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[0:01:00]

At that period [during the death transitioning], we know what is going on if we are external observers. [To answer your question if the teacher could help a person during the time of death], the answer will be yes and no. It will depend on the person himself.

[For example, here is the story of the person who couldn’t be helped]. There was a Tibetan man who lived in Nepal and had a business selling stollen antics from Nepal monasteries. He was infamously known by selling an old big statue from a temple in Nepal to the British collector. During the robbery, he and his helpers, some Nepalese and some Tibetans, tried to steal the whole statue. However, because the statue’s foundation was deeply in the ground, they could not dig it out. Instead, they used electric chain saw to cut the statue at the feet level. They left the monastery carrying the statue. As they were leaving, the monastery bells started frantically ring and monks run out and beat the thefts. But whatever happened, the statue was smuggled and later sold.

[0:03:00]

This man later died in the hospital called Olimal Medical Institute in Deli. There is a great Buddhist teacher called Kushatkagola. He is a head lama and a great, great human being. Kushatkagola was reciting prayers during the last hours of this man’s life. Before passing away, the man had visions that all hospital walls were Buddha statues and they were falling on him and he couldn’t breathe. He donated five hundred rupies to request extra prayers for himself. Kushatkagola wrote me a note and asked me to come and pray for this man at the hospital with him. I said, “Those five hundred rupies cannot lift it”. Nevertheless, I came and prayed. Now it is a joke between Kushatkagola and myself, it indicates that something had happened.

Those two examples show positive and negative experiences of different individuals during the death period. There are many other examples, I can’t keep talking about it now. If we have some time later, we could talk about it more.

The second question, when is the life conceived, right?

The life is conceived when the bardo runs everywhere without obstacles.

[0:06:03]

[This is how events unfold if you are in the bardo state.] While running around, bardo sees parents having sex. [As a general rule, bardo develops strong attachment to the opposite gender of the parent]. For example, if you are going to be a male [in next life], you will have a strong attachment to the mother. If you are [going to be] a female, you will have a strong attachment to the father. Then, you push yourself in there. That is true, this is how you get in there. When you get down there, you expect to see a physical point. However, you won’t see it because you are limited [in the bardo state]. You will get angry. Angrily, you will die as a bardo. The timing should match between the time you die as a bardo and the time semen joins the egg. This event becomes an actual time of conception.

If the egg doesn’t join the semen or the semen doesn’t join the egg, then bardo doesn’t die because conditions are not met.

During the time of Buddha there were some questions if it is a fault of the individuals conceiving or the bardo itself. The Buddha said it is not a problem with the individual, but the karma of the bardo who couldn’t find the rebirth.

[0:09:13]

[If conditions are met], this is the time of the conception and a new life begins. Then there is a question of abortion, and I am not going to talk about it here. As I have mentioned to you yesterday, no one says that an abortion is good. The point is whether the woman has a right to choose. Do you create negative karma by killing a human being? Those are true questions.

I don’t know whether the [fetus] is a human being or not. Maybe it means human potential. If your future kid is a human potential, do you kill a human being? Probably not. If it is considered a human being, then you kill a human being. I don’t have an answer. That it is.

[Question]: In the case of conceiving, [when you were conceived], have you seen the injection?

[Answer]: I didn’t bother to see the injection.

[0:12:27]

I don’t know. In Buddha’s would be here, I would ask him.

[Question]: Rinpoche, on the topic of abortion. Would be the safest option to say, “Do not commit abortion just to be sure not to kill human being, in case there is a human being from the moment of conception?”

[Answer]: I would not say it either. The reason is the woman has a right to choose what to do with her body. However, I didn’t say it is a good thing to do or it doesn’t have negativity. If you choose to do it, you do it, you have a right to choose.

In our lives, so many things happen, and many things have a lot of negativity. A lot of people say that killing is bad, so you can’t eat meat. A lot of people do that, right? However, vegetarians have equal problems, they haven’t grown from the Pure Land. A lot of them did it, they have killed too. When the seed is sown, you going to kill it too. When pests crawl through you garden, you are going to kill them. [You kill pests] when you put fertilizers, pest control sprays or granules, even if they are organic.

