That the performance of funeral rites should be efficacious, is, likewise, because of that reason. Therefore, the perseverance in the reading of the Great Bardo Thidol for forty-nine days is of the utmost importance. Even if not liberated at onc setting-face-to-face, one ought to be liberated at another: this is why so many different settings-face-to-face are necessary.
[THE CHOOSING OF THE WOMB-DOOR}] [Instructions to the Officiant]: There are, nevertheless, many classes of those who—though reminded, and instructed to direct their thoughts one-pointedly—are not liberated, owing to the great force of evil karmic obscurations, and because of being unaccustomed to pious deeds, and of being much accustomed to impious deeds throughout the aeons. Therefore, if the womb-door hath not been closed ere this, a teaching also for the selection of a womb-door is going to be given hereinafter. Now, invoking the aid of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, repeat the Refuge; and, once more catling the deceased by name thrice, speak as follows: O nobly-born, (so-and-so), listen. Although the above setting-face-to-face teachings have been given one-pointedly, yet thou hast not understood them. Therefore, if the womb- door hath not been closed, it is almost time to assume a body. Make thy selection of the womb [according to] this best teaching. Listen attentively, and hold it in mind.
[THE PREMONITORY VISIONS OF THE PLACE OF REBIRTH] O nobly-born, now the signs and characteristics of the 1 Lit., ‘ Fourthly, turning the mouth [of the consciousness-principle or Knower, as of a horse with a bit] is easy.’
2 Text: dranpa (pron. tanpa), lit. ‘train (or stream) of consciousness’; usually meaning ‘ consciousness’, or ‘ recollection’, or ‘memory’: Skt. ssyrst7.
184 BARDO OF SEEKING REBIRTH [BOOK II place of birth will come. Recognize them. In observing the place of birth, choose the continent too.
If to be born in the Eastern Continent of Liipah, a lake adorned with swans, male and female, [floating thereon], will be seen. Go not there. Recollect the revulsion [against going there].2 If one goeth there, [that] Continent—though endowed with bliss and ease—is one wherein religion doth not predominate. Therefore, enter not therein.
If to be born in the Southern Continent of Jambu, grand delightful mansions will be seen. Enter therein, if one is to enter.
If to be born in the Western Continent of Balang-Chod, a lake adorned with horses, male and female, [grazing on its shores], will be seen. Go not even there, but return here. Although wealth and abundance are there, that being a land wherein religion doth not prevail, enter not therein.
If to be born in the Northern Continent of Daminyan, a lake adorned with male and female cattle, [grazing on its shores], or trees, [round about it], will be seen. Although duration of life, and merits are there, yet that Continent, too, is one wherein religion doth not predominate. Therefore enter not.
These are the premonitory signs [or visions] of the taking rebirth in those [Continents]. Recognize them. Enter not.’
If one is to be born as a deva, delightful temples [or mansions] built of various precious metals also will be seen.* One may enter therein; so enter therein.
1 In the description of these Continents which follows, Tibetan names are given; in our Introduction (pp. 64-5) the Sanskrit names are given along with complementary description.
2 Text: rulog: ‘rebellion’ or ‘revulsion’, By recollecting the revulsion, i.e. the mental attitude which will oppose entering there, the deceased is put on his guard.
8 This paragraph is misplaced in the MS., having been copied as coming after ‘will be seen’ in the paragraph immediately above, following our rendering.
* The Christian conception of Heaven, as a definite place, having streets of gold and walls of precious stones, probably owes its origin to pre-Christian beliefs parallel to the Hindu and Buddhist beliefs concerning the Heaven of the Devas. Nirvana misleadingly has been called the Buddhist Heaven: a Heaven implies a place and sangsaric phenomena, whereas Nirvana is non-sangsaric, is beyond all phenomena, being ‘the Unbecome, the Unborn, the Unmade, the PART IT] SIGNS OF BIRTHPLACE 185 If to be born as an asura, either a charming forest will be seen or else circles of fire revolving in opposite directions. Recollect the revulsion; and do not enter therein by any means.
If to be born amongst beasts,! rock-caverns and deep holes in the earth and mists will appear. Enter not therein.
If to be born amongst pretas, desolate treeless plains and shallow caverns, jungle glades and forest wastes will be seen. If one goeth there, taking birth as a preta, one will suffer various pangs of hurger and thirst. Recollect the revulsion; and do not go there by any means. Exert great energy [not to enter therein].
