Latest / Abide Meditation App / What is the Tibetan Book of the Dead

Transcript

What is the Tibetan Book of the Dead · Abide Meditation App

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Wandreum for sponsoring this video. In the late
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, the psychoanalyst Carl jung encountered a Buddhist text
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: that radically shaped his own theories of the mind, the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Tibetan Book of the Dead. In his commentary on the text,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: he called it the quintessence of Buddhist psychological criticism, calling
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: its philosophy sublime and unparalleled. The Tibetan Book of the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Dead went on to become one of the most widely
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: recognized Buddhist texts in Europe and the United States. It
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: inspired movies, novelists, and musicians like John Lennon of The Beatles.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Lenin drew inspiration from the Tibetan Book of the Dead
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: when he wrote the song Tomorrow Never Knows, also drawing
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: inspiration from a psychedelic experience he had while on LSD.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: But what is this text, what does it say? And
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: why did it become such a big deal to people
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: like jung The Tibetan Book of the Dead is the
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Western name for the Bardo Toodle, meaning the Great Liberation
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: by hearing in the Intermediate States. That's a complicated title,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: but it tells us a lot about the text, so
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: let's unpack it. The text is a funerary rite. It's
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: intended to be read aloud to someone who's dying or
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: recently dead. It's traditionally read by a lama, which, if
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: you remember from our previous episode on Tibetan Buddhism, are
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: religious teachers, the Tibetan equivalent to the Sanskrit word guru.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: The opening lines are a direct address to the dead.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Oh elas elas fortunate child of Buddha nature. Do not
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: be oppressed by the forces of ignorance and delusion, but
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: rise up now with resolve and courage. By reciting the text,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the lama prepares the dead to enter the bardo. Bardo
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: refers to an intermediate state after death but before rebirth.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: This is the intermediate state's part in the official title.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: But to understand what bardo states are, you can compare
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: it to a type of purgatory. It's a bewildering state
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of transformation and suspended reality. Technically, it's a state that
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: happens entirely in the mind, not an actual physical place.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: The deceased, sometimes called the Bardo being, will be born
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: there as a mental body in the shape of the
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: body of their next incarnation. The word bardo itself can
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: also help us understand the concept. Bardo breaks down into
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the word bar denoting movement or flowing, and dough, which
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: means a stepping stone or island. Thus, a bardo is
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: a mind island of stillness as you move from death
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: to the next state of being. The gold during the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Bardo state is to liberate the being from smsara, or
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the cycle of death and rebirth. Hence the first part
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of the title the Great Liberation. The consciousness of the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: deceased is in some sense still present in the corpse
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and can hear the text being read as the Lama
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: guides them through the bewildering experiences of the bardoes. I
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: say bewildering because the Bardo being's own karma conjures all
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: sorts of visions, some of them are absolutely terrifying, and
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the lama reading the text helps the Bardo being recognize
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: what they're seeing during this intermediate state. So let's go
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: through three of the bardoes that one passes through after death,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: as described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Though
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I'll note that there are a total of six bardos
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: mentioned in the text, but will focus on the last three.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: The first of these Bardoes, known as the Bardo of
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the Moment of Death, begins as a person is physically dying.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: At the moment of death, the Bardo being enters into
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: an experience of inner radiance, sometimes known as luminous mind,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and can briefly experience a kind of ultimate truth of reality.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: If the Barto being recognizes this state as absolute reality,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: they become enlightened and are liberated from rebirth. If they
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: do not recognize it, which is more often the case,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: they enter the second Bardo, called the Bardow of reality.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: It involves experiences and visions that can disorient the Bardo
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: being if they don't have the Lama's help. The text
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: stress is the importance of moving on, stating that it's
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: not possible to remain here in this life even if
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: they were to try. Not that the Bardo being is
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: reminded of these things. The Llama then warns them of
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: what's to come, O, child of buddinature, when your mind
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: and body separate, the pure luminous apparitions of reality itself
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: will arise, subtle and clear, radiant and dazzling, naturally bright
