The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Way of Life
Death is real.
It comes without warning,
and it cannot be escaped.
Though teaching of death and dying are no longer common in the west,
it remained a part of daily life in the Buddhist cultures of the Himalayas.
The kingdom of Ladakh, once considered western Tibet,
is now administered by the Indian government.
It's located 3700 meters above sea level,
on the borders of China and Pakistan.
Because it lies in a politically sensitive area,
foreigners were forbidden to visit there until 1974.
As a result, the culture of Ladakh is still relatively unchanged.
Every new years, the people of Leh, the principle city of Ladakh,
make a pilgrimage, in which they offer prostrations
in ancient Buddhist practice.
By making prostrations to the Buddha, his teachings, and the community of his followers,
they pray that all who suffer in this world may find refuge
in abiding peace.
According to the Buddhist teachings,
Buddhahood or unchanging witfullness
is at the heart of every living being.
This basic awareness is the essence of life.
It is beyond birth and death.
But to be born leads inevitably to the suffering of sickness, old age and death.
Compassion to everything that lives is the basis of the path through this life, and to our death.
The belief in reincarnation is the expression of that compassion.
Buddhism was brought to Tibet in the Himalayas 1300 years ago,
by the great Indian saint Padmasambhava.
It was he who wrote the Tibetan book of the dead.
The Tibetan book of the dead is a guide for the dying.
It describes the process of dying as a natural transition.
The text explains how by recognizing the mental states and physical sufferings involved,
we can come into contact with our own essential nature.
In this way, it is possible to find freedom from confusion and fear.
In a small village near the head waters of the Indus river,
an old man, Paldem Sering, has died.
The women of the family have gathered in the kitchen with an improvised laments to his memory.
"Whenever he would smile at me, I was never so happy.
Now that he's gone, I have never been so miserable."
The family has requested Choyzang, a Nagpa, or Buddhist yogi, and the resident of the village
who often perform his rites, to come to read the text, and to make the appropriate offerings.
When someone dies, the Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan book of the dead
is read everyday for 49 days.
According to this text, the consciousness of the dead person lingers
between one life and another for a period of 49 days.
During that time he is capable of hearing,
so the text is read aloud to encourage and guide him.
At first, the text is read in the presence of the body.
Kept carefully wrapped, this text, like most traditional Tibetan books,
consists of unbound pages held between two boards,
and has been printed from hand-carved wooden blocks.
"Oh son of noble family, babuji's cold death has now arrived.
Now for the benefit of all beings, recognize luminosity
which dawns before you.
This great blazing mass of light is enlightment itself.
It is the natural mind. It is the essence of your own mind.
Recognition and liberation are simultaneous."
The book of the dead describes how at death,
the consciousness is suddenly separated from all the circumstances which made up daily life.
Mind experiences its own liberation directly as radiant white light.
Both life and death, according to the Bardo Thodol, are a continuous flow of uncertain transitions
called "Bardos".
In the Bardos of death, if mind does not recognize its own nature,
it becomes ever more solid, until it enters a new form of life.
"Oh son of noble family, now is a time for you to seek a path.
You are not alone in leaving this world.
Everyone who was come before you has died.
You can no longer stay here.
Now you should think like this: now I would abandon clinging to this body
into this world.
I will go forward.
I will abandon fear and terror,
and I will recognize whatever appears,
is a projection of my own mind."
Choyzang uses an old astrological calendar to fix the day of Paldem Sering's cremation,
making calculations based on the dates of the dead man's birth and death.
He determines the cremation should take place 10 days later.
"It shows here that Paldem Sering may have been a wild pig in his past life,
that he may be a bird in his next one.
And perhaps he takes the Bardo Thodol to heart,
he will return to the human realm."
At the beginning of this century, W. Y. Evans Wentz,
an American who studied anthropology at Oxford, became interested in reincarnation.
He traveled to India where he found a copy of the Bardo Thodol,
and sponsored the translation from Tibetan, and had it to the text into English.
It was he who titled it the Tibetan book of the dead.
