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The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Book of Natural Liberation Through Understanding in the Between

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The Tibetan Book of the Dead edited by Graham Coleman, Thupten Jinpa, translated by Gyurme Dorje (Viking) is by far the most popular example of indigenous Tibetan Buddhist treasure literature. An edition was issued in 1927 by Oxford University Press under the general editorship of W. Y. Evans-Wentz. The block-print copy, he used was an abridgment obtained in Nepal and translated by a Tibetan lama. Evans-Wentz was a scholarly Theosophist who imported certain Theosophical preconceptions into his commentary on the work. Carl Jung the prominent analytical psychologist even wrote a psychological commentary on the work prompted by Evans-Wentz. Since the 1970s, beginning with Francesca Fremantle and Chogyam Trungpa's edition of the text and more recently Robert Thurman's translation, corrected versions of the Tibetan Book of the Dead are well represented in English and other European languages. The mistakes and egregious errors of the pioneering edition have been corrected and Tibetan Buddhism now in America and Europe has been flourishing with many translations and commentaries on basic Buddhist practices as well as the indigenous literatures of Tibet.
This new edition by Graham Coleman and Thupten Jinpa uses a fuller edition of the work for translating, adding new chapters and reflecting the interpretation of contemporary masters and lineage holders of this tradition. In many ways this is the first complete The Tibetan Book of the Dead. In many ways this book is both a guide for living as well as a how to consciously move on after death. The book has been extremely popular in Central Asia among Buddhists. The Tibetan Book of the Dead contains especially written guidance and practices related to transforming our experience of daily life, on how to address the process of dying in the after-death states, and on how to help those who are dying. Some of these teachings include: methods for investigating and cultivating our experience of the ultimate nature of mind in our daily practice, guidance on the recognition of the science of impending death and a detailed description of the mental and physical processes of dying, rituals for the avoidance of premature death, the now famous great liberation by hearing that is read to the dying and the dead, special prayers are read at the time of death, and allegorical masque play that lightheartedly dramatizes the journey through the intermediate state, and a translation of the sacred mantras that are attached to the body after death and are said to bring liberation by wearing. The editors have also included two additional texts are not usually included in the first chapter there is a preliminary meditation and practices related to the cycle of teachings, and in chapter 10, instructions on methods of transforming consciousness at the point of death into a enlightened state and are an essential aspect of the practices related to dying.
The editors have gone out of their way to be sure to relate what the actual masters of these traditions mean by these practices. For that reason alone, makes this new edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead authoritative in ways that previous editions have not been. Needless to say, this book should capture the imagination not only of students of Buddhism, but psychologists, philosophers, spiritual directors, and chaplains as well as anyone who wishes to entertain profound teachings about the survival of consciousness after death as well as ways to encourage the meaning of our own life in the everyday world.

I've been through three copies of this book and memorized the essence prayers.. Each night I use this in my meditation.. All my life I have had a fear of death and this book cuts right to the bone.. Padma Sambava tackels the problem head on.. I don't really remember why I started reading it.. I could never make it through the Evans-Wentz translation.. Too much esoteric mumbo jumbo.. Robert A. Thurman's version is for the everyman.. Please get this book..Life is short..

From the Root Verses.. "With mind distracted, never thinking death is coming... To slave away on the pointless buisness of mundane life, and then to come out empty is a tragic error.."

The remarkable Bob Thurman offers us a new translation of the 'Tibetan Book of the Dead'. It surpasses by far the previous translation by Chogyam Trungpa and Frances Fremantle. As a text for practical use, as a source of spiritual inspiration, and as literature, this book shines. As well as the translation of the text and commentary, Professor Thurman has written an introduction which stands on its own as an introduction to Buddhism and Tibetan spirituality. If you have an interest in Buddhism, Tibet, or a concern about the after-death states, this book is essential. Pete Folly

With this translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or Natural Liberation in the Between, Thurman fulfills the function of a Bodhisattva in helping others attain liberation. This is the most accessible, down-to-earth and learned rendering of this guide to spiritual liberation that I have encountered in modern American English. Thurman even manages to work in a little humor on the edges.

What this translation makes abundantly clear is just how many chances in the in-between we have for liberation. Apparently one has to be very non-aware to go through the in-between and miss the chance for stepping off the carousel. of samsara. (So why am I still here?)

It would be interesting to devote some time to a cross cultural/cross discipline study of death, dying and beyond. In particular, a study comparing Stan Grof's 3rd perinatal matrix; Sufi descriptions of the interworld (barzakh) and the world of Harqalya (see Corbin's Celestial Body); some schools of visualization/dream work; descriptions of the astral world (Robert Bruce's and Robert Monroe's works in particular); and shamanic traditions would be illuminating. Throw Dante in for good measure. There appear to be large areas of overlap and agreement as to what happens during death, and what happens next. (Get enough blind men together and compare their impressions of the elephant and a clearer picture may come to light.)

