May 19

Kalu Rinpoche | Experience of the bardo (Part 2)

Number two, is that you are saying “can the experience of the bardo lead us to the bad reincarnation?” There are different stages of the bardo. When we think about the bardo, we only think about the bardo state after when you finally physically breathe out and then when you no longer breathe in. Then for 49 days you are in bardo, and then if you are unable to liberate from, after the 49 days, and then you are still in the bardo. We have all this kind of a wrong understanding of bardo.

There are different types of bardo. All these are bardo. Like an example, “Kye Ne Bardo” means, the moment you are born, the moment you are dead as a human form, that’s a number one bardo. And the other type of bardo, is that when you go to sleep, and until you wake up, and that’s another bardo. And when you are dreaming, there’s a bardo. And then when you abandon your physical form, and entering to the state of the bardo, the state of the non-physical realm, and that is also a bardo. So all these are bardo.

So, bardo is not something that, “oh, only in the death experience”. It’s a constant experience.

Like an example, all the elements, like the four elements of our human “Sa” (the earth element), “Chu” (the water element), “Me” (the fire element), “Lung” (the air element).So all the element that dissolves, one to another, happens when we dissolve our mind into the state of the dream. It happens. In the state of the bardo, that happens. But at that time, the only difference is that, in the state of the bardo, when we die, when we no longer breathe in, at that state, you will be in a complete blackout. After all the element dissolve one to the next, and there will be complete blackout, and after the blackout, and then there’s the recognition to the nature of mind. You will see the nature of mind.

And then if you are a practitioner who have recognized the nature of the mind, and then in this very moment, you will say, “ma bu dres”. “Ma bu dres” means the son and the mother finally meet. So in that very moment, if you see “Ah, I have recognized the nature of the mind, and that is the nature of the mind I recognized that I meditate before, this is the recognition, this is the exactly the same nature of the mind”, and then if you are able to recognize it, nature of the mind as it is, and then the illusion of the bardo will no longer appear. Then you have a choice to be reborn at which location, so on, so forth.

 

Kalu Rinpoche
FB Livestream – 12 March 2021

To be continued…