If to be born in Hell, songs [like wailings], due to evil karma, will be heard. [One will be] compelled to enter therein unresistingly. Lands of gloom, black houses and white ~ houses, and black holes in the earth, and black roads along which one hath to go, will appear. If one goeth there, one will enter into Hell; and, suffering unbearable pains of heat and cold, one will be very long in getting out of it.2 Go not there into the midst of that. It hath been said, ‘Exert thine energy to the utmost’: this is needed now.
[THE PROTECTION AGAINST THE TORMENTING FURIES] O nobly-born, although one liketh it not, nevertheless, being pursued from behind by karmic tormenting furies,° one feeleth compelled involuntarily to go on; [and with] tormenting furies in the front, and life-cutters as a vanguard leading one, and darkness and farmic tornadoes, and noises and snow and rain Unformed’—a concept altogether foreign to popular, or exoteric, Christianity and found only in esoteric Christianity, i.e. Gnosticism, which, very unwisely, the councils of exoteric Christianity have officially repudiated as being ‘heretical’.
1 Or, as in the text on p. 194 (wherein the clue to the esotericism underlying the references to birth ‘amongst beasts’ is given), amongst human beings ‘ re- sembling the brute order’.
2 Lit., ‘there will be no time [soon] when one can get out of it’. Buddhism (and Hinduism, too,) does not postulate eternal condemnation to a state of hell, and is, in this respect, more logical than Christian theology which has in the past postulated it.
3069 Bb 186 BARDO OF SEEKING REBIRTH [800K II and terrifying hail-storms and whirlwinds of icy blasts occur- ring, there will arise the thought of fleeing from them.
Thereupon, by going to seek refuge because of fear, [one beholdeth] the aforesaid visions of great mansions, rock- caverns, earth-caverns, jungles, and lotus blossoms which close [on entering them]; and one escapeth by hiding inside [one of such places] and fearing to come out therefrom, and thinking, ‘To go out is not good now’. And fearing to depart therefrom, one will feel greatly attracted to one’s place of refuge [which is the womb]. Fearful lest, by going out, the awe and terror of the Bardo will mect one, and afraid to encounter them, if one hide oneself within [the place or womb chosen], one will thereby assume a very undesirable body and suffer various sufferings.
That [condition] is an indication that evil spirits and rak- shasas [or demons] are interfering with one.’ For this time there is a profound teaching. Listen; and heed it: At that time—when the tormenting furies will be in pursuit of thee, and when awe and terror will be occurring—instan- taneously [visualize] either the Supreme Heruka, or Haya- griva, or Vajra-Pani,? or [any other] tutelary deity if thou hast such, perfect of form, huge of body, of massive limbs, wrathful and terrifying in appearance, capable of reducing to dust all mischievous spirits. Visualize it instantaneously. The gift-waves and the power of its grace will separate thee from the tormenting furies and thou wilt obtain the power to select the womb-door. This is the vital art of the very profound teaching; therefore bear it thoroughly well in mind.
O nobly-born, the dhyani and other deities are born of the power of Samadhi [or meditation]. Pvretas [or unhappy spirits or shades] and malignant spirits of certain orders are those who by changing their feeling [or mental attitude] while in the Intermediate State assumed that very shape which they thereafter retained, and became gret¢as, evil spirits, and vrakshasas, possessed of the power of shape-shifting. All 1 That is to say, interfering in such a way as to prevent birth or a good birth. * Each of these three deities, who dawn in the Chényid Bardo (sec pp. 1164, 120‘, 137'), is held to be particularly potent as an exorcizer of evil spirits.
PART IT] BARDO-BOUND SPIRITS 187 bretas, who exist in space, who traverse the sky, and the eighty thousand species of mischievous sprites, have become so by changing their feelings [while] in the mental-body [on the Bardo-plane}.!
