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154 Odyssey to Freedom

Analysis becomes very important here. How can you analyze that "I am going to die"? How can you do an analytic meditation? The only analysis is looking in the past: no one has ever lived forever. We have never met a two thousand-year-old man or woman, and nowhere in history is it written that anybody else ever did either. So, do I expect to remain for two thousand years and shake hands with my great great great great grandchildren? It's not going to happen, we know it.

Now you may think, " Ah, but if I develop spiritually, I can keep on living forever." Well, we talk about Buddha almost as though he went to the bathroom to change his clothes or take a shower or something, but actually, none of us met Buddha. So even a spiritually developed person like Buddha is also not there. He's gone, he died. So thinking, "I'm going to be here for a long time" is not right. We are definitely going to die. We all know that, but still we do have to convince ourselves that we are subject to death.

We are always looking outward, saying, " So and so died." We never ask, "Am I the next person?" Among the very people who used to say, " So and so died," many are gone, and we are talking here after. And in a year or two, you will find many of us gone, too. This is the inevitability of death, that is exactly the situation, and that's definitely what you are going to encounter.

When you spend time thinking about it, you will be really convinced that "There is no way that I can live forever." Yet while we are intellectually telling ourselves, "Yeah I am going to die for sure" and maybe preparing our wills, nonetheless we are functioning as though we are going to live forever. In a way, it is not wrong. This very tradition also gives you this advice:

Even if you have only three days to live, your planning should be as if for a hundred years to come.

That means you should be able to balance yourself. All your planning and preparations should be good enough to function for a hundred

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years, yet, you yourself, as the individual, may even die within three days. That should be the idea.

Allen Ginsberg used to say, "Do what you want to do, die when you want to die, touch whom you want to touch." That is it. Do what you need to do, If you did what you needed to do, it does not matter whether death comes tonight or tomorrow, this hour or in a hundred years; you are prepared. We go in the opposite direction. We are saving the time now and we will to prepare ourselves later. That is our problem. Switch them round! Act now and then things will go well later. It is like that with me all the time. When I travel I have to pack and I will be packing at the last minute all the time. And as I do my packing at the last minute, my packing is no good. I'll find I am missing this and that and the other all the time. I forget my warm clothes, and then I am cold, and then you people see it and you give me an extra jacket, I appreciate it and thank you. But the problem is there because I pack at the last minute. That is okay as long as there is somebody who'll give you a warm jacket or you can borrow something, but when you are not well packed on this big journey called death, you may not be able to get what you need. Then you may remain cold, or too hot, or you may be very hungry for a long time, or maybe you become dull and stupid for a long time. So make sure your future is okay. This is the main purpose of our lives.

Our purpose is also to obtain enlightenment, sure, but that is a long way to go. To tell you the truth, I do not even care, I am sorry. But what I do care about is that I do not want to be miserable, I do not want to be too cold, I do not want to be too hot, and I do not want to be hungry. And this is what is right in front of our noses, this is what we are talking about. So when I go, I do not want to go with anger, I do not want to go with dissatisfaction, I do not want to go with regret, I do not want to go with attachment. I would like to go as though I were a bird flying from the peak of the mountain. That is really true. I do not want anything holding me by my legs. I do not want any load on my back. When I want to land, I will land like a bird, and when I want to fly, I will fly like a bird. We call that a free spirit. Regret, dissatis-

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faction, anger, attachment, will become like a big strong anchor for the bird, and we do not want that. That is what we are preparing for right now. That is why we want to cut attachment, that is why we want to cut anger, and that is why we do not want all these negative things. They make us unfree. We want to be free of those negative emotions.

But let us say we cannot do that, and death comes, what are we going to do? We are not free of anger, we are not free of attachment, we might even be more attached. The thing is, we might get unnecessarily upset; that is possible. You may get angry about your physical condition, because you cannot do certain things that you are used to doing, or the attitude of your companion may irritate you. Anything is possible, it does not even have to be a valid reason, anything is possible.

At least try to remember the Buddha, try to remember the yidam, try to remember the guru, or try to remember Om Mani Padme Hum or even Om alone. Each and every one of them is capable of making sure that you do not meet with a bad future. If that were not true, Buddha would be letting down the sentient beings. And Buddha does not let the sentient beings down! That is why I normally say: bite off only what you can chew, and do not bite off more than you can chew.

