what is to be adopted. But all existence is actually empty, just like last night’s
dream. Whatever presumptions we make in the dream, all vanish in the
morning. The same is true in the six bardos—nothing is real, everything is just
a figment of mind. In the bardo there is no need to be afraid of any peaceful or
wrathful appearances. Understand that they are all momentary subjective
envisionment, and then you can certainly pass through the bardo without fear.
Trust me! Just now you dream of being human, and within a few seconds, you
will dream of the bardo. At that time pray deeply to the lama in whom you
have faith! Be sure that everything is like magical illusion or dream. Merge
your mind with the lama and rest easily in that space and you will be released.Then I put some blessing-pills in her mouth and asked her if she had heard my
words. She nodded and tried to place her palms together and then stretched her
left hand toward me. Then I left her. But within fifteen minutes or so the nun
caught up with me and, after telling me that the woman had just died, requested
that I perform the ritual of consciousness sublimation. So together with Tashi, a
monk from Tamkye, I returned to do the phowa ritual.
The woman was lying there in the same position as before, as if asleep but with
her face aglow. She had died peacefully and many saw it. The nun thanked me
and prostrated before me. I performed the consciousness sublimation ritual
according to the tradition of Dudjom Rinpoche’s Wrathful Dakini of the New
Revelation. The nun had no one to carry the corpse for sky-burial, so I asked a man
to loan her his yak for the task, and I sent Tashi and Lama Sonam Tashi, a disciple
of my late serene father, to help the nun in the sky-burial. According to Tashi’s
statement, blood was oozing from the fontanel spot on the top of her head. I asked
Lama Sonam Tashi to confirm it, and he told me that it was possible that blood
from her nose had been smeared over her head. According to phowa texts, blood
oozing from the head or the nose is the sign of success of consciousness
sublimation. I have little experience of applications of the consciousness
sublimation ritual; nonetheless, the clear signs displayed in this illusory scenario
of the dead woman are undeniable. I never heard any rumors of the woman’s
having become an evil spirit or that there was any fear hanging over that place,
but to the contrary there was peace, and many people grew strong in their faith in
buddha-dharma.
If we are sure that the appearances of this life—relatives and friends, parents
and children—are not other than figments of mind, then in the bardo and hell
realms, if we could understand all appearances as mental projections, we could be
sure of release from samsara. If, on the other hand, we yield to even our slightest
tendencies to grasp at the appearances arising in this present lifetime, then we
will not be able to attain liberation in the bardo or from the lower realms. If
happiness and sadness arise and are mistaken for real and true things in this
present envisionment of insubstantial appearances, then bardo appearances and
bardo circumstances will seem to be real and substantial too. Through that belief,
karma and karmic maturation will evolve, and suffering will ensue.