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and awesome. Do not fear them, Do not be terrified,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Do not be odd. Whatever sounds, lights, or rays may arise,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: they cannot harm you, for you are beyond death. Now
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: now bright lights may not seem all that terrifying, but
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the Barto Being will soon be confronted by the peaceful
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: and wrathful deities. What you're looking at is in eighteenth
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: century Tibetan painting of these deities. The text instructs the
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Bardo Being to visualize the assembled peaceful and wrathful deities
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: as a mandala of deities within one's body. Mandala being
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: a visual representation of a Buddha palace, specific pure lands, deities,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: or even the entire cosmos. They're often used as visual
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: aids during meditation. The peaceful deities manifest before the Bardo
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Being first. For many, this procession of deities will strike
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: fear or others awe in fascination. The text attempts to
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: steer the Bardo Being away from these emotional highs and lows,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: because to be liberated, they must recognize that these images
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: are not separate from themselves. Instead, the deities are manifestations
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: of their own mind. The entire mandala of peaceful deities
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: will array itself in a rainbow of color. They will
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: dazzle the Barto being with many bright lights, while the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: text directs the Bardo being to achieve unity with them
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and not be distracted by the dull path back to rebirth.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: At that moment, do not withhold your compassion, but draw
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: us back from the path, which is the gateway to
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: the diluted animal realms. But if the Bardo being has
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: not identified with the peaceful deities and become Buddhas, they
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: will then be approached by the assembly of wrathful blood
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: drinking deities. And these wrathful beings are as terrifying as
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: they sound. They have many heads, they have sharp fangs,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: they will laugh at the Barto being and make strange sounds,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and they're depicted as being surrounded by flames with weapons
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: in their hands. Although they're wrathful and appear as terrifying
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: blood drinking demons, they are manifestations of pure nature, and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the text explains that they shouldn't be feared. If the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Bardo being recognizes either the peaceful or wrathful deities as
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: manifestations of their own mind, the text says, you will
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: dissolve inseparably within the lights and Buddha bodies and Buddhahood
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: will be attained. So this is a second chance to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: achieve enlightenment and escape the cycle of rebirth. But many
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: people will find this difficult, to say the least. If
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the Barto being becomes afraid, they will not attain buddhahood,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: and the deities will morph together. The peaceful deities will
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: become Mahakala, known as the protector of the Dharma, and
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the wrathful deities will become Yama Dharmaraja, the lord of
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Buddhist hells. Yama will be as vast as the sky,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: brandishing in his hand the wooden slate documenting past actions,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: his mouth echoing with the cries of strike and kill.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: He is drinking brains, severing heads, and ripping out internal organs.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: The Bardo being will then faint from fear and wake
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: up later having failed to achieve liberation from Samsara. From
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: there they enter the third Bardo of rebirth or existence.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: In this stage, the Bardo being's karma determines which realm
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: they're born into, the realm of the gods, the jealous gods, humans, animals,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: hungry ghosts, or hells. The Bardo being will be presented
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: with womb entrances which they'll feel attracted to. Upon entering
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: one entrance, conception occurs and they are reborn. The transmigration
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: process is complete, and the Bardo being enters into a
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: different bardow of birth. As we unpack this complex text,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: we should remember its ritual context. The Tibetan Book the
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Dead is meant to be read aloud. It's an oral,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: performative text, and moreover, as one scholar says, it's meant
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: to be read to the dead corpses are the intended audience.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: As you read the text, you'll notice so much of
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: it is addressed specifically to o child of Buddha nature,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: and many of the stanzas are encouragements or instructions on
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: how to navigate the wild visions of the Bardo states.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: The text reads very differently when you remind yourself of
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: this oral nature of the text, especially the more terrifying
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: parts of Yama drinking brains. So where did the Tibetan
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Book of the Dead come from? Well, first of all,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: we should be clear that the name is a bit
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: of a misnomer. Although it's called a book, it's actually
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: a section of just three chapters from a larger text,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: a text called Peaceful and Wrathful Deities a natural liberation