The best thing about this book, however, is that it invites the reader to learn the Tibetan death ritual for oneself. It helps that, as the book explains, our after-death mind is nine times more intelligent than our current mind. So just a little application now in learning these texts will go a long way later.

Face it. At some moment in the near future you will close your eyes for the last time on this world. Death is more certain than retirement - and longer. Like anything else, the more you learn about it and get acquainted with it, the less shocking and scary it will be.

This was the first edition of the Bardo Thodrol I ever read. I had been a practicing Buddhist for about a year, but still could not understand, or really accept the idea of transmigration, i.e., a cycle of births and rebirths. It was this book that shattered my doubts, and to this day, it remains the most vivid discussion of the nature of life and death I have ever read. Yet it was not the translation that had the effect. It was the vast supplementary material supplied by Robert Thurman. The introductory essays concerning Tibetan Buddhism, living and dying in Tibetan and modern traditions, and the nature of death, are in fact worth much more than his translation. In trying render the Bardo Thodrol, an esoteric teaching of an esoteric religion, useful to all readers, Thurman sacrifices much of the intrinsic beauty of the text. He replaces words such as karma with evolution, Dharmakaya with Truth-body, and, following the tradition of Burton Watson, goes on to translate the names of various good and bad deities in a literal, clumsy translation. It was a nice effort, but ultimately, this text is made useful by Thurman's supplements, not his translation. For this, the Evans-Wentz version is still the standard. Yet, for a Buddhist who doesn't understand the cycle of birth and death, this is a great explanation.

In the introduction, Thurman admits that he prefers the Geluk tradition to the Nyingma tradition out of which this text arose. He agrees to translate this text to capitalize on the name recognition (despite the fact that he obviously doesn't think very highly of it), and uses entirely different Geluk materials to base his own commentary on.

If you want to read a better translation of the text from someone who belongs to and esteems the tradition from which it arose, get the 2006 Penguin Books translation by Gyume Dorje and skip this opportunism.

This handsome edition comes with many credits. The title page tells us that it was composed by Padmasambhava, revealed by Terton Karma Lingpa, translated by Gyurme Dorje, edited by Graham Coleman with Thupten Jingpa, and has an introductory commentary by HH The Dalai Lama. This chain of transmission parallels the Tibetan Buddhist method of instruction: oral teachings, ideally, from master to student unbroken for millennia. "The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate State" was revealed in the eighth century, but Padmasambhava foresaw its esoteric nature might be misconstrued and its power diminished, so he arranged to hide it as a "treasure text." It was found by Karma Lingpa in the fourteenth century, and W. Y. Evans-Wentz in the 1920s popularized it after what he understood as its Egyptian counterpart (one remembers the Tut craze then); the misleadingly evocative title has stuck.

What the compendium shows, well over six hundred pages in its first comprehensive presentation, is much more than the twelfth book-- what Evans-Wentz, recently followed by Francesca Fremantle & Chogyam Trungpa, Robert Thurman, and Stephen Hodge with Martin Boord have separately translated as the TBoD. That chapter seen in context here falls into place as part of a broader set of pre- as well as post-mortem litanies, guidance, and rituals. Its editor-translators here capture its essence well when they refer to Jung's conception of the work as used in a "backwards" trajectory in reference to psychoanalysis. That is, we can interpret its teachings moving not only with us after death, but reversed towards our primordial life-force, "right back to a pure original cognitive event." (xxxii)

Coleman sees chapter 1 as setting out a perspective to realize this shift in awareness, 2-6 building a framework for mental and spiritual realization, and chapter 7 as setting up a framework for modulating and refining our motivations and actions accordingly. Perhaps non-Buddhists can benefit from such visualizations? It's not easy, especially when confronted with a mass of terms in Tibetan that will challenge the uninitiated, but an 85-page, small-type, glossary with comprehensive definitions is provided, along with pithy contextual prefaces to each chapter. Endnotes are also given with more scholarly transliterations of phrases and cross-references to a bibliography. This apparatus should therefore satisfy academics as well as practitioners. Yet, it may well overwhelm the more casual inquirer; I'd start with the smaller versions of Chapter 12 published separately and read more about Buddhism first.

Chapter 8 offers recognition of the signs of impending death, inner and outer; rituals to avoid premature death follow in Chapter 9. A very advanced practice of "consciousness transference" comprises Chapter 10. The "TBoD" conventionally translated in the West takes up Chapter 11. Aspirational prayers make up Chapter 12 and Chapter 13 gives a "Masked Drama." The last section's a litany of a mantras amulet to be worn for "the liberation by wearing" by the dying person-- it reminds me of the scapular or miraculous medal in Catholicism. Two appendices list and catalogue the plethora of peaceful and wrathful deities enumerated in Chapter 11.

