Luminous Emptiness

This performance piece, presented in varying forms at the Asia Society in New York and this year at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado is a presentation of the cycle of transitional states or bardos which appear between life and death. It is based closely on the Bardo Thodol but contains material from other sources as well.

Historical Context

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a teaching by Padma Sambhava who brought
Buddhism to Tibet in the Eighth Century. The text was recovered six hundred
years later by Karma Lingpa and was soon adopted throughout the region as one
of the principal texts for giving aid and guidance to the dying. It was subsequently
passed down through the Trungpa lineage and presently to us.

The title of this text in Tibetan is 'Bardo Thodol' which means 'Great Liberation
through Hearing during the States of Transition.' Though the general notion of
bardos or states of transition covers many of life's changes, those emphasized in
this text focus upon the passage between the dissolution and rebirth of individual
identity.

The first two bardos presented here are concerned with dissolution. The first is
the bardo of dying which describes the breakdown of the body's constituent ele-
ments and ends with the separation of consciousness from its physical reference
point. In the second transition, the Bardo of Luminosity, consciousness dissolves
into its own ground, the subtle unceasing awareness that underlies, pervades and
animates all our experiences and mental states.

The third bardo, the bardo of the nature of mind describes the spontaneous ap-
pearance of mind's innate wakefulness in a variety of modes and aspects.
Mind's intrinsic potential is seen as the array of peaceful and wrathful deities at
the same time as it may become the focus of habitual ego-oriented existence.
And so, in the fourth bardo, the Bardo of rebirth, consciousness solidifies as an
individual in a realm.

Traditionally, this text is read to dying people to counsel and guide them at the
time of death. The reason for doing so is that when the nature of even the most
disorienting and horrific experiences are realized, liberation is simultaneous. The
entirety of the Bardo Thodol is grounded in the teaching that every single mo-
ment of life, death and transition contains the seed of complete and immediate
enlightenment: complete wakefulness can be realized on the spot.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead embodies the aspiration and prayer of Padma
Sambhava that all sentient beings realize the freedom and enlightenment that is
already within them, and which can be awakened in all the phenomena of life and
death. All readings of this text, including this one, are offered with this intent.


By Douglas Penick


LUMINOUS EMPTINESS:
LIBERATION THROUGH HEARING

Douglas Penick,
18550 Folsom Street #606,
Boulder, CO 80302
for a performance to be produced by Naropa University and the Golden Sun Foundation


(a-high female voice, b-low female voice, c-high male voice, d-low male voice)



PROLOGUE: (chorus, solo, whispers)


SOLO VOICES CHORUS


Voice
Voice ending


Ending
Ending longing

Longing

0

Rest
Voice, ending longing.
Rest aware

Aware


Imagining
Aware imagining voice continuing

Voice


Continuing
Continuing love

Love


Expanding
Continuing love expanding

Joining

Earth
Water
Fire
Wind

Joining infinite beings, infinite realms


Earth
Water
Fire
Wind


Dissolving
Dissolving infinite Being, Realms


Stillness
Stillness ending terror longing

Terror
Terror ending longing voice

Voice


Ending

Returning. Endless

Voice.





I) BARDO OF DYING

(Tutti)
Death is real.
It comes without warning and cannot be escaped.
Soon this body will be a corpse.

1a)
Moving between knowing and unknowing

Tutti)
Death is like waking from a dream. Waking from a dream, we return to the reality from which our dreams arose.

(1b)
Moving between knowing and unknowing

1d)
We will all die. Sooner than we could ever have imagined, whether due to age or sickness or sudden misfortune, we will know that our life is coming to its end. Our pain will be more intense than pain we’ve known. Our panic will be more vivid than any kind of fear we’ve felt before. We will be trapped alone and powerless. Suddenly we will know: “I am dying.” We will be utterly alone. We cry out.

(1c)
“I am dying without choice and without friends.
“Driven by a great wind, there is no solid ground.
“Waves of pain carry me into dark and chaos.

“O Buddhas and bodhisattvas, O compassionate ones, I am lost.
“Please reach out to me and grant me refuge.
“Let the light of your compassion blaze in my heart.” (1)

(2a&b- together for 2 sentences then alternate)
I am dying. Trapped in my body, I can barely move. My body aches and, I am too weak to turn. My mouth is dry. I am thirsty but I cannot swallow. I’m sweating and I feel like I am burning up. Suddenly I am freezing. I gasp for breath. I am coming apart. I cannot stop.

