a teaching by HE Tai Situpa Rinpoche
Every moment is a continuation of the previous moment. This moment-by-moment continuation happens all the time. We don’t say this officially, but we can say that today’s myself is the incarnation of yesterday’s myself. Or we can view it as a continuation of the mind and the process of thought. We don’t usually say it this way because we’re continuing this mind, this thought, in the same body. But except for that, reincarnation simply means the continuation of mind.
In Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism, Lord Buddha gave numerous examples of samsara and enlightenment. These examples clarify many of the complexities that prevent people from having a proper understanding of reincarnation. He said, “Since beginningless time until enlightenment is the longest dream. No matter what incarnation we take, that incarnation is always involved with the self. Therefore, the longest dream is the dream of self, the dream of samsara. We awaken from that dream when we attain enlightenment.” That dream takes many forms, many conditions, many environments, many dimensions; whatever we wish to explore, we can explore in a limitless manner.
Then he said, “After that, the shorter dream is the dream from birth until death.” He said, “From birth until death, a particular person dreams of a particular realm. If he is human, he dreams like a human. If he is animal, he dreams like an animal. That is life.” That dream begins from the moment of birth and ends at the moment of death. When the next reincarnation occurs, the dream begins again.
It is our individual relative cause and condition that determines whether we manifest as a human being or animal or some other being in one or another of the six realms. But regardless of the particular realm into which we’re born, we have a continuation that goes on until death.
Then Lord Buddha explains the third, the shortest, dream. This is the ordinary dream that we dream when we’re sleeping. This dream is definitely related with the subconscious aspect of our mind. We dream about things that have something to do with us, something that involves our subconscious mind.
Lord Buddha explains that, ultimately speaking, nobody is dead and nobody is born, but relatively, everyone who is born has to die, and everyone who dies has to be born. That’s how reincarnation is taught by Lord Buddha.
Levels of Reincarnation
Now let’s be a little more specific. I’ve noticed that people tend to be confused about the difference between ordinary rebirth and the reincarnation of masters or bodhisattvas. Within my limited capability, I would like to try to make it clear.
We can look into reincarnation on four different levels. Let’s start from the so-called lowest level and then go up, moving from the surface into the depth.
Ordinary Human Birth
By the time an ordinary sentient being is about to take rebirth, at that stage he or she is born without a choice. Earlier, everyone has a choice, but at that stage there isn’t much choice. This is because of everything that came before. As I explained yesterday, every moment we recognize ourselves, but we miss it. For this reason, how we deal with ourselves affects everything else, including how we deal with others. Because of this cause and condition, when we take the next rebirth, that particular force forces us.
For example, if we’re careless about our temperament and become aggressive, then, when somebody says something we don’t like, our temper just manifests. It defeats our strength and takes over. Later we might feel regret, but at that point, we haven’t much choice. In the same way, our next reincarnation is influenced by whatever cause and condition—in Buddhist terms we call it karma—we have. So we can say, although this word might be a little bit too strong, the rebirth of an ordinary sentient being who didn’t develop wisdom is determined by the power of karma, without too much choice.
Rebirth of a More Developed Sentient Being
A second kind of rebirth involves people who developed a tremendous amount of pure compassion or pure devotion or good intention, and who put their pure intentions into action. Those people have tremendous power to overcome any negative influence. Let’s say that a bad-tempered or hot-tempered person decides that their temperament is detrimental to themselves, or to their friends and colleagues, and they decide they want to improve, so they employ the necessary methods to overcome their temper. That person becomes a person with good self-control. When they face a negative situation, they can control their temper rather than their temper controlling them. In the same way, those people who developed tremendous pureness and strength will be able to overcome lots of karmic forces. This means that even if we have all the conditions for a negative rebirth, or a lower rebirth, our strength can transform that, and the next rebirth can be a better one. That is another type of reincarnation.
This also might include those who develop strong faith and who, in the moment of death, say “I want to be born as [whatever they think the best birth is].” If our life can end with that kind of pure inspiration, with no fear, and no greed—then it is possible that that particular rebirth might take place.