Some time ago there was a woman in Jewel Heart, whose mother was dying. She asked me to come and see her mother. I hesitated because I did not know what to say to her. She had been a very strong Roman Catholic throughout her life, and in her last period I did not want to bring the Buddha in and make her more confused. So I said to her, "Look, you had a wonderful life, you have great children, you have kept a great family, you did everything you could have done, appreciate that, appreciate your life, do not regret anything. Look at your children: they are all well established. Do not worry about them. You are going to go through a transition. The transition is from this life, the environment that we are in, into something wonderful and new, God's open space, unlimited opportunities, unlimited things, and you are going to go in there." That was all I could say. And then she passed away two days later. At least you can guide the mind into openness, and associate it with God's open space, with unlimited opportunities

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being available there. If you bring that kind of attitude, it may be helpful.

Timothy Leary died the same way. I was on the phone with him just before he died. He was very happy with this space business, he even let his ashes be sent to the moon or somewhere. That was his last wish. For Timothy Leary it was open space that comforted him. And for a strong Catholic, it is God's open space.

It is perception, that is why it works. Anybody who accepts a monotheist creator can use God's open space as plenty opportunity. And Buddhists can use Buddha, or God's open space, why not?

That is how you should fry to help — such atmosphere and opportunity. The people around you and you yourself can do that. Sometimes, when you look at the companions [of the person who is dying], it can be very difficult for them, too. But you do not want to look at it from the difficult point of view. You want to look at it from the opportunity point of view. The first opportunity is that it is an opportunity for you to serve, and give. And the second opportunity is that it is a purification of your own spiritual practice, and accumulation of merit; both work together. One of the earlier teachers, I forgot his name, had meditated for very long but could not understand anything. One day his teacher got very sick and he was the only attendant helping him and cleaning everything. One day he removed dirt from the bed and suddenly he realized emptiness, while pulling the sheets from the bed. These things happen, and that is why I say it is an opportunity to purify and to accumulate merit.

It is also a rare opportunity. Sometimes people loose their temper. Actually, we all lose our tempers all the time; especially when we lost our job or our house, or our girlfriend or boyfriend or something, we definitely have a temper. The dying person definitely loses everything, so they definitely have a right to show a temper. The persons who are around should respect that. Right?

Tsongkhapa had a special way of meditating on impermanence which will affect our minds very strongly. It is three roots, three reasons and

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three resolutions, so it is called the nine round meditation on impermanence.

Subtle impermanence is not necessarily true emptiness, but it helps us to understand what we mean by emptiness. The way to get there is through understanding subtle impermanence, and visualizing and practicing. Subtle impermanence also helps us to cut down our ego-grasping. It contributes in contradicting the ego desires. It also contributes tremendously to our understanding that as to the meaning in our lives, material things are not necessarily meaningful. In other words, impermanence is considered one of the most important points. The Buddha says:

Of any footprint in the mud, the strongest is from the elephant.

It is the strongest and heaviest, and sets best.

Of all thoughts, the thought of impermanence and death

Are the best to leave imprints on the mind.60

If you look at footprints in the forest, you will see the prints of different animals. But the most important will be the elephant's footprint. Because he is big and heavy, he makes a bigger imprint. Buddha compared the elephant footprint to the effect of the meditation on impermanence in destroying ego.

Death and dying are a gross example of impermanence. There is also a lot of subtle impermanence. For example we change from yesterday to today, and from today to tomorrow, from this week to next week, this month to next month, and this year to next year. We keep on changing. Even from hour to hour and minute to minute, we are changing. That is true. This morning's me is not here, but I am here. So are you. This morning you were somebody else. We are changing. Changing is natural to us. An unavoidable phenomenon. It is an event of life. It is the true nature of life. It is not only important to understand this, but by understanding we will begin to change the values in our lives. To many people, the greatest value of their life is comfort. The meaning ofthe word comfort differs from one person to another. And

60 Mahaparinirvana sutra

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many people have material values. Maybe we have nobody here who really would like to be super rich but many other people would like to be rich. That is their goal in life. That is why they put their efforts into Wall Street. But when you understand impermanence, you will begin to think about values, and then you will see no better value than freeing yourself. Right? So you have to work and meditate up to the point where you really realize how fragile, how impermanent our life is.