The people in the room and those I remember blur together. Sometimes I hear nothing; other times, I am deafened by the roar of waves. Rot and sickness fill my senses. My skin feels raw, then hot and dry then cold. I try to understand what is happening. But even as I realize I am dying, I cannot control my thinking. My existence is unraveling. I cannot stop.


(1c)
Death takes hold of you. The elements of earth, water, fire and air that have come together to form your body while you live now separate. First the element of earth dissolves. You feel crushed into the earth by a huge mountain, and your limbs no longer support you. Your senses collapse. You feel insubstantial. The outer world is like a familiar dream.

1d)
When the earth element dissolves into water, you feel swept away on a raging stream. There is no control of your bodily fluids and you feel unstable as a crashing wave. Feelings shift constantly. Perceptions are hazy and fragmented.

1c)
When the element of water evaporates in fire, your body burns, dries like ash and cools. Ribbons of flame shimmer before you eyes, and your memories and perceptions flicker. Your mind turns further inward.

1d)
The element of fire collapses into wind, and you shiver with cold. Your mind now moves randomly with no connection to the world. Showers of sparks flicker all around you as if you were caught in a chimney above a raging fire.

1c)
Wind dissolves into consciousness. Your breathing becomes labored and painful. The last connection with the physical world falls away. You float groundlessly and your mind is a welter of hopes and fears. Your breathing stops. You feel you have been dropped into the darkness of space.

(2c&d alternating after 1st sentence)
Whether it takes a year or a month or a day or an hour, whether it is prolonged or sudden, the elements collapse one into another. Earth dissolves into water; water into fire; fire into air; and then, when breath has stopped, air dissolves into consciousness. The elements separate, Your physical existence ends.

(1b)
The life of those who have a body is as fleeting as a dream.
Like a mountain stream, it does not halt.
Like a fire it blazes and consumes itslf.
Like a wind, it rages and falls.

1a)
Like an illusion, like a magic spell, like a dream,
All the contents of mind appear, hover and disappear. (2)




II) BARDO OF LUMINOSITY

Tutti)
Your physical existence has ended. But your inner life, all your thoughts, dreams, intentions, memories, longings, fears and uncertainties swirl unanchored in the air.

1a)
All at once, milky white light descends and fills the whole of space.
It is like a night sky flooded by moonlight.
All thoughts of anger, rejection and distance merge,
Dissolving in falling white light.

1b)
Then the light of a red sun blazes up.
All of space glows like a sunset.
All thoughts of desire or the sense of closeness merge and rise,
Consumed in rising red light.

(1c)
The white and red flow together at your heart.
It is like an eclipse of the sun.
All forms of consciousness dissolve in shadowed light.
Consciousness dissolves into space.

(1d)
Now suddenly the Luminosity of Death,
Free from the constraints of body and mind
Shines unobstructed and complete,
Like a sky of light.

(1a
This is naked awareness, stripped of passion, aggression and ignorance.

1b)
This is naked awareness unborn, unceasing, and all pervasive.

1c)
This is the unchanging Dharmakaya.

1d)
Inner and outer struggles to maintain a self
Dissolve without a trace.

Tutti)
This is the essence of your own mind,
The heart essence of all the Buddhas and all the awakened ones.

(1a)
“As I leave this body of flesh and blood,
“I will know it to be a transitory illusion.
“When the bardo of dying opens to me,
“I must abandon my all-desiring mind.
‘Buddhas and Boddhisattvas, teachers and friends on the path,
“Please bless me so that my mind will not waver.
“May I rest in the clear essence ,
“The luminous expanse of unborn naked awareness.” (3)

(2a&d
But our aspiration is so easily overwhelmed
By habitually clinging to a self.
Unable to remain without our reference points
We fall into utter black unconsciousness.




III) BAR DO OF THE NATURE OF MIND

1) The Peaceful Deities

1b)
I wake alone, groundless and without refuge.
Suspended without a body
In an infinite expanse of luminous empty space,
I do not know who or where or what I am.

2d)
Then like the colors a rainbow emerging spontaneously
Out of clear white light,
One by one the great primordial powers of mind:
Pacifying, Enriching, Magnetizing and Destroying
Open from your heart and fill the whole of space.

1a)
Like a rainbow hidden in the sun light,
This is the innate radiance and pattern of your mind.

1c)
Formerly concealed in ignorance, anger, grasping, lust, and envy,
Now, without reference to a body or a self,
The pure essence of the passions blaze without limit.
Sapphire Blue, golden yellow, ruby red and emerald green,
They are pure light and pure awareness.
This is the true nature of your own mind.

