[Instructions to the Officiant]: Yet, again, it may be possible that because of the influence of bad karma one will not recognize even thus. Therefore, call the deceased by name, and speak as follows:
O nobly-born, (so-and-so), listen. That thou art suffering so cometh from thine own karma; it is not due to any one else’s: it is by thine own karma. Accordingly, pray earnestly to the Precious Trinity; that will protect thee. If thou neither prayest nor knowest how to meditate upon the Great Symbol nor upon any tutelary deity, the Good Genius,’ who
1 All known forms of disposal of a corpse are practised in Tibet, including mummification. (See pp. 25-8.)
2 This symbolizes the getting into undesirable wombs, such as those of human beings of animal-like nature.
8 Text: Lhan-chig-skyes-pahi-lha (pron. Lhan-chig-kye-pai-lha) = ‘simultaneous- ly-born god (or good spirit, or genius)’, the personification of a human being’s higher, or divine, nature; popularly known in Sikkimese as Lha-kar-chung, ‘Little white god’,
166 Bardo of Seeking Rebirth [Book Ii
was born simultaneously with thee, will come now and count out thy good deeds [with] white pebbles, and the Evil Genius,' who was born simultaneously with thee, will come and count out thy evil deeds [with] black pebbles. Thereupon, thou wilt be greatly frightened, awed, and terrified, and wilt tremble; and thou wilt attempt to tell lies, saying, ‘I have not committed any evil deed’.
Then the Lord of Death will say, ‘I will consult the Mirror of Karma’.
So saying, he will look in the Mirror, wherein every good and evil act is vividly reflected. Lying will be of no avail.
Then [one of the Executive Furies of] the Lord of Death will place round thy neck a rope and drag thee along; he will cut off thy head, extract thy heart, pull out thy intestines, lick up thy brain, drink thy blood, eat thy flesh, and gnaw thy bones ;? but thou wilt be incapable of dying. Although thy body be hacked to pieces, it will revive again. ‘The re- peated hacking will cause intense pain and torture.
Even at the time that the pebbles are being counted out,
be not frightened, nor terrified ; tell no lies; and fear not the
Lord of Death.
Thy body being a mental body is incapable of dying even
though beheaded and quartcred. In reality, thy body is of
the nature of voidness;? thou needst not be afraid. The
1 Text: Lhan-chig-skyes-paht-hdve (pron. Lhan-chig-kye-pat-de) = ‘simultaneous- ly-born demon (or evil spirit, or genius)’, the personification of a human being’s lower, or carnal, nature; popularly known in Sikkimese as Bdud-nag-chung (pron. Diid-nag-chung), ‘ Little black mara (or demon)’,
2 These tortures symbolize the pangs of the deceased’s conscience; for the Judgement, as hercin described, symbolizes the rising up of the Good Genius in judgement against the Evil Genius, the Judge being the conscience itself in its stern aspect of:impartiality and love of righteousness; the Mirror is memory. One element—the purely human clement—of the consciousness-content of the deceased, comes forward, and, by offering lame excuses, tries to meet accusations against it, saying, ‘ Owing to such-and-such circumstances I had to do so-and- so’, Another element of the consciousness-content comes forward and says, ‘You were guided by such-and-such motives; your deeds partake of the black colour’, Then some more friendly one of such clements arises and protests,
‘But I have such-and-such justification; and the deceased deserves pardon on these grounds’. And so—as the lamas explain—the Judgement proceeds.
(Cf. pp. 35-7.) 3 Meaning that the ‘astral’ or desire-body is incapable ot ordinary physical
The Judgement
Described on pages *%-#x111, 35-8, 165-7, 240
The Mantra of Chenrazee
Fanaad
“Om Ma-Ni Pad-Me Hum
Described on page xxiv
Part 1] Nature of the Voidness 167
Lords of Death! are thine own hallucinations. Thy desire- body is a body of propensities, and void. Voidness cannot injure voidness ; the qualityless cannot injure the qualityless.