1 Owing to having arrived at the false concept that the Intermediate State is a desirable or fixed state of existence, all dwellers therein,—sprites, prefas, demons, and deceased human entities,—becoming thereby habituated to the Bardo, their normal evolution is retarded. According to the most enlightened of the /amas, whenever a spirit is called up, as in such spirit-evocations as are nowadays common throughout the West, that spirit, through contact with this world and the prevailing traditional animistic beliefs concerning the hereafter, being strengthened in the illusion that the Bardo is a state wherein real spiritual progress is possible, makes no attempt to quit it. The spirit called up ordinarily describes the Bardo (which is pre-eminently the realm of illusion), in which it is a dweller, more or less after what it had believed whilst in the fleshly body concerning the hereafter; for just as a dreamer in the human world lives over again in the dream-state the experience of the waking state, so the inhabitant of the Bardo experiences hallucinations in kavmic accord with the content of his consciousness created by the human world. His symbolic visions, as the Bardo Thédol repeatedly emphasizes, are but the psychic reflexes of thought-forms carried over from earth-life as mental deposits or seeds of karma. (See pp. 31-5.) This is said to explain why none but very exceptional spirits when evoked have any rational philosophy to offer concerning the world in which they exist; they are regarded as being merely the playthings of karma, lacking in mental coherence and stability of personality—more often than not, as being senseless ghosts, or psychic ‘shells’ which have been cast off by the consciousness-principle, and which, when coming into rapport with a human ‘medium’, are galvanized into automaton-like life.
It is true that spirit-evocation of a kind is practised in Tibet, as throughout Mongolia and China, by /am#as who form a class of oracular priests, consulted on important problems of political policy even by the Dalai Lama himself. But the spirits called up are tutelary deities of a low order called the ‘executive-order’ (Tib. bkah-dod—pron. ka-dét, meaning ‘ one awaiting orders’) and never intention- ally the spirits or ghosts of men or women recently deceased. Some of these bkahdods are, so the Tibetans believe, the spirits of /émas and devotees who have failed—often through practising black magic—to obtain spiritual enlighten- ment when in the human world, or who otherwise, in the manner described in the text here, have been diverted from the normal path of progress, Thus, in many instances, they have become demoniacal and malignant spirits, whose progress has been arrested not by being bound to the earth-plane through having been called up by ‘mediums’ soon after their decease, but naturally through very evil karma. Such bkahdods, thus often presenting themselves with ordinary spirits of the dead, are, as obsessing demons, said to do much harm mentally and psychically to the untrained ‘medium’ and clients, insanity and moral irresponsi- bility not infrequently resulting. For these reasons, the /@mas maintain that psychic research should be conducted only by masters of the occult, or magical, sciences, and not indiscriminately by the guru-less multitude.
In Sikkim, where our translation was made, necromancy precisely like that now practised in the West has been practised for unknown centuries, as it still 188 BARDO OF SEEKING REBIRTH [Book I!
At this time, if one can recollect the Great Symbol | teach- ings] concerning the Voidness, that will be best. If one be not trained in that, train the [mental] powers + into [regarding] all things as illusion [or maya]. Even if this be impossible, be not attracted by anything, By meditating upon the Tutelary Deity, the Great Compassionate [One], Buddhahood will be obtained in the Sambhoga-K aya.
[THE ALTERNATIVE CHOOSING: SUPERNORMAL BIRTH; OR WOMB-BIRTH] If, however, O nobly-born, thou hast, because of the influence of karma, to enter into a womb, the teaching for the selection of the womb-door will be explained now. Listen.
Do not enter into any sort of womb which may be come by. If compelled by tormenting furics to enter, meditate upon Hayagriva.
Since thou now possessest a slender supernormal power of foreknowledge, all the places [of birth] will be known to thee, one after another.? Choose accordingly.
There are two alternatives: the transference [of the conscious- ness-principle] to a pure Buddha realm, and the sclection of the impure sangsaric womb-door, to be accomplished as follows: is. The Lepchas, descendants of the primitive races of Sikkim, who still form a large part of the rural population, are as thoroughly animistic in their worships as the American Red Men; and, largely through their influence, the evocation of the dead has become rather widespread among the Sikkimese Buddhist lay- folk, many of whom are of both Tibetan and Lepcha blood. Similarly, in Buddhist Bhutan, such spirit-evocation iscommon. In both countries, however, the /amas strenuously, though rather ineffectually, oppose it.
It is said that the retardation of a Bardo-bound spirit may be for any time from five hundred to one thousand years; and, in exceptional cases, for ages. All the while, escape from the Bardo being prevented, the deceased can neither pass on to a paradise realm nor be reborn in the human world. Ultimately, however, the womb will be entered and the Bardo come to an end.