[0:15:40]

Another thing, nobody would like to kill anybody in the spirit of human beings. However, there are car accidents, when people get killed. Sometimes those things happen in our lives. This is why samsara sucks; this is a real problem. This is not a problem of pro-choice or pro-life, but it is a samsaric problem to me. I think we have to stop here now; we could come back and continue the questions. Thank you.

[0:16:30] – signing mantras, break

[0:22:16]

Earlier we were talking about rebirth and when the being becomes a person. If you still have questions, we could talk a little bit more. Otherwise, I will continue with the second part of the lecture.

[Question]: To what extent do you have freedom of choice, and to what extent things are predetermined? For instance, the time of death, is it predetermined?

[Answer]: Firstly, if we have a choice to die or to live, nobody would like to die. So unfortunately, there is no choice. According to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, several factors are involved in time and place of the death. [On one hand,] there is a life karmic force and [on the other hand] there are conditions of the body, mind and environment. The body and mind are individual karmic reasons, and environment is a karmic effect. This is something that you could do and undo, avoid and make choices, even though it is karma.

But the main life force, I don’t think you can add anything to it. If your main life force has been exhausted, you may not necessarily complete this life’s tasks.

[0:26:09]

[Body, mind, environment] are temporary karmic forces cutting through the conditions. All those things are here. We do have a choice to some extent, it is true. However, when the main karmic force is exhausted, nobody can change it. No matter what you are currently doing, you have to go.

[Question]: If conditions are not met during the conception of the baby, what happens to the bardo? Does it get stuck without rebirth?

[Answer]:

If conditions are met, an egg and sperm are mixed together, and bardo is stuck there as well. In this case, the bardo dies and takes rebirth at the same time [as a fetus]. If egg and sperm don’t join together, bardo can’t die [although he is there. Then, a bardo continues his life as a bardo].

[Question]: Do they take rebirth later than?

[Answer]: Somewhere else, they take rebirth somewhere else, not here.

[0:29:39]

This is not the only place, the bardo could go next door, or to the next country. There are millions of things going on everywhere. You don’t have to feel like, “Oh, maybe I will keep getting deprived of the opportunity.” No, there are millions of other things going on everywhere.

[Question]: Could you tell us more about the basic life, because the concept is not well known in the West? What is it, where does it come from, what are its eternal strengths?

[Answer]: Basic life is a karmic force. It makes you take rebirth in that human life. It is the only karma that makes you take rebirth.

You might have millions of different karmas. I think out of them maybe the tens of thousands of karmas are human rebirth karmas. Each of human rebirth karmas is connected to the particular human rebirth. That particular karma will become a life force and may carry possibility of longevity or short life span, any sort of things. That is what we call the life force karma. It is a karmic force that gives you this particular life.

[0:32:26]

That particular life force runs through your life from the beginning to the end. But it is not the only karma you have. Other karmas will also come in, sometimes good and sometimes bad karmas. As a result, occasionally things will go right, and occasionally things will go wrong. All of the them are different karmas combined together. But actually, living itself is basic life force.

Sometimes we perform prayers and requests for longevity and initiations for the long life. If you obtain particular level, you will be able to prolong your own life. You can make yourself live up to 100 years. Unless you gain special power, until then all those long-life prayers and initiations, etc. will mostly work to clear the obstacles rather than reinforce the life karmic force.

If the person, the yogi, had gained control over his/her karma, then this person will have a power to extend this lifespan. This is an exceptional case, usually the personal life force karma is predetermined.

[0:35:32]

Any other questions?

[Question]: What about twins? If during the pregnancy one twin dies, is it possible to contact, reconnect with this twin afterwards?

[Answer]: What do you mean by contact? If you mean seeing or talking to the twin, then no. What happens is when the one child remains there, at one level, and another dies. The dead person won’t see the sister and vice versa. There might be contact on the physical level of the dead body with the living cell, but there will be no contact person to person. I am sorry I am acting like this by saying no, but it is what happens.