Apart from one’s own hallucinations, in reality there are no such things existing outside oneself as Lord of Death, or god, or demon, or the Bull-headed Spirit of Dcath.? Act so as to recognize this.
At this time, act so as to recognize that thou art in the Bardo. Meditate upon the Samadhi of the Great Symbol. If thou dost not know how to meditate, then merely analyse with care the real nature of that which is frightening thee. In reality it is not formed into anything, but is a Voidness which is the Dharma-K aya?
That Voidness is not of the nature of the voidness of nothingness, but a Voidness at the true nature of which thou feelest awed, and before which thine intellect shineth clearly and more lucidly: that is the [state of] mind of the Sambhoga-K aya.
In that state wherein thou art existing, there is being experienced by thee, in an unbearable intensity, Voidness and Brightness inseparable,—the Voidness bright by nature and the Brightness by nature void, and the Brightness in- separable from the Voidness,—a state of the primordial [or unmodified] intellect, which is the Adi-Kaya.t And the
injury. ‘As through a cloud, a sword can be plunged through the Bardo-body without harming it’—the /a@mas explain; or it is like the forms seen in material- izing seances of necromancers and spirit-mediums.
1 These Lords of Death are Yama-Raja and his Court of Associates, including, perhaps, the Executive Furies, These last are, as Tormenting Furies, compar- able to the Eumenides of Aeschylus’ great drama—elements of one’s own consciousness-content. Following the Abhidhamma, of Southern Buddhism, there are mind (Skt. chit, Tib. sevzs—pron. sem) and impulses of mind (Skt. chittavritti, Tib. sems-hbyung—pron. sem-jung) ; and the impulses of mind are the Furies. (Cf. pp. 147-8.)
2 Text: Ragsha-glang-mgo (pron. Ragsha-lang-go): ‘Bull-headed Spirit of Death’, commonly depicted as having a buffalo-head. The chief tutelary deity of the Gelugpa or Yellow Hat Sect, called Jampal Shinjeshed (Tib. Hjam-dpal Gshin-vje-gshed), meaning ‘ Jampal (Skt. Matjusrhi), the Destroyer of the Lord of Death (Skt. Yamdntaka)’, is often represented as a blue buffalo-headed deity.
3 See pp. 10-15.
4 Tib. Gowo-nyidku: Skt. Adi-Kaya (‘First Body’), which is synonymous with the Dharma-Kaya.
168 BARDO OF SEEKING REBIRTH [book 1
power of this, shining unobstructedly, will radiate every- where; it is the Mirmana-K aya.
O nobly-born, listen unto me undistractedly. By merely recognizing the Four Kayas, thou art certain to obtain perfect Emancipation in any of Them. Be not distracted. The line of demarcation between Buddhas and sentient beings lieth herein.! This moment is one of great importance; if thou shouldst be distracted now, it will require innumerable aeons of time for thee to come out? of the Quagmire of Misery.
A saying, the truth of which is applicable, is:
‘In a moment of time, a marked differentiation is created ; In a moment of time, Perfect Enlightenment is obtained.’
Till the moment which hath just passed, all this Bardo hath been dawning upon thee and yet thou hast not re- cognized, because of being distracted. On this account, thou hast experienced all the fear and terror. Shouldst thou be- come distracted now, the chords of divine compassion of the Compassionate I‘yes will break, and thou wilt go into the place from which there is no [immediate] liberation, There- fore, be careful. Even though thou hast not recognized ere this—despite thus being set face to face—thou wilt recognize and obtain liberation here.
[Instructions to the Officiant]: If it be an illiterate boor who knoweth not how to meditate, then say this:
O nobly-born, if thou knowest not how thus to meditate, act so as to remember the Compassionate One, and the Sangha, the Dharma, and the Buddha, and pray. Think of all these fears and terrifying apparitions as being thine own tutelary deity, or as the Compassionate One.* Bring to thy recollec- tion the mystic name that hath been given thee at the time
1 In virtue of knowing the true nature of sangsarvic existence—that all pheno- mena are unreal—Buddhas, or Perfectly Enlightened Ones, are beings quite apart from unenlightened sentient beings.