The renounce with psychologist, Carl Jung, wrote he found
in this book his life's partner who would reveal the secrets of the soul.
The "living/dying" project in San Francisco
has been assisting terminally ill patients for more than 20 years.
The project's aim is to help dying people find meaning in the
transition between life and death.
"The project was created because the metaphors, the story line,
that existed in our culture, for dying,
in which dying was seen as a failure and the enemy,
and an error of the universe somehow.
And therefore, a hospital intense of care ward was the ultimate inner chamber of the temple
about life.
And the whole fear that surrounded the process of the doctor's seeing death as a failure.
We felt that it was needed for another metaphorical system."
"Please begin by picturing in front of you
your client or some other person you know who are suffering right now.
And feel in an open and direct way,
how this person actually suffers.
Feel the quality of it."
"The Dying project was created in order to create an environment,
in which people that were deep in philosophical materialism
could explore another metaphor for life and thus for death.
And the people we found most willing to do that,
were people that were themselves facing death."
"What do you think gonna happen when you die?"
This hospice serves people who are expected to die within 6 months.
"Most people talk about death, you know."
"Would you like to talk about one thing?"
"Yeah."
"So you wanna tell me what you know?"
"Well, you know, I would. And I obviously haven't died myself lately.
But let me give you what I know, and maybe it will be useful.
Consciousness leaves the body.
And consciousness experiences feeling of integrity and wholeness and safeness.
And then,
it's attracted toward what is universally described as
a very beautiful, incredibly beautiful clear bright light.
It's never described as a beautiful sound, or beautiful smell.
It's very beautiful light.
The reason that this light is so beautiful
is that this light is your true nature."
"That would be very nice, such...
That's fantastic, you actually been there with people who come back and talk to you?"
"From new death experiences and there are people in certain traditions like for instance Tibetan Buddhism
were trained to go into that after death's day when people invite them.
There are actually guide books
to help people go through this journey, if you will."
Tulku Ling Rinpoche is an abbot from the monastery of Ladakh.
He is making this visit in order to bless the people of the village,
to teach and to see how they are ferrying.
Tulku Ling Rinpoche is also giving teachings on Phowa.
This is a method unique to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition,
for assisting the consciousness to release its attachment to the physical body at the time of death.
This is Tanchig. He is 96 years old, and has lived according to the Buddhist path
for all his adult life. Yet he is deeply interested in his teachings.
"First visualize the form of the Buddha boundless light emit here above your head.
Let your consciousness rise upward through your abdomen, upward through your body,
up through your neck and finally out the top of your head.
Dissolve there into the light around you.
In this way, you may enter directly the pure realm of the light.
The uncertainties of the Bardo will not affect you."
While in the village, Tulku Ling Rinpoche also goes to do the Phowa ceremony for Paldem Sering.
He makes offerings of barley and butter,
and annoints Paldem Sering's head.
"Paldem Sering, you have died.
The light of this world is fading completely.
And the light of the next world has not yet appeared.
Your body has lost all feeling.
This is what death is.
Let yourself go."
With more offerings of barley and butter, he invokes the blessings of all the Buddhas,
and all the awaken ones.
The blood on the head gives an indication that the ceremony has gone well.
“If there is some sign that the dead man's consciousness has left the body
from a place on the head, then that's a good thing.
It means that the consciousness has not been abstracted as it left the body completely."
Offerings are left out to encourage Paldem Sering.
"Be nourished by our offerings Paldem Sering."
Every day Tanchig offers 100 prostrations with these words.
"I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha."
By praying in this way Tanchig invokes the wisdom of the Buddha, his teachings,
and the community of his followers,
to help all beings find liberation from suffering.
He feels he has accomplished all that he can in his lifetime.
He's lived to see his family secure and well, and his last wish now is to die soon.
"Are you afraid of death?"
"No, everyone must die someday.
Everyone is born with the weight of death on their shoulders."
"I haven't done anything bad, so I'm not afraid to die."
"What happens after death?"
"Above, we are human beings, below is hell."
"It's our destiny to die."
"Why aren't you afraid?"
"Because we will be reborn."