[Question]: What is the difference between the bardo and the spirit?

[0:38:36]

[Answer]: This question is very important and complicated. The bardo is a spirit, but sprit is not a bardo. That is very interesting thing. When the person is in the bardo state, he functions like a spirit, because of the mind body.

We have talked about physical, mental and astral bodies. We haven’t talked about illusion and extraterrial? bodies. Both bardo and spirit have mental bodies. However, the spirit is like a person, it has its own life, own setup and own everything. They are not bardo’s. [Bardo doesn’t have that]. The spirit life is very long, but the bardo’s life is only forty-nine days maximum. The forty-nine days in your future rebirth could be long [taking all those days] or it could be short. However, regardless of the length of the bardo state, it has the same functionality.

If the bardo dies and takes a separate rebirth as a spirit, we call him a spirit. Now if we walk about spirits in the contest of the six realms, the spirits are mostly at the realm of the hungry ghosts. It is not one hundred percent though, but mostly they are born there.

The spirits have a tremendous power, capable to do and undo whatever [they want]. For example, they could disturb you, come and help you, come and tell you something, or come and knock your glasses out.

[0:42:20]

All of this is possible. The spirits could remain in the trees, in the grass, in the corner of your house, sometimes under your shadow.

Sometimes they could be with you in your private moments, when you think you are along but they are around. You may assume it is simply between you and them, it is our secret. But they will listen and carry the message around.

Spirits could also take your identity [by calling themselves by the same name]. For example, if the spirit follows John or Maria, then this spirit will identify himself as John or Maria. Is it really Maria or John? Of course not. Is it a real John I knew? No. Is it a spirit going by the name John or Maria? Are they two different beings? Yes. Are they separate [and have nothing to do with each other]? Yes.

If you decide to call a spirit at night [during the session], the tail will move [the table will tilt?]. Nobody asks questions like, “Where have you lived before?” Instead, people usually ask, “Are you Maria?” The answer will be, “Yes, I am Maria.” However, if you ask, “Is it Maria that I have known?” The answer will be no.

I know a lot of people do that, right? If you really ask those questions, you will get straightforward answers. People do it all the time.

[0:45:16]

People don’t bother to check if it is a real Maria they had known or it is a spirit called Maria. You don’t ask them that. If you ask, “Are you really Maria?” The spirit will answer, “Yes, I am really Maria.” Again, because spirits identify with what you mean.

[Question]: I got his message at the table saying that it is very important to be spiritual.

[Answer]: It could be. The way the spirit functions, way the wisdom being functions, and enlightened wisdom being functions are very similar. There are very similar.

However, it could be a delusion, it could be a total hallucination, imaginative or real. Everything is possible and we have a very little capacity to check its validity.

In case of visions, Tsongkhapa had advised to ask tough questions. Ask questions that you know the answers to, because otherwise you don’t have a way of checking the answers. For example, the first visions that Tsongkhapa received were in regard to thirty-five Purification Buddhas sitting on the Terevada’s Mountain Peak.

[0:48:17]

The bodhisattvas were coming and talking to him, but Tsongkhapa totally, completely ignored them.

How would you know it is a real wisdom being, or evil spirit trying to let you down, or is it a crazy hallucination? Let it go [ignore it]. If it is a real [wisdom being] with a great purpose, it will come back, come back and come back, most tonga, most tonga, most tonga.

The being might even talk to you, but even then, you ignore it. If and only if the ways [predictions given by the being] come true, and not only once, but the number of times, only then you could start thinking about it [trusting the being]. That is the path that the masters took in the past.

[Nowadays is a different time.] Today if you had a different dream at night, you will jump out of bed half asleep, call and tell him [the teacher]. So anyway, that is that.

[Question]: In Brazil, there is a belief that spirits could take possession of somebody else’s body and speak via this person’s body. Is it something similar to what you have told about the spirits?

