* The Tibetan of the text is here unusually concise, Literally rendered it is, ‘will appear in whatever will subdue {for beneficial ends] whomsoever’. To subdue in this sense any sentient being of the human world, a form which will appeal religiously to that being is assumed. Thus, to appeal to a Shaivite devotee, the form of Shiva is assumed ; to a Buddhist, the form of the Buddha Shakya Muni; to a Christian, the form of Jesus; to a Moslem, the form of the Prophet ; and so on for other religious devotees; and for all manners and con- ditions of mankind a form appropriate to the occasion—for example, for subduing
Pam) THE CLEAR LIGHT OF THE VOID 95
I will serve all sentient beings, infinite in number as are the limits of the sky.’
Keeping thyself unseparated from this resolution, thou
shouldst try to remember whatever devotional practices
thou wert accustomed to perform during thy lifetime.
In saying this, the reader shall put his lips close to the ear, and shall repeat it distinctly, clearly impressing it upon the dying person so as to prevent his mind from wandering even for a moment.
After the expiration hath completely ceased, press the
nerve of sleep firmly ; and, a /é@ma, or a person higher or more
learned than thyself, impress in these words, thus:
Reverend Sir, now that thou art experiencing the Funda-
mental Clear Light, try to abide in that state which now thou
art experiencing.
And also in the case of any other person the reader shall set him face-to-face thus:
O nobly-born (so-and-so), listen. Now thou art experienc- ing the Radiance of the Clear Light of Pure Reality. Recog- nize it. O nobly-born, thy present intellect,? in real nature void, not formed into anything as regards characteristics or colour, naturally void, is the very Reality, the All-Good.?
Thine own intellect, which is now voidness, yet not to be
children, parents, and vice versa; for shishyas, gurus, and vice versa; for common people, kings or rulers ; and for kings, ministers of state.
1 Cf. the following, from The Book of the Craft of Dying, chap. V, in Bodleian MS. 423 (circa fifteenth century), Comper’s ed. (p. 35) : ‘Also, if he that shall die have long time and space to be-think himself, and be not taken with hasty death, then may be read afore him, of them that be about him, devout histories and devout prayers, in the which he most delighted in when he was in heal [{i.e. health].’
2 Text: Shes-rig (pron. She-rig) isthe intellect, the knowing or cognizing faculty.
3 Text: Chés-nyid Kiin-tu-bzang-po (pron. Ché-nyid Ktintu-zang-po), Skt. Dharma-Dhdaiu Samanta-Bhadra, the embodiment of the Dharma-Kaya, the first state of Buddhahood. Our Block-Print text, in error here, gives for the All- Good (Kuntu-Zang-po, meaning ‘All-Good Father’) Kuntu-Zang-mo, which means ‘All-Good Mother’. According to the Great Perfectionist School, the Father is that which appears, or phenomena, the Mother is that which is con- scious of the phenomena. Again, Bliss is the Father, and the Voidness perceiving it, the Mother; the Radiance is the Father, and the Voidness per- ceiving it, the Mother; and, as in our text here, the intellect is the Father, the Voidness the Mother. The repetition of ‘void’ is to emphasize the im- portance of knowing the intellect to be in reality void (or of the nature of void- ness), i.e. of the unborn, uncreated, unshaped Primordial.
96 Bardo of the Dying [Book I
regarded as of the voidness of nothingness, but as being the intellect itself, unobstructed, shining, thrilling, and blissful, is the very consciousness,! the All-good Buddha.?
Thine own consciousness, not formed into anything, in
reality void, and the intellect, shining and _blissful,—these
two,—are inseparable. The union of them is the Dharma-
Kaya state of Perfect Enlightenment.®
Thine own consciousness, shining, void, and inseparable
from the Great Body of Radiance, hath no birth, nor death,
and is the Immutable Light—Buddha Amitabha.*
Knowing this is sufficient. Recognizing the voidness of thine own intellect to be Buddhahood, and looking upon it as being thine own consciousness, is to keep thyself in the [state of the] divine mind ® of the Buddha.®
1 Text: Rig-fa, meaning ‘consciousness’ as distinct from the knowing faculty by which it cognizes or knows itself to be. Ordinarily, rig-pa and shes- rig are Synonymous; but in an abstruse philosophical treatise, as herein, 7ig-pa refers to the consciousness in its purest and most spiritual (i. e. supramundane) aspect, and shes-rig to the consciousness in that grosser aspect, not purely spiritual, whereby cognizance of phenomena is present.