21

Thus all created phenomena are impermanent

Please pay attention to this. This is not a part of Lamrim. This is one of the four 'seals of Buddhism' or Buddhist logos, the actual signs of the difference between Buddhism and other traditions. The [first] difference is, the Buddha says that all phenomena that are created are impermanent.

Everything created is impermanent. It is impermanent because it is changeable. It is changeable because it arose dependently. The particles and parts and processes keep it up. That way, it can also be destroyed. Even permanent constructions like landmarks are also impermanent. So whatever we have, whatever we perceive, enjoying, suffering, being tired, being eager, all of those are impermanent. It is changing matter, it is not static. So things should not make you upset so much, because everything is subject to change: what you do not like is going to change into something you do like, and something you like is going to be changed back into something you do not like. This is natural, it is called samsara.

A vivid proof of impermanence is death. It is a Buddhist stamp. If you accept that all created phenomena are impermanent, it makes you become a Buddhist. Actually, this is one seal; you have to have all four of them.

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22

Realize death's time is uncertain

We not only have to convince ourselves that we are going to die, the question is when. Remember death's time is uncertain. If we really knew that answer, boy, it would really be great! We could spend our time on something else and then finally, when the time came, we could really put our efforts in and be ready to do the next life. Unfortunately, we don't know when the time will come. Nobody knows, not even psychics. Take it from me, they don't know it. They may be able to talk to you about a lot of your future, but they won't know when they're going to die themselves. We don't know when the time of death will come. Nobody knows. It is not necessary that a person who is chronically sick will die earlier than a youthful, happy, joyful, bright person. That is true.

Look within Jewel Heart, a few years ago we had Lex here, and nobody thought Lex was going to go. Except, I had a doubt in my head, it popped up twice or three times. Once I saw him so dark, and thought, " What's the matter, is he going to die?" And once I saw him in Colorado, so white, " What's the matter?" Except for that sort of doubt, nobody ever thought he was going to go.

Also, this is the first retreat without Allen, after so many years. He was there and nobody thought he was going to go and wouldn't be here for the next retreat.

And then Gelongla 61 who was sitting right there in this very room, listening to the Mahamudra. He wanted to sit on the little throne for Choedrak Tulku, beside me. I said, "Go ahead and sit." He sat on the throne, wearing old monk's robes, went to his room and died. John Madison was sharing the room, but didn't know he was dead! Even the next morning, he didn't know. We were talking in the men's room, and John said, "I think Gelongla is trying to impress us on how to meditate, he's sitting like that." And I said, " Oh, he's dead." that was a joke. I think it was Steve Kronenberg who said, "If you give him a

1 Gelong Thupten Chöpel, a student from Rinpoche from Malaysia.

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good kick you will know." Then John said, "No he's a monk, I don't want to kick him, but (it was winter retreat) I don't mind taking a bucket of water and pouring it over him!" We were talking like that, and then I walked to the dining room. Suddenly I saw John running without shoes in the snow, "It's true, it's true!" So that's it. He was just sitting there, and forty-five minutes later he was gone. These are the vivid examples. I think they are giving us a message.

The message is our life is extremely fragile. Really, a split second can destroy it. This is the situation we are all in. That is why safety has become so important in our life. There are a tremendous number of external conditions which can blow you off in a finger snap's time. There are a tremendous number of internal conditions which can blow you out every second. So it is very fortunate we are alive, extremely important and fortunate. From that angle, you should also appreciate and embrace life.

The purpose of embracing life, the purpose of recognizing impermanence, which is vividly exhibited through death, is actually to cut down laziness. Though you have such an important, such a valuable life, it is just like a burning candle put outside where the winds are blowing. If that is the condition, what is the best I can get out of it? What is the best I can achieve? That is the main question. What is my mission for my life? What is the purpose? I have this wonderful life, and opportunity and condition, what can I do with it? This is what you have to ask. Once you realize this point, then naturally this question should come up.