[0:51:19]

[Answer]: It is different. There is this thing in Argentina, and in South America in general, called “tass”. It is when this spirit comes and takes over the human being’s consciousness. It is only liked it put the human being aside like almost what do you call it human consciousness. And the spirit consciousness takes all and bottom of the body. It borrows body and communicates [via it] and do all of it. This is called “tass”.

We have that sort of things even in Tibet. They are known as the oracles. The oracle comes into tass [body]. It means the individual person becomes the medium. The person has nothing to do, and he or she is totally numbed. The oracle completely takes over the human body. Actually, what I am telling you is a little bit wrong. The oracle doesn’t really completely take over. The oracle comes into the body of the human being similar like bees visit the flower. The bees land on the flower and then they fly back and forth. However, they can’t completely take over [the flower]. Similar to that, oracles come in and go out, back and forth. The human being is totally numbed [while oracle comes in into body]. Formally when oracle leaves, the human consciousness comes back.

[0:54:23]

Then I saw another type of the tass. A lot of them are available in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia and all over the South East Asia. It is called half-tass. The person knows everything that is going on and distinguishes between his own and oracle’s words. The oracle doesn’t try to control tass over something. This collaboration has a very funny dynamic. Sometimes an oracle has a little influence over the half-tass person. That is how the tass business really works.

All of this is totally from the spirit world. Is it coming from the good, the bad or the middle spirit world? Whatever it is, this is how spirits contact with human beings, physically or emotionally. That is the link between human and spirit worlds.

[Question]: There are recollections from the people who have died and came back to life. They share the stories about their experiences. Are those stories describe the first stage of death?

[Answer]: Now it is a different question all together. The return from the dead and the near-death experience are the different issues. There are number of people who had return from dead. In Tibetan tradition, there are at least twenty or thirty different autobiographies of people who had returned from the dead and recorded their stories.

[0:57:28]

Most of them give you very similar type of story. It might be due to the Buddhism influence or something else, whatever it might be.

Usually, the plot of the story describes a person envisioning himself standing and waiting in a queue for the judgement call. The queue is long and full of people. It starts on the ground and continuous far into the sky, filling half of the sky. The person stands on the ground in a queue.

Then, suddenly the powerful person comes [flies] in from nowhere and cuts through the crowd. Although stories were written in fourteen, fifteen and seventeen centuries, they describe this person flying in something resembling modern airplane. This “airplane” makes a rumbling noise.

The powerful individual has an overriding priority and doesn’t wait in a queue with the rest of people. He is some kind of spiritual person who comes with retinue. He passes like VIP the record checkers, who stand and wait. The whole queue stands and waits. It doesn’t matter in the story if this powerful person goes up or down afterwards. These stories are very similar to each other, although have different titles or being written at the different times.

[1:00:27]

In the West, near-death stories describe the tunnel and the light ahead. It is very common in the Western culture. The voice will tell you, “Go back, go back…” The Tibetan’s version doesn’t give much more details except that eventually people go back.

There is a reason why they have to come back. This experience is due to the life karmic force being reduced. However, since the karmic mission of this life was not completed, the near-death experience has been stopped. Due to the fact that conditions are still valid for this lifetime, people go back to the current life. Some people come back with a new mission, purpose in life. They say this experience was necessary and now they have to share this experience with others. Some of the Tibetans will tell you that.

People make attempts to distinguish between the near-death experience and the return from the dead. I am not sure; I don’t know how to make this judgement. Normally near-death experience means the consciousness left the body. The separation of body and mind had happened. This is why it is called death, because mind had been separated from the body, and body has nothing to do with the person. It almost feels like body is empty.

[1:03:32]

Internally the death process happens. When those five elements mentioned earlier gave up one by one, normally Earth element gives up first. When this happens, the individual needs a very strong Water element. As a result, you see a mirage, or a puddle of water. This is a clear indication that the Earth element is saying goodbye. Then the Water element says goodbye, you will see a smoke. It is a sign that the Fire element is active. This is what you will envision, whenever you will physically see it or not, that is what you will perceive. [As you move to the next stage, the Fire element will deteriorate, and the Air element will become active.] You will go from smoke to the sparks. [On the next stage, the Air element will diminish and you will envision sputtering flame], the reflection of light. It is like a butter lamp view, but you are not looking at the candle light directly. You observe the reflection of the light in the darkness around the light itself.

