The Great Secret of Mind

footprint in the sand and no imprint of wet feet. Gradually the realization emerges
that we are dead, and deep fear and pain engulf us.
We may go to seek refuge among lamas and monks, but we discover that they
are performing false rituals, their samaya vows have been broken and not
repaired, and they ignore creative and fulfillment stage training. Especially when
we see their avarice, we feel that they are fooling us and are the agents of the
lower realms, and that we will generate only wrong views by association with
them. The desire to take rebirth soon grows strong, and we search everywhere for
an entrance to a womb. But until the karma of life in the bardo of becoming is
exhausted, there is no possibility of finding that womb.
The vision of our death recurs every seven days, and due to the recurrence of the
intense suffering of that event for the dead, the tradition insists on performing
death ceremonies every week for seven weeks. At that time, we hear the four
fearful sounds—rumbling landslide, billowing ocean, blazing fire, and cyclonic
storm. The three poisons (hatred, desire, and jealousy) appear as an abyss of
embodiment, and we feel intolerable panic at the prospect of falling into it.
Feelings toward the embodiment of consciousness, with its impulsions,
conceptualization, and name and form are all felt to be of the nature of intense
suffering. Existence blown by the winds of karma, without an earth, is like a
feather blown by the breeze.
Consciousness, fickle and misty, is seven times clearer and more alert than
before, so that the seven weeks of the bardo seem very long. During the first three
weeks, our previous bodily form is sustained, and we behave in much the same
way as before, but even that is unpredictable. When we are sitting down, we
suddenly feel as if we must move, and when we are happy, sudden panic attacks
may afflict us, or we may have other such unpredictable experiences.
After the third week, we experience the particular behavior of beings in the
realm in which we are going to take rebirth. If we are to be reborn as a pigeon, for
example, we feel the beak, wings, and talons of the pigeon. Sometimes we feel we
have half the previous life’s body and half of the next life’s body.
The signs of rebirth in each of the six realms are as follows: if we are going to
take birth as a god or a man, we will hold our heads high and gaze upward; if we
are going to take birth as a demon or animal, we feel an inclination to look
sideways or to the side; if we are going to take birth as a hell-being or hungry
ghost, then we cast our eyes downward.
The color signs are as follows: inclining toward hell, we see black light and a
burnt tree stump; toward the hungry ghost realm, we see wafting black wool;
toward the animal realm, we see an ocean of blood; toward the human realm, we
see white light; toward the demonic realm, green light; and toward the god realm,
white light about a meter in length. We should recognize these signs immediately
for what they are and understand our destiny, and without suppressing this
knowledge, and recognizing the place of our putative rebirth, the dharmakaya is
revealed as the pure presence that abides in the ground of being. With our
confidence in pure presence, the basic clear light and the primordial alpha-purity
of the dharmakaya appear to us again, and through these indications, which are