Rebirth of a Bodhisattva
The third category of reincarnation is what we call “reincarnation of a bodhisattva.” It might be more appropriate to say “From the first-level bodhisattva until the tenth-level bodhisattva.” The previous category might be those individuals who have developed some bodhicitta but have not yet attained the first-level bodhisattva.
According to the sutras taught by Lord Buddha, the first-level bodhisattva can reincarnate in one-hundred places, in one-hundred forms. A second-level bodhisattva can reincarnate ten times more than that, a third-level bodhisattva ten times more than that, etc., all the way to the tenth level.
How does a first-level bodhisattva manifest? Whatever manifestation that first-level bodhisattva takes, it is a reincarnation. A bodhisattva can reincarnate as fifty fully mature manifestations, and those fifty can simultaneously manifest another fifty. The first manifestation doesn’t have to die before the second manifestation takes place, as long as it is within the one-hundred. It sounds technical, but I’m using this example to give you a better idea. Compared to our own level of consciousness, this is quite amazing—almost unimaginable. It seems unlimited. But for that particular bodhisattva, it is limited. That’s why Buddha said one-hundred instead of limitless manifestations, And that’s why it is first-level bodhisattva, not Buddha.
From that aspect of manifestation until just the moment before full enlightenment, all the manifestations are bodhisattva manifestations, bodhisattva incarnations. Bodhisattva incarnations only have one purpose—to serve sentient beings. There’s no other purpose for manifesting into one-hundred. It’s not for our own amusement, but to serve more sentient beings, in more places, with more hands and more eyes. Therefore, a great bodhisattva like Avalokitesvara has one-thousand arms, with one-thousand eyes in each palm, so that whenever he does something, he also sees it.
Rebirth of a Tulku
The fourth level of incarnation is translated as tulku in Tibetan. In Sanskrit it is nirmanakaya. I have found there is a great deal of confusion about the word tulku. Tulku simply means “emanated body.” Incarnated lamas nowadays adopted the term “rinpoche.” Rinpoches are not necessarily first-level bodhisattvas. They can be in the second category—a more developed sentient being—but definitely they are not Buddha nirmanakaya. Usually they are in the second or third category.
The word tulku usually means one of two things. It is the incarnation of a great master, a bodhisattva of the first level to tenth level, and then for the Buddha nirmanakaya. The Buddha nirmanakaya is limitless. The definition of Buddha nirmanakaya is very specific. Lord Buddha says, “How does Buddha manifest to individuals who are above first-level bodhisattva?” That is sambhogakaya. “How does Buddha manifest to ordinary sentient beings who are below first-level bodhisattva?” That is tulku, the nirmanakaya. No limit. Each of the numberless sentient beings in existence can have this same condition to encounter a Buddha nirmanakaya. If that is so, Buddha can manifest at the same time, and each manifestation can be ten different things. There’s no limitation for the Buddha nirmanakaya.
These four categories roughly cover reincarnation. As you can see, the Buddha’s reincarnation is very different from a bodhisattva’s reincarnation. And a bodhisattva’s reincarnation is very different from a strong, positive, well-developed person’s reincarnation. And a strong, positive, well-developed person’s reincarnation is very different from the reincarnation of an undeveloped, ordinary sentient being who has tremendous defilements. They are all different. But we must remember that these definitions are only relative. Ultimately there shouldn’t be any definition, but relatively there is.
Reincarnation and Death
Reincarnation normally involves death. Except for the bodhisattva reincarnation, or Buddha nirmanakaya, every other reincarnation involves a kind of death. Without dying we can’t be reborn. So the definition of reincarnation involves this body dying and this same mind going into the next body. Then it has to be reborn.
So now I would like to share some of the basic teachings about the bridge between this life and the next.
First Bardo State
Death simply means the death of the body. It has nothing to do with the mind. If we define death in medical terms, it might become very complicated. To make it simple we can say that death begins when the mind starts to leave the body. When the mind has totally left the body, death has already occurred. Again, it is the death of the body, not the mind. Mind can never die. Mind always continues. However, the death of the dualistic aspect of mind is enlightenment.