[1:06:15]

Just to recall, the indestructible drop consists of the semen and egg mixed together at the conception. It lets the body get structured. The white drop [from the father] and the red drop [from the mother] come together and they are not separated until the person dies.

During the next stage, [the white drop comes down from the center of the crown to the heart] and becomes more apparent to the individual. As a result, a person gets whitish white vision. At that time the external person is already dead, but internally he is still alive.

Next indication you will se a lot of reddish things, because the other part of the drop, [the red drop, comes up from the navel towards the heart]. [On the next stage of dissolution, both drops are reaching the subtle combination of wind-energy and consciousness at the heart center. Upon reaching it, drops enclose this subtle combination and person sees complete blackness.] [The thought process stops] and the person blackouts.

From the beginning of mirage to the blackout every stage is reversable. You can turn back. This is called near-death experience. When you reverse back, you get a lot of hallucination types of feelings. I am not sure if we need to talk about it here in details or not. But if you look into details, there is something like twenty five different ways of expanding and reversing it, and again going back and forth. There are a lot of types of things in Vajrayana teachings.

[1:09:30]

Anything after[before] the black hole, is the near-death experience. After the blackout, the individual feels suffocated and wants to get out. You don’t want to sit anymore and you want to ride [if you are the person who reached a high spiritualty level]. The lower spiritual people will probably suffocate and will want to get out.

That desire to escape becomes the temporary condition. Then energy pushes through, and individual is out. That is called death. If you coming back from that, then you return from the dead. To me, near death experience and return from dead are divided on that line. This is my opinion, but world might not except it, it is up to them. Everybody is an expert and knows about it. I am not an expert on that [laughing].

[Question]: Curnal? Rinpoche said in one of his teachings that during the last four to five stages there is a possibility to become enlightened.

[1:12:13]

[Answer]: It is possible to get enlightened in all eight stages, and especially the last four stages, and especially during the last one.

What happens during the last stage, [if you regain conscious after the previous blackout stage], you will see the lighting light type of thing [also called clear light because it has no color]. It becomes a child-like clear light. That child-like clear light contacts general enlightenment Dharmakaya’s mother-like clear light. That connection of mother and child clear lights gives an extra ordinary boost for the clear light. That is subtle thing there. I didn’t tell I know. You know…

[Question]: Is it usual to have this experience in the last stage because many other conditions have fallen?

[Answer]: Yes, it is much easier because mind becomes subtle, there are no gross disturbances. [You obtain a] sudden focus. And release it too.?

[Question]: Can you train for it during your lifetime?

[Answer]: Yes, you do it every day.

[Question]: When yogi is doing this practice and state of clear light [appears], how far is [the person from] the near-death experience?

[Answer]: What happens it that clear light melts again. When clear light melts again, you will take illusion body. You have illusion body and stages come is this way, and clear light and its stages come in here.

[1:15:22]

When clear light melts again, you take rebirth. It is the same procedure like Trikaya practice at the level of the developing stage. Very similarly it repeats again at this level, and when you take rebirth, instead of Sambhogakaya, you take as illusion body. That is illusion body again melts into the clear light. That is illusion body melts again into the clear light, and until another shape, another shape. Then it becomes the union but the extra ordinary union, but union of default clear light joined into illusionary body and then becomes the effort union. It becomes the “union with effort” level. I am sorry, it is a little bit difficult, it is my bad.

This is “union with effort” level. That “union with effort” level melts again into the clear light, and then it becomes “effortless union” with seven qualities. That is three num [prenum?] procedure thereafter. When you will reach the completion stage, you will know that.