1b)
One by one, each color blazes out unfiltered and awake.
And within each color rests a Buddhas with his retinue,

1d)
“Now the Bardo of the Nature of Mind dawns before me.
“I will put aside all thoughts of hope and fear.
“I will recognize whatever arises as the nature of mind itself.
“I will not fear the visions arising here;
“I will recognize them as projections of my own mind.”
(3)
1a)
Your heart unfolds as vast and all embracing space.

Within the clear white radiance of pure expanse,
Mind has no location, direction, purpose or limit.
Confusion, the ground of struggle and delusion,
Is now stripped bare.

Mirror-like, all encompassing awareness pervades the whole of space.
At its center shines Buddha Vairochana.
His face is serene, and his body is white.
He holds the eight-spoked wheel of the law.
He sits on a lion throne embracing his consort, the Queen of Space.
Rays of piercing blue light emanate from their hearts
Filling all of space with blinding light of unsparing wakefulness.

1b)
Everything is completely transparent
Like a pool of clear water,
Your heart is still.

Now in the space free of assertion and denial,
Unchanging clarity rests focused on this single point.
Anger, now stripped of subject or object,
Blazes out as clear blue light.
Excruciating radiance pervades the whole of space.
At its center is the sapphire blue form of Buddha Vajrasattva-Akshobhya
With his consort and retinue.
He holds a crystal vajra
And floods the sky with indestructible peace.

1c)
Now in utter fulfillment,
Your heart expands.

Even as endless moments and textures unfold,
The simplicity of space does not move.
Pride and possessiveness, stripped of accepting and rejecting,
Radiates as the all-pervasive saffron yellow light of equanimity.
Engulfing the universe in golden honey.
At its center sits Buddha Ratnasambhava, gold and impassive
With his consort and retinue.
He holds the Wish Fulfilling Jewel.
The air glows with unchanging radiance of complete equanimity.

1d)
Your heart burns like the sun
Blazing with love in all directions.


Now in the vibrant space of limitless light,
All the phenomena of life and death are consumed, resolved.
Desire and craving are stripped of grasping and fixation.
Unending passion fills the sky with brilliant red light.
At its center sits the Buddha of Boundless Light, Amitabha with consort and retinue.
He holds the vase of boundless life, glowing like an ember
Burning through all of space as ceaseless compassion.

1b)
Your heart breaks
In the embrace of all that can be felt or known.

Space is, by its nature, unobstructed,
There is nothing left to be accomplished.
Envy and endless striving now stripped of goal or purpose,
Blaze through the whole of space as a seething expanse of vibrant green light.
At its center sits the emerald form of Buddha Amoghasiddhi with his consort and retinue.
He holds a double vajra which whirls like the mother of winds
Destroying all that needs to be destroyed and completing all that needs completion.

(tutti)
O worthy child, now all five wisdom deities, their consorts, and retinues,
Vibrant in their own circles of light ,
Appear together like a vast expanse of shimmering brocade
Filling the sky with light and music.


(2a&b
This is the nature of your mind
Awakened in the vastness of your heart.

1c)
Do not be afraid and rest at ease.

1d)
Do not let thoughts attach themselves to you.

1b)
Now be resolute.

1a)
Do not let thoughts of fear and hope attach themselves to you

1a&b)
Rest and merge into the radiance of your own true nature.

Now is the time. Wake! Wake! (sotto voce)


(2) The Lights of The Six Realms


1d)
Groundless and suspended
In the blazing radiance of total wakefulness
Where wisdom and compassion are undivided,
The luminous essence of mind that does not waver or change.
I remain restless, doubtful, hungry, and afraid.
I cannot help longing for comfort, ease and home ground.

1c)
Even as the radiance of the awakened state shows itself to me,
Dream-like lights leading to existence
In a temporary body and illusory realm arise.
Offering a more familiar path.


Tutti:
These lights rise one by one
From ego-born distortions to your own innate wisdom.
Do not give in to them.


1b)
White light, soft and soothing like warm milk comes towards me.
This light leads to life in the Realm of the Gods.

1a- then different voice for each line)
Smoky light leads to the Hell Realm.
Pale blue light leads into the human realm.
Enticing yellow light leads to the Realm of Hungry Ghosts.
Crimson light leads to the realm of the Jealous Gods.
Comforting green light that leads to birth in the animal realm.