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: through recognition of enlightened intention. The text is originally attributed
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: to the eighth century contric master Padma Sambaba, who is
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: one of the most revered figures in Tibetan Buddhism. As
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the tradition goes, he prophesied that his teachings would one
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: day become corrupted, so to protect them, he began hiding
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: texts around the Tibetan landscape to be revealed when the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: time was right, sometimes hiding the texts in a cave,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: lake or on top of a mountain, but other times
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: hiding the texts in the heart and mind of a
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: future disciple that would one day be revealed spontaneously centuries later.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: These hidden teachings of Padma Sambaba are called terma, translated
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: as treasure. The Tibetan Book the Dead is one part
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: of one such terma text. The people who discover these
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: treasures are called turtons or treasure discoverers. Turtons are thought
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: to be reincarnations of Padma Sambava's disciples. After giving a lecture,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Padma Sambava would choose one of his disciples and assign
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the task of revealing that teaching in a future life.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: According to tradition, this is how the Tibetan Book of
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: the Dead was discovered. In the fourteenth century, a fifteen
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: year old boy named Karma Lingpa, the son of a
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Tontric master, is said to have found several texts buried
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: in a cave, including the entire collection of Peaceful and
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Wrathful Deities, which, as I said, includes the section that
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: we now call the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It's
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: worth mentioning, though, that this is the traditional narrative of
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: the terma. Many scholars don't accept the story as historical. Instead,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the terma are considered to be works of the Turton
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: who discovered it, and attributing the authorship to Padma Sambaba
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: is more of a traditional sign of respect or claim
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: to authority. Although the Tibetan Book of the Dead is
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the most famous Tibetan Buddhist writing in the West, it's
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: not actually that central in Tibetan Buddhists practice itself. Many
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Tibetan Buddhists are often surprised to hear that this small
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: section of one of their many funerary texts became so popular.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: In fact, some scholars have even argued that it's become
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: more of an American spiritual classic than a Tibetan one.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Why is that? Let's turn to this guy, Walter Evans Wentz,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the American who first published the text in the West.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Evans Wentz was a theosophist. Theosophy is a spiritual movement
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: that arose in the late nineteenth century that drew from
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: several strands of esoteric thought, including Hinduism and Buddhism. In
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, while on a spiritual journey in India, Evans
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Wentz bought a bunch of Tibetan funerary texts from a
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: British officer who had recently returned from Tibet, which at
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the time had been invaded by the British Empire. Evans
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Wentz had a bit of a habit of collecting old
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: texts in languages he didn't know well enough to translate, so,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: wanting to know what these texts said, he traveled to
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: northeast India to meet Kazi Dawasamdup, an English language teacher
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: who had helped Westerners translate religious texts in the past.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: After the texts were translated, Evans Wentz then publish them
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: under the title the Tibetan Book of the Dead because
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: of similarities he saw between it and the Egyptian Book
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: of the Dead. He even believed they both derived from
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a single source of ancient wisdom. Evans Wentz would later
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: describe his relationship with Samdup as one of a guru
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: and disciple. In the preface of the first edition, published
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty seven by Oxford University Press, he says,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: in this book, I am seeking, so far as possible,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: to suppress my own views and to act simply as
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the mouthpiece of a Tibetan sage of whom I was
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: a recognized disciple. So by publishing these texts, Evans Wentz
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: positioned himself in a lineage of guru to disciple. However,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the scholar Don Lopez says, there is nothing indicating that
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: they had this sort of relationship. As far as we
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: can tell from the letters they exchanged, their interaction was
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: a brief two months of formal professionalism. Nevertheless, thanks to Evans,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: whence the Tibetan Book of the Dead would go on
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: to fascinate Western audiences, due partly to the Orientalist tendency
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: to romanticize Tibet as a land of mysticism, and partly
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: because of the perennial fear of death and the desire
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: to understand what comes after. It was immensely popular, especially
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: among Americans interested in spiritualism, azotericism, and altered states of mind,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: especially throughout the nineteen thirties and forties and all the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: way into the nineteen sixties. As we saw at the
