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What is the Bardo?
The Tibetan word bardo has begun to enter common usage in the west. Bardo means "gap," "in between," or "intermediate state." In Buddhism, bardo generally refers to the time following death and preceding rebirth, a time of disembodied passage and vivid encounter with both one's enlightened nature and one's karmic accumulations and psychological projections, some blissful, others disturbing if not terrifying.
Buddhist practitioners commonly use the term bardo to describe any period of goundlessness and potential confusion: an illness, a relationship breakup, a lost job, even single moments of unsettledness, anxiety or depression. These usages are actually quite apt, since the bardo after death is not considered fundamentally different that these bardos of waking, human experience. In fact (as CTR among many other teachers has pointed out), it is precisely by awareness of and training in opening to these uncomfortalbe moments that we prepare ourselves for the more demanding journey of bardo after death.
So pervasive is the experience of bardo - the in between state - that every second of our life can beconsidered a bardo, a moment of nowness sandwiched between the past and future. This state of existence is what is meant when Buddhist teachers speak of the world as dreamlike, merely apparent, without the solidity we impute upon it. That the world is only apparent is a phenomenology found not only in Buddhist teachings, but also Sufi (and other systems of mystic wisdom). The great 12th Century Sufi mystic In Arabi wrote about "existence" this way:
- For the world’s existence is the instance of its nonexistence. Thus the Manifest imposes manifestation upon the first hiddenness, and the world is produced. Next the Hidden imposes hiddenness upon the first manifestation, and the world vanishes. Then the authority returns to the Manifest – and so forth, ad infinitum. This is what is called “renewed creation”. The imaginary prolongation which seems to result from this flowing of similitudes is Time and motion is its measure. (Ibn 'Arabi, Journey to the Lord of Power.)
Historically, there are a number of different bardos, with the bardo of our human life, from birth until the dying process begins called kyenay bardo. Contrasting to this is the chikhai bardo or the process of dying itself, the generally uncharted "undiscovered country." In Tibetan Buddhism, as in all systems of Buddhism, the process of death is seen as a dissolving of the elements - not to be taken literally - beginning with the gross and ending with the most subtle: the body loses the earth element and becomes weak and immoble; it loses the water element and cirulation become labored; it loses the fire element and begins to become cold; finally it loses the air element when one takes one's last breath.
In all but the most advanced practitioners, the most awake individuals, death comes as a shock, something confusing, bewlidering, overwhelming. Not only that, but as Trungpa Rinpoche once told some of his students, "Death is not a big deal... except it is so painful." Physical pain mixes with the pshycological pain of realizing everything we've know is about to be irretrievably gone. A big part of Buddhist practice is to invite awareness of the reality of death; the major vehicles for this are the "four reminders," including the reality of death:
- When death comes, I will be helpless. Because I create karma, I must abondon evil deeds and always devote myself to virtuous actions. Thinking this, every day I will examine myself.
A little know aspect of the Vajrayana phenomenology of death is the existence of the “bardo body.” In fact, according to this view, we have three bodies: the gross physical body composed of the elements discussed above; the subtle body consisting of prana or life forces and the nadis of channels that the life force runs along (and are the basis of esoteric healing systems such an acupuncture and qigong). When we die the first two bodies die, the first during the "outer disolutions" and the second during the inner one. The bardo body... does not die! As Lama Yeshe says:
- Understaning the subtle body and the very subtle body helps us to recognize that we have other bodies within us in addition to our physical body - so we don't have to worry too much when our gross body is degenerating or being uncooperative. (Preparing to Dia, by Andrew Holecek, Snow Lion, pg. 69.)
This advice makes it sound easy, but it is unlikely that we can take comfort in our more subtle bodies unless we have enountered awaness of them in waking life though the practice of meditation.
As the elements dissolve, "Our consciousness starts to wihtdraw, becoming increasingly fuzzy and unclear," as Traleg Rinpoche puts it, "until we are eventually rendered unconscious. We black out" (What is Karma, pg. 66). But his black out is only temporary, for in the next moment we enter, from the point of view of enlightenment, the most important bardo of all, the Chonyi bardo. this is the moment of the famous clear light of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