1 Text: rtsal (pron, sal): ‘powers’; elsewhere in our text dvang-po (pron. wang-po) being rendered as ‘ faculties’.
# In a series of visions, the Knower will become aware of the lot or destiny associated with cach womb or place of birth seen. Here again we are reminded of the episode in the tenth book of Plato’s Republic, describing a band of Greek heroes in the Otherworld choosing their bodies for the next incarnation.
PART II] CONSCIOUSNESS PROJECTION 189 [SUPERNORMAL BIRTH BY TRANSFERENCE TO A PARADISE REALM] In the first—the transference to a pure paradise—the pro- jection is directed [by thinking or meditating] thus: ‘Alas! how sorrowful it is that I, during all the innumerable kalpas since illimitable, beginningless time, until now, have been wandering in the Quagmire of Sangs@ra! O how pain- ful that I have not been liberated into Buddhahood by knowing the consciousness to be the self! hitherto cre this! Now doth this Sangsara disgust me, horrify me, sicken me; now hath the hour come to prepare to flee from it. I mysclf will so act as to be born in The Happy Western Realm, at the feet of the Buddha Amitabha,? miraculously from amidst a lotus blossom.’ ® Thinking thus, direct the resolution [or wish] earnestly [to that Realm]; or, likewise, to any Realm thou mayst desire,—The Pre-eminently Happy Realm, or The Thickly- Formed Realm, or The Realm [of Those] of Long Hair,* 1 Text: vig-pa (‘consciousness’) + bdag (pro. dag, meaning ‘self’: Skt. dima). Should we consider ‘consciousness’ in this context to be the essential or true consciousness, i. e. the subconsciousness—and this meaning is implied— the passage would be in direct accord with the psychology of the West, which, on the basis of much accumulated data, might very well postulate that the sub- consciousness, being the storehouse of all memory-records, from this life or from hypothetical past lives, is the real self—the bed in which flows on un- brokenly the ‘life-flux’, from one state of existence to another, aud which, when transmuted by the alchemy of Perfect Enlightenment, becomes the supra- mundane consciousness, i. e, the Buddha consciousness. (Cf. W.Y.Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-laith in Celtic Countries, Oxford University Press, 1911, chap. XII.)
That this view is in keeping with the recorded teachings of the Buddha Himself is evident from the Lonaphala Vagga of the Anguttara Nikaya, wherein He expounds the yogic method of recovering memories, innate in the sub- consciousness (see our Introduction, pp. go-1). Sobhita, one of the Buddha’s disciples, was declared, by the Buddha Himself, to be pre-eminent in ‘ ability to remember former existences’ (cf. Etaddagga Vagga, Anguttara Nikdya), being credited with ability to recall systematically his former existences throughout soo falpas; and, in the same Vagga, the Buddha names, from among His female disciples, Bhadda Kapilanit as being pre-eminent ‘in ability to trace lineage of prior sandhas (or human bodies)’.
2 Here, as elsewhere through this treatise, the Buddha Amitabha is to be regarded not as a personal deity, but as a divine power or principle inherent in or emanating from The Happy Western Realm.
8 See p. 190%.
4 This is the Paradise of Vajra-Pani (sec p. 116+), and is not a Buddha Realm.
190 BARDO OF SEEKING REBIRTH [BOOK II or The Illimitable Vihara of the Lotus Radiance,! in Urgyan’s presence; or direct thy wish to any Realm which thou desirest most, in undistracted one-pointedness [of mind]. By doing so, birth will take place in that Realm instantaneously.
Or, if thou desirest to go to the presence of Maitreya, in the Tushita Heavens,? by directing an earnest wish in like manner and thinking, ‘I will go to the presence of Maitreya in the Tushita Heavens, for the hour hath struck for me here in the Intermediate State’, birth will be obtained miraculously inside a lotus blossom? in the presence of Maitreya.
[WOMB-BIRTH: THE RETURN TO THE HUMAN WORLD] If, however, such [a supernormal birth] be not possible, and one delighteth in entering a womb or hath to enter, there is a teaching for the selection of the womb-door of impure Sangsara. Listen: Looking with thy supernormal power of foresight over the Continents, as above, choose that in which religion prevaileth and enter therein.
If birth is to be obtained over a heap of impurities,* a sensa- tion that it is sweet-smelling will attract one towards that impure mass, and birth will be obtained thereby.