2a&c)
These gentle lights seem to promise relief
From the unsparing brilliance of being completely awake.

1d)
“When confusion leads me to drift
Towards the pain of existing in worlds of life and death,
“May the Buddhas guide me.
“And keep me in the unchanging state.” (4)

2- The Display of the Vidyadharas

(tutti- after first 2 sentences alternate on each sentence)
O child of awakened family, desperately you seek to resolve your restless mind. You want to understand. The pure lights of the awakened ones still call to you. Your inborn longing for insight now appears spontaneously from your throat center as the vast mandala of those who hold primordial knowledge. Together with their dakini consorts, they chant and dance in the sky. They call to you. They are the essence of awakened speech. They call from the Pure Realm of Space, inviting you. Their voices are deafening yet silent. Their forms are completely transparent yet vividly alive.

Blazing rainbow lights from the wisdom mandala flash, swirl and penetrate every part of space, filling the cosmos with the thundering roar of the true path and resounding with ferocious war cries and wrathful mantras.

ITI SAMAYA GYA GYA GYA

(1b)
“From the Pure Realm of Luminous Space
“Holders of Primordial Knowledge come to me.
“Come and bring me into the awakened state.
“Please guide me now.



1c)
“Please, O Great Beings, take pity on me.
“Hold me with your hooks of great compassion
“And do not let me fall back into the tortured realms of birth and death.” (5)



3) The Display of the Wrathful Deities


(3a,b.d alternating after 1st sentence)
But, O Child of Illusion, you feel unready to accept true wakefulness. You are terrified by your own wakefulness. The intensity of uncertainty and fear overwhelms you. You lose consciousness. You awake. The peaceful deities, the true nature of your own mind now appear to you in wrathful form. This is again the nature of your mind raging against the self-imposed limits of your own ego clinging. These great wrathful ones are the immediate energy of the awakened state. They emerge from your brain to attack and destroy all the ways of holding to a self. They tear through all your thoughts. Your terror is irrelevant.

1d)
Now the Great Awakened Wrathful One,
The Buddha Heruka, the active embodiment of indivisible emptiness and compassion
Appears before you.
His body is like a towering mountain that glows like mass of burning coals.
His nine blood-shot eyes gaze into yours in violent rage.
He sways in union with his consort, the Raging Buddha Dakini.
Their teeth are like copper knives and their tongues are curled back.
Their laughter fills the sky with thunder as they cry “A La La”. “Shooooo” and “Ha”. Flames of wisdom flash out from all their hair pores.
They drink the heart’s blood of delusion
And crush the whole of space in their all-consuming intensity.

1b)
He appears with the Four Great Wrathful ones, blue, yellow, red and green, embodiments of the unceasing wakefulness that is clothed in anger, pride, lust, and envy. They flail like a wheel of world-ending fire. Their cries fill in your mind. Screaming, they paralyze and destroy all thought.

1a)
O worthy child, do not let yourself be overcome by terror and confusion. You no longer have a living body. Nothing can harm or kill you. Recognize the great wrathful ones as the naked power of your own mind. Recognition and liberation are simultaneous.



(tutti- alternating after 2 sentences)
Now, be resolute. What you see is your own anger, pride, passion and envy in their awakened wrathful forms. No reasoning or sympathy or tenderness constrains them. They rage amid all the timid delusions of cyclical existence, and cannot be appeased. Amid flames and smoke, hundreds of furious female deities of many colors with the heads of foxes, wolves, lions, hawks, ravens, owls and serpents, wearing the skins of flayed human corpses brandish arrows, swords, hooks, flames and clubs. Their raging screams shake the earth. Wrathful male deities of all colors with the heads of tigers, yaks, pigs and horses brandish nooses, chains, bells, wheels, treasure vases, vajras, clubs, corpses and skull cups of blood. They burn and blaze like the world ending fire. The tumult of their screams overwhelm all reference points.

1b)
Now, do not faint or waver. This great and horrifying display is the action of the awakened state. Recognize it as the projection of your own awareness.

(Tutti, alternating after 1st sentence)
Then all the peaceful deities, all the vidyadharas and all the wrathful deities, together with their consorts and retinues appear suddenly before you. They fill the whole of space with the light of a hundred suns and a hundred moons and a thousand stars. Rays of light stream out from their hearts, weaving together in a luminous web. The air shakes with the sounds of their melodies, mantras, instructions and war cries. All possibilitiy of individual experience is eliminated.