In his rather elevated if concise commentary, the Dalai Lama quickly discusses the text within "Higher Yoga Tantra." He makes a vivid comparison between karma, the Buddhist laws of cause & effect, and the weather on pg. xv. Today's weather is linked to yesterday's and tomorrow's even as we view each manifestation as distinct. Our body's health ties past, present, and future together similarly. Likewise, in our consciousness according to Buddhism our past, present, and future tie together even as we perceive them as discrete phenomena.

Unlike Thurman's translation-edition (reviewed by me as is Hodge & Boord's; see also my review of Fremantle's commentary on the TBoD, "Luminous Emptiness"), there's little attempt to make these contents fully accessible within an ecumenical or (post-?)modern setting. Coleman's references to Jung are about as far as it goes. Dorje sets the text in its literary history, and the Dalai Lama keeps to Buddhist concepts. The team, assisted by eminent Tibetan scholars also credited, strives rather to set the teachings within the lineage tradition of Nyingma, the oldest extant school of Buddhist knowledge from Tibet. So, newcomers may want to start with a simpler presentation such as Hodge & Boord's, moving into Thurman's snappier version, before tackling this comprehensive edition. The language is a bit more British and refined than Thurman's direct vernacular. For example, what the American scholar renders as the frequent Chapter 11 vocative "Hey you so-and-so," Coleman & Dorje mediate into "O Child of Buddha Nature, listen without distraction."

There's lots of vivid examples here to show the depth of entry into the territory edging towards our mortal transformation, for a Westerner, to find in this in-depth look into one of the oldest and most formidable of death-ritual texts. Chapter 8 enumerates many visual indications of the signs of remote, impending, and actual death that may remind medical observers in our hospitals and hospices today how carefully, even obsessively, old-school Tibetans watched the body and the mind for predictions of its end. Perhaps, the filter of a thousand years removed, those who care for the dying today might find valuable testimony within admittedly daunting symptoms such as those metaphorically called "rupturing of the Wish-granting Tree from the Summit of Mount Sumeru" (171) or "ceasing of the monks' smoke in the cities of the earth element." (170) Certainly more memorable than Latin or Greek terms used by doctors today with detachment and bureaucratic efficiency.

Speaking of efficiency, one editorial addition that I would have added would be not only the chapter phrase headings atop each page under the title of the "book," but a number for the chapter, and also numerical references by paragraphs, to standardize references and to facilitate easy consultation. If this work is to be used by those needing an English translation, such "chapter-and-section" types of organization would have aided those looking up passages more rapidly. It slows the reader down when only the general chapter heading is given, although the last part of the book is a page-by-page topical index within each chapter, so this lack is somewhat balanced.

The paper, also, I wish would have been more durable. I have the hardcover, but it seems flimsy and pulpy inside vs. the elegant binding and dustjacket. This may be a trade-off for what's an affordable edition, and the fact such a volume will stay in print as a mass-market trade paperback attests to the continuing relevance with what might well have languished as an obscure devotional tome if not for a surprising literary history. Also, this text has corrected earlier inconsistencies "inherited" in translation of faulty versions.

A final thanks for the illustrations of the Hundred Peaceful & Wrathful Deities by the late Shawu Tsering, a scroll artist from Amdo in Tibet. These, commissioned for Dr. Dorje's collection, show a clarity and precision often missing from photographs of "thangkas" in book form. They beautifully help the reader see what the text tells.

This is a must have title for anyone who has an interest in Tibetan Buddism. Thurman's translation of this central Tibetan text is lucid and inspiring. His personal experience as an ordained monk, student of the Dalai Lama's and his many years of bringing the Dharma to west make him thoroughly and uniquely qualified to offer this brilliant translation. I find that Thurman writes in such a way that makes it easy to " hear ", the strong tradition of oral transmition that plays such as important role in the practice of Tibetan Buddhist teaching.

The introduction provided by Robert Thurman provides valuable context for understanding The Book of Natural Liberation Through Understanding In the Between. Thurman is able to reach out to non-believers by calmly explaining that Tibetan Buddhism is not about belief and dogmatism, but understanding experience more fully. He likens the monks who obtained the knowledge found in the book to spiritual scientists--an oxymoron until one understands the pragmatic value of this book. Use of this book to greater good is not dependent on the particulars of one's personal religious faith or lack thereof. The author helpfully reminds us that according to the tenets of our our scientific laws energy is neither created nor destroyed. Thus it seems likely that our whole being or part of it at least will end up going somewhere, in some form after we die. The introduction and translation are valuable tools for people who want greater understanding or for those who wish to use this book for its intended purpose.

The description of this book made it sound easy enough for a total novice to read. Turns out it's a lot more academic than I expected. That's not a bad thing -- it's just taking more time and effort than anticipated. If you're game for a real test of your determination to know more about this Buddhist stuff, go ahead and get it.