Customer Reviews

The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation Through Hearing In The Bardo (Shambhala Classics)

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This was my first exposure to the Tibetan book of the Dead. Basically this book is an instuctional guide for traveling thru the Bardo; the period or place in which we find ourselves after death, and before incarnating into our next life or form. The book gives a very detailed description of the deities and phenomena one can expect to encounter in the Bardo, and the actions one must take to facilitate an optimal incarnation. It also instructs on the practices that we should engage in while living, to prepare for the Bardo, and therefor have the best out come of that experience. In addition, this is a guide for facilitating and guiding another person thru death and the Bardo. This is a straight forward reading of the book by Gere, it is clear and easy to understand. He is easy to listen to. The descriptions of the various dieties get a bit long winded as he decribes at least a hundred of them. Some of it is gruesome and down right scarey sounding. But the basic thing to remember is, that it is all emenating from our own mind, and not to be overcome by fear. Exposure to this information, practice and meditation on these deities can help prepare us for this experience. Apparently, if we take the correct actions (or non actions) in the bardo, we may not have to continue in samsara but can go directly to the Buddha state, or at least an incarnation in one of the more pleasant realms. I am fairly new to Tibetan Buddhism, so my interpretations of what I heard may not be a perfect reflection of the actual teachings. But that is how I heard it.

This is my favorite transliteration of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Trungpa Rinpoche and Francesca Fremantle bring scholarly precision, elegance, and a certain audacious directness to the text. The introduction and commentary are also first-rate. The pocket edition of the paperback is lovely airline reading, as it literally fits in your pocket. (Will having this book on your person put you on any "watch lists" when you get the super-size security treatment? Dunno.)

The audio version is a terrific companion on the long and salty road trips we're exposed to out here in Western Walmartistan. "As I wander in samsara's dangerous path" indeed. The reader, Richard Gere, does have a little trouble with the more elaborate Sanskrit vocabulary, but for my money, that further humanizes the translation.

If you find this text perplexing, I humbly recommend Fremantle's guide to the TB of the D, called Luminous Emptiness, which is very strong in a rubber-meets-the-road kind of way.

Three cheers to Padmasambhava for generating this text, Karma Lingpa for communicating it to us, and the Trungpa/Fremantle team for the beautiful and workable translation!

We accidentally ordered this book not realizing it was a pocket edition.

We ended up returning it because it did not include the glossary, pronounciation guide, etc. of the full-sized version (which we had to order directly from the publisher as it wasn't available here at Amazon.)

If you're looking for a pocket edition, though, it's just fine.

Sadly, even amongst some practitioners of other sects and traditions of Buddhism not much is known about the mythology and philosophy of many of the sects and lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. The Venerable Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche released many of the teachings of the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions of Buddhism (into which he had been trained and initiated) to the general public and as a result provided a wonderful source of information to the student, practitioner, and teacher of Buddhism.

Instead of repeating what most people stated, I just wanted to emphasize on the size. This book is soooo tiny, it can fit in your pocket! It literally fits in the palm of your hand, and perfect to throw in the purse, the murse or your desk at work.

Also, for those non-buddhist coworkers, you won't get that "look" when they see (can't) the title of the book.

I've read better translations, however it is what it is! TINY and loaded with info!

Very small book without illustrations but an excellent commentary. makes a wonderful companion to a lager, illustrated text.

A superb classic, sharing deep wisdom and guidance for life. Greatly enjoyed it and read it twice in a row. First encountered this book many years ago as a teenager. As useful now as it was then.

This is an easy-to-understand translation of what we know in the West as "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" with a clear commentary, showing how the work, originally intended and still used to guide people through the process of dying, can also be used by anyone seeking spiritual understanding. It shows the "bardo's". the states and visions between death and a new life. Enlightenment (escape from the "wheel of rebirth") can be attained at any stage by someone being guided through these states, but does not always happen! In other words, the work includes the belief in rebirth/reincarnation, common to Eastern philosophy and more common now than it was - in the West.

Named for the mythical (?) and mystical kingdom in the East, Shambhala Publications is known for bringing some of the greatest and sometimes most obscure philosophical writings of Mankind to the attention of the general public. Heavily (though not exclusively) concerned with Buddhist and Taoist thought, Shambhala Pocket Classics are an attractive set of unabridged minibooks which fit comfortably in a shirt pocket, making them perfect for reading on planes, trains, and automobiles. Titles in the set include THE BOOK OF TEA, WAY OF THE JEWISH MYSTICS, ZEN FLESH, ZEN BONES, TAO TE CHING, POEMS BY EMILY DICKINSON, THE ART OF WAR, and this volume by with commentary by Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD (BARDO THODOL in Tibetan).

The BARDO THODOL, a classic text of Mahayana Buddhism, is a fascinating little book in and of itself (though Trungpa's speculations in his extended "Commentary" sometimes become an endless hyperintellectual slog), meant to be read to a dying person as he or she passes from this life into the Bardo state, wherein all the karmic issues of the departed's recently-ended life are faced and addressed.

What I wish I knew is how the author, Padma Sambhava, speaks with such authority about the hallucinogenic conditions in the Bardo state, the luminosities, the rays of light, the apparitions, the varying states of terror and ecstasy experienced by the departed, and so on. It would be so easy to say that he invented all this to comfort the living, but there is a very strong ring of truth in what is written here, (and much of it is not comforting). So what then?

Part of this Great Truth is that each of the stages of the Bardo reflect our own states of mind while alive, and the BARDO THODOL is, in that sense, a guide to right living and right thinking. Putting aside everything else, that is the real value of the BARDO THODOL.

Smaller book than I thought. Will probably get the full version. Would not recommend if you're looking for a good read.