1a)
You feel you have been crushed and emptied out all at once. You are reduced to nothing. Do not give in now to terror. This vast display arises from the empty radiance of mind and dissolves in the traceless luminosity of mind. Recognizing this, you return to the awakened state like a child returning to its mother’s arms. (4)

1c)
“Now, when I am alone, cut off , and utterly lost,
“May the compassion of the Awakened Ones fill my heart
“So that terror does not overwhelm me
“And so that I may recognize my true nature
“Inseparable from the vast displays of their pure light.”

(tutti)
SARVA MANGALAM

1b)
O Child of the Awakened Ones,
You saw this in an instant.
Like a wild landscape illuminated by a lightning bolt.


1a)
O Worthy Child,
In the eternal and unclouded radiance of pure awareness,
The awakened ones do not arise.
They do not depart.
They are the energy of mind itself,
Unborn, unceasing, with a nature like space.

1c)
O Worthy Child,
How often has enlightenment dawned for a moment in your heart
As a wisp of dawn,
As a flash of panic, of true love?

2c&d)
But we turn away.
Forgetting and forgetting,
We struggle on
With the needs of living
In worlds of birth and death
Where we labor and sleep.



IV BARDO OF BECOMING


Tutti)
O Worthy Child, now once again you wake up.

1a)
The blazing lights of your own awakened mind are forgotten.

1b)
You remember only the pain of dying.

1c)
The Buddhas are forgotten.

1d)
You awake in the form you once knew.

1c)
It is as if you had a dazzling dream you do not quite remember. You wake, and now the world around you is again as you knew it. The sky is blue, and the sun is shining. The trees have turned yellow and sway in the cool autumn winds. You smell food cooking on the stove. Friends and family have gathered in your house. Your senses are sharp. Your thoughts and feelings are familiar and clear. You do not remember dying.

1b, then alternate, c,d,a after the first two sentences)
You see your spouse and your children, your loved ones and your old friends. Some are weeping, others chatting quietly. You are surprised that they have come to visit, but you are glad to see them, But when you greet them, they do not respond. You move towards them, but they do not notice you. You reach out to touch them. They shiver as if chilled, but they ignore you. Their attention is focused on your bedroom, so you go there. People are clustered around your bed. But then, when you look to see who is lying there, you see a corpse. Gray-green skin, sunken cheeks, eyes crusted shut, nostrils pinched, you recognize it. It is you.

1d)
I cry out, but no one hears me. I embrace my children but they feel nothing. I gesture to my oldest friend, but he turns away. What can I do? I go back to the bedroom. I try to enter my body, but I cannot make it move. I have burrowed into a bag of rotting flesh. The stench is so disgusting that I recoil. All around me, things go on as if I were not there.

1a)
You sit down next to your family, but they have no idea you are there. When you hear the prayers they offer for you, you know they are distracted and bored. When you try to take nourishment from food offerings, they taste like spoiled leftovers. Even if you could consume them, you have no body and cannot. Even though your family is weeping, you feel they have rejected you.

1b)
The world shifts and fades before my eyes.
I am unchanged, but the world and I now part.
I am cut off. I am utterly alone.
Despair is now my sky and earth.
Now matter how I yearn to stay,
I cannot remain here.

1d)
Nothing is solid, permanent or true.
I am parted from my body.
I feel no density
Nothing is rough or smooth, heavy or light.
Now matter how I have yearned to stay,
I cannot remain.

1c)
You cannot stop. The winds of thought and longing, fear and desire drive you on.
Your mind races from place to place. Whatever you imagine instantly becomes real.
For a moment you are happy, but at the slightest flicker of doubt or further yearning, you find yourself elsewhere.

1d)
Like a vulture I float above the dappled plains.
I am a king surveying his vast and peaceful land.
I am a silver salmon leaping upstream through the sparkling spray,
The armored warrior shouting in battle, brandishing a spear,
A hermit contemplating all of time from within his cave,
I am a rabbit darting through the underbrush.

1a)
I: an oak tree on a hillock, a purple water lily, a bonfire, smoke,
A thundercloud, a rattlesnake,
A great blue whale calling in the depths.

(1a
I am the goddess of love, floating in perfume,

1c)
While below, men and women walking through the city as the sun sets
Exchange passionate glances.

1d)
I am a merchant selling rubies, a banker counting gold,
An idle courtesan, a farmer harvesting wheat,

1b)
A child in the darkness waiting by a gate,

1c)
An old man gasping for breath,

1a)
A starving woman at a butcher’s stall,

1b)
A weary mother, an officer who strikes a boy.

