TheBardo Thodol (Tibetan:བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ,Wylie:bar do thos grol, 'Liberation through hearing during the intermediate state'), commonly known inthe West asThe Tibetan Book of the Dead, is aterma text from a larger corpus of teachings, theProfound Dharma of Self-Liberation through the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones,[1][note 1] revealed byKarma Lingpa (1326–1386). It is the best-known work ofNyingma literature.[3] In 1927, the text was one of the first examples of both Tibetan and Vajrayana literature to be translated into a European language and arguably continues to this day to be the best known.[4][5]
The Tibetan text describes, and is intended to guide one through, the experiences that the consciousness has after death, in thebardo, the interval between death and the nextrebirth. The text also includes chapters on thesigns of death and rituals to undertake when death is closing in or has taken place. The text can be used as either an advanced practice for trained meditators or to support the uninitiated during the death experience.
Bar do thos grol (Tibetan:བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ,Wylie:bar do thos grol,THL:bardo thödrol) translates as: “Liberation (grol) through Hearing (thos) in the Intermediate State (bardo)”
The Tibetanbar and its Sanskrit equivalentantarā mean ‘between.’ The Sanskritbhava means a place of existence. Thusantarābhava means ‘an existence between,’ translated into Tibetan asbardo.
thos grol:thos meanshearing.[6]Grol means ‘liberation,’ which may be understood in this context as being synonymous with the Sanskritbodhi, "awakening", "understanding", "enlightenment", as well as with the termnirvāṇa, "blowing out", "extinction", "the extinction of illusion".[7]Grol has connotations of freeing, liberating, unravelling, becoming undone.[8]
Centuries oldZhi-Khromandala, a part of the Bardo Thodol's collection, a text known in the West as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which comprises part of a group of bardo teachings held in theNyingma (Tibetan tradition) originated withguruPadmasambhava in the 8th century.
According to Tibetan tradition, theLiberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State was composed in the 8th century byPadmasambhava, written down by his primary student,Yeshe Tsogyal, buried in the Gampo hills in central Tibet and subsequently discovered by aTibetanterton,Karma Lingpa, in the 14th century.[9][10][11]
The Tibetan title isbar do thos grol,[12]Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State.[1] It consists of two comparatively long texts:[1]
"Great Liberation through Hearing: The Supplication of the Bardo of Dharmata" (chos nyid bar do'i gsol 'debs thos grol chen mo), the bardo of dharmata (including the bardo of dying);
"Great Liberation through Hearing: The Supplication Pointing Out the Bardo of Existence" (strid pa'i bar do ngo sprod gsol 'debs thos grol chen mo), the bardo of existence.
Within the texts themselves, the two combined are referred to asLiberation through Hearing in the Bardo,Great Liberation through Hearing, or justLiberation through Hearing.[note 2]
It is part of a largerterma cycle,Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation through the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones[1] (zab-chos zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol, also known askar-gling zhi-khro),[2] popularly known as "Karma Lingpa's Peaceful and Wrathful Ones."[1]
TheProfound Dharma of Self-Liberation is known in several versions, containing varying numbers of sections and subsections, and arranged in different orders, ranging from around ten to thirty-eight titles.[1] The individual texts cover a wide range of subjects, including meditation instructions, visualizations of deities, liturgies and prayers, lists of mantras, descriptions of the signs of death, indications of future rebirth, and texts such as thebar do thos grol that are concerned with the bardo-state.[1]
TheBardo Thodol differentiates the intermediate state between lives into three bardos:
Thechikhai bardo or "bardo of the moment of death", which features the experience of the"clear light of reality", or at least the nearest approximation of which one is spiritually capable;
Thechonyid bardo or "bardo of the experiencing of reality", which features the experience ofvisions of variousBuddha forms, or the nearest approximations of which one is capable;
Thesidpa bardo or "bardo of rebirth", which features karmically impelled hallucinations which eventually result in rebirth, typicallyyab-yum imagery of men and women passionately entwined.
TheLiberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State also mentions three other bardos:[note 3]
"Life", or ordinary waking consciousness;
"Dhyana" (meditation);
"Dream", the dream state during normal sleep.
