The Tibetan Book of the Dead — ed. W. Y. Evans-Wentz

As above said, the visions of males and females in union will appear. If, at that time, one entereth into the womb through the feelings of attachment and repulsion, one may be born either as a horse, a fowl, a dog, or a human being.®

1 ¢The father and mother’ are the male and female seen in union; the Guru is the celestial or spiritual Guru, not the human guru; and the Divine Mother is the Guru’s Shaktz,

2 That is, the Guru with the Shakh, as above directed.

3 Text : breus-skyes (pron. au-kye): Skt. Svayambhi: ‘supernormal (or miraculous) birth’, by translation or transference of the consciousness-principle from one Joka to another. (See pp. 85-6.)

4 This refers to the germination of seeds and spores, or the processes of birth in the vegetable kingdom.

® ‘Brahmanism, likewise, recognizes four kinds of birth: svedaja (sweatborn, or moisture-born), andaja (egg-born), araywja (womb-born), and udbhigja (vegetation).’—Sj. Atal Behari Ghosh.

° Esoterically, this passage implies that, in accordance with karma, one may be reborn with the peculiar propensities which the various animals named symbolize, Plato in The Republic has employed animal symbols in the same way. (See p. 179'.)

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If [about] to be born as a male, the feeling of itself being a male dawneth upon the Knower, and a feeling of intense hatred towards the father and of jealousy and attraction towards the mother is begotten. If [about] to be born as a female, the feeling of itself being a female dawneth upon the Knower, and a feeling of intense hatred towards the mother and of intense attraction and fondness towards the father is begotten. Through this secondary cause—[when] entering upon the path of ether, just at the moment when the sperm and the ovum are about to unite—the Knower experienceth the bliss of the simultaneously-born state, during which state it fainteth away into unconsciousness. [Afterwards] it findeth itself encased in oval form, in the embryonic state, and upon emerging from the womb and opening its eyes it may find itself transformed into a young dog. Formerly it had been a human being, but now if it have become a dog it findeth itself undergoing sufferings in a dog’s kennel; or [perhaps] as a young pig in a pigsty, or as an ant in an ant-hill, or as an insect, or a grub in a hole, or as a calf, or a kid, or a lamb,! from which shape there is no [immediate] returning. Dumbness, stupidity, and miserable intellectual obscurity are suffered, and a variety of sufferings experienced. In like manner, one may wander into hell, or into the world of unhappy ghosts, or throughout the Six Zokas, and endure inconceivable miseries.

Those who are voraciously inclined towards this [i.e. sazgsavic existence], or those who do not at heart fear it——O dreadful ! O dreadful! Alas !—and those who have not received a curu’s

Those who are voraciously inclined towards this [i.e. sazgsavic existence], or those who do not at heart fear it——O dreadful ! O dreadful! Alas !—and those who have not received a curu’s

1 Herein we see the animal symbolism expanded in such manner as quite to parallel the passage in Plato’s Republic describing the choosing of animal bodies for the next incarnation. (See p. 1788; also pp. 49-53.) The popular or exoteric interpretation of such passages in our text as this passage (cf. pp. 126, 129, 156-7 herein) would seem to be as reasonable as it would if applied to similar passages in Plato; and, furthermore, the copyist, and possibly the composer or composers of the Bardo Thédol, may have been exotericists, or at least intended their text to emphasize the exoteric interpretation, holding as priests often have held, and as some hold even nowadays, that fear-producing doctrines (e.g. the Christian doctrine that hell is an eternal condition), although literally untrue, are, nevertheless, like whips to keep the lower mentalities alert and possibly more virtuous. Nevertheless, for our own (more or less corrupted) text, as for Plato’s, there does exist the esoteric key to the real meaning, such as we have given in our Introduction, pp. 55-9.

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teachings, will fall down into the precipitous depths of the Sangsava in this manner, and suffer interminably and unbearably. Rather than meet with a like fate, listen thou unto my words and bear these teachings of mine at heart.