In this part of the Bardo Thédol the psychological analysis of consciousness or mind is particularly abstruse. Wherever the text contains the word rig-pa we have rendered it as ‘consciousness’, and the word shkes-ng as ‘intellect’ ; or else, to suit the context, »#g-pa as ‘consciousness’ and shes-rig as ‘ conscious- ness of phenomena’, which is ‘ intellect’,
2 Text: Kun-tu-bzang-po: Skt. Samanta (‘All’ or ‘ Universal’ or ‘Com- plete’) Bhadra (‘Good’ or ‘ Beneficent’), In this state, the experiencer and the thing experienced are inseparably one and the same, as, for example, the yellowness of gold cannot be separated from gold, nor saltness from salt. For the normal human intellect this transcendental state is beyond comprehension.
8 From the union of the two states of mind, or consciousness, implied by the two terms vig-pa and shes-rig, and symbolized by the All-Good Father and the All-Good Mother, is born the state of the Dharma-Kdaya, the state of Perfect Enlightenment, Buddahood. The Dharma-Kaya (‘ Body of Truth’) symbolizes the purest and the highest state of being, a state of supramundane consciousness, devoid of all mental limitations or obscurations which arise from the contact of the primordial consciousness with matter.
4 As the Buddha-Samanta-Bhadra state is the state of the All-Good, so the Buddha-Amitabha state is the state of the Boundless Light ; and, as the text implies, both are, in the last analysis, the same state, merely regarded from two viewpoints. In the first, is emphasized the mind of the All-Good, in the second, the enlightening Bodhi power, symbolized as Buddha Amitabha (the personification of the Wisdom faculty), Source of Life and Light.
5 Text: dgongs-pa (pron. gong-pa): ‘thoughts’ or ‘mind’, and, being in the honorific form, ‘ divine mind’.
® Realization of the Non-Sangsara, which is the Voidness, the Unbecome, the
Parti] Liberation by Recognition 97
Repeat this distinctly and clearly three or [even] seven times. That will recall to the mind [of the dying one] the former [i.e. when living] setting-face-to-face by the guru. Secondly, it will cause the naked consciousness to be recognized as the Clear Light ; and, thirdly, recognizing one’s own self [thus], one becometh permanently united with the Dharma-Kaya and Liberation will be certain.}
[INSTRUCTIONS CONCERNING THE SECOND
STAGE OF THE CHIKHAT BaARDO » THE
SECONDARY CLEAR LIGHT SEEN IMME-
DIATELY AFTER DEATH]
Thus the primary Clear Light is recognized and Liberation attained. But if it be feared that the primary Clear Light hath not been recognized, then [it can certainly be assumed] there is dawning [upon the deceased] that called the secondary
Unborn, the Unmade, the Unformed, implies Buddhahood, Perfect Enlighten- ment—the state of the Divine Mind of the Buddha. Compare the following passage, from The Diamond [or Immutable] Sara, with its Chinese commentary (trans. by W. Gemmell, London, 1912, pp. 17-18): ‘Every form or quality of phenomena is transient and illusive. When the mind realizes that the pheno- mena of life are not real phenomena, the Lord Buddha may then be clearly perceived.’—(Chinese Annotation : ‘ The spiritual Buddha must be realized within the mind, otherwise there can be no true perception of the Lord Buddha.’)
