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

YOGA

The word Yoga (frequently appearing in our annotations to the Bardo Thodol text), derived from the Sanskrit root yw, meaning ‘to join’, closely allied with the English verb Zo yoke, implies a joining or yoking of the lower human nature to the higher or divine nature in such manner as to allow the higher to direct the lower;! and this condition—essential to the successful application of the Bardo doctrines—is to be brought about by control of the mental process. So long as the field of the mind is occupied by such thought-forms and thoughtprocesses as arise from the false concept, universally dominating mankind, that phenomena and phenomenal appearances are real, a state of mental obscuration called ignorance, which prevents true knowledge, exists. It is only when all obscuring and erroneous concepts are totally inhibited and the field of the mind is swept clean of them that the primordial or unmodified condition of mind, which is ever devoid of these thought-formations and thought-processes arising from ignorance, is realizable ; and, in its realization, there dawns Illumination, symbolized in the Bardo Thodol as the Primal Clear Light of the Dharma-K aya.

A mirror covered with a thick deposit of dust, or a crystal vase filled with muddied water, symbolize the mind of the normal human being darkened with the nescience arising from

1 Some scholars question this generally accepted explanation and think that the term yoga probably means ‘practice’ as opposed to theory in religion. If so, it would then imply yogic practice such as will produce indomitable control over the mental processes and lead to realization of Reality. In this sense, yoga may be regarded asa system of applied psychology far more highly developed than any known to Western Science,p. 212 heresies and false knowledge. Yoga is a scientific method of removing the dust from the mirror and the earthy particles from the water. It is only when the mind is thus made clear and limpid that it can reflect the Light of Reality and man can come to know himself. J/aya, or Illusion, is the Veil of Isis hiding from man the Unsullied and Unsulliable Reality ; the piercing of this Veil and the secing of that which it hides is accomplished through methods as definite and certain in psychical results as those employed in a European or American chemical laboratory are in physical results. As gold can be separated from impurities by methods of chemistry, so can Truth be divorced from Error by methods of Yaga.

As gold can be
separated from impurities by methods of chemistry, so can
Truth be divorced from Error by methods of Yaga.

Like the root teachings of Buddhism, the root teachings of the Bardo Thodol are incapable of being practically applied without Right Knowledge; Right Knowledge to be at all effective in a devotee’s life should not depend merely upon belief or theory, but upon realization; and realization of Right Knowledge is impossible without such mind control as Yaga implics. That this is so, the canonical scriptures of all schools of Buddhism confirm.!

It is not our purpose to discuss here the intricacies of the various aspects and schools of Yoga; for, though technical terms and some of the purely philosophical or theoretical parts of the Hindu, Buddhist, and other systems of the science of mind-control often differ widely, we are convinced, after much research carried on while living among yogis of various schools, that the goal for all yogis is, in the last analysis of esotcricism, idcntical, namely, emancipation from the thraldom of sangsaric, or phenomenal, existence, the Hindus calling it Mukti and the Buddhists Mirvana?

Intellectual understanding of much of the Bardo Thédol is,

1 Yoga practice was introduced into Mahdyaua Buddhism by Asanga, a monk of Gandhara (Peshawar, India). He is said to have been inspired directly by the Bodhisat Maitreya, the coming Buddha, and so produced the Scriptures of the Yoga-carya (i. e. ‘Contemplative ’) School called The Five Books of Maitreya (cf. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet, p. 128).

* The editor possesses a number of very important translations, by the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, of Tibetan treatises on Yoga, one of them having originated in ancient India. If there should be encouragement to publish them, the editor hopes then to put’on record in more detail the results of his own researches in Yoga,p. 213 therefore, obviously dependent upon at least some elementary explanation of Yoga, such as we have herein given. The Clear Light, so often referred to in our text—to take but one of the outstanding yogic doctrines—is best interpreted from the standpoint of the devotee of Yoga, though for all mankind alike it dawns at the all-determining moment of death. As such, the Clear Light symbolizes the visual condition in which one finds oneself at the moment of death and afterwards in the Intermediate State. If the vision be unclouded by karmic propensities, which are the source of all phenomena and apparitional appearances in the Bardo, the deceased sees Reality as the Primordial Clear Light, and, if he so wills, can renounce the Sazgsaéra and pass into Mirvaua, beyond the Circle of Death and Rebirth.

Such clarity of spiritual insight is, of course, extremely rare, being the fruit of innumerable lifetimes of right living ; nevertheless, the aim of the Bardo Thédol teachings is to attempt to place every one, when dying or deceased, in the Path leading to its realization. Unless, through the practice of mental-concentration, complete control over the thinking process be achieved, so as to arrive at Right Knowledge ere death, in virtue of having experienced Illumination (i.e. recognition of the Clear Light in an ecstatic condition while still in the human body), the /amas maintain that comprehension of the nature of the Clear Light is quite impossible for the unilluminated.

Il. TANTRICISM ?

The Bardo Thidol being itself a work more or less Tantric,? and consequently largely based upon the Yoga Philosophy, some general acquaintance with Tantricism, as with Yoga, is

1 General references (also for Sections III and IV following): A. Avalon (Sir John Woodroffe), Tantra of the Great Liberation (London, 1913), Introduction; and The Six Centres and the Serpent Power (London, 1919), passim ; Sir John Woodroffe, Shakti and Shékta (London, 1920), passim; also Rama Prasad, Nature’s Finer Forces (London, 1890), passim.

2 To define what is and is not a Zantra is noteasy. According to its Tibetan etymology, Tantra (Tib. Rgyud—pron, Gyud) literally means ‘treatise’, or ‘ dissertation’, of a religious nature, usually belonging to the School of Yoga called Yoga-carya Mahayana (see p. 2t2!). Religiously considered, there are two a14 TIBETAN BOOK OF ZHE DEAD: ADDENDS desirable for all readers of this book. So we record here—in mere outline, and, therefore, more often than not undetailed and incomplete—the following complementary matter concerning Tantricism.

In the preliminary instructions, the Bardo Thédol makes reference to the vital-force or vital-airs, which, following the Tantras, may be described as follows:

The Vital-Force (Skt. Prana).—The human principle of consciousness, the Knower, clothes itself, when incarnate, in five sheaths (Skt. Kosha), which are: (1) the physical-sheath (Anna-maya-kosha) ; (2) the vital-sheath (Praza-maya-kosha) ; (3) the sheath in which resides the ordinary human consciousness (Mano-maya-kosha); (4) that of the subconsciousness (Vijnana-maya-kosha); and (5) that of the all-transcending blissful consciousness of Reality (Azanda-maya-kosha).

In the vital-sheath resides the vital-force (Skt. raza) divided into ten vital-airs (vaya, derived from the root va, ‘to breathe’