1d)
I am a man in a basement being tortured with molten iron.

1c)
Ceaseless thinking moves you everywhere. You are a child of illusion. You fly through worlds on wings of craving and hatred. Nowhere can you find rest or peace. As your mind turns, you change. Though you may long for a dwelling place, your ever-grasping mind moves onward leaving world after world behind.. Your emotions are so intense and solid; you cannot stop.

1d)
All your thoughts pursue you
As shadows, beasts and armies of demons.
Worlds collapse as you leave them.

1a)
You are deafened by mountains crashing down,
You hear oceans roaring as they devour the land.
Forest fires spread crackling behind you
And tornadoes howl at your back.

3 a,b,d alternate)
I am drowning.
I am buried alive.
I am falling from the summit of the sky.
I am battered, driven on the timeless winds of hope and fear
Like a dead leaf in a hurricane.

1c)
O child of illusion, there is no peace.
If you could recognize such worlds and beings
As projections of your own thoughts,
As shadows cast by the light of your own wakefulness
You could indeed find peace.

1b) *
But now you are climbing through an endless mountain range. Sometimes landslides of ice block your way. Your hands are cut as you clamber over them. Your legs are bruised, and your knees are raw and bleeding. The misty air is freezing and so thin. Desperately, you gasp for breath. Often you collapse. You wake and press on.

1a)
O Worthy Child, these unconquerable snow mountains
Rise from the energy of your endless striving.
They are the projections of your own mind.

1d)
That dissolves. Now you are on the edge of a vast desert. Dunes of white sparkling sand extend to the horizon in every direction. At first, the warmth of the sand is comforting, and the hot sun is a relief. But soon, as you trudge forward, your skin begins to burn. Parched and scorched, you clamber up one wave of sand after another. Your skin is flayed by the sharp glittering crystals. You long for cool water. The sense of craving and impoverishment that you have clung to through life after life keeps you going. Again something flickers in your mind.

1c)
O Worthy Child, this boundless burning desert
Extends from the energy of your endless wants.
It is the reality projected by your own mind.

1b)
Now you encounter a mob of exhausted men and women milling at the entrance to a narrow bridge. Their faces are hollow-eyed, and blank, their bodies skeletal and ashen. You are now among the dead. They push and jostle, each absorbed in his or her own anguish. They push you forward. You see that the bridge is really just a single rope strung across a boiling torrent of living blood, filled with corpses, severed limbs and heads, pus and excrement. You grasp the rope and pull your way hand over hand across the stream. You dare not look down. You feel your wrists and fingers being pulled apart. Your shoulders are separating from their sockets. You force yourself on out of the naked will to survive. For an instant, you pause.

1c)
O Worthy Child this bridge is build from the concepts of good and evil
That you held to so that you might not be destroyed in the torrent of life.
It is a reality created and maintained by your own mind.

1a)
Exhausted and in agony, finally you reach the other shore. Two armored soldiers seize you by your arms and legs. Their bodies are human, but one has the smooth head of a serpent and the other the horned head of a deer. Before you know it, they have dragged you into an enormous hall. This vast cavern is dense with greasy smoke and burning blood. It vibrates with the screams and moans of men and women in chains, some being beaten, others whipped, and still others being thrown in boiling cauldrons.

Hordes of ghostly people struggle to escape. You look this way and that for a way out. Then you see, on a dais of skulls, the paralyzing form of Yama, the King of the True Law, the Lord of the Dead. You want to turn away but you cannot.

1d)
Like a seething mass of thunderclouds.
The Lord of Death is black and fills the whole of space.
He has a huge belly and a thin neck.
His wild strands of crimson hair are tied on top of his head.
His eyes are glassy and his iron teeth bite his lower lip.
Waving the record of your past actions, misdeeds, and neglected possibilities,
He shouts: “Beat him” and “Kill him”.
He rips off the heads and pulls out organs from living beings nearby.
Licking his lips, he consumes them. He glares at you.
You feel you are dissolving in freezing water.

1c)
O Child of the Awakened Ones,
Through countless lifetimes you have never ceased judging others
And fearing being judged yourself.
Formed from past habits and future inclinations.
Your body has never been permanent or completely real.
You cannot be cut apart or killed.
Your body is the vivid form of emptiness as is the Lord of Death himself.
This is the display of the awakened state,
Appearing from itself to liberate itself.
This is the spontaneous play of mind.
If you recognize this, liberation dawns suddenly and without effort.
*
1b)
“I am helpless and without a friend.
“Please now be a refuge for me.
“Protect me; defend me;
“Keep me from the endless darkness of the bardos.
“Turn aside the hurricane of karma.
“Protect me from fear of the Lord of Death .