"This child is the reincarnation of someone, everyone is reincarnated."
"What was this child's previous life?"
"That I don't know."
"Even though the physical body dies, consciousness continues.
It's a constant repetition of life and death. That's why people are reborn."
Tanchig was born at the end of the last century.
It was all he could do just to survive the harsh winters.
As a child, he has no blanket, so he slept covered in the loose chicken feathers.
For food, he caught wild birds and animals in the mountain.
The only money in his village came from the sale of the handicrafts to the caravans
which traveled to China.
"Some of my life was very hard, but I have always practiced the Buddhist teachings.
When I say the mantras with this prayer wheel, it is to express my wish that all beings in the lower realm, the animals,
the hungry ghosts, beings in hell,
all find liberation.
No matter what happens now, for myself, I have no regret."
"One of the things that they want me to do today, let me ask you, if this is something that seems appropriate to you,
was
to read little bit of the Tibetan book of the dead,
which traditionally is read to people so they can become familiar with these ideas."
"I appreciate, would need it one day."
"Listen to what I am saying Bruce. Death is coming, now you are departing from this world,
but you are not the only one, as death comes to all people on earth.
Be willing to release any connections with the life you have been living, and release the people with whom you have associated.
Whatever fear or terror that might come to you during the experiencing of the reality of your mind,
keep these thought in your consciousness and go forward.
Recognize that any mental image, pictures which occur, are of your own creation.
Maintain that recognition and you will achieve liberation."
9 days have passed since Paldem Sering's death.
According to the Bardo Thodol, if the deceased still fail to recognize his basic nature,
and if he's failed to recognize the peaceful deities as the projections of his own mind,
then they transform to terrifying wrathful ones.
"Paldem Sering, listen without distraction.
Now, the blood drinking wrathful ones will appear.
Their bodies are dark red or dark blue, with 3 heads 6 arms, and 4 legs
spread wide apart.
Their 9 eyes gaze into yours, with a furious expression.
They hold human skulls full of blood, and they roar like thunder.
They are accompanied by repne of their own kind in many colors,
and they fill the whole of space.
Do not be afraid, do not be confused.
Recognize them as the projections of your own mind.
Do not be afraid for they are your innate wakefulness.
If you recognize this,
you will be liberated.
Recognition and liberation are simultaneous."
Today is the day of Paldem Sering's cremation.
Monks has been chatting in the house with the body since early morning.
Cremations in Ladakh are performed as fire offerings.
In order that he may no longer claim to his former body, and so that is his relatives and love ones,
may release him from the bonds of their attachment to him,
his body is offered to the fire.
The substances that are offered with the body, butter oil, sugar and various grains,
represent everything that is desirable for sustaining and virtuous in this world.
To complete this process, Paldem Sering's possessions were donated to the monastery.
The day after the cremation, the monks auctioned them off to the people of the village.
2 days later, Paldem Sering's sons carry his ashes up to the mountain
and leave them to the elements.
"Paldem Sering, listen without distraction.
The body which you had in this life is becoming indistinct to you,
and the body you will have in your future life is becoming even clear.
As you sense this, you will become frightened and sad.
There is no place for you to rest, and no stopping place
in your ceaseless wandering.
You do not care what your next life will bring as long as you will be born soon.
And so you will approach anything that appears before you.
Take care Paldem Sering. Do not be afraid.
Look for a good human birth,
where you may yet recognize your own true nature."
The 14th Dalai Lama, now resides here in Dharamsala, India.
He was born in 1935, and was recognized 5 years later as the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama.
As a young boy, he could recognize people who are familiar to his predecessor,
and select objects which he'd used.
After his formal recognition, he was rigorously trained and assumed
full spiritual and temporal authority as leader of the Tibetan state in 1950,
at the age of 15.
"If you accept, if you believe, if you accept life continues with life,
then death is just one occasion.
Like the changing of your cloth. Become old,
and then old cloth throw away, and take the new nice cloth.
Similarly, this old body cannot function properly, then change
the new body.
More energetic, more fresh body."