When that question naturally comes up, you begin to get an answer. Whatever answer you give is fine. "My mission is to make me rich," fine. Go and do whatever you need to do to make yourself rich. If you find, "My mission is to be healthy", eat brown rice, drink wheat grass juice, or whatever you need to do to. And if you find, “ My mission in my life is to eradicate suffering for me and for others, to become a buddha,” that’s your mission, you are capable, it is possible. People have done it, you have the opportunity, you could do it. That’s your mission, you can do it! Why are you neglecting it? Why are you”letti’g yourself down? Think, "There Is no reason why should I let

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myself down and let my friends down. Why should I do that? I will not. I will achieve my goal. My mission for my life is to eradicate the sufferings, to gain freedom, not only for me, for others, too."

That is how you think, meditate, analyze, and make your mind become oneness with that. Your mind becomes oneness with it not by pushing this in and gluing it. It's not like that. You bring in that suggestion very often, and it is as if your mind gets soaked in it. When you take a piece of paper and soak it in oil, the paper gets completely soaked by the oil. Then if you try to separate the paper and the oil, it's very hard. Right? All the paper absorbs the oil. Like that, your consciousness absorbs the oil-like mind suggestion, and your paper-like consciousness absorbs that thought. It's impossible to separate them, without destroying both. If you destroy both, it's not separated, it's destroyed. That is what is meant by becoming oneness, or union, or yoga.

Then, when death suddenly comes and I am not prepared, what do I do? Take refuge. If you are a little better than that, if you are at the medium level, get out of samsara. If you are at the bodhisattva level, dedicate it to all beings. And if you are at the Vajrayana level, transform it. There are a zillion different things to do; learn them, practice them and make sure it works that way.

Again, Vajrayana is so important here. Without Vajrayana we would not know what to do with our death, we would not know what to do with our bardo, we would not know what to do with our sleep, we would not know what to do with our dreams. These are very important points in life. We should be seeing death as a true reality, a natural phenomenon; it is like sleep, like open space. Bardo is just like a dream; it has the same effect: the sufferings are real, the joys are real. It is true, when you dream about suffering, you are suffering; when you are dreaming of pleasure, you are having pleasure, too. To make death, bardo and rebirth, and also the sleep period as well as the dreaming state, useful and helpful, we need Vajrayana. That's the best vehicle available.

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23

Wonder what happens after death

It is a big question, what happens after death. Can anybody really answer that question? It's extremely difficult to say what happens after death. Why? Because our human capacity cannot see or hear thereafter. It is our habit that when we cannot see or cannot hear something, we take it for granted that there is nothing. We think that if there were something, we should have seen or heard it. Not just us, but millions of people think that when nobody has seen it, when nobody has heard it, we are quite sure it is not there. That is our normal reaction and assumption.

On the other hand, all the spiritual teachers and the founders, like Buddha, say otherwise. Even the Christian tradition tells you that after death you are going to the right side or the wrong side. They, the enlightened beings we acknowledge, are telling us that, contradicting our normal, usual way of thinking. Who is right, me or them? Can you really say, "I am right, my opinion counts more than what Buddha thinks about it or Jesus thinks about it? I am right, because it is me." Then you are a big ego person. Really think about it. I am not going to tell you to believe in reincarnation, never, but think along those lines, and you will develop the thought, " Maybe, maybe there is something, maybe not."

Maybe, maybe not. Like Allen used to say, two or three years ago, "Well, I don't know if there is a future life or not, I'm not convinced yet. However if there is, and I have doubts, I don't want to be deprived of the opportunity for myself." That is a very profound statement. He claims himself to be a Buddhist, and he is, he was. And yet, he said, " I'm not convinced." Truly speaking, we all are not convinced, except that I have the little title called Rinpoche 62 which I don't want to let go. (laughs) I'm holding on, I'm hanging on!

62 This title means Rinpoche is recognized as a reincarnation, in Tibetan tulku. See note 58.

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Then, there are a lot of stories, factual historical stories. A number of children have been born with memories of their previous lives, conversations, schools, parents, hometowns, even school buses. These stories challenge our way of thinking that simply because we haven't seen it, therefore it's not there. Therefore, our assumption becomes shakable, if we are open-minded. 'We haven't seen it' does not necessarily mean it's not there. The strong conviction of 'after death nothing happens, we disappear' has been shaken.