1a)
But even as you pray, the Lord of Death holds up a vast crystal mirror. You see yourself, your life, everything that you have thought and done. Your goodness is clear. You see your acts of kindness and generosity, But you see the smugness with which you performed your good deeds. You feel your sense of superiority and condescension licking you like a cold flame.

In the great mirror of the Lord of Death, you see how you deceive yourself and others. You see the hidden ways you have taken advantage of others and worked only for your own good. You see how you parade your virtues as masks for greed and lust. You hear your innumerable excuses for not helping. You hear your casually hurtful words, and see your sly disrespect to those who only tried to help you. You see every callow flirtation and loveless lechery.

You cringe. But still, you want to defend yourself. You want to justify your motives and your deeds. But you see that such a wish is just another crime. There is no escape.

1b)
“Now, I am naked and alone.
“The projections of my mind torment me
“And the winds of my past habits and deeds will not let me rest.
“Now oh great awakened ones
“Let your great compassion radiate like an unerring sun.
“And give me refuge in your luminous expanse.”

1c)
You think this, but you long to escape the consequences of what you have done. It is then you notice soft lights rising like a soothing rainbow from around the base of the King of Death’s horrific throne. Your eyes are drawn to them. These lights are the paths that open to re-birth in the six realms of birth and death.

1a)
Soft billows of gray smoky light
Rise from your resentment and outrage
At the implacable judgments of life and death.

Within the shifting clouds,
You see the faint outlines of great palaces of ice and fire
Teeming with beings torturing and being tortured,
They cut and boil living flesh
They break and splinter living bone.
This is a world of consciousness uninterrupted,
And endless pain.

You rage and anger will solidify as rebirth here
In the excruciating half-light of Hell.

1d)
Luxurious beams of golden light
Rise from your countless hungers
Born from the desire to find satisfaction beyond the limits of life and death.

Within the gilded light,
You see the faint outlines of enormous trays of food
And huge pitchers of wine.
Innumerable beings flitter amongst them,
Eating endlessly but never satisfied.
This is a world of craving that will not end.

Your hunger and thirst will solidify as rebirth here
In the starvation of the realm of hungry ghosts.

1a)
Gentle rays of shimmering green light
Glow in the stillness as you long to forget
Loneliness and the fear of life and death.

Within this verdant glow,
You see the shadows of safe burrows, caves and tree-top nests.
Animals sniff the air and join their kind.
Fish gather like silver clouds in the warm green sea.
Birds migrate and fill the skies
Relying on instinct alone.

This is a world where intelligence is asleep,
And life is not burdened by implications.

Your ignorance will solidify as rebirth here
In the eternal repetitions of the animal realm.

1c)
O Worthy Child, these are the three lower realms. Anger, desire and ignorance shape these worlds and occupy the minds of those who dwell there. Hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals constantly repeat these states of minds and their consequences. Compassion and insight are momentary if they occur at all. The possibility of liberation from the projections of your own mind are scant and rare. O worthy Child, do not let your aspiration collapse. Now please rouse yourself.

1b)
“Quickly please send out the power of compassion
“May compassion rouse the clarity in my heart.
“May great compassion protect me in the torrents of ceaseless change.
“Lead me that I may see the pure radiance of true love.”

1c)
O Worthy Child, please turn your mind to the lights of the three higher realms.

1a)
Jets of bright vermilion light
Shoot from towering pyres of jealous ambition
As you wish to surmount the conditions of life and death.

Within this blazing light,
You see walled cities
Filled with warriors and heroes
They study, plan and perfect their skills.
They hone their valor and their strength.
This is a world of envious striving.

Your envy will solidify as rebirth here
In the heroic struggles of the Jealous Gods.

1d)
Silken waves of soft milky light
Waft from the vast expanse of lordly pride
As you desire to transcend the conditions of life and death.

Within this pleasing light,
You see jeweled palaces and gardens
Where gods and goddesses live out their long lives
In infinite bliss, infinite consciousness,
Infinite power, and formless contemplation.
This is a world of all that can be attained.

You pride will solidify as rebirth here
In the self-absorption of the Realm the Gods.

1a)
Finally, rays of pale sky-blue light
Rise from the endless exertions of the human realm,
Born from your desire to find escape from life and death.

