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.