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: start of this video, Carl Jung famously wrote introductions to
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: several of the book's editions, and in nineteen sixty four,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the notorious psychedelic researcher Timothy Leary, along with a few others,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: published The Psychedelic Experience, a manual based on the Tibetan
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Book of the Dead, which essentially was a how to
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: guide for psychedelic drugs like LSD and psilocybin. The Tibetan
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Book of the Dead also had a major impact on
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Western culture. The movies Jacob's Ladder and Enter the Void
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: both draw heavily from its ideas and symbolism. Now, the
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: idea that the Tibetan Book of the Dead is more
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: American than Tibetan. Consound off base or even insulting. After all,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: tibet is in the name. The text was composed in
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the Tibetan language. It's performed by Tibetan Buddhist lamas. But
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: thanks to evans Wentz and those that came after him,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the Tibetan Book the Dead was reshaped and repackaged to
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: appeal to an American audience. It's a curious byproduct of
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: religious globalization, in which sacred ideas of one culture become
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: something entirely new when they interact with a different culture.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: As Don Lopez says, ironically, the Tibetan Book of the
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Dead is not really a book, and it's not really
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: about death. It's about rebirth, the rebirth of souls and
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the resurrection of terma texts. Evans Wentz's classic is not
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: so much Tibetan as it is American, a product of
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: American spiritualism. Evans Wentz extracted a few chapters from a
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: much larger cycle of texts and rebranded it with a
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: new American friendly title and added all sorts of commentary
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: to the original text. It wasn't until recent years that
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: we finally got more complete scholarly translations in English. The
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: translation I've been using is from two thousand and five
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and translates more than double the content of Evanswenz's original version. Moreover,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: his version is removed from the concerns of Tibetan Buddhism.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: As Lopez says, the text is concerned with Buddhist rebirth,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: while for American audiences it's been received more as a
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: psychological or even psychedelic classic. In many ways, the history
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: of the Tibetan Book of the Dead is also a lesson
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: in religious authority and the transmission of sacred texts. Many
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: religions have some method of connecting their holy books to
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: an important figure who legitimizes the text, like how Christians
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: ascribe books like the Gospel of John to specific apostles
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: of Jesus, or how the six Sacred text the Guru
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Gran Sahib is the eternal Guru for six, standing in
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the lineage of the religion's ten human gurus. We see
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: a similar phenomenon in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition as well,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: which roots the authority of Terma texts in the lineage
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: of Padma Simbava's disciples, who continually reintroduce terma by reincarnating
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: generation after generation. For the Theosophists, grounding their ideas in
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: more ancient religions like Buddhism and Hinduism is their claim
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: to authority too. Like how Evans Wenz claim to be
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: a disciple of Alama, he positioned himself in the same
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: lineage of authority as Karma Lingpa, himself the revealer of
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the Tibetan Book of the Dead, linking his chain of
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: authority to a much more ancient chain. Thanks to Wandrium
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: for sponsoring this video. Wandrium is an online learning platform
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: featuring educational documentaries, lecture series, tutorials, and more. In today's video,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: we explored the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which exploded
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: in popularity in Europe and the United States, especially among
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: people interested in psychology and altered states of consciousness. If
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: these sorts of topics fascinates you too, then I'd really
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: check out wandrium series Redefining Reality the Intellectual Implications of
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Modern Science, which tackle similar questions like what counts as
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: reality and what is human consciousness in the first place.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: It's taught by doctor Stephen Gimble, who's a philosopher specializing
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: in the philosophy of science. Some episodes focus on physics,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: like the episode quantum Consciousness, which sets out to answer
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: the question can physics explain human consciousness. Other episodes are
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: more biological, like an episode on evolutionary psychology how the
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: human brain evolved. Overall, it's a sweeping series that will
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: help you understand some very abstract metaphysical ideas. If you'd
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: like to watch the series, Wondream is offering the Religion
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: for Breakfast audience a free trial. Head on over to
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: onedreum dot com slash leg for Breakfast or click the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: link in the comments below to get started. Thanks everyone,