None of us has any real reason to say that we are simply not there after death. Our biggest reason is that we died. Sure we died, we died from a previous life. What proof do we have, that we can say strongly that we had or didn't have another life? Probably, we don't have that at all. Only I have not seen it, science has not produced evidence.

On one side, the scriptures will tell you there is a bardo, there is a next life, you do continue. Buddha goes on and on saying, " There is a continual life, you were there before, you were this, you were that, I was there, I was this, I was that." And he goes on to say, "Because I

am a Buddha, I know it, I don't lie." So Buddha goes on in one direction.

However, we came across with our limitations of not knowing what happens hereafter, or what had happened before. Simply 'because I didn't see it', doesn't mean it's not there. You have to accept that in principle. There are a lot of things we haven't seen that are there, even in this world. How many of you have not seen the Himalayas? But the Himalayas are there. I have not seen Shanghai, but Shanghai is there. So just because I haven't seen it, doesn't mean it's not there. Think about that.

Something happens hereafter, and what happens? Those of you who were there when Allen was passing away, we were observing there, you remember? We only found clear signs that he had departed from his body by 1 1:30 Saturday night. That means we can actually observe, literally, physically, with our own eyes whether the consciousness is within the body or not. We could clearly see that the consciousness had departed from the body by external signs of the body.

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When you can see that much, it means the consciousness is not the body, it is separate from the body. If the consciousness were the body, the body wouldn't have any other signs of lack of consciousness. So there is a separation between body and consciousness; and even between thoughts and emotions and consciousness.

The body may be subject to destruction since it is based on the four elements. As I always say, our human body is like a rented apartment: so long as the roof is okay, the heat works, and there is running water and electricity, we can live in there. When the roof is gone, no electricity, no heat, no running water, then we have to get out. This is exactly how our body functions.

So we are the inhabitants of the body, but we are not the body itself. It is my body, but I am not the body. If you start thinking along those lines, you see the separation between 'me' and •my body'.

What happens after death? Simply the separation of entity and identity. Our physical appearance is our identity. The consciousness within ourselves is our entity. The entity uses this identity in order to function. Now they are disconnected. So you have to get a new identity. And I do not know what you get in Holland, but in America you get a driver's license as your identity. (That's a joke). Your real identity is the body, right? So now it is time to change your identity. It is the rented apartment which is about to collapse: there is no more waters no heat, not enough air. When the house is getting so terrible that you cannot live in there, you got to go, and going here means changing your identity.

So you think, then, “Who am I?" Doesn't matter who you are, you are somebody. Don't spend time to find out, "Who am I?" No point whatsoever, I tell you openly here. Why? If you want to identify, the base on which you identify, your identification, is only the face, or the body, and the name.

It really doesn't matter who I am or who I was. But I exist now. "What am I going to do, how am I functioning now and how am I going to function next, in the future?" this is the question that must concern me. That's me, whatever the name of the person might be. That's me, somehow functioning within my body in a very pervasive

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way. In each and every part of your fingertips you feel it, you get the message. You are sort of everywhere in your body. If you've been pinched, you'll know it. (That's why I am the " Pinchin' Lama"). If you stick yourself with something, you'll know it. If anything happens to your physical part, you'll know it, because you yourself are very pervasive in there. You may not know if something is happening on your overcoat, because the pervasiveness is not there; then it depends if somebody sees it or some smell comes or whatever. So, perceiving something on your overcoat takes something else, while what is on your physical part, you immediately know. That's because of the pervasiveness of your self within your body.