I have heard people say “I don’t want to be reborn. I don’t want to come back.” I think I understand what they mean. I have to say that, as Buddhists, if that is really our wish, we should work very hard to overcome our defilements, our ego and the dualistic aspect of our mind. Then we will be free from all that we would like to be free from.
But I wouldn’t worry too much about that. We might not like this body, or even this particular situation, but if we die naturally, when we’re reborn we won’t remember. Of course, if we do remember, we’ll definitely have a problem. We’ll say “Oh no, I’m back here! I’m in trouble again.” (That’s a bad joke. I shouldn’t say these things!)
The reason I say death is very important is because, right now, we feel quite normal with this body, this mind and these five senses. It’s not too complicated. There’s nothing special or unusual about it because we’re used to it. But if we really look beyond all of this, the way we are is quite amazing.
I’ll try to briefly explain this simply and clearly. In Vajrayana, Lord Buddha explained how we came into this body. He said that our mind, which is limitless, is limited by the self. Just saying “I” limits everything. That I, that ego, the forces of karma, everything that is stored in that ego as a result of our desire, anger, jealousy and greed, etc., creates an energy. That energy is involved with the most subtle aspect of external universe. That subtleness is the connection between ourselves and our parents. That subtle energy enters into the most subtle part of our parents’ emotions and their body. That’s how we start to be in this physical body. That is what we call “liquid body.”
From that time, everything is continued. According to the causes and conditions that are closely related with our ego, we take on a particular unborn form. That unborn form develops systems inside of it according to our parents and our connection with them. Then we are born. The rest we know.
Based upon this, we can now talk about death. The way we go out has to be similar to the way we came in. When we die, we have a big body, so the process is slightly different, but it can’t be too different. Forward and backward. Rewind. (It shows that I listen to tapes.)
This process starts even before we die. It is taught in the tantras that if a person dies naturally—not as the result of an accident—we can predict that person’s death up to six years before it happens, just by reading the physical signs relating with the five senses.
The last and most major sign of death is the absorption of our physical element into the elements of nature. It is said that the physical earth dissolves into the universal earth, the physical air dissolves into the universal air, the physical water dissolves into the universal water, and the physical fire dissolves into the universal fire. Many different signs are mentioned. When all of these things happen, we’re at the last moment. And in that last moment, our mind is going back into our center.
This again relates to how we began. At the beginning, when our liquid body first enters our physical body, it is all over. Then, after 24 to 29 days, it develops the central channel, where all of the energy concentrates. According to tantric medicine, that is why the middle part of our body is so important. We can lose our hand but we’re still alive. We can lose our leg and we’re still alive. But if our head is gone, we’ll die. If our heart is gone, we’ll die. The central part, or what we refer to as the trunk of our body, is very important. From that central channel, everything else develops, like a tree trunk and its branches.
When we die, instead of going back to the liquid body, we go back to the center. There are many descriptions of this in the bardo texts. In one description, it is said to be like a big explosion, or collision, and the mind goes into the middle. Then, when the body and the mind separate, the mind faints. Even now, if someone walks up behind us and hits us on the head with something hard, we’ll faint. It’s the same thing. When all of the energies and connections between our mind and our body break, we go into the center. Then we faint. That is called the “first clear light,” because it’s the greatest explosion we can imagine. It is one of the reasons we forget everything. Even now, if someone hits us on our head and we suffer a shock, we may forget everything. And it might take us a long time to remember. When the body and mind separate, something similar happens, but greatly multiplied in intensity.
According to the bardo teaching, if we recognize that state, there is a great chance for enlightenment. Because of this, great masters like Milarepa say, “For a yogi, a natural death is the enlightenment.” When our body and mind separate, in that moment we have an opportunity to recognize the nature of our mind more precisely, without the influence of the body. In that moment, we can recognize. But it should be without greed, without fear, without resentment—a proper, natural death. Fortunately we can practice for that final moment so that we don’t waste our natural death.
After that comes the “second clear light.” Actually, the bardo is described as first bardo, second bardo and third bardo. This involves the death aspect of bardo. The first bardo has the first clear light and second clear light. The second clear light is that when we awaken from this, there is one more thing that happens. Because of our karmic power, we have to come out of our body. This process has to take place, because why are we in this body? Why are we with our particular father and mother out of all the numberless sentient beings? There is a very strong cause and condition. So, leaving the body is the last thing we have to overcome.