Whatsoever they [the wombs or visions] may appear to be, do not regard them as they are [or seem]; and by not being attracted or repelled a good womb should be chosen. In this, too, since it is important to direct the wish, direct it thus: ‘Ah! I ought to take birth as a Universal Emperor; If, as seems probable, the ‘long hair’ refers to wearing the hair in ‘ pigtails’ after the Chinese fashion, that would provide further internal evidence of our text having taken form in Tibet rather than in India, ' This is the Realm wherein the Great Guru Padma Sambhava (here called Urgyan) now reigns, * Maitreya, the next Bodhic World-Teacher, now bides his time in the Tushita Heavens, where He reigns as King. (See p. 1085.)
8 Birth from within a lotus blossom, in the Tushita Heavens, as in the Deva- world, esoterically implies pure birth, that is, birth without entrance into a womb, womb-birth being considered impure.
4 That is, the sperm and the ovum in the impregnated womb.
PART 11] ART OF CHOOSING A WOMB 1g!
or as a Brahmin, like a great sal-tree;! or as the son of an adept in séddhic powers;? or in a spotless hierarchical line; or in the caste of a man who is filled with [religious] faith; and, being born so, be endowed with great merit so as to be able to serve all sentient beings.’
Thinking thus, direct thy wish, and enter into the womb. At the same time, emit thy gift-waves [of grace, or good-will] upon the womb which thou art entering, [transforming it thereby] into a celestial mansion.? And believing that the Conquerors and their Sons [or Bodhisattvas] of the Ten Directions, and the tutelary deities, especially the Great Compassionate [One], are conferring power thereon, pray unto Them, and enter the womb.
In selecting the womb-door thus, there is a possibility of error: through the influence of farma, good wombs may appear bad and bad wombs may appear good; such error is possible. At that time, too, the art of the teaching being important, thereupon do as follows: Even though a womb may appear good, do not be attracted; if it appear bad, have no repulsion towards it. To be free from repulsion and attraction, or from the wish to take or to avoid, —to enter in the mood of complete impartiality,—is the most profound of arts. Excepting only for the few who have had some practical experience [in psychical development], it is difficult to get rid of the remnants of the disease of evil propensities.
[Instructions to the Officiant]: Therefore, if unable to part with the attraction and repulsion, those of the least mentality 1 Text: sala: Skt. shala (the shorea robusta), one of the hardwood forest- trees of India, growing to great size; the Tibetan word for Brahmin is Bramze (pron. Tamze). The ancient Indians regarded the sal-tree, with its splendid foliage and beautiful blossoms, as the best of trees; and for the Buddhists it is sanctified by the birth and death of the Enlightened One which took place under its protecting shade.
2 Text: grub-pa-thob-pa (pron. dub-pa-thob-pa): Skt. Siddha-purusha: ‘adept in siddhic (or yogic) powers.’
8 The meaning may otherwise be put thus: By exercise of thy supernormal powers, visualize, as a celestial mansion, the womb thou art entering.
4 These are: the four cardinal points, the four midway points, and the nadir and zenith.
192 BARDO OF SEEKING REBIRTH [B0oK II and of evil karma will be liable to take refuge amongst brutes.? The way to repel therefrom is to call the deceased by name again, thus: O nobly-born, if thou art not able to rid thyself of attrac- tion and repulsion, and know not the [art of] selecting the womb-door, whichever of the above visions may appear, call upon the Precious Trinity and take refuge [therein]. Pray unto the Great Compassionate One. Walk with thy head erect. Know thyself in the Bardo. Cast away all weakness and attraction towards thy sons and daughters or any relations left behind thee; they can be of no use to thee. Enter upon the White Light-[Path] of the devas, or upon the Yellow Light-[Path]? of human beings; enter into the great mansions of precious metals and into the delightful gardens.
[Instructions to the Officiant]: Repeat that [address to the deceased] seven times over. Then there should be offered ‘The Invocation of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas’; ‘The Path of Good Wishes Giving Protection from Fears in the Bardo’; ‘The Root Words [or Verses] of the Bardo’; and ‘The Rescuer [or Path of Good Wishes for Saving] from the Ambuscades [or Dangerous Narrow Passage-Way] of the Bardo’.® These are to be read over thrice. ‘The Zahdol’, which liberateth the body-aggregate,* should also be read out.
1 Or, esoterically, amongst wombs of brute-like human beings. (Cf. p. 1851.)
2 The text here contains, instead of Yellow Light, ‘ Blue Light’, evidently, as in like instances above, through error in copying.
