Mind Beyond Death: The Bardo of This Life

We now move on to the second chapter of the book, Mind Beyond Death. This chapter covers the Bardo of this life. Yes, believe it or not, this life in which we are now living is a bardo state, existing between birth and the conditions that will lead to our death. Previous articles on this book are linked here Intro and Chap1. Other articles on death linked here DeathFascinating and EightStages.

The author, Dzogchen Ponlop Rimpoche defines the Bardo of this Life as,

“The teachings on the natural bardo of this life are concerned with how to make our life meaningful and transform its circumstances into the path of awakening.”

In the Buddhist view, whenever a being takes birth; an individual consciousness takes birth. It is a temporary traveler in a body. It’s as if our mind and body have made a contract and when the contract is finished, and we don’t know exactly when that is, the mind must vacate the body.

When we do leave, we could be heading to a place worse or better than we are now. How we live this life determines which of those two possibilities comes to fruition.

The Dance of Appearances

How the world looks to us at any given moment depends on how we relate to the appearances we encounter in life.

Appearances are defined as what we experience through the faculty of our mind. This includes our five-sense experience, along with what we think and feel about those appearances.

It is important to look at two things here.

1. The relationship of mind to appearances

2. The Nature of Mind, itself.

Rimpoche discusses pure and impure appearances, as well as the relationship between appearances and emptiness.

In the bardo of this life we work with the appearances of this life which are momentary and changeable. We study how we respond and engage with this “dance of appearances” that include physical, psychological and emotional phenomena that make up the objects of our environment.

How we respond to each moment of these phenomena, conditions our experience in the next moment, and the next. All this is the momentum of karma.

Rimpoche points out that there are two sides to appearances. There is the subject or the perceiving aspect, and the object or perceived aspect.

Rimpoche comments,

“In the death and after-death stages, these appearances of mind continue to arise and dissolve, and their expression is linked closely to our insight into their actual nature. It is in the natural bardo of this life—while we have the benefit of a precious human birth and the physical support of a body—that we have the best opportunity to work with our minds and bring the appearances of this life onto the path of enlightenment.”

In short, during the natural bardo of this life we have the opportunity to work with these appearances and reflect on them with awareness, and not to react to them in our repetitive, habitual, and karmic way.

Pure and Impure Appearances

Rimpoche defines “pure appearances”:

“Pure Appearances refers to the perception of realized beings. They don’t see the solidly existing phenomena as separate from the nature of mind. They see and appreciate the dance of appearances as a luminous display of pure awareness. They don’t fixate or cling to them as real, and their interactions with them are free from any trace of attachment.”

Now he defines “impure appearances”

“Impure appearances refers to the perception of ordinary beings who mistakenly see relative appearances as existing in a manner that is distinctly separate from mind. Therefore, due to their habitual tendencies, their experience of appearances is confused and their interactions with dualistic phenomena are bound up with fixation and clinging.”

Two Types of Experiences

Rimpoche then concludes there are two types of experiences in the bardo of this life. There are the experiences of those who perceive the true nature of mind, and the experiences of those who don’t, and instead believe there is a solid existing world outside of their mind giving rise to these appearances.

The latter think they, themselves, exist as a single, continuous and permanent self. As such, they develop an ego and cling to it for dear life. They then develop a second level of clinging when they begin to attribute more qualities to this ego, like being smart, physically attractive, athletic, rich, poor, miserable and so on.

From this people feel the need to improve their situation in this life by going after a better job, more money etc. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but if it’s their sole focus in life, they will never be satisfied, always wanting more when they already have. This will lead to a distorted mind that fails to see its true nature.

“Kleshas”

Underlying this mindset, Rimpoche says, is ignorance. He claims these people don’t see the way things really are. They see both their self and the outer world as real, to inherently exist, when they don’t. They also don’t see who they really are, or the true nature of existence which is emptiness.

Rimpoche says,

“As a result of these misconceptions about appearances, we give rise and are subject to intense states of suffering, called ‘kleshas.’ ‘Klesha’ is translated as ‘afflicted mind’ or ‘disturbing mind,’ and in general this term refers to ordinary, confused experience of the emotions. However, ‘klesha’ includes not only the emotions, but also the basic cause of suffering, which is ignorance.”

In Buddhism, Rimpoche says the three root “kleshas” are passion, aggression and ignorance. “Kleshas” can also include jealousy and pride.

These afflicted mind states hinder our spiritual journey because they obscure the clarity of mind, leading to many ignorant actions.

To counter this, Rimpoche says,

“When we look directly at our confusion with mindfulness and awareness, we begin to see through that confusion to mind’s primordially pure, awake nature.”

The Embodied Mind

What’s the difference between an “embodied mind” and a “disembodied mind”? In practical terms, if I am an embodied mind, when I think about my friend living in Thailand, I can imagine their living situation and what they are doing, but my body stays rooted where it is. I can imagine myself there in Thailand, but my mind always must come back to my body.

If I have a disembodied mind, as I will in the after-death stage, and if my mind imagines my friend in Thailand, I will immediately be there because I won’t have a body to ground me.

In short, in the disembodied state, we go where our consciousness goes because we no longer have a body anchoring us. This can be a fearful experience because our rapidly occurring thoughts can hurl us into all sorts of different places and realities. If we have no control over our mind and thoughts, it can be terrifying.

We then have to couple that with the different emotional states that will also rise with ten times the intensity they would have if we still had a body, and see the absolute chaos that could ensue to the untrained mind.

However, if we have worked on our ourselves during the bardo of this life, developing a deeper awareness of how our mind works, then we will develop a stable mind and naturally transcend all our fears.

That’s why, Rimpoche says,

“It is important to take full advantage of our situation [in the bardo of this life] by developing further mindfulness, awareness and meditative stability. If we are calm and clear, then not only can we realize the nature of mind, but we can also clearly plan our days, our lives and our rebirths very precisely.”

The Three Stages of the Path

There are three stages to the understanding of the true nature of mind.

1. The Stage of Study: This includes the hearing or studying about the true nature of mind to develop a conceptual understanding of it.

2. The Stage of Contemplation: Here, we train in analytical meditation where we work with relative appearances, applying our intellect to an examination of mind. We learn to see those appearances with greater clarity. This is where we begin to penetrate the solidity of our thoughts and emotions, and glimpse the true nature of mind.

3. The Stage of Meditation: Here, we let go of our conceptual examination of mind and instead, simply rest in our mind in a state of focused meditative concentration or Samadhi. We then experience the cessation of our usual agitated state of mind and can rest peacefully in the present moment. This leads eventually to the complete realization of the true nature of mind.

The rest of the chapter delves more deeply into the three stages and offers more details and practices one can follow to help them on their spiritual journey. It’s much too detailed to cover here. If one is looking for some practices to help them navigate more fruitfully through the Bardo of this life, then I would recommend taking a look at these practices and see which ones might resonate with you.

To learn more about the magic of the universe: Click this link: The Magical Universe.

Image by Karin Henseler from Pixabay