After we emerge from the bardo, we will take rebirth with a different body and identity.
Just as our experience in the bardo depends upon our (1) karmic deeds, (2) mental tendencies, (3) emotional tendencies, and (4) spiritual attainments, these same factors will be the determining force behind our next rebirth.
It is possible to recognise our true nature—our intrinsic awareness as it is—in the bardo, or indeed in any of the four passages of life (see explanation below under “Life, Death, and After Death”)
If we can maintain that realisation, then we will be fully enlightened, free forever from rebirth in the cycle of delusion.
However, enlightenment takes many years of total dedication; it is not achieved by attending weekend workshops or doing a few minutes of meditation for several years.
Fully accomplished adepts—advanced masters of spiritual practice—may attain enlightenment and then take rebirth by choice rather than because of past karma. Their habitual chain of karma would have ceased or been transcended. For them, phenomenal existents (that is, all the things that appear to exist in the phenomenal world) are nothing but projections of the qualities of their own minds.
If we keep aspiring to enlightenment, and if we stay on the meritorious path, one day we too will reach this goal.
But for now, the path taken by fully accomplished adepts is not feasible for ordinary people like ourselves, who are without great spiritual attainment.
According to previous karmic causation, ordinary people are bound to take rebirth in one of the six realms of samsaric existence.
People who have trained spiritually and possess an abundance of merits will enjoy healthy future lives in happy world systems.
If we have been peaceful, kind, caring, helpful, and wise, and if we have put our meritorious attitudes into practice by word and deed, we will enjoy rebirths in the worlds of peaceful, joyful, and helpful existence.
If in this life we have practiced seeing, thinking, feeling, and believing in the presence of a pure land, we will take birth in a pure land, because of the mental habits that we have cultivated.
Such a pure land will not be the ultimate pure land of the enlightened state, but a manifested pure land of great peace and joy. Not only will we enjoy the qualities of a joyful world, but we will also radiate blessings of the pure land infinitely to all who are open to receiving them. We will still be under the control of karmic law, but it will be a karmic cycle of happiness.
Following such a path of life is practical and attainable for many people, and we must make it our main priority.
What about ordinary people whose lives have been filled with negative emotions?
If our mind has indulged in (1) anger, (2) greed, or (3) ignorance, we are bound to face a very hellish existence as the consequence.
As we travel through the four transitional passages, the severe consequences of our negative mind will be just like wearing tinted glasses that darken everything we see.
Instead of the familiar surroundings we knew when we were alive, all around us will be images, sounds, and experiences of fear and misery. Such will be the phenomenal appearances that arise in our awareness as a result of the prevailing mental state that we nourished in life.
Many of us, whether we acknowledge it or not, are engaged in and cherishing such a mindset—day in and day out. Often it is an unconscious process. Although externally we may not think of ourselves as such “bad” people, we may be secretly bathed in the (1) toxic emotions, (2) selfishness, and (3) craving that modern culture encourages.
We must stop fooling ourselves and start to change our ways this very day, while we are still lucky enough to be in a human body and have a degree of choice.
Once we are dead, we will not be able to make changes, because our karmic tendencies will take over. They will drive us to be born again—possibly in nonhuman realms, where spiritual progress cannot be made. We will wander through an unending cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, full of suffering and excitement.
Life, Death, and After Death
The endless delusory cycle of life, death, and after death is known as samsara in Sanskrit. It is sometimes pictured as a ceaselessly turning wheel. Cyclic existence has been divided into four periods or passages representing different stages of experiences:
(1) The passage of this life starts at conception and ends with the “fatal sickness,” or whatever is the cause of death. Each moment of existence is also considered a “passage of life” that arises and then dissolves in an endless chain of changing events moving between birth and death, waking and sleeping, happiness and suffering.
(2) The passage of dying begins with the fatal sickness and goes through the gross and subtle dissolution, when physical, mental, and emotional components disintegrate. This phase ends at the cessation of breathing.
(3) The passage of ultimate nature starts at the moment when the “luminosity of the basis” – the true nature of the mind, as it is – arises. This period is characterised by the spontaneous arising of “luminous visions” – the appearance not just of light but also of sounds and images. It ends when these visions dissolve. However, ordinary people will not recognise the luminous visions as expressions of their own nature. Instead, they will perceive them all as objects of fear or attachment. For them, the experience will last only a moment, because they will fall into unconsciousness.
(4) The transitional passage, or bardo, starts either when the spontaneously arisen visions dissolve or when we regain consciousness. It ends with the conception of our next life.
In Tibetan Buddhist texts, each of the four major periods or passages described above is considered a bardo – an intermediate or transitional passage – because each comes between two other periods.
Thus, even life is called a bardo, strange as that may sound, for it is simply the transition between birth and death.
Nevertheless, many people use the word bardo exclusively for the interval between death and the next birth – a momentous time, rich with many vivid experiences and offering crucial opportunities for determining one’s future existence.
Source: Thondup, Tulku. Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth: A Tibetan Buddhist Guidebook. Edited by Harold Talbott. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 2005.
We must stop fooling ourselves and start to change our ways this very day, while we are still lucky enough to be in a human body and have a degree of choice.
Once we are dead, we will not be able to make changes, because our karmic tendencies will take over. They will drive us to be born again—possibly in nonhuman realms, where spiritual progress cannot be made. We will wander through an unending cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, full of suffering and excitement.
(Tulku Thondup, Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth)