The Tibetan Book of the Dead (all quotes are from the Francesca Fremantle-Chogyam Trungpa Edition) invokes the following supplication when the Bardo (5) of Dharmatā dawns:
Now when the bardo of dharmatā dawns upon me,
I will abandon all thoughts of fear and terror,
I will recognize whatever appears as my projection
and know it to be a vision of the bardo;
now that I have reached this crucial point
I will not fear the peaceful and wrathful ones, my own
projections.
It’s also stated that after 3 to 4 days of unconsciousness (after clinical death occurs) the Great Liberation is about to commence. The Diamond-Mind-Body—through its now heightened sense of Amala-consciousness—is empowered to truly abandon all those thoughts of fear and terror (diseased inclinations of the former Skandhic-host mind) fully supra-cognizant that “anything” appearing in the Bardo is just a projection (afterimage) of the now defunct body-consciousness. The Tibetan Book of the Dead also displays (almost Ad Infinitum) in these later Bardo Realms legions of images known as the “peaceful and wrathful ones”—elements of consciousness that are attributive of the Five Dhyani Buddhas, vidyadharas and herukas and their consorts (all in essence encapsulating a veritable storehouse of positive and negative forces within the psyche)—yet all of these, too, like any other “image” are just mere projections of Mind when entrapped in Pluralized Stenosis. While they all constitute some form of inner-transcendent-realization for the Tibetan annalist’s of the Great Bardo of Liberation, for the Lankavatarian they are more of a hindrance than an affirmative factor in the Bardo of Dharmatā. Hopefully, at this stage of the game Pure Luminous Mind has been Self-Realized and a now fully enlightened Tathatic-Spirit has Risen and now Recognizes through the Complete Self-realization of Noble Wisdom that this is truly Dharmakaya Arising—a return to the Primordial Unborn Father (Samantabhadra). Now the Great Mind-Void’s Emptiness is overflowing with the fullness of Uncreated Light that Enlightens the Way Home to Undivided Oneness in Self-Rapturement of the Dharmakayic Epiphany as illuminated through the Great Shining Dharmata Buddha. As Tozen wrote in “Spiritual Maxims: Choosing between the Body of Wisdom and Ignorance”, the concluding chapter in his Dharmakaya Sutra:
“…if your spirit is pure (divine), then this awakened and imageless power of the supreme [the undivided light of the root-buddha] will allow your mind to reveal a body of a deathless and permanent reality that is the shining dominion of absolute truth—the Dharmakaya; indeed, the very nirvanic land of the Buddhas.”
Now the Noble Self-Realization is complete. This is known as the First Liberation in the Bardo of Dharmatā. If there is indeed now full recognition (after lengthy preparation of Deep Samadhis in Bardo 3), then Liberation is won. *There are no further Bardo experiences.* If however, liberation does not occur in this first stage (Day One) of the Bardo of Dharmatā, then the estranged spirit is lead through Six other “Days” in this particular Bardo Realm in hopes of achieving that final liberation and release. Five days correspond to the Five Dhyani Buddhas we encountered in our study of Bardo 3: Vairocana, Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddhi. Since many do not first recognize the First Liberation in the Bardo of Dharmatā as the Dharmakaya of their own Mind, then these subsequent days follow suit. Each Tathagata offers a means of liberation, yet if their “pure” aspect is not met and recognized, then there is danger of reverting, and embracing, their “negative-skandhic” aspects. For instance, many people in “near death” experiences report seeing a “white light”; this light is NOT the Luminative-Liberating Light of the Dharmakaya, but rather the pleasurable soft-white-light of the gods—meaning the gods in one of the six realms of samsaric existence. Hence once can become “influenced” through one of these gods in their next incarnation (for example, the god “Jehovah”). Or, one can become encited by the smokish-hue of the Hungry Ghosts—the antithesis of Ratnasambhava’s Yellow Light—thus condemning themselves to the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts. The final “day” in the Bardo of Dharmatā revolves around visitations of the Wrathful Deities—the aforementioned negative manifestations of elements of consciousness. The Bardo of Dharmatā thus complete, a still estranged spirit needs to venture forth with the remainder of “49” days that completes the entire Bardo Cycle, as reported in our next blog—Bardo Realm Six, or the Bardo of Re-becoming.