Within this kindly light,
You see seas and mountains, rivers, towns and farms,
Alive with men and women struggling,
Laboring and learning, and seeking myriad forms of happiness
Within the turmoil of the passions.

Your five primordial impulses solidify as rebirth in the human realm,
In the uncertain endeavor to find liberation.

1c)
O Worthy Child, rest for a moment and look:

Within each smooth beam of light,
Within each sound:
Minute spheres of radiance shimmer like dust motes in the air:
Sparks of white, yellow, red, green, blue:
Luminous spheres,
A myriad of Buddha realms
Brilliantly alive and pure.

Look:

Each sphere is a perfect mandala
At whose center dwells the essence of awakened mind.
An infinity of awakened ones,
Calling out, inviting us
To enter, to join in this pure moment.
Where awareness and compassion
Expand beyond the limits of space and time.

Let all thoughts and confused emotions dissolve
Join in the light of wakefulness,
And take birth in those pure realms.


1d)
O Worthy Child,
Your fear, your uncertainty, your longing, your opinions
Flicker and change.
There is no stable ground except in the light of empty awareness.

If you cannot resist the soft lights
Of the six realms of birth and death,
Follow the blue light of the human realm
And find a good birth there.

Worthy Child, please remember:
As the Buddha, the Awakened One has said:

“All sufferings and all pleasures
“Arise from the mind, dwell and decay there.
“All arise from struggling to make the unstable idea of a self
“Continuous, independent and permanent. “ (6)

Look now, look at your own mind.

1a)
Through all that you have experienced since you died,
Through all you experience later,
Primordial wakefulness, awareness itself has never altered.

Now, if you rest awake and without distraction,
You abide within the luminous emptiness of mind’s ceaseless display.

If you rest there without following thoughts,
Without hope or fear,
Then there is complete wakefulness.

1d)
At the time of death,
You cannot be saved by a Buddha
Or anything outside yourself.
Your own awareness is primordially enlightened.
It is luminous, empty and unconstrained by thoughts of any kind.
Rely on this.

1c)
But, O worthy Child, if you cannot resist the lights
Of the six realms of birth and death,
Enter the blue light of the human realm
And find a good birth there,

1b)
Continuing on,
Moving between known and unknown,

1a)
Now you see towns, cities, farms.

2c)
Among the myriad beings living there,
Now you see a man and woman making love.

2a&c)
Drawn to them,
Now you re-enter a realm of birth and death.

1d)
You lose consciousness.
The pain and claustrophobia are unbearable,
As winds, heat, solidity and water
Press together.
The four Great Elements unite
To shape your body and your mind.

1b)
Ah,
I am born,
Naked, wriggling, gasping,
Crying for love
Desperate to be secure.

2a&b)
We are born.

2a&c)
We move forward as infants, children,
Adolescents, young women and men.
We cannot stop.


2a&d)
We raise our children.
We age, sicken, die.

1a)
I know nothing outside the needs and terrors,
The wordless desires that rise in my mind
From all the demands of living here.

1b)
Moving between known and unknown,

1c)
But like the echo of a vanished song;
Like the imprint of lightning in the night;
Like the memory of a half forgotten dream,
Or a yearning unfulfilled,
The light of the awakened mind
Filters through each moment here.

(starting w/1a, each in sequence)
Spring does not know summer.
Children do not meet the adults they will be.
Autumn does not know winter.
Men and women cannot imagine the elders they will be.
Nor what will happen when we die.

2a&d)
But even now, may we awake
From the coils of blind imagining.

2b&c)
Even now may we awake
From the ceaseless dream-confusion of this torrential life.

tutti)
May the Awakened Ones bless and guide us
In this time, in this place, in this very life.
May we find, may we return
Into the primordial light of boundless love.
May we now see the face of the Awakened one
Which is our own true face.




EPLOGUE


SOLO VOICES CHORUS


Voice
Voice continuing


Continuing
Continuing longing

Longing


Imagining
Imagining Breath

Breath
Longing.

Imagining

Breath

Continuing
Longing breath continuing

Continuing

Voice

Continuing love

Love


Voice

Love returning voice.

Voice.




PERFORMANCE NOTE

The section between * beginning “Now you are climbing” through * on p.18 ending “suddenly without effort” were omitted In the NY performance.

GENERAL NOTES

(1) Tibetan Book of the Dead-Trungpa/Fremantle;Shambhala ’75);
(2) Adapted from Sacred Tibetan Teachings- On Death and