Passing Through the Bardo

On the way up to Canada for the bon voyage, I read the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Thinking that was as good an instruction as I could find. Her funeral was on the day she was coming out of the "unconsciousness" and just heading into the bardo. The bardo proper as it were. I promised myself I would send her a prayer each day, imploring her to go toward the bright lights that mark the city of Nirvanna, not the soft lights that mark a bad road to the hell realms. I read about the wrathfull dieties, Rudra in particular, whose story is particularly appalling. And I read about the situation she would face for six days after entering the bardo and how she would encounter a new spectre of monstrosity each day but that these were merely shadow puppets and delusions, and she could transform them easily enough into luminosity, roughly speaking. It's the great hope of Tibetan Buddhism that as you go through the bardo there's always another chance. The implication is that if you don't get it then you really do need more time suffering the slings and arrows of lower animals and wisdomless creatures....

But I did none of it. No prayers, no good wishes. I don't know what happened. I put things off, I let it go. I went back to my stone and forgot all about the rest...