The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

by Sogyal Rinpoche

Paperback

About the author

Sogyal Rinpoche (Tibetan: བསོད་རྒྱལ་, Wylie: Bsod-rgyal) was born in the Tibetan Fire Pig year (1947-8) and raised by one of the most revered spiritual masters of this century, Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, who recognized him as the incarnation of Tertön Sogyal Lerab Lingpa (1856-1926). With the Chinese occupation of Tibet, he went into exile with his master, who died in 1959 in Sikkim in the Himalayas. After university studies in Delhi, India, and Cambridge, England, he acted as translator and aide to several leading Tibetan masters and began teaching in the West in 1974. Rinpoche sees his life's task in transplanting the wisdom of Buddha to the West by offering training in the vision set out in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. This training can enable those who follow it to understand, embody, and integrate Buddhist teachings into their everyday lives.

Rinpoche's reputation as an authority on the teachings associated with The Tibetan Book of the Dead and his dialogue with leading figures in the fields of psychology, science, and healing make him a sought-after speaker at international conferences and lectures. He travels extensively, teaching in Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia, and is the founder and spiritual director of Rigpa, a network of Buddhist centers and groups around the world.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A FAMED TIBETAN BUDDHIST TEACHER TALKS ABOUT DYING, AND RELATED MATTERS

Sogyal Rinpoche (1947-2019) was a Tibetan Dzogchen lama, who was the spiritual director of Rigpa, an international nework of Buddhist groups and centers. (A widely popular author and lecturer, he retired in 2017 amid numerous allegations of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse of his students and others.)

He wrote in the Preface to this 1993 book, “I was born in Tibet, and I was six months old when I entered the monastery of my master Jamyang Khyentse Chӧkyi Lodrӧ…. In Tibet we have a unique tradition of finding the reincarnations of great masters who have passed away. They are chosen young and given a special education to train them to become the teachers of the future. I was given the name Sogyal, even though it was only later that my master recognized me as the incarnation of Tertӧn Sogyal, a renowned mystic who was … a master of the 13th Dalai Lama… Jamyang Khyentse is the ground of my life, and the inspiration for this book. He was the incarnation of a master who had transformed the practice of Buddhism in our country.” (Pg. xi)

“Throughout my youth in Tibet I saw the kind of love Jamyang Khyentse used to radiate in the community, especially in guiding the dying and the dead… Later I was to learn the specific techniques for guiding the dying and the dead from the teachings connected with the ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead.’ But the greatest lesson I ever learned about death---and life---came from watching my master as he guided dying people with infinite compassion, wisdom, and understanding.” (Pg. xiii-xiv)

He explains, “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.” (Pg. 12) Later, he explains, “Bardo is a Tibetan word that simply means a ‘transition’ or a gap between the completion of one situation and the onset of another.” (Pg. 102)

He states, “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.” (Pg. 46)

He reports, “His Holiness the Dalai Lama explains… ‘The basis on which Buddhists accept the concept of rebirth is principally the continuity of consciousness… The fact that we possess something called ‘mind or consciousness’ is quite obvious, since our experience testifies to its presence… what we call ‘mind or consciousness’ is something which is subject to change when it is exposed to different conditions and circumstances… Another fact that is obvious is that gross levels of ‘mind or consciousness’ are intimately linked with physiological states of the body and are in fact dependent on them. But there must be some basis… which allows mind, interacting with material particles, to be capable of producing conscious living beings… this too must have its continuum in the past. So if you trace our present mind… you are tracing the origin of the continuity of mind… into an infinite dimension… Therefore there must be successive rebirths that allow continuum of mind to be there. Buddhism believes in universal causation… So there is no place given to a divine creator… everything arises as a consequence of causes and conditions… Mind and nature, although dependent on one another, cannot serve as substantial causes for each other. This is the basis on which Buddhism accepts rebirth.” (Pg. 89-90)

He explains, “‘Bardo’ is a word made famous by the popularity of the ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’ … the title… was coined by its translator, and American scholar W.Y. Evans-Wentz, in imitation of the famous (and equally mistitled) ‘Egyptian Book of the Dead.’ The actual name of the book is ‘Bardo Tӧdrol Chenmo,’ which means ‘the Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo.’ … [It] is a kind of guidebook… of the after-death states, which is designed by a master … to be read to a person as the person dies, and after death… In this book… I am setting the teachings, which the West has become familiar with through the ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’, in a very much larger and more comprehensive context.” (Pg, 102-103)

