
A brighter and longer Clear Light comes when the causal basis of
the physical body is removed by death: this is the "Clear Light of
death" which corresponds to the bardo of dying. This light is so
bright and strong, however, that the average person flees it in
panic rather than recognizing it for what it is. The important
process of dying has been carefully analyzed, and the removal of
the body begins with the dissolution of its component elements: 202
First, externally, the dying man vomits undigested food and
drink; his warmth diminishes, his head bristles, and he feels that
he is falling downward.
Then the five elements dissolve into one another in this manner:
His internal earth is flesh and bone; the sign of its dissolution
into external earth is that his body grows heavy and falls to the
ground, and the internal sign is that he feels that the earth has
opened up and he is sinking into it. Because his earth energy
dissolves into water, he is unable to maintain his form; his bodily
strength slips away and his cognition grows clouded.
His internal water is blood and pus, and the sign of its dissolution
into external water is that his saliva and mucus trickle and
his throat and tongue grow dry. Because his water energy dissolves
into fire, his bodily warmth slips away and his cognition is sometimes
clear and sometimes darkened.