Song Crapa was shot by an Indian policeman 11 years ago, while participating
in a demonstration for the improvement of the labor conditions in Ladakh.
2000 people from all over the country attended his funeral.
Subsequently, the Indian government acceded to the demand for improved conditions,
and Song Crapa became a national hero.
We have confirmed that this boy is the reincarnation of the monk Song Crapa.
All Ladakh is very happy.
Song Crapa's incarnation, Sopa, is the youngest son of a poor farming family,
and was discovered in Song Crapa's own village.
"When he was born, he had this bruise on this side which did not go away for a long time.
He said that he had been hit by a bullet that hurt him.
The bruise was on the same place where Song Crapa was shot."
When Sopa was 2 years old, he said he wanted to meet his aunt.
But the aunt he was referring to was Song Crapa's aunt,
who has raised Song Crapa as a child and had lived with him.
When he visited her, Sopa was able to identify all the objects which
Song Crapa has regularly used.
"My nephew Song Crapa was a pure hearted virtuous person
who always thought about other people.
Because he was a good man,
he has found a good rebirth."
When Sopa was 8 years old, the village gathered funds to send him to be trained in
Sera monastery, in Mysore, India.
Sera, formerly a major monastery in Tibet,
give special attention to the traditions of debate, logic, and chanting Buddhist's texts.
The people of Ladakh hope that Sopa will one day return to his country as a future leader.
On the final day of reading the Bardo Thodol, the entire family
gathers to pray that Paldem Sering will find a fortunate birth.
"Paldem Sering, listen without distraction.
You have not recognized your own nature,
and now you will once again experience all the painful uncertainties
of birth and death.
Give up anger, give up attachment, and give up yearning for relatives and friends.
Take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
With your head held high, enter the human realm."
"I am very happy that we have been able to offer all these prayers and this reading to
help my father."
"We have done all that can be done for Paldem Sering.
All the ceremonies and readings have been done properly.
I feel that Paldem Sering has found a human birth.
But I don't know under what circumstances that he may have been born."
The Tibetan book of the dead presents the states of the dying
and after death, as a continuous possibility.
It can become frozen in our attachment and fear,
or we can recognize the liberation of our true nature.
The Tibetan book of the dead shows us that this opportunity
is available to us at every moment of life and death.
"The heavy body, flesh and blood and bones,
has within us, this body of consciousness,
this body of light.
Becoming this body of light,
so that you can just dissolve
into this sense of light.
The solid body remains here,
but you are becoming this pure light.
Dissolving into your heart.
Dissolving into your heart with each breath.
Each time you breathe out,
it's as if it were your last breath.
Expanding into a larger and larger
sense of spaciousness.
Nothing to hold on to.
Beyond the mind, beyond the body,
floating free in space.
Totally safe.
Any distraction dissolving back into the heart.
Floating free."
"It's nice." "Nice?"
"You have any tape so you can talk like this as a gift?"
"I don't have any tapes."
"Something which difficult to handle.
Now that, if you prepare that,
you know it,
like this is the time,
I will be, I will face the terrible situation,
and, knowing it, knowing it, and prepare for it,
then when actually that happen, you already accepted it,
you already prepared for it,
so much easier to handle."
"And I accept that actually,
it's not I could tell or feel,
if you can get to that point, you faced,
you face death ordinarily, because it's just another thing on our way."
"Sometimes I also have some excited feeling
towards death.
Now because it's in my daily prayer,
to deal with the death process,
and Bardo process,
and next life.
So therefore, when I think, sometimes think about death,
then I get some kind of excitement.
Whether the day that I can utilize this practice fully at that moment or not."
Tanching's great grand daughter, who was married into a family in a distant village,
comes to visit him.
"Grandpa, how are you?
Here's my son."
The child is Tanching's great great grand child.
Tanching is very happy to have his family with him,
Although he wants nothing further from his life.
As he says,
I'm always grateful for what the path of life gives to me.
Today, Buddhism no longer exists in many of the countries where once it flourished.
Nonetheless, in those countries where it is still practiced, it is a source of guidance and strength.
And it continues to express people's aspirations for the well being of all.