This week’s meditation session is led by Michel Pascal and the theme is Impermanence. The guided meditation begins at 16:42.

This painting is a visual representation of the 14th-century texts Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State—known in the West as the Tibetan Book of the Dead—and The Peaceful and Wrathful Deities, The Profound Teachings of Self-Liberated Wisdom Mind. These treasure teachings (terma) were discovered by the treasure revealer Karma Lingpa.

At the moment of death, according to Buddhist traditions, we have an opportunity to attain an enlightened state of mind. However, our own karma brings up various visions, including terrifying ones. If we do not recognize them as mere projections of our own mind, we cannot reach the enlightened state or a good rebirth.

These images illustrate a structured and vivid experience between death and rebirth when visions of light crystallizing into an appearance of the peaceful deities encourage the mind to realize its true nature and become free. If this opportunity is missed, then the visions of the wrathful deities appear, but at this stage it becomes more difficult to recognize their true nature. If the mind has at least a glimmer of such recognition, then the future birth would not be in the lower realms of existence.

The teachings of the bardo allow practitioners to prepare and train their minds for this liminal state. Ritual specialists often read these instructions to the deceased as the means of guiding them through this difficult process of transitioning to future existence. 

Although the bardo generally refers to the state in between death and rebirth, Tibetan Buddhist traditions identify four or six bardos that occur throughout life, including the bardo of dreaming. The bardos are junctures in which the possibility of awakening is amplified. As we behold this painting may we be endowed with the strength to accept the changing nature of reality with greater ease.