The body is like a cave because of our karmic connection, and outside of the body is everything else. This is called second clear light, because it is total exposure to everything. This is a tremendous condition in which, if we have good development and strength, we can have great realization. Otherwise it can be the most frightening experience you can ever imagine.
The reason for this is mentioned very clearly in the bardo text. It says, “Right now, we are very limited. We can only see certain things. We can see only what we can see through our particular eyes.” Our eye is here, so we have to look here. The eye has to be focused on something. If we want to look there, we have to turn our head and look. Listening is the same. We can hear only the particular type of sound that our ear can hear. But this is not every sound. Everything is like that. With touch, we actually have to go over there and reach for something with our hands.
When we leave our body, however, there is no limitation. It’s like we’re nothing but eyes, nothing but ears. It’s like we’re everywhere. This is the second greatest exposure, the second clear light. If we recognize that stage and have the awareness, that is another chance for great liberation, because there’s nothing between ourselves and everything else. We become everything, everything becomes us. That’s really how everything is, but if we don’t know it, we’ll be quite frightened.
I have a very stupid example that suits this situation, maybe 5%. Someone once asked me “What level of development must I attain to be able to attain this awareness?” I told him it would be like falling from an airplane 35,000 feet in the sky, without a parachute, and having to take a paper and pen and write the most meaningful, most beautiful four sentences of poetry on the way down.
Second Bardo State
The second bardo is called yid kyi lus in Tibetan, which means “mental body.” Here things are slightly calmer. It says, “After that exposure, you’ll slowly go into another stage that is involved with your past and your future—your past life and past karmic connections, and your future life and future karmic connections.” It will be divided in the middle, as far as time is concerned. In the first half, you’ll feel very much like your past life. In the last half, you’ll feel very much like your future life.
This covers the main part of the bardo period. Here it says that we have no limitation, as we do now, but we still have thoughts and emotions. And because we are no longer limited by the physical body, we also have the power to think of something and be transported there immediately. If we think of the sun, we’ll be in the middle of the sun right away. Without this physical body, there is no external, universal influence. If we can recognize in that stage, it is definitely another chance for enlightenment.
Let us take practitioners of Pure Land as an example. Most of the Far East—almost all of China—follows Pure Land Buddhism. That involves hundreds of millions of people. If they recognize at the time of death that they have died, and they remember that they want to be reborn in the Pure Land of Amitabha, in that instant they can be born into the Pure Land and their wishes fulfilled.
Third Bardo State
The third bardo takes us a little closer to rebirth. In this stage, almost the same thing happens as before. We have a very strong sense of our future incarnation, whatever we’re going to be. For example, if I’m supposed to be born as a dog, in the last half of my bardo I’ll feel like a dog. This will be close to the third bardo. At this stage, the dog thought is also gone again, just like before. Then we become totally involved with universal energy one more time, and feel as if we’re nothing but eyes, ears, etc., as I said a little earlier.
In this stage, it’s like trying to find a refuge, because there is a tremendous amount of light and sound from which we try to find escape. That’s where the karmic power creates the energy that then involves our parents and a particular realm. Then we enter that particular realm. So this is the last part of the bardo.
In the bardo texts, this last part is also mentioned as chos-nyi-bardo. Chos-nyi-bardo explains all the manifestations of the peaceful and wrathful deities and the various lights, each representing the different realms. All of that falls under this particular aspect of bardo. In this stage, if we recognize, we can be enlightened and also choose our next incarnation. If we’re not overwhelmed by exposure, we can choose the right realm, the right parents, everything. But that will be our last chance as far as the bardo is concerned. Then the bardo is over.
The time span of the bardo is specifically for the human beings of our planet, because the bardo teaching is given for the practice of human beings and taught to our type of human beings. I’ve never seen texts that mention whether or not it covers other realms. Great masters have commented on it and said it covers only the human beings of planet Earth, and it doesn’t even cover animals of our planet. So, it was said by the masters but I’ve never seen it written as the direct words of Buddha. For a human being of our planet, the maximum period of bardo is 49 days. The minimum can be anything from just a split second, to one week or two weeks, but the longest is 49 days. That’s how it’s explained.