3 These four Prayers (or ‘ Paths of Good Wishes’) are given in the Appendix, pp. 197-208.
4 The aggregate of a living human body, according to some Tibctan systems of yoga, is composed of twenty-seven parts: (1) the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, ether); (2) the five skandhas (body-aggregate, sensation-aggregate, feelings-aggregate, volition-aggregate, consciousness-aggregate); (3) the five airs (downward-air, warmth-equalizing-air, the pervader, upward-moving-air, life- holding air); (4) the five sense-organs (nose, ears, eyes, tongue, skin); (5) the six faculties (sight, smell, hearing, tasting, perception, reasoning); and (6) the mentality. These twenty-seven parts constitute the impermanent personality. Behind them all stands the subconsciousness, the Knower, which, unlike the personality, is the principle capable of realizing Nirvana.
Some portions of the text of the Zahdol are made into Yantras (or talismans— see p. 136!) and attached to the body, both of the living and dead; and at the time of a person’s death are either cremated or interred with the corpse, the popular belief being that thus liberation is conferred upon the body-agercgate.
PART IT] FATHS TO LIBERATION 193 Then ‘ The Rite which Conferreth of Itself Liberation in [Virtue of | Propensity’! should be read too.
[THE GENERAL CONCLUSION] By the reading of these properly, those devotees [or yogis] who are advanced in understanding can make the best use of the Transference? at the moment of death. They need not traverse the Intermediate State, but will depart by the Great Straight-Upward [Path]. Others who are a little less practised [in things spiritual], recognizing the Clear Light in the Chonyid Bardo, at the moment of death, will go by the upward [course]. Those lower than these will be liberated—in accordance with their particular abilities and karmic connexions—when one or other of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities dawneth upon them, during the succeeding [two] weeks, while in the Chényid Bardo.
There being several turning-points,* liberation should be obtained at one or other of them through recognizing. But those of very weak armic connexion, whose mass of obscura- tions is great [because of] evil actions, have to wander down- wards and downwards to the Szdpa Bardo. Yet since there are, like the rungs of a ladder, many kinds of settings-face-to- face [or remindings], liberation should have been obtained at one or at another by recognizing. But those of the weakest karmic connexions, by not recognizing, fall under the in- fluence of awe and terror. [For them] there are various graded The Astrology for the Dead—a Tibetan work, in many versions, for determining (by using the moment of death as a basis for astrological calculations) the appropriate time, place, and method for the disposal of the corpse, and the after-death realm to which the deceased is destined and the land and condition in which he will be reborn on earth—prescribes such use of the Tahdol.
1 Text: Chds-spyod-bag-chags-vang-grol (pron. Chi-chod-bag-chah-rang-dot),the title of a metrical version, in brief form, of the Bardo Thédol, which, being easy to memorize and thereafter recite as a matter of habit, is referred to as liberating because of such acquired habit or propensity on the part of the deceased, it being supposed that the deceased knows the ritual by heart and that its reading will remind him of it and thereby bring about his liberation.
2 See pp. 85-6, above.
3069 Cc 194 BARDO OF SEEKING REBIRTH _ [BooK II teachings for closing the womb-door and for selecting the womb-door; and, at one or other of these, they should have apprehended the method of visualization and [applied | the illimitable virtues [thereof] for exaiting one’s own con- dition. Even the lowest of them, resembling the brute order, will have been able—in virtue of the application of the Refuge—to turn from entering into misery; and, [obtaining] the great [boon] of a perfectly endowed and freed human body,! will, in the next birth, meeting with a guru who is a virtuous friend, obtain the [saving] vows.
If this Doctrine arrive [while one is] in the Szdpa Bardo, it will be like the connecting up of good actions, resembling [thus] the placing of a trough in [the break of] a broken drain: such is this Teaching.
Those of heavy evil karma cannot possibly fail to be liberated by hearing this Doctrine [and recognizing]. If it be asked, why? it is because, at that time, all the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities being present to receive [one], and the Maras and the Interrupters likewise coming to receive [one] along with them, the mere hearing of this Doctrine then turneth one’s views, and liberation is obtained; for there 1 Text: dal-hbyor-phun-sum-tshogs-paht-mt-liis (pron. tal-jor-phiin-sum-tsho- pat-mi-lit): ‘a perfectly endowed and freed human body’; ‘freed’ implying freedom from the eight thraldoms: (1) the ever-recurring round of pleasure concomitant with existence as a deva; (2) the incessant warfare concomitant with existence as an asura; (3) the helplessness and slavery concomitant with existence under conditions like those prevailing in the world of brutes; (4) the torments of hunger and thirst concomitant with existence as a prefa; (5) the extremes of heat and cold concomitant with existence in Hell; (6) the irreligion or perverted religion concomitant with existence amongst certain races of man- kind, or (7) the physical or (8) other impediments concomitant with certain sorts of human birth.
