Pure Land Practice and Bardo Practice
This teaching is about how the Amitabha Pure Land practice relates with the bardo practice.
There are six bardos: three connected with life; and three connected with dying.
The three bardos connected with life are the:
(1) Bardo of living and dying
(2) Bardo of meditation
(3) Bardo of sleeping and dreaming
The three bardos connected with dying are the:
(1) Bardo of the moment of dying
(2) Bardo of dharmata
(3) Bardo of becoming
When you aspire to be reborn in the Amitabha Pure Land, it is important to practise sleeping and dream meditation.
1. Bardo of sleeping and dreaming: recognize the dream first, then change into Pure Land
If you want to practise sleeping meditation, especially with Amitabha practice, imagine a small Amitabha in your heart, in the form of a small red light the size of a bean, and then focus on that small bean while falling asleep, and that becomes sleeping meditation.
For the dream meditation, you need to tell yourself: “I need to recognize my dream; I need to recognize my dream!” Once you recognize your dream, then you need to change your dream environment into Amitabha Pure Land and imagine Amitabha in front of you.
Of course, at the beginning it is not so easy to recognize that you’re dreaming. It’s even more difficult to see Amitabha in the dream. But it is said that if you can recognize your dream seven times in your lifetime, then you will recognize being in the bardo. This refers to the third bardo, bardo of becoming. Once you can recognize you’re in the bardo, then you can go to Amitabha Pure Land.
These are the bardos related with the living, and how to combine them with Amitahba Pure Land practice.
2. Bardo of the moment of dying: do four things
The first bardo related with death is called the bardo of the moment of dying. In this bardo, we need to do four things before we die:
(a) Letting go
(b) Dedication
(c) Motivation
(d) Praying
(a) Letting go
If you are in the hospital or at home and you know you are going to die, the first important thing to do is to let go of all the attachments in your life.
We did a mandala offering at the start of this teaching. You can do that if you can, or else you can offer a mandala from the heart. That means thinking about all the attachment objects – maybe money, shoes, car, house, business, your children, husband or wife. Offer everything to Amitabha.
So now think: Everything is already offered to Amitabha; they belong to Amitabha. Amitabha will take care of everything; I don’t need to worry about them anymore.
(b) Dedication
Dedication means to think about your life and appreciate that you have had a wonderful life until now. Appreciate whatever you did in your life: helping others, practising Amitabha, practising meditation – whatever good that you have done in your life – dedicate.
(c) Motivation
Thirdly, we have motivation. You could say to yourself: “Today I’m going to die. This is a wonderful opportunity. Maybe I can become fully enlightened; if not, I can go to Amitabha Pure Land. I am going to do this Amitabha and death and dying practice for the benefit of all beings. This death and dying is the best opportunity to connect with my true nature, the real Buddha within me. If not, then I can connect with the outer Buddha in Amitabha and Amitabha Pure Land.”
We say that this is “learning until the last moment”. Grow until the last moment of your life. Actually, it’s a great opportunity and you can help many beings, how nice!
(d) Praying
Fourthly, praying to Amitabha. You can think of Amitabha now above your head. Those who know how to do phowa [“transferring consciousness”], you can do phowa here with Amitabha. And after that, just rest your mind in awareness meditation or emptiness, nature of mind, and any meditation you have learnt, just stay there.
3. Dissolution of elements: just rest the mind in meditation
You will experience the dissolution of elements in your body:
(a) Falling
(b) Melting
(c) Burning
(d) Blowing away
These are what we call the four-element dissolution.
Don’t worry and continue to remain in the meditation. In the end, you feel like everything becomes dark or becomes unconscious. Suddenly your mind becomes very peaceful; at that time the breath is gone, the senses are gone, but your mind is so clear. There’s no subject, no object; no inside, no outside; you are totally free. If you can stay in this state, that is the bardo of the moment of dying, and after that you become enlightened – then there is no need to rely on Amitabha Pure Land.
Normal people who don’t know this practice will not recognize that wonderful wisdom; so normally when we die, we become unconscious, anywhere from two hours to about three and half days and then wake up.
4. Bardo of dharmata: recognize everything is the manifestation of your mind
When you wake up, your mind doesn’t have so much grasping. When you look around, everything looks like a mirage, and there are a lot of lights and sound. You no longer have a gross level body, but a subtle body. And this subtle body is similar to the dream body.
We then have the beginning of the bardo of dharmata. Dharmata means spontaneous presence. Then the manifestation of your kleshas [mental states that cloud the mind and manifest in unwholesome actions], for example, anger and the wisdom of a mirror-like wisdom. If you do not recognize the nature of anger, it’s anger. But if you recognize the nature of anger, then that becomes wisdom, what we call mirror-like wisdom. You will see different manifestations of the five Buddhas. And then five different lights and five different samsaric realms – that is, various manifestations – will come.
On the third day, you will see Amitabha. If you practise Amitabha in this life, then it is like meeting old friends again. “Oh, Amitabha is coming!” If you know Amitabha is a manifestation of your true nature, then you and Amitabha become one and you become Buddha.
