Bardo of life, death, dharmata and becoming.

In a cloudless night sky, the full moon,
'The Lord of the Stars' is about to rise...
The face of my compassionate lord, Padmasambhava,
Draws me on, radiating its tender welcome.

My delight in death is far, far greater than
The delight of traders mat making vast fortunes at sea,
Or the lords of the gods who vaunt their victory in battle;
Or of those sages who have entered into the rapture of perfect absorption.
So just as a traveler who sets out on the road when time has come to go,
I will not remain in this world any longer,
But will go to dwell in the stronghold of the great bliss of deathlessness.

This, my life, is finished, my karma is exhausted, what benefit
prayers could bring has worn out.
All worldly things are done with, my life's show is over.
In one instant, I will recognise the very essence of the manifestation of my being
In the pure, vast realms of the bardo state;
I am close now to taking up my seat in the ground of primordial perfection.

The riches found in myself have made the minds of others happy,
I have used the blessing of this life to realise all the benefits of the island of liberation;
Having been with you, my noble disciples, through all this time.
The joy of sharing the truth has filled me and satisfied me.

Now all the connections in this life between us are ending,
I am an aimless beggar who is going to die as he likes,
Do not feel sad for me, but go on praying always.
These words are my heart talking,
Think of them as a cloud of lotus-blossoms, and you in your devotion
As bees plunging into them to suck from them their transcendent joy.

 Longchenpa, 14th century Dzogchen master.

Sogyal Rinpoche in 'The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying' speaks of realised masters as being like mountain eagles, soaring above life and death to see them for what they truly are in their intricate and myterious inter-relation. Proposing that they might see akin to the way that David Bohm describes reality, an 'unbroken wholeness in flowing movement', life and death merely different aspects of that one unbroken whole, movement.

The bardo teachings, thus, are suggested as revealing of death process, which is as much life process, having three stage-bodies:

1. At the culmination of the dying process, after the dissolution of the elements, senses and thought states, the ultimate nature of mind, the Ground Luminosity, is for a moment laid bare in the bardo of dying;
2. Then, fleetingly, the radiance of that mind is displayed and shines out in appearances of sound, colours and light in the bardo of dharmata;
3. Next the dead person's consciousness awakens and enters the bardo of becoming; and ordinary mind reenters and takes form in the mental body, subject to past karma and mental habit.

This three stage process describes too the manifestation of mind - an enfoldment leading to a laying bare of source, through to spontaneous radiance of light and energy and into increasing crystallisation, manifesting as a mental form.

Rinpoche points out that this process is in fact going on moment to moment within our mind, thoughts and emotions, the three-body process as described by Padmasambhava:

Within this Rigpa, the three kayas are inseparable and fully present as one:
Since it is empty and not created anywhere it is the Dharmakaya;
Since it is luminous, clarity representing the inherent transparent radiance of emptiness, it is the Sambhogakaya.
Since its arising is nowhere obstructed or interrupted, it is the Nirmanakaya.
These three being complete and fully present as one, are its very essence.

What happens in our mind, now, during life is held to occur in exactly this form in the bardo stages of death. With this in mind, three heart practices are proposed by Tsele Natsok Rangdrol, a 17th century Dzogchen master, brilliant meditations:

'Recognise this infinite variety of appearances as a dream,
As nothing but projections of your mind, illusory and unreal.
Without grasping at anything, rest in the wisdom of your Rigpa,
that transcends all concepts:
This is the heart of the practice for the bardo of this life.

You are bound to die soon, and nothing then will be of any real help.
What you experience in death is your own conceptual thinking.
Without fabricating any thoughts, let them all die into the vast expanse
of your Rigpa's self-awareness;
This is the heart practice for the bardo of dying.

Whatever grasps at appearance or disappearance, as being good or bad, is your mind.
And this mind itself is the self-radiance of the Dharmakaya, just whatever arises.
Not to cling to the risings, make concepts out of them, accept or reject them:
This is the heart practice for the bardo of the dharmata.

Samsara is your mind, nirvana is also your mind,
All pleasure and pain, and all delusions exist nowhere apart from your mind,
To attain control over your own mind;
This is the heart practice of the bardo of becoming.'