Understanding the Bardo: Death Process and Intermediate States from the Tibetan Book of the Dead

The days of passage in the intermediate state are nonetheless similar for all and follow a precise path. The consciousness of the deceased progressively opens to different states of consciousness that manifest to the individual as luminous perceptions and openings to new worlds to which correspond vices and virtues. With the opening to these worlds, the deceased becomes receptive to forces that act in their consciousness and manifest as particular lights into which the deceased who wants to abandon the phenomenal world must transfer themselves. To better understand the process, let us see step by step the phases of death and what the Tibetan Book of the Dead suggests for passing through these phases.

Entrance into Death

When the individual has reached the end of their life, they are accompanied by a monk assigned to guide them on the journey through the intermediate stage. Between the two - the dying person and the guide - a strong understanding must be established. As long as the dying person is alive - during all phases of agony until the first moments of death - the monk will suggest aloud the invocations and formulas, trusting that hearing is the last sense to abandon the body. Conversely, after death, the influence will be exclusively telepathic.

At the moment when death has arrived, the Guide to the Bardo reaches the deceased and celebrates a rite, in the presence of the dying person who, if possible, repeats formulas and prayers. At the moment of death, the dying person repeats physically and mentally this invocation if they can, otherwise the disciple does it for the dying person:

"Buddha and bodhisattvas who reside in the ten directions of space, you who have great compassion, omniscience and love, who possess the five types of eyes. You who are the protectors of all beings, driven by the force of compassion, come and accept these offerings. Lords of compassion, now that I am going from this world to the other world, I am dying without possibility of choice, be a refuge for me who has no refuge. Protect me! Defend me! Do not forget your ancient vows! Let me out of the great hurricane of karma! Protect me from the great fear of the lord of death, free me from the long and dangerous path of the Bardo. [...] When separated from the friends I love, I wander wandering and the empty forms of my projections appear, may the Buddhas intervene with the force of their compassion so that the terrors of the Bardo do not emerge. When the five luminous lights of wisdom shine, may I fearlessly recognize myself. When the peaceful and wrathful forms appear, may I fearlessly and confidently recognize the Bardo."

First Day: Primordial Light

In this phase, at the moment of passing, the dying person finds themselves before a strong dazzling light in which they must fix themselves to transfer immediately into Nirvana. If they succeed in abandoning their old self and transferring into the Primordial Light, then their work is complete. However, this transfer is very difficult because it involves abandoning everything of oneself and being reborn in this light that the texts describe as incredibly dazzling and almost unbearable to sight. In the absence of this transfer, the Tibetan Book of the Dead begins.

The Tibetan tradition hints at the possibility of escaping the mechanism of the Bardo by fixing oneself in the Clear Light of Pure Reality that appears to the individual at the moment of death. But this part is barely mentioned in the text and we will treat it more thoroughly when we deal with the Christian Book of the Dead. In the Christian liturgy indeed - and therefore in the Christian Book of the Dead - attention is not only to the post-mortem phases relative to the $49$ days after death. Living those states is for the Christian already - in a certain sense - a failure and a large part of the liturgy concentrates on helping to avoid these intermediate states of the post-mortem, taking place during agony and helping the soul to fix consciousness in the Clear Light of Pure Reality during the passage in death.

If however the individual has not succeeded in recognizing and fixing themselves in this Light of Reality, here begins for them the journey in the states of the Post-mortem or the Bar-do. As the transit from the state of disembodied to a human body does not happen immediately and consciousness needs time to adapt to the new state, so also for the deceased the first days are a swoon characterized by continuous fainting and absence of consciousness. Therefore the suggestions of the guide through the Bardo begin $3$ or $4$ days after the death of the deceased.

The consciousness of the deceased in the first $49$ days in the life of the afterlife undergoes a progressive awakening of consciousness to the different planes of existence and therefore luminous apparitions relative to these worlds are presented to them. On one hand, therefore, the incorporeal lights are presented to the deceased - dazzling, transparent and almost unbearable to the sight of the world of Nirvana, each of a specific color in relation to the plane of existence that has been catalyzed and awakened. Their purpose is to identify with these lights. To recognize them as lights of the Nirvanic world and identify with them by dissolving into the human world and being reborn in the divine one.

"Oh, noble being, you have remained unconscious during the last three and a half days. As soon as you emerge from this unconsciousness, you will ask yourself: 'What has happened?' Oh, noble being, now that the cycle of your life is suspended, all things appear to you as lights and divinities. All space appears pervaded with azure light. Now, from the land of the central Buddha, the lord Vairochana appears to you, the Sapphire Vigilant, the Splendor of the Sun, the White, the Space, the Wheel, the Center, the Wisdom of Reality, with his white body, seated on a lion with an eight-spoked wheel in his hand, united with his consort Dhatvishvari, the Origin of the Celestial Mother. This is the aggregation of matter split in its primordial state which is the blue light. From the center of the heart of the couple, the blue light of the Wisdom of Reality, the natural purity of consciousness, of a..."