He asks, “So what, then, is Dzogchen?… [it] is a state, THE primordial state… of total awakening that is the heart-essence of all the buddhas and all spiritual paths, and the summit of an individual’s spiritual evolution… All the Buddhist teachings are explained in terms of ‘Ground, Path and Function,’ The Ground of Dzogchen is this fundamental, primordial state, our absolute nature, which is already perfect and always present… Yet, we have to understand, the buddhas took one path and we took another. The buddhas recognize their original nature and become enlightened; we do not recognize that nature and so become confused.” (Pg. 151)

He notes, “People often ask me: ‘If my dying relative or friend is a practicing Christian and I am a Buddhist, is there any conflict?’ How could there be? I tell them: You are invoking the truth, and Christ and Buddha are both compassionate manifestations of truth, appearing in different ways to help beings.” (Pg. 218)

He stresses, “Therefore our state of mind at death is all-important. If we die in a positive frame of mind, we can improve our next birth, despite our negative karma. And if we are upset or distressed, it may have a detrimental effect, even though we may have used our lives as well. This means that the last thought and emotion that we have before we die has an extremely powerful determining effect on our immediate future.” (Pg. 224)

Later, he adds, “So if, at the moment of death, we have already a stable realization of the nature of mind, in one instant we can purify all our karma. And if we continue that stable recognition, we will actually be able to end our karma altogether, by entering the expanse of the primordial purity of the nature of mind, and attaining liberation.” (Pg. 243)

But he also notes, “If the ground of our ordinary mind is completely purified, it is as if we have shattered the storehouse of our karma and so emptied the karmic supply for future rebirths. However, if we have not been able to completely purify our mind, there will still be remnants of past habits and karmic tendencies resting in the storehouse of karma. Whenever suitable conditions materialize, they will manifest, propelling us into future rebirths.” (Pg. 265)

He states, “The whole of the bardo of becoming has an average duration of 49 days, and minimum length of one week. But it varies… Some can even get stuck in the bardo, to become spirits or ghosts.” (Pg. 291)

He clarifies, “But whether you do any of these practices or not to help your loved one who has died, don’t ever forget that the consciousness in the bardo is acutely clairvoyant; simply directing good thoughts toward them will be most beneficial. When you pray for someone who was close to you, you can, if you wish, extend the embrace of your compassion to include other dead people in your prayers: the victims of atrocities, wars, disasters, and famines, or those who died and are not dying in concentration camps, such as those in China or Tibet. You can even pray for people who died years ago, like your grandparents, long-dead members or your family, or victims of wars, such as those in the World Wars. Imagine your prayers going especially to those who lost their lives in extreme anguish, passion, or anger.” (Pg. 301)

He argues, “there are significant similarities between the near-death experience and the bardo teachings; there are also significant differences. The greatest difference, of course, is the fact that the near-death exeriencers do NOT die, whereas the teachings describe what happens to people as they die, after actual physical death, and as they take rebirth. The fact that the near-death experiencers do not go further on the journey into death---some of them are only ‘dead’ for one minute---must go some way to explaining at least the possibility for disparities between the two accounts.” (Pg. 331)

He summarizes, “Highly realized beings… have awakened in themselves a perception completely different from our own, one that is purified, evolved, and refined to such an extent that, while they still dwell within a human body, they actually perceive reality in a totally purified form, transparent to them in all its limitless dimension. And for them, as we have seen, the experience of death holds no fear or surprises; it is embraced, in fact, as an opportunity for final liberation.” (Pg. 344)

This book will be of great interest to those studying Tibetan Buddhism.

[Jacob Thornton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. I assumed that it would be a mostly religion agnostic philosophy for living and dying, this was certainly true of the first section of the book but the second becomes more dependent on the actual spiritual aspect of Tibetan Buddhism. That makes at least the majority of the second portion on dying less suited to the general audience. However, the first portion of the book concerning living, which also appropriately deals to a significant degree with dying, consists of what I would describe as a simply good advice for living. The practical view presented in this part on the nature of life and death, does what it intends to, namely remind one of their mortality in a life-affirming way. This attitude of acknowledging the nature and reality of one's own mortality and death is, to the author's point, absent in Western culture often leading to unfortunate suffering at the hands of a natural process that is entirely inevitable.

The second part concerning the process of dying went into spiritual phenomena that would likely alienate some readers. I admittedly found the most of these anecdotal spiritual accounts to detract from the more practical aspects of the book, which were concerned with dealing with the dying and the mourning. Overall worth reading if only for the first 11 chapters.

[Liliane Fortna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated the author's down-to-earth discussion of this subject. I especially found his perspectives on living helpful, and his instructions on meditation both practical and useful. I'd recommend this book to spirituality practitioners who want to expand their knowledge/exploration of the Tibetan approach to consciousness.