Since an understanding of bardo is essential to understanding reincarnation and how it happens, I’m sharing it with you. I hope you will find it meaningful.
Practice of Bardo
I’d like to say a few more things before we close. Many of us are doing our practices, and the result or fruition of all this practice will be in the future, in a future life. There’s no question about it. But for those who wish to prepare for the bardo, there are a few practices that are specifically mentioned. I’d like to share some of these.
First, always remember impermanence. That is very important. We never know when we’re going to die. Medically we might know, but many people die quite suddenly. We all know we’re going to die, but we’re not sure when. Because of that, to acknowledge impermanence will help tremendously. It will be less of a shock. When something happens, we will experience less fear and resentment. When it happens, it happens. Even if we resent it, it doesn’t help, so it’s better to accept it smoothly and handle it properly rather than be upset and become influenced by our emotions. So, to remember impermanence is very important.
Some people have expressed to me that remembering impermanence makes them feel disorganized, that it’s bad for business. I don’t think that’s true. We can be a better businessman or businesswoman if we remember impermanence, as long as we remember it correctly.
Second, never overlook positive or negative deeds. Always take them seriously. That is also very important. If we see that we can do something good but we just forget about it, and because we don’t take it seriously, we lose the opportunity, that’s quite unnecessary. And if we see something negative that we can avoid, but we’re lazy and we don’t bother to avoid it, that’s also unnecessary. We should take positive and negative things seriously. And if we can, we should avoid negativity as much as possible and practice positiveness as much as possible. Even if it’s just somebody in the street who needs money, if we have fifty cents, we just give it. Fifty cents is not really very much. If we give it and the person can use it, that’s good karma. So we shouldn’t deny even a small thing.
For example, even if we see a fly jump into our glass, we shouldn’t pour it into the sink. We can throw the fly out the window and then pour the water into the sink. It’s simple. It doesn’t take much, and it wouldn’t make us fanatic. We shouldn’t deny positive or negative deeds. Also, we shouldn’t think, “What’s the use in saving this fly? I eat meat.” Don’t think like that. We might be eating meat, but we might as well save this fly as well. What’s wrong with that?
Third, the practice of dreaming is also considered helpful for the bardo stage, because bardo is a little bit like a dream. Of course, there is no comparison between the enormous reality of bardo and the small illusion of the dream, but some relation is there. Therefore, when we sleep, when we dream, we try to have mindfulness and awareness and recognize that we’re dreaming in our dream. It won’t disturb our rest. It might even help us rest better in our dream, because if a tiger chases us and we recognize that we’re dreaming, we don’t have to run and be exhausted when we wake up. We can just sit there and see what that tiger does. Even if he bites us and throws us around, nothing will happen. Maybe the tiger will talk to us, or we might become the tiger, or the tiger might even fall asleep!
Fourth, a practice like powa, the blessing of the transference of consciousness, will be very helpful. Participating in empowerments that involve bardo will also be very beneficial. Any dharma practice will be very beneficial, and any good thought, good inspiration or doing good deeds for others will be very beneficial. And if we can contemplate or meditate on the nature of the mind, and have some direct experience about the nature of our mind, that will be of tremendous benefit. That is one of the most important benefits of meditation, actually—the recognition of our buddha nature. Even if it is only a glimpse of recognition, it will really be worth it.
All of this will be great preparation for the bardo. Also, we can read the Bardo Tödröl carefully, and contemplate it. There’s no need to become obsessed, but comfortably and sensibly reading through it and contemplating gently might be very helpful, because we’ll know what to expect.
One last thing. I’m not sure how many times you’ve heard about this, but this is something we can relate to right now through our physical senses. We call it “sound of nature.” This is an enormous noise that happens all the time and which we can hear when we’re calm and our surroundings are quiet. But because we’re always thinking, always occupied, we never hear that sound. So, if we really concentrate, and we’re very calm, we can try to maintain that sound, at least when we’re resting in our bedroom and reading books. This will help tremendously, because that is one of the sounds that we will encounter during the bardo.
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