The Cult of Tara

140
MAGIC AND RITUAL IN TIBET
His internal fire is warmth, and the sign of its dissolution into
external fire is that his eyes turn inward and he does not recognize
people. Because his fire energy dissolves into air, his warmth
contracts.
His internal wind is breath; the sign of its dissolution into external
wind is that his breath wheezes and his limbs quiver, and
the internal sign is that his cognition is distorted, so he thinks he
sees cows and so on, and he has quick mirage-like flashes. All his
lice leave his body.
The dying man then inverts the pattern by which events originally
appeared to him as real things, then increased as real things, became
real things, and finally culminated as real things—the very process
by which he was first cast into this world. By inverting the process
he approaches nearer and nearer to the Clear Light of Death:
The blood he obtained from his mother goes upward: this is
called the "red path," and on this red path his appearances occur.
At that time, appearance dissolves into increase, and the forty
mental constructs made from lust are cut off.
The semen he obtained from his father goes downward: this is
called the "white path," and on this white path his appearances
occur. At tha.t time, increase dissolves into becoming, and the
thirty-three mental constructs made from hatred are cut off.
His breath departs farther and farther away, and all the blood in
his body gathers inside his life channel, and the blood mixes into
a single drop in the middle of his heart: this is called the "black
path," and on this black path he is stricken with panic, he feels as
if he were falling into an abyss in the darkness. At that time,
becoming dissolves into culmination, and the seven mental constructs
made from delusion are cut off.
Both his eyes open like a cow's, roll upward, and become glazed;
external appearances become to him like the setting of the sun.
His faculties, memory, and vision are cut off; all appearances
become gathered into blackness. Then his breath departs his
body to the length of a cubit; internal appearances become to him
dark as nighf. Then the blood in his heart forms two drops; his
head bows and his breath departs his body to the length of an
arrow. Then the blood in his heart forms three drops; he sighs
and his breath departs his body to the length of a fathom.
Forgetting the black path, the breath is cut off outside; the red
and white drops meet together in his heart, and then his cognition
swoons into the realm of Bliss, his awareness dissolves into the
Clear Light, so that he experiences the Innate Joy. The perceptions
in the center of his heart dissolve into Reality; the mother
dissolves into the son. The breath is cut off inside; the "mind
that rides upon the winds" is placed in the central channel.