[Question]: until one experiences, when they go, from the point of clear light to the recognition of emptiness, at that moment, when this identification that is me, it is mine. What moment can it still be you? [Until you reach the completion stage and while you go from the point of the clear light to the recognition of non-duality, is it still you at that moment? Do you identify itself as me, it is mine?]

[Answer]:

No, I don’t think so. I think it still during reincarnations. It is still clear light, still there. When in the process again, the mind processes at that level you call it a union, but nothing ordinary union but it is a union. But you going really deep in that time. All your qualities, your body, mind coordinate. The first stage of body coordinates, the first stage of mind coordinates, [because] all of the them you have completed at that time. You already completed at that time, so still there is a duality, but very subtle. I don’t think we could call it free of duality, but it is almost free. This is why we call it “union with efforts”, level of “usefuljun”.

[1:18:15]

You still learning and you are in this union. That process repeats again and comes the normal Buddha level union. At that time non-duality is achieved completely. It is too technical to talk.

[Translator hasn’t translated this question to the audience. She said, “This is something between Rinpoche and Alfred].

[Question]: On the topics of rebirths, are we at the beginning of the cycle of rebirths?

[Answer]: Definitely we are not at the beginning of cycle of the rebirths. We have to be in the center of the endless cycle of rebirths. We are putting a lot of efforts; we work hard and do this [practice]. We do it in the hopes to end the cycle.

[Question]: Normally we believe that when the breathing stops, [we declare the person dead] because of the meddling with the cops. If we interfere with the body during the dying process, is it true that the dying’s person consciousness will be confused and may not concentrate on taking a good rebirth?

[Answer]: Before I answer this question, normally in the West when the doctors declare the person dead, there is something called the brain dead, dead and all of this. When do you pronounce somebody dead?

[Question]: She declares someone dead if both the heart and breathing had stopped. She stops meddling with the body immediately.

[1:21:16]

[Answer]: Is that called meddling with the body? That is true. This is a normal Western approach. The scientists identify death as an absence of pulse, no more breathing, no more signs of life. Since there are no signs of life, it indicates death. In traditional Tibetan Buddhist teaching it corresponds to the levels of whitish and reddish visions.

It depends on karma of individual, whether it is bad or good. It does make a difference. But regardless of person or religion, the rule is don’t touch the body. Some lamas say that the great person will sit in the meditative state for a long time during the dying process. The longest recorded time is my father’s, my last father. It is sixteen days.

At the end of the Cultural Revolution in Tibet, Rimjulin Rinpoche had stayed in that state for fourteen and half days. At first, we didn’t know if he was meditating or not. So, one day, since it has been so long, monks started to touch him. The Rimjulin Rinpoche slouched a little. We were still wondering, is something wrong?

[1:24:08]

It had been thirteen and half days [eleven and half days?]. On the twelfth day, the Rinpoche whispered that it might be time to recite mantras and perform puja. This is what happened. We are not doctors. [laughing] On the fourteenth and half day we knew, it was clear to everyone that he passed away. The sudden drop came out from the nose and from the lower part, pennis. I am sorry that I had to name the part of the body. This sign is an absolute sign of the [body and mind] separation. It is embarrassing, but what it is. Any more questions?

[Question]: What is the reason somebody would stay in the meditation state for such a long time?

[Answer]: As I have told you, the mother clear light and son clear light have leveled. As a result, both lights decided to stay in the steady state for that long.

As I recall, Como Rinpoche came to me and said that Rimjulin Rinpoche was meditating. Look, this is a mix of one matter and the son clear light, but we looked at him and saw nothing. Not only we haven’t recognized that Rimjulin Rinpoche was going via the death process, I had funny thoughts going through my head at the time. It is so embarrassing, you know.

The way of language of Como Rinpoche used is sometimes the male and female dogs (dolls) mixed together. That is exactly the language he used. “He is healing…, but I see nothing”. But I saw nothing as it is nothing here

[All I could think about was the funny voice of Como Rinpoche describing the situation.] So that is sad.

We well get short break for the coffee and come back.