If you don’t know everything is your mind, and you just think, “Oh, Amitabha, please help me!” – then Amitabha can lead you to enlightenment or the Buddha Pure Land.
5. Bardo of becoming: one can choose one’s future parents, but the best choice is to go to Amitabha Pure Land
In the bardo of dharmata, there are a lot of different Buddhas, lights, realms, and other manifestations. If we don’t recognize these Buddhas, they will immediately change into different forms, depending on your culture, beliefs and religion.
Now you’re coming into the bardo of becoming, so the body becomes more gross, more solid, not free, and there is more tightness.
Most people recognize at this moment that they are dead. They may go to their friends and say, “Hello, I’m here.” but they wonder why their friends don’t talk back; it is because they do not see them (the dead person).
Those who are still alive may say that their father, or mother or relative had died. Some may still be grieving or crying. You go in front of them and say, “Hello, I’m not dead. I’m here!” But they don’t look at you; then you realize that you are really dead.
At that moment, if you’re still not sure whether you are dead or not, you have to do some research. Go to the beach and walk on the sand and see whether you have footprints or not. If there are no footprints, then you are dead. Or go near a light, see whether there’s a shadow or not. If there is no shadow, you know you’re dead. Or, if you can go through a wall, you know you are dead. Another way to find out is: the moment you think of a place far away, say Europe, you will be in Europe in a split second. That means you are dead; the bardo body can travel by the speed of thought.
Once we are in the bardo of becoming, the opportunity to be fully enlightened is gone. Enlightenment was possible in the bardo of dharmata when we had the subtle body, without the karmic patterns and our habits.
In the bardo of becoming, however, with a somewhat more gross body, the karmic concepts, perceptions and everything become stronger, so now you cannot become a Buddha within three seconds.
Actually, you still have some freedom. You can choose your next life. Think about the next life and where you wish to be reborn. You can come back to this world. You can look for your parents. You can see far away, your senses are open, and you have a much wider perception than what you have now. You can check, “Where should I reborn? Maybe I can come back and choose good dharma practitioners as my parents, so that I can continue to practice dharma in this world.”
Even if you come back to this world with good parents, it’s still very risky. You don’t know whether you will meet with dharma or meditation; you don’t know whether you’ll become a good person again. Therefore, the second choice – I think the best choice – is to go to Amitabha Pure Land.
At this moment, Amitabha Pure land is only one second away from you. It’s the speed of thought. If you just say, “I want to go to Amitabha Pure Land!” you will be there in Amitabha Pure Land immediately.
It is that easy but you have to know that you are dead; and you need to know that you can go there. It’s like when in the dream you recognize your dream, and you have freedom: you can fly, you can walk on the river, you can jump in the fire but not be burned. You are totally free in the dream.
It’s the same when we recognize being in the bardo; then you have freedom. The wisdom is really powerful. Now you can go to Amitabha Pure Land.
6. Remember: one can go to Amitabha Pure Land within one second!
If we know the bardo plus Amitabha, then this practice is really powerful.
Because if we only have Amitabha practice, we will only wait for Amitabha to come, “Please, Amitabha, come, come and help me.”
Amitabha can lead us to pure land, but we don’t need to wait. We have capacity because with the instant speed of thought, the wish to go to Amitabha Pure Land and the practice of the four causes, we are ready to go to Amitabha Pure Land.
Once you think, “I want to go to Amitabha Pure Land!”, and because there is no physical location or direction, actually you are already in the Amitabha Pure Land and you will see Amitabha. You can see big lakes in front of you. Within the lake there are a lot of flowers. You see that one of the flowers is yours. If you feel certain about that, you will be born in the flower as the body of Amitabha Pure Land. The body of Amitabha Pure Land is light, not like our body which is at a more gross level. It’s like a rainbow.
There are no male or female differences, because there is no need to have gross level of food and no need to have gender characteristics.
You can then go to Amitabha, and ask Amitabha to teach you; you can do Dharma practice in Amitabha Pure Land.
Sometimes you come to this world or to other dimensions, to different parts of the world and try to help as many beings as possible. Or, you can go to other Buddha realms and ask different Buddhas to teach you, or you can go to many places.
Source: Based on Mingyur Rinpoche (2020-11-29) on Tergar Asia (facebook.com)
There are six bardos: three connected with life; and three connected with dying.
The three bardos connected with life are the:
(1) Bardo of living and dying
(2) Bardo of meditation
(3) Bardo of sleeping and dreaming
The three bardos connected with dying are the:
(1) Bardo of the moment of dying
(2) Bardo of dharmata
(3) Bardo of becoming
When you aspire to be reborn in the Amitabha Pure Land, it is important to practise sleeping and dream meditation.
(Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche)
Postscript
Alexander Peck has also created a website covering the bardo teachings.
The purpose of the website is to present an overview of the six bardos, as presented in Tibetan Buddhism.
The website link is: https://the-six-bardos.org/