When we say the energy dissolves as people die, what really happens is that the pervasiveness is reducing down. That happens also at the mind level. The memory goes down so much that you don't remember the names of the persons you have spent time together with. Not only that, at the end of that process, you will not even remember your own name. The feeling in the body also starts to decline. The pervasiveness of the area which you cover is shrinking, shrinking. I don't know whether finally it lands in the heart or the head, I have no idea. The Eastern tradition will say it is at the heart level. The Western will say it's at the brain level, but there is a tremendous connection between the heart and the head. I hope we will be able to find something about that from the Buddhist point of view and from the psychological point of view in next summer retreat.63

Really what happens is, when the area of the pervasiveness is completely shrunk down, at the end you realize you cannot remain in here anymore. You are completely squeezed in a corner, so naturally you have the desire to get out. With that one desire to get out, with that tremendous amount of claustrophobia, finally you realize you are completely closed in, so naturally your mind, no matter how subtle that mind may be, will say, "Oh, I have to get out of here!" With the help of that thought, you get out. That is how you die. It is the separation of

63 Referring to the upcoming summer retreat 1998 with Tarab Tulku, From head to heart.

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body and mind. It is the separation of life, society, friends, and me. It is separation; it's not gone, but separation. It's not the end.

So we can quite clearly see that there is 'somebody' called my consciousness, which is me, but out of the body. Where am I going now? This is a big question. Where am I going? What identity am I going to get next time? It is just like getting a [license plate] number for your car. Sometimes you can select and get an easy number, it may cost a little more money, but sometimes you cannot choose it, they just give you one. I have had a car number in America for a long time, it says BIG 11, something. After they gave me the number they looked me at and asked, "Are you okay with this?" But I enjoyed it for a of years. So you never know what you are going to get. You get a human identity, or a yak identity, or you may get a monkey identity, who knows? If you are wealthy enough with your positive karma then you can 'buy' a human identity, by paying with your good karma. A human identity with qualities, with beauty, you can make a choice. So the positive spiritual work is your money to buy what you need for a good future life. It is your insurance, your pocket money, savings, everything. That is why it is important to work now. Work now and try to build good karma and try to purify bad karma. Purifying bad karma is good karma. That is how you build up your savings. It is like putting your money in Wall Street: when the economy is good it doubles, and when the economy is bad you loose double -

According to the tradition you might not have much choice about what are going to do, because your karma almost shapes whatever is to be your future life. Karma becomes so powerful and important for us, because my karma shapes my future. Is there any guarantee that after all, I'll be a human being, so do I get all the human dignity and human treatment? No guarantee whatsoever. Once you are separated from the human body, your human identity has expired. It's longer valid. Therefore you cease to be a human being, you're not a being then. Since you are not a human being, then you can be to anything.

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So, what else? Good one, or bad one? Or in-between? Basically good or bad, not so much in-between. That's how you have to think. And if it is a good one, then what? Human life, or demi-god or samsaric gods realm, the three good ones, or animal, hungry ghost realm, hell realm, the three worst ones. They are more or less symbolic, but that doesn't mean there is no hell realm, that doesn't mean there is no hungry ghost realm. It is more or less symbolic, yet they are there. So, what am I going to be next? That question I leave here for now. I will let you forget about this, have a nice lunch! Don't worry too much about what's going to be next, but do worry a little bit. Don't completely relax, because it is going to happen.

24

Contemplate Bardo

Bardo is a stage in-between. There are some people who will say there are six bardos. In the Tibetan tradition some lamas call our life, the period between birth and death, also a bardo, because it is an in between stage. But when we refer to bardo here, we are talking about life between death and rebirth.

There are a number of incidents that took place in traditional Tibet during the period of over a thousand years that Buddhism has been there. There are several tales that were written by people who returned from death. Truly speaking, nobody, or at least none of us, ever met or shook hands with anyone who has come back from bardo. However, there are a tremendous number of return from death stories, and near death stories available in our society. Maybe the near-death experience and the bardo experience differ, maybe they are not very much different.

Anyway, quote, unquote rely on the statement given by enlightened beings, " There is bardo." Well, if you think logically, everything that has happened in our life is a continuation, a process. And when you come to the death level, what would make it not continue? It should continue, right? If you think about grain and seed, you sow the seed,

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and green things come up; it grows and we pick more grains from there, then we eat ninety percent of them and ten percent are put in the ground and recycled. The process of the continuation is really true.

Look in this way: today's me here, am I a continuation of yesterday's me? You got to be. You got to be a continuation of yesterday's me, and you are going to be tomorrow's me, right? But you are not yesterday's person, you are not tomorrow's person, you are today's being. So whatever we have this moment, right this minute, is the continuation of the period before. And right this moment is the cause of next moment. If we look very carefully in our life, this is what we see. That's between yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Same as last year, this year, and the next year. Same as childhood, grownup, and 'active old,' all continuing, the same me, but sort of different. And I think it functions in the same way with regard to past, present, and future life — the continuation of the human being.