To win a perfectly endowed human body, one must inherently possess faith, perseverance, intellect, sincerity, and humility as a religious devotee, and be born at a time when religion prevails (i.e. when an Enlightened One shall be incarnate or when His teachings are the driving force of the world) and meet then a great, spiritually developed guru.
? If a drain be broken, the continuity in the flow of the water is broken. The Teaching is, in its effects, like repairing the drain by insertion of a trough to conduct the water across the break (which is symbolical of the break in the stream of consciousness caused by death). Thereby is the merit of good deeds done in the human world made to carry the deceased forward: the continuity is re-established.
rape) LFRICACY OF THE BARDO THODOL 1095 is no flesh and blood body to depend upon, but a mental body, which is [easily] affected. At whatever distance one may be wandering in the Bardo, one heareth and cometh, for one possesseth the slender sense of supernormal per- ception and foreknowledge; and, recollecting and appre- hending instantaneously, the mind is capable of being changed [or influenced]. Therefore is it [i.e. the Teaching] of great use here. It is like the mechanism of a catapult! It is like the moving of a big wooden beam [or log] which a hundred men cannot carry, but which by being floated upon water can be towed wherever desired in a moment.” It is like the con- trolling of a horse’s mouth by means of a bridle.* Therefore, going near [the body of] one who hath passcd out of this life—if the body be there,—impress this [upon the spirit of the deceased] vividly, again and again, until blood and the yellowish water-secretion begin to issue from the nostrils, At that time the corpse should not be disturbed. The rules to be observed for this [impressing to be efficacious] are: no animal should be slain on account of the deceased;+* nor should relatives weep or make mournful wailings near the dead body;° [let the family] perform virtuous deeds as far as possible.® 1 As a catapult enables one to direct a great stone at a definite target or goal, so this Doctrine enables the deceased to direct himself to the Goal of Liberation.
2 As water makes the moving of the beam possible, so this doctrine makes possible the conducting of the deceased to the place or state of existence most appropriate, or even to Buddhahood.
8 As with a bridle, controlling the bit and the course of the horse, so with this Doctrine the deceased can be directed or turned in his after-death pro- gression.
4 This does not refer to animal-sacrifice for the dead, but to the non-Buddhist habit of slaying animals to provide meat for the /amas and the guests at the house of death while the funeral rites are being conducted. Unfortunately, this prohibition is often overlooked; and, though no killing of animals may take place there, slaughtered animals may be brought from a distance—an observance after the letter, but not in the spirit of this Buddhist precept of non-killing. (See p. 1694.)
5 Wailings and lamentations have been customary amongst Tibetans and related Himalayan peoples, as amongst the peoples of India and of Egypt, since immemorial times; but Buddhism, like the Islamic Faith, discountenances them.
8 Such deeds are, for example, the feeding of /amas and of the poor, alms- giving, the presentation of religious texts or images to monasteries, and the endowment of monasteries if the deceased left much wealth.
196 BARDO OF SEEKING REBIRTH [BK. It, PT. 11] In other ways, too, this Great Doctrine of the Bardo Thédol, as well as any other religious texts, may be expounded [to the dead or dying]. If this [Doctrine] be joined to the end of The Guide} and recited [along with The Guide] it becometh very efficacious. In yet other ways it should be recited as often as possible.2 The words and meanings should be committed to memory [by every one]; and, when death is inevitable and the death-symptoms are recognized,—strength permitting—one should recite it oneself, and reflect upon the meanings. If strength doth not permit, then a friend should read the Book and impress it vividly. There is no doubt as to its liberating.
The Doctrine is one which liberateth by being seen, without necd of meditation or of sa@dhand;* this Profound Teaching liberatecth by being heard or by being seen. This Profound Teaching liberateth those of great evil karma through the Secret Pathway. One should not forget its meaning and the words, even though pursued by seven mastiffs.*