Bardo Thodol

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Folios from a manuscript of the Bardo Thodol.

Bardo Thodol (T. bar do thos grol བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ; English: Liberation Through Hearing in the Bardo) is a Tibetan Buddhist text that describes, and is intended to guide one through, the experiences that the consciousness goes through during the dying process and in the interval between death and the next rebirth. These stages are known as bardo states.

[This text] may be read in preparation for one's own death, or at the deathbed of another. Because the weaknesses attributed to the dead are all experienced by the living as well, a person learning to traverse the bardo states of death will learn to navigate better the bardo experiences of life as well. In this sense the book is a guide to liberation across the entire cycle of human existence as conceived in Tibetan Buddhism.[1]

This text is part of a larger cycle of terma texts, the Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation through the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones (Zab chos zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol), revealed by Karma Lingpa (1326–1386).[2]

An English translation of selections of this text was published in 1927 by Walter Evans-Wentz, under the title Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Etymology

The term Bardo Thodol (bar do thos grol བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ) consists of:

  • bar do, meaning "intermediate state" (see bardo)
  • thos, meaning "to listen," "to hear," etc.
  • grol, meaning "liberation," "freedom," etc.; "to be free," "to be liberated," etc.

Hence, the term is commonly translated as "Liberation through hearing in the bardo."

Bardo states

Main article: Bardo

The Tibetan tradition identifies four or six bardo states. When categorized as four bardo states, they are:[3]

  1. the natural bardo of this life - The period from being conceived in the womb until catching a fatal disease or meeting with an irreversible cause of death.[4]
  2. the painful bardo of dying - The period from the onset of the process of dying until the end of the three subtle dissolution stages.[5]
  3. the luminous bardo of dharmata - The intermediate state following death in which one experiences the nature of phenomena.[6]
  4. the karmic bardo of becoming - The period from the arising of confusion and one's emergence in a mental body until being conceived in the womb of the next life.[7]

For realized yogis, the bardo of dharmata is an opportunity for liberation. Most ordinary people, however, will not recognize the luminous nature of phenomena at this stage, and will pass through to the bardo of becoming. The focus of practice instructions for the bardo of becoming is to attain a favorable rebirth.

English translations

Selected translations

Evans-Wentz translation (The Tibetan Book of the Dead)

Encyclopedia.com states:

The Evans-Wentz edition of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, first published in 1927, was compiled from original Tibetan translations drawn up by the Sikkimese teacher Kazi Dawa Samdup (1868–1922). The book includes translations of only a small number of texts belonging to the literary tradition of the Bar do thos grol chen mo. The formal arrangement of this small group of texts as a unified and coherent "book" is misleading and obscures the fact that in Tibet there exists a variety of arrangements of this large ritual and literary cycle, each reflecting a different lineage of transmission and the localized interpretations of specific religious communities.
...The Evans-Wentz edition has gone through numerous reprints in America and Europe, and it has inspired since 1927 several new translations from the original Tibetan texts.[1]

According to John Myrdhin Reynolds, Evans-Wentz's edition of the Tibetan Book of the Dead introduced a number of misunderstandings about Dzogchen.[8] In fact, Evans-Wentz' collected seven texts about visualization of the after-death experiences and he introduced this work collection as "The Tibetan Book of Death." Evans-Wentz was well acquainted with Theosophy and used this framework to interpret the translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which was largely provided by two Tibetan lamas who spoke English, Lama Sumdhon Paul and Lama Lobzang Mingnur Dorje.[9] Evans-Wentz was not familiar with Tibetan Buddhism,[8] and his view of Tibetan Buddhism was "fundamentally neither Tibetan nor Buddhist, but Theosophical and Vedantist."[10] He introduced a terminology into the translation which was largely derived from Hinduism, as well as from his Theosophical beliefs.[8]

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Tibetan Book of the Dead, encyclopedia.com
  2. ↑ Fremantle 2001, Chapter One.
  3. ↑ བར་དོ་བཞི་, Christian-Steinert Dictionary
  4. ↑ རང་བཞིན་སྐྱེ་བའི་བར་དོ་, Christian-Steinert Dictionary
  5. ↑ འཆི་ཁའི་བར་དོ་, Christian-Steinert Dictionary
  6. ↑ ཆོས་ཉིད་བར་དོ་, Christian-Steinert Dictionary
  7. ↑ སྲིད་པའི་བར་དོ་, Christian-Steinert Dictionary
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Reynolds 1989, p. 71.
  9. ↑ Reynolds 1989, p. 72–73, 78.
  10. ↑ Reynolds 1989, p. 78.

Sources

  • Fremantle, Francesca (2001), Luminous Emptiness: Understanding the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Boston: Shambhala Publications 
  • Norbu, Namkhai (1989), "Foreword", in Reynolds, John Myrdhin, Self-liberation through seeing with naked awareness, Station Hill Press, Inc. 
  • Reynolds, John Myrdhin (1989), "Appendix I: The views on Dzogchen of W.Y. Evans-Wentz and C.G. Jung", in Reynolds, John Myrdhin, Self Liberation Through Seeing with Naked Awareness, Station Hill Press, Inc. 

Further reading

  • Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche (1991) The Bardo Guidebook Rangjung Yeshe Publications.
  • Cuevas, Bryan J. (2003) The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Lati Rinpochay & Hopkins, Jeffrey (1985) Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth, Ithaca: Snow Lion
  • Venerable Lama Lodo (1987) Bardo Teachings: The Way of Death and Rebirth Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications
  • Mullin, Glenn H. (1986) Death and Dying: the Tibetan Tradition Penguin-Arkana
  • Forbes, Andrew; Henley, David, eds. (2013), The Illustrated Tibetan Book of the Dead, Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books 
  • Lopez, Donald S., Jr. (2011), The Tibetan book of the dead : a biography, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press 

External links

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