So, logically speaking, if you have an open mind, if you are really thinking, you cannot say no with strong conviction. You do have some hesitation and doubt. That is there, unless you pretend nothing had happened or you hadn't heard, or you just want it to be that way or something. Then it is different, it is stubbornness, that's fine. But otherwise, it's there. As I mentioned to you, Allen used to say he didn't know if there was bardo or future life. "I do not know, but if there is, I don't want to be a loser, I don't want to deprive myself of the opportunity." He used to say that for a number of years, and that's the point here.

What does the bardo look like? Do I recognize you when you are in bardo? Truly not. Your identity has changed. You no longer look like the shape you had when you died, you have a new shape. That shape looks like your future life rather than your passed life. In the Abidharmakosha 64 it is said you look like your middle-aged future life. It is not like us, we have the identity with us, and the bardowas do not carry their identity with them. Their identity is a mental body. Bardowas can see each other, but we do not see the bardowas.

64 Commentary by Vasubandhu on the Abhidharma, the Buddhist metaphysical texts.

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The main task of the bardo person is looking for his future rebirth. By the time you realize you are in the bardo state, you immediately would like to settle. So you are looking for a life. You have a very delicate body and mind. Tiny little things will make you upset, and even make you die. Bardowas die at least every seventh day, if not more often. They remain in the bardo at maximum forty-nine days. By that time you have to take rebirth, whatever you can get. Man, woman, animal, samsaric god, hungry ghost, you try to get a life. What you have to do is avoid rebirth in hell, because it has a lot of suffering, hot or cold. Avoid hungry ghost rebirth, because you will be too hungry. Avoid animal rebirth, because you will be too dull. Remember the limitations of the human rebirth, because human life is good, but even so it has a lot of limitations. Many human beings do not have what we have. So remember the limitations and take rebirth. Avoid the demigod rebirth; it is meaningless. Avoid the samsaric god rebirth; it is useless.

Since it is appropriate in the Lamrim too, I would like to give you the worst picture possible, the bad picture, rather than give you the good picture. Normally, people would like to say death is beautiful, wonderful, a natural process, and blah, blah, blah. This is also true to some extent. It is not necessarily always true for everybody. Some deaths are very, very terrible, painful. I mentioned to you a number of times that person who robbed the temples in Nepal and who died in Delhi. He had a terrible experience, that of Buddha jumping out of all the walls. He was being suffocated and couldn't breathe and this and that. All these happen if you have very heavy negative karma. Sometimes it begins to materialize to that individual before he concludes his time in this human lifetime. That we have seen with a number of different people.

We've also seen the signals of good future life appear to people who didn't die yet, who were still alive. I have given you an example a number of times. There was a Tibetan official who was married to the widow of the Bhutanese prime minister called Jigme Dorje. I was in Delhi when this official was dying. I went from the Netherlands to Delhi, and found him in the hospital. He talked to me and said, " Well

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I couldn't ask anybody else to do it, please take care of this and that." When he was dying he had hallucinations. In the hallucinations, he was saying he had an idea of going. His wife is Tessla. So he said, " Where's Tessla?" I ignored the question. He said, " Well, it's getting late, we have to catch a plane. Maybe she's still in the bathroom, she's not ready yet and we'll miss the plane." Then that disappeared, and suddenly he said, " Where are the Tantric college monks? I can hear them saying prayers. Are they next-door? Am I dying or did you invite them or what is it?" Then suddenly he said, " Who is playing the music?" There was no music at all. He said, "Yeah, there is the traditional religious music going on, who's playing it?" So some people have that even before they die, it is almost materializing to them.

We may call that hallucination. But for that person, what is happening is real happening and real experiencing. Some may be total hallucination, true. Take, for instance, the guy who had the Buddha jumping out of the walls, experienced it happening continuously for like six, seven days before he died. If you look at what this fellow did, he stole the images out of the monasteries and temples, sold them to the collectors and delivered them to Hong Kong. As the consequences of that, this individual really experienced those terrible things.