Reject the feelings of attraction or repulsion, and remember one method of closing the womb-door which I am going to show to thee. Close the womb-door and remember the opposition. This is the time when earnestness and pure love are necessary. As hath been said, ‘Abandon jealousy, and meditate upon the Guru Father-Mother.’

As above explained, if to be born as a male, attraction towards the mother and repulsion towards the father, and if to be born as a female, attraction towards the father and repulsion towards the mother, together with a feeling of jealousy [for one or the other] which ariseth, will dawn upon thee.

For that time there is a profound teaching. O nobly-born, when the attraction and repulsion arise, meditate as follows:

‘Alas! what a being of evil karma am I! That I have wandered in the Sazxgsara hitherto, hath been owing to attraction and repulsion. If I still go on feeling attraction and repulsion, then I shall wander in endless Sangsara and suffer in the Ocean of Misery for a long, long time, by sinking therein. Now I must not act through attraction and repulsion. Alas, for me! Henceforth I will never act through attraction and repulsion.’

Meditating thus, resolve firmly that thou wilt hold on to that [resolution]. It hath been said, in the Tantras, ‘The door of the womb will be closed up by that alone.’

Alas, for me! Henceforth I will never act through attraction and repulsion.’

Meditating thus, resolve firmly that thou wilt hold on to that [resolution]. It hath been said, in the Tantras, ‘The door of the womb will be closed up by that alone.’

O nobly-born, be not distracted. Hold thy mind onepointedly upon that resolution.

[THE FOURTH METHOD OF CLOSING THE WOMB-DOOR]

Again, even if that doth not close the womb, and one findeth [oneself] ready to enter the womb, then by mcans of the teaching [called] ‘The Untrue and the Illusory’?

* Text: Bden-ned-sgyu-ma-ltabu (pron. Den-ned-gyu-ma-tabu) : ‘Non-true [and] Illusion-like’, the title of a Tibetan treatisc on the unreality of phenomena,

PART Wm] UNREALITY OF PHENOMENA 181

the womb should be closed. That is to be meditated as follows:

‘QO, the pair, the father and the mother, the black rain, the storm-blasts, the clashing sounds, the terrifying apparitions, and all the phenomena, are, in their true nature, illusions. Howsoever they may appear, no truth is there [in them]; all substances are unreal and false. Like dreams and like apparitions are they ; they are non-permanent; they have no fixity. What advantage is there in being attached [to them]! What advantage is there in having fear and terror of them! It is the seeing of the non-existent as the existent. All these are hallucinations of one’s own mind. The illusory mind itself doth not exist from eternity; therefore where should these external [phenomena] exist ?

‘I, by not having understood these [things] in that way hitherto, have held the non-existent to be the existent, the unreal to be the real, the illusory to be the actual, and have wandered in the Sangsadra so long. And even now if I do not recognize them to be illusions, then, wandering in the Sangsara for long ages, [I shall be] certain to fall into the morass of various miseries.

‘Indeed, all these are like dreams, like hallucinations, like echoes, like the cities of the Odour-eaters,! like mirage, like mirrored forms, like phantasmagoria, like the moon seen in water—not real even for a moment. In truth, they are unreal; they are false.’

By holding one-pointedly to that train of thought, the belicf that they are real is dissipated ; and, that being impressed upon the inner continuity [of consciousness], one turneth backwards: if the knowledge of the unreality be impressed deeply in that way, the womb-door will be closed.

[THE FIFTH METHOD OF CLOSING THE WOMB-DOOR] Still, even when this is done, if the holding [phenomena] as real remaineth undissolved, the womb-door is not closed ; and, if one be ready to enter into the womb, thereupon one

1 Text: Dri-za (pron. Di-za): ‘Odour-eaters’ ; Skt. Gandharva, the Fairies of Indian and Buddhist mythology. Their cities are fantastically-shaped clouds, which dissolve in rain and vanish. (Cf. p. 1648.)

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