Q: What is the best mantra to be more effective during the state of the bardo?
A: The first point is you need to understand, the meaning of the bardo as well.
Many people when they think about the bardo they think it’s a little bit like, there is a quick solution, and then like you are stuck in the somewhere, in the middle of nowhere and that’s we call bardo. But bardo is not simply that.
Bardo is little bit like in the dream. The moment you imagine you are there, for us it can be amazing in the beginning, but then when you are not, when your mind is constantly under all the previous projection of thoughts and habit of, in Tibetan we call it “bak chak”, attachment, and projection of thoughts of attachment, all of that, it creates enormous suffering, because there is no physical form.
The moment you project your thought, you are there with the thought. So in a state of the bardo, it’s very difficult realm, basically. But in order to overcome the bardo, we need to practice, we need to practice heat yoga practice. The tummo practice. Then based on the tummo practice.
First you have to do the preliminary practice, and the deity practice. And based on the deity practice, and bodhicitta practice to purify our mind and our attitude, our intention, purifying our mind, again and again, again and again. And then after that training our mind with the shamata and vipassana, visualizing the deities, again and again, again and again, again and again. And then slowly, gradually, then minimizing all the visualization objects and minimizing all the objects, less and less and less and less. And then bringing all the creation to the completion stage. In Tibetan we call kyerim. And then slowly transforming all the practice into the dzogrim.
First in the beginning you do little bit of, more kyerim and less dzogrim. And then slowly, gradually, over time, with one year, or few months, year and year, or maybe it depends on yourself, then you gradually you transform from, minimizing the kyerim and then doing more dzogrim. Minimizing the creation practice and doing more completion practice. Not necessarily targeting, but going along with the qualities and your own realization.
And then once you reach to the dzogrim practice, and then do your physical form of practice by purifying the channels in your body, and the chakras, and then purifying our air as well from the negative air. And then making more higher possibility and circumstance to recognize the nature of the mind by unblocking all the channels and the chakras in our body. And then based upon that, then after that, practicing the illusion. And then after illusion, then practicing dream, then after practicing dream, then you practice phowa, bardo, and so on, so forth.
So, the most important, Thangtong Gyalpo, you know Thangtong Gyalpo. Everybody knows Thangtong Gyalpo. He’s a Shangpa lineage master. Thangtong Gyalpo said that “What’s the point of practicing dream yoga if you are unable to recognize the nature of the mind in the state of the bardo?” So in the state of the bardo, you need to have some form of quality to recognize the nature of the mind, by all this developing all this different practices.
So that’s that. I don’t talk too much because then maybe I’ll make you more confused.
Kalu Rinpoche
FB Livestream – 20 December 2020
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