There's good bardo, and there's bad bardo both. Even in a good bardo, you do have a lot of anxiety, because this is the moment where your consciousness is solidly deep down and at an extremely subtle level. When it becomes a subtle level consciousness, there is a tremendous amount of clarity, and that clarity intensifies the power.

If you want a vivid example, when you are high on chemicals or something, you hear and see things better. The blue is really blue, the green is fantastic green. I took bhang once, an Indian businessman gave it to me. What happened was, I could hear the person talking in the next room as though talking inside my ear! As the consciousness' variety of wandering is reduced, everything is intensified, so the noise is intensified.

That itself will give you the example of the process of the elements signing off, saying goodbye to you. It is very intense. When the earth element dissolves it's almost as there's an earthquake and the

172 Odyssey to Freedom

earth opens and you fall in between. That type of feeling. Or a whole big mountain comes down and you are sort of buried under that. And sometimes when the fire element is walking, it is though you are caught in the middle of hundreds of acres burning.

I am telling you the bad part of it. The good part is fine, joy. The bad part you need to know, you have to take care of it. People don't like to listen to the bad part. They don't want to hear it. But it's not true that, by not hearing it, it's not going to come to you. So, it's better to know.

When the water element dissolves, it looks like you've been caught between in a huge typhoon or hurricane, you are really right in the hurricane. That's why people will always pray, saying, "May I be protected and helped during the narrow passage of bardo." Gangchen Rinpoche always mentioned that 'narrow passage of bardo' business. The narrow passage of bardo is that.

Sometimes the bardo can be very strange. I just remembered one of the return from death stories. She dies and her family gets together. Since she does not know she died, she goes and tries to talk to every family member. They won't notice her. Finally she sees her husband crying and she tries to talk to him. He is so upset and crying, won't even look at her. So she is upset, " What did I do wrong?" Then suddenly she sees her children come in, and she says, "But the children will talk to me." She stands where the children are coming, they sort of walk over her, don't even know she is there. They pass through her, she cannot stop them. She tries to yell at them, hold them, but they won't talk to her. They sort of go on about their business, crying. Finally dinnertime comes, and they all sit down. She also goes and sits at her usual place. People come and serve food, but they don't give her any and go to the next! All these stories are mentioned.

The bardo is not easy. All of a sudden when you are here, all of a sudden you are totally somewhere else, in the middle of nowhere, suddenly stuck on the top of a tree, or on a cliff of a mountain, or some place you have never seen before. Because the body of this bardowa now is not the physical body, it is the mental body. The mental body

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does not need to drag the baggage of the physical body. Wherever its mind is functioning, it can go. Even we, while we're sitting here, we can think of downtown Manhattan, we can picture it, if we have seen it. If you have not seen it, you can at least get an idea. So you get there. But we didn't actually get there, because our bodies are left here; we can't disconnect from the body. If you disconnect, you die. But bardowas have that power; the moment they think, they can get there. They don't really have the power of it, they just can't help it. As a bardowa, when you think something, you are there. You can't stay in one place, you are jumping around all the time. Suddenly you think back, you're back; suddenly you think there, you're there. Then you find yourself rejected by all your family, with sadness you have no place to go, you think, "I am homeless." You find yourself living under a tree, you find yourself making a little nest up in the middle of a tree like a bird, and you try to live in there. All that sort of thing. Plus, if there is rainfall, the rain is not a gentle rain like what we get.

That bardowa feels each and every drop of rain as if it were a huge golf ball that causes a tremendous pain in the body. And the wind is not a gentle small wind, it is so strong that you have no alternative but just to be carried along by it. These are the experiences in the bardo. These are still not the bad ones; the bad ones are terrible; I will not go into that in detail. This much will be enough for us to think the bardos are not necessarily wonderful and beautiful.

Normally people don't like to hear bad things. If somebody writes a book on bardo and writes about many bad things, the editors will cut it out, so you are not going to read it. There is both good and bad bardo. The good experiences you don't have to say much about. As we say, " At the time of the death may Lama Heruka with consort Vajrayogini receive me with flowers, and banners and cymbals and singing. 65 And actually, the gentleman who died in Delhi could hear the cymbals and singing before. So there is no question, that sort of bardo is the good bardo.