Musing on the Bardo.

I watched a video last night on the Bardo Thodol – a Buddhist text known in the west as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It was written by a Tibetan master quite a long time ago and describes the experiences and trials the disembodied mind must expect when entering the bardo – the state between losing one physical body and taking up occupation of another. I didn’t much like the sound of it, but reasoned that it represents one man’s opinion to be accepted as a possibility along with countless others.

But one little random statement was cause for encouragement. The narrator said that those who had never contemplated the matter of death while in their now-defunct bodies were at a disadvantage. Well, that accusation can certainly not be levelled at me, so maybe there’s hope that the angels on the light side of the picture will preserve me from the hideous demonic projections of my imperfect mind after all. And that ray of hope encouraged me to desist from leaving a very long comment asking all manner of questions which were never even referred to in the documentary.

That’s the problem with life, isn’t it? Nobody ever gives us a definitive annual report so we can see how we’re doing and make the necessary adjustments. I suppose that’s why I prefer to follow such finer instincts as I might have rather than slavishly following the babble of any religious tradition.

Knowing November.

I’m probably more familiar with the month of November than I am with any other month because it’s the month in which I was born. (And a year later it was the month in which I first heard the word ‘birthday’ cast in my direction. I suppose that was when learning the value of words began in earnest.) And November, I think, is one of the profoundest in marking the progress of the year.

October is the month of being distracted by the kaleidoscope of coloured leaves adorning the countless trees gracing hill, dale, pasture, and hedgerow, mixing with and decorating the remnants of summer green. The clean leaves fall with a wholesome dryness which makes them crackle underfoot and whisper as we accidentally brush them with our shoes.

But come November and all begins to change. The decorated trees are mostly skeletal and stark, and the fallen leaves are congealing into an oily mass which offers only silent padding to accompany the walk through the woods. The light is noticeably falling now, and the view is frequently misty as the dampness clings to the cooler air. Fogs form erratically, and the longer nights are more noticeable for starting at around the time when folks return from their daily work. And when I was a boy living in the city, the night air on 5^th November – Bonfire Night – grew almost opaque from the smoke of a thousand bonfires, while the cracks and bangs and flashes of fireworks gave the impression of having suddenly entered a war zone.

(Two particular memories of 5^th November stand out for me. The first is of driving home from work and rescuing a panic-stricken dog frantically sprinting along the main road. The second was at around age seven or eight. I was holding a supposedly safe-to-hold firework which exploded unaccountably. Fortunately the blast only bruised my thigh, and I recall punching my mother’s thigh as hard as I could to demonstrate how it felt. I think she sympathised instead of catching me one around the ear which would probably have been more appropriate.)

And so we shuffle through November until the world settles into a state of cold stasis for three months, when little moves or grows and colour becomes almost a memory. And nine months later I get to have another birthday.