Together these "six bardos" form a classification ofstates of consciousness into six broad types. Any state of consciousness can form a type of "intermediate state", intermediate between other states of consciousness. Indeed, one can consider any momentary state of consciousness a bardo, since it lies between our past and future existences; it provides us with the opportunity to experience reality, which is always present but obscured by the projections and confusions that are due to our previous unskillful actions.
Thebar do thos grol has become known in the English speaking world asThe Tibetan Book of the Dead, a title popularized byWalter Evans-Wentz's edition, after theEgyptian Book of the Dead, though the English title bears no relationship with the Tibetan's, as outlined above.[12][13] The Evans-Wentz edition was first published in 1927 byOxford University Press.
According to John Myrdhin Reynolds, Evans-Wentz's edition of theTibetan Book of the Dead introduced a number of misunderstandings aboutDzogchen.[14] In fact, Evans-Wentz collected seven texts about visualization of the after-death experiences and he introduced this work collection as "The Tibetan Book of Death." Evans-Wentz was well acquainted with Theosophy and used this framework to interpret the translation ofThe Tibetan Book of the Dead, which was largely provided by two Tibetan lamas who spoke English, Lama Sumdhon Paul and Lama Lobzang Mingnur Dorje.[15] Evans-Wentz was not familiar with Tibetan Buddhism,[14] and his view of Tibetan Buddhism was "fundamentally neither Tibetan nor Buddhist, butTheosophical andVedantist."[16] He introduced a terminology into the translation which was largely derived fromHinduism, as well as from hisTheosophical beliefs.[14]
The third revised and expanded Evans-Wentz edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead contains a psychological commentary byCarl Jung in an English translation by R. F. C. Hull.[17] The commentary also appears in the Collected Works.[18] Jung applied his extensive knowledge of eastern religion to craft a commentary specifically aimed at a western audience unfamiliar with eastern religious tradition in general and Tibetan Buddhism specifically.[19] He does not attempt to directly correlate the content of the Bardo Thodol with rituals or dogma found in occidental religion but rather highlights karmic phenomena described on the Bardo plane and shows how they parallel unconscious contents (both personal and collective) encountered in the west, particularly in the context of analytical psychology. Jung's comments should be taken strictly within the realm of psychology, and not that of theology or metaphysics. Indeed, he warns repeatedly of the dangers for western man in the wholesale adoption of eastern religious traditions such as yoga.[20]
Thurman, Robert (1994)The Tibetan Book of the Dead, as popularly known in the West; known in Tibet as "The Great Book of Natural Liberation Through Understanding in the Between"; composed byPadma Sambhava; discovered byKarma Lingpa; foreword by theDalai Lama London: HarperCollinsISBN1-85538-412-4
Hodge, Stephen & Martin Boord (1999)The Illustrated Tibetan Book of the Dead: A New Translation and Commentary. New York: SterlingISBN978-0806970776
Dorje, Gyurme (trans.); Graham Coleman andThupten Jinpa (eds.) (2005)The Tibetan Book of the Dead [English title]:The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States [Tibetan title]; composed byPadma Sambhava: revealed byKarma Lingpa. London: Penguin BooksISBN978-0-14-045529-8 Also: New York: Viking Penguin, NY, 2006.ISBN0-670-85886-2 (hc);ISBN978-0-14-310494-0 (pbk) Reprinted in Penguin Classics; London: Penguin Books (2005)ISBN0-7139-9414-2 (As of 2022, this remains the only translation of the complete cycle of texts of which theTibetan Book of the Dead is part. Here it comprises chapter 11.)
Related (from the same terma cycle)
Natural Liberation. 1998.Padmasambhava. B. Alan Wallace (translator), with commentary by Gyatrul Rinpoche. Wisdom Publications.Natural Liberation is from the same terma cycle and gives detailed instructions for practice within the six bardos.[4]
... a key to the innermost recesses of the human mind, and a guide for initiates, and for those who are seeking the spiritual path of liberation.[23]
They construed the effect of LSD as a "stripping away" of ego-defenses, finding parallels between the stages of death and rebirth in theTibetan Book of the Dead, and the stages of psychological "death" and "rebirth" which Leary had identified during his research.[24] According to Leary, Metzner and Alpert it is:
... one of the oldest and most universal practices for the initiate to go through the experience of death before he can be spiritually reborn. Symbolically he must die to his past, and to his old ego, before he can take his place in the new spiritual life into which he has been initiated.[25]
French composerPierre Henry based his pioneering 1963electroacoustic ballet workLe Voyage on the narrative of the text. A recording of the work was released by Philips in 1967.[26]
The song ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ on the 1966 Beatles albumRevolver was inspired by a version of the text – ‘When writing the song, Lennon drew inspiration from his experiences with the hallucinogenic drug LSD and from the 1964 book The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzner.’[27]
In 1974 Finnish composerErik Bergman composed a work titled Bardo Thödol for a speaker, mezzo-soprano, baritone, mixed choir and orchestra; the text was based on a German translation of the Book of the Dead.[28]
1985 2-part documentary filmed in Ladakh and the States, first part entitled "The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Way of Life"; the second part "The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation" was a co-production between NHK (Japan), Mistral (France) and FBC (Canada). Narration in the English version is byLeonard Cohen.[29]
Between 1983 and 1993 French composerÉliane Radigue created her three-hour work of electronic music,Trilogie de la Mort. Her Tibetan Buddhist meditation practise, including engagement with the Bardo Thodol after the deaths of her son and her meditation teacher, are central to this piece, in particular the first section entitled "Kyema (Intermediate States)".[30]
Screenwriter and film producerBruce Joel Rubin, who once lived in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, considers his 1990 filmJacob's Ladder a modern interpretation of theBardo Thodol.[31][32]
The song, "T.B.D" on the 1994 "Throwing Copper" album by the band Live, is about the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
The Canadian bandMystery released the song "Queen of Vajra Space" on their 1998 albumDestiny?.
Enter the Void, a 2009 French film written and directed byGaspar Noé, features the death of a young man, and his subsequent journey through the bardo.[35]
The 2023 film Samsara contains a several-minutes-long scene of experimental audio-visual stimuli, during which the viewer is invited to imagine themselves in a bardo state.[37]
Coleman, Graham (2005). "Editor's introduction". In Coleman, Graham (ed.).The Tibetan Book of the Dead: First Complete Translation. Penguin Books.ISBN978-0143104940.
Coward, Howard (1985).Jung and Eastern Thought. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Duff, Tony (2000).The Illuminator Tibetan-English Dictionary. Padma Karpo Translation Committee.
Evans-Wentz, W. Y., ed. (1965) [1927].The Tibetan Book of the Dead. London: Oxford University Press.
Forbes, Andrew; Henley, David, eds. (2013).The Illustrated Tibetan Book of the Dead. Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books.
Fremantle, Francesca; Trungpa, Chögyam, eds. (1975).The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo by Guru Rinpoche according to Karma Lingpa. Boulder: Shambhala.ISBN1-59030-059-9.
Fremantle, Francesca (2001).Luminous Emptiness: Understanding the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications.ISBN1-57062-450-X.
Fremantle, Francesca; Trungpa, Chögyam, eds. (2003) [1975].The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo by Guru Rinpoche according to Karma Lingpa. Boulder: Shambhala.ISBN1-59030-059-9.
Jung, C. G. (1977) [1958].Psychology and Religion: West and East. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Bollingen Series XX. Vol. 11. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Leary, Timothy; Metzner, Ralph; Alpert, Richard (2022) [1964].The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Kensington.ISBN978-0806541822.
Merkur, Daniel (2014). "The Formation of Hippie Spirituality: 1. Union with God". In Ellens, J. Harold (ed.).Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances: Chemical Paths to Spirituality and to God. ABC-CLIO.
Norbu, Namkhai (1989). "Foreword". In Reynolds, John Myrdin (ed.).Self-liberation through seeing with naked awareness. Station Hill Press.
Reynolds, John Myrdin (1989). "Appendix I: The views on Dzogchen of W.Y. Evans-Wentz and C.G. Jung".Self-liberation through seeing with naked awareness. Station Hill Press.
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