The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying [Paperback]

'What is it I hope for from this book? To inspire a quiet revolution in the whole way we look at death and care for the dying and the whole way we look at life, and care for the living.'

An acclaimed spiritual masterpiece, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is a manual for life and death and a magnificent source of sacred inspiration from the heart of the Tibetan tradition. Sogyal Rinpoche delivers a lucid and inspiring introduction to the practice of meditation, to the nature of mind, to karma and rebirth, to compassionate love and care for the dying, and to the trials and rewards of the spiritual path. This jewel of Tibetan wisdom is the definitive spirtiual classic for our times.

'One of the most helpful books I have ever read.' John Cleese

'Marvellous...like all the great teachings, it is both simple and complex, and full of love and compassion.' Joanna Lumley

'Brilliant.' Mail on Sunday

'For readers of all religions and readers of none.' Observer

'I have encountered no book on the interplay of life and death that is more comprehensive, practical and wise.' Huston Smith author of The World's Religions

'Sogyal Rinpoche speaks directly and clearly to the Western mind and heart with humour, joy and great warmth.' Richard Gere

According to the wisdom of Buddha, we can actually use our lives to prepare for death. We do not have to wait for the painful death of someone close to us or the shock of terminal illness to force us into looking at our lives. Nor are we condemned to go out empty-handed at death to meet the unknown. We can begin, here and now, to find meaning in our lives. We can make of every moment an opportunity to change and to prepare - wholeheartedly, precisely, and with peace of mind - for death and eternity.

In the Buddhist approach, life and death are seen as one whole, where death is the beginning of another chapter of life. Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected.

This view is central to the teachings of the most ancient school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Many of you will have heard of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. What I am seeking to do in this book is to explain and expand the Tibetan Book of the Dead, to cover not only death but life as well, and to fill out in detail the whole teaching of which the Tibetan Book of the Dead is only a part. In this wonderful teaching, we find the whole of life and death presented together as a series of constantly changing transitional realities known as bardos. The word `bardo' is commonly used to denote the intermediate state between death and rebirth, but in reality bardos are occurring continuously throughout both life and death, and are junctures when the possibility of liberation, of enlightenment, is heightened.

The bardos are particularly powerful opportunities for liberation because there are, the teachings show us, certain moments that are much more powerful than others and much more charged with potential, when whatever you do has a crucial and farreaching effect. I think of a bardo as being like a moment when you step toward the edge of a precipice; such a moment, for example, is when a master introduces a disciple to the essential, original, and innermost nature of his or her mind. The greatest and most charged of these moments, however, is the moment of death.

So from the Tibetan Buddhist point of view, we can divide our entire existence into four continuously interlinked realities: (1) life, (2) dying and death, (3) after death, and (4) rebirth. These are known as the four bardos: (1) the natural bardo of this life, (2) the painful bardo of dying, (3) the luminous bardo of dharmata, and (4) the karmic bardo of becoming.

THE MIND AND THE NATURE OF MIND

The still revolutionary insight of Buddhism is that life and death are in the mind, and nowhere else. Mind is revealed as the universal basis of experience - the creator of happiness and the creator of suffering, the creator of what we call life and what we call death.

There are many aspects to the mind, but two stand out. The first is the ordinary mind, called by the Tibetans sem. One master defines it: `That which possesses discriminating awareness, that which possesses a sense of duality - which grasps or rejects something external - this is mind. Fundamentally it is that which can associate with an "other" - with any "something," that is perceived as different from the perceiver.' Sem is the discursive, dualistic, thinking mind, which can only function in relation to a projected and falsely perceived external reference point.

So sem is the mind that thinks, plots, desires, manipulates, that flares up in anger, that creates and indulges in waves of negative emotions and thoughts, that has to go on and on asserting, validating, and confirming its `existence' by fragmenting, conceptualizing, and solidifying experience. The ordinary mind is the ceaselessly shifting and shiftless prey of external influences, habitual tendencies, and conditioning: the masters liken sem to a candle flame in an open doorway, vulnerable to all the winds of circumstance.

Seen from one angle, sem is flickering, unstable, grasping, and endlessly minding each others' business; its energy consumed by projecting outwards. I think of it sometimes as a Mexican jumping bean, or as a monkey hopping restlessly from branch to branch on a tree. Yet seen in another way, the ordinary mind has a false, dull stability, a smug and self-protective inertia, a stone-like calm of ingrained habits. Sem is as cunning as a crooked politician, sceptical, distrustful, expert at trickery and guile, `ingenious,' Jamyang Khyentse wrote, `in the games of deception.' It is within the experience of this chaotic, confused, undisciplined, and repetitive sem, this ordinary mind, that, again and again, we undergo change and death.

Then there is the very nature of mind, its innermost essence, which is absolutely and always untouched by change or death. At present it is hidden within our own mind, our sem, enveloped and obscured by the mental scurry of our thoughts and emotions. Just as clouds can be shifted by a strong gust of wind to reveal the shining sun and wide open sky, so, under certain special circumstances, some inspiration may uncover for us glimpses of this nature of mind. These glimpses have many depths and degrees, but each of them will bring some light of understanding, meaning, and freedom. This is because the nature of mind is the very root itself of understanding. In Tibetan we call it Rigpa, a primordial, pure, pristine awareness that is at once intelligent, cognizant, radiant, and always awake. It could be said to be the knowledge of knowledge itself. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.