2 Lit., ‘there will be no time when thou canst get out’.
3 This is a literal rendering, meaning that the rays of grace or compassion of Chenrazee will cease to dawn.
* The idea meant to be conveyed is that trials and tribulations, although
karmic, act as divine tests, and so, being for the good of the deccased, ought even to be visualized as such, i.e, as the tutelary deity, or as Chenrazee.
Part I] the Initiatory Name 169
of thy sacred initiation when thou wert a human being, and the name of thy guru, and tell them to the Righteous King of the Lord[s] of Death.) Even though thou fallest down preci- pices, thou wilt not be hurt. Avoid awe and terror.
[THE ALL-DETERMINING INFLUENCE OF THOUGHT]
[Instructions to the Officiant]: Say that; for by such set- ting-face-to-face, despite the previous non-liberation, libera- tion ought surely to be obtained? here. Possibly, [however,} liberation may not be obtained even after that setting-face- to-face ; and earnest and continued application being essential, again calling the deceased by name, speak as follows:
O nobly-born, thy immediate experiences will be of momen- tary joys followed by momentary sorrows, of great intensity, like the [taut and relaxed] mechanical actions of catapults? Be not in the least attached [to the joys] nor displeased [by the sorrows] of that.
If thou art to be born on a higher plane, the vision of that higher plane will be dawning upon thee.
Thy living relatives may—by way of dedication for the
benefit of thee deceased—be sacrificing many animals, and
performing religious ceremonies, and giving alms. Thou,
1 This revealing of the initiatory name is for the purpose of establishing occult connexion between the deceased and the King of Death—i.e, between the human and the divine in man—in much the same way as a Freemason will make himself known to another Freemason by giving some secret password.
2 Lit., ‘ will be obtained’.
8 That is to say, at one time good karma will be operative and raise the deceased to a spiritual state of mind, and at another time, bad karma becoming predominant, the deceased will be pulled down in mental depression. The operator of the catapult is Zara, who stretches out the catapult to its limit and then relaxes it, alternately.
4 Each time an animal is sacrificed—presumably to be prepared for food afterwards—the deceased is said to be unable to escape the karmzc result, the sacrifice being done in his name, so that horrors come upon him directly. He calls to the living to cease, but, they not hearing him, he is inclined to grow angry; and anger he must avoid at all costs, for if allowed to arise on the Bardo-pliane, like a heavy weight, it forces him down to the lowest mental state called Hell.
Animal sacrifice to the dead, in Tibet as in India, originated in ancient times, far prior to the rise of Buddhism, which, of course, prohibits it, Survivals of it
170 Bardo of Seeking Rebirth [Book Ii
because of thy vision not being purified, mayst be inclined to grow very angry at their actions and bring about, at this moment, thy birth in Hell: whatever those left behind thee may be doing, act thou so that no angry thought can arise in thee, and meditate upon love for them.
Furthermore, even if thou feelest attached to the worldly goods thou hast left behind, or, because of seeing such worldly goods of thine in the possession of other people and being enjoyed by them, thou shouldst feel attached to them through weakness, or feel angry with thy successors, that feeling will affect the psychological moment in such a way that, even though thou wert destined to be born on higher and happier planes, thou wilt be obliged to be born in Hell, or in the world of prezas [or unhappy ghosts]. On the other hand, even if thou art attached to worldly goods left behind, thou wilt not be able to possess them, and they will be of no use to thee. Thercfore, abandon weakness and attachment for them; cast them away wholly; renounce them from thy heart. No matter who may be enjoying thy worldly goods, have no feeling of miserliness, but be prepared to renounce them willingly. Think that thou art offering them to the Precious Trinity and to thy guru, and abide in the feeling of unattachment, devoid of weakness [of desire].
have persisted in Tibet, but without the approval of the /amas, as our text clearly proves; and, if practised nowadays, it is only rarely, and by the rude folk of remote districts, who are Buddhist merely in name.