The Book of Joy

early rising.
“Then, as usual, shower and then continue with my meditation
practice. Now, you feel okay? Temperature is okay?” The Dalai Lama
was extending his hands with concern.
The Archbishop smiled and gave him the thumbs-up. “Thank you,” the
Archbishop said as they settled in beside each other.
“This part is a clear light of death meditation,” the Dalai Lama said,
as if he were about to lead us into a meditation focusing on the breath and
not the wasting away of our bodily form. “We are training our mind by
going through quite a detailed process for what we will experience at the
time of death.”
“Mmhmm,” the Archbishop said with wide eyes, as if he had just been
invited to warm up for the spiritual Olympics with a short marathon.
“According to Buddhist Vajrayana psychology, there are different
levels of consciousness,” the Dalai Lama said, referring to the esoteric
Buddhist tradition, which aims to help the practitioner discover ultimate
truth. “There’s a dissolution that occurs as the grosser levels of our
bodily and mental states come to an end, and when more and more subtle
levels become manifest. Then at the innermost or most subtle level, this
state of clear light arises at the moment of dying. Not death. Dying.
Physical feeling completely ceases. Breathing ceases. Heart ceases, it’s
no longer beating. Brain also ceases its functioning. Still subtle, very
subtle levels of consciousness remain, getting ready for another
destination of life.”
The consciousness at the moment of death that the Dalai Lama was
describing is free of duality and content and abides in the form of pure
luminosity. (In a popular Hollywood comedy, Caddyshack, there is a
scene where Bill Murray’s character, Carl, describes a tall tale about
carrying golf clubs for the 12th Dalai Lama on a glacier. Carl asked for a
tip after the game, and the Dalai Lama is said to have responded, “Oh,
there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will
receive total consciousness.” Perhaps the screenwriters were onto
something and knew about the clear light of death meditation.)
“So, in Buddhist thought,” the Dalai Lama explained, “we speak of