1 If, when dying, one be familiar with this state, in virtue of previous spiritual (or yogic) training in the human world, and have power to win Buddhahood at this all-determining moment, the Wheel of Rebirth is stopped, and Liberation instantaneously achieved. But such spiritual efficiency is so very rare that the normal mental condition of the person dying is unequal to the supreme feat of holding on to the state in which the Clear Light shines; and there follows a progressive descent into lower and lower states of the Bardo existence, and then rebirth. The simile of a needle balanced and set rolling on a thread is used by the /a@mas to elucidate this condition. So long as the needle retains its balance, it remains on the thread. Eventually, however, the law of gravitation affects it, and it falls. In the realm of the Clear Light, similarly, the mentality of a person dying momentarily enjoys a condition of balance, or perfect equi- librium, and of oneness. Owing to unfamiliarity with such a state, which is an ecstatic state of non-ego, of subliminal consciousness, the consciousness-principle of the average human being Jacks the power to function in it; karmic propensi- ties becloud the consciousness-principle with thoughts of personality, of individualized being, of dualism, and, losing equilibrium, the consciousness- principle falls away from the Clear Light. It is ideation of ego, of self, which prevents the realization of Nirvana (which is the ‘blowing out of the flame of selfish longing’); and so the Wheel of Life continues to turn.
98 Bardo of the Dying [Book I
Clear Light, which dawneth in somewhat more than a meal- time period after that the expiration hath ceased.’
According to one’s good or bad karma, the vital-force floweth down into either the right or left nerve and goeth out through any of the apertures [of the body].2_ Then cometh a lucid condition of the mind.*
To say that the state [of the primary Clear Light] endureth for a meal-time period [would depend upon] the good or bad condition of the nerves and also whether there hath been previous practice or not [in the setting-face-to-face].
When the consciousness-principle getteth outside [the body, it sayeth to itself], ‘Am I dead, or am I not dead?’ It cannot determine. It seeth its relatives and connexions as it had been used to seeing them before. It even heareth the wailings, The terrifying karmic illusions have not yet dawned. Nor have the frightful apparitions or experiences caused by the Lords of Death * yet come.
During this interval, the directions are to be applied [by the lama or reader]:
There are those [devotees] of the perfected stage and of the
1 Immediately after the passing of the vital-force into the median-nerve, the person dying experiences the Clear Light in its primitive purity, the Dharma- Kaya unobscured; and, if unable to hold fast to that experience, next ex- periences the secondary Clear Light, having fallen to a lower state of the Bardo, wherein the Dharma-Kaya is dimmed by karmtc obscurations.
SEC apesorxs
8 Text: shes-pa, rendered here as ‘mind’. The translator has added the following comment: ‘The vital-force, passing from the navel psychic-nerve centre, and the principle of consciousness, passing from the brain psychic-nerve centre, unite in the heart psychic-nerve centre, and in departing thence from the body, normally through the Aperture of Brahma, produce in the dying person a state of ecstasy of the greatest intensity. The succeeding stage is less intense. In the first, or primary, stage, is experienced the Primary Clear Light, in the second stage, the Secondary Clear Light. A ball set bounding reaches its greatest height at the first bound; the second bound is lower, and each succeeding bound is still lower until the ball comes to rest. Similarly is it with the consciousness-principle at the death of ahuman body. Its first spiritual bound, directly upon quitting the earth-plane body, is the highest; the next is lower. Finally, the force of karma having spent itself in the after-death state, the consciousness-principle comes to rest, a womb is entered, and then comes rebirth in this world.’
* Text: Gshin-ye (pron. Shin-je): ‘Lord of Death’; but the plural form is allowable and preferable here.
Parti] Recognition of the Bardo 99
visualizing stage. If it be one who was in the perfected stage, then call him thrice by name and repeat over and over again the above instructions of setting-face-to-face with the Clear Light. If it be one who was in the visualizing stage, then read out to him the introductory descriptions and the text of the Meditation on his tutelary deity,! and then say,
O thou of noble-birth, meditate upon thine own tutelary deity.—[Here the deity’s name is to be mentioned by the reader.”]_ Do not be distracted. LEarnestly concentrate thy mind upon thy tutelary deity. Meditate upon him as if he were the reflection of the moon in water, apparent yet in- existent [in itself]. Meditate upon him as if he were a being with a physical body.
So saying, [the reader will] impress it.
If [the deceased be] of the common folk, say,
Meditate upon the Great Compassionate Lord.®
By thus being set-face-to-face even those who would not
be expected to recognize the Bardo [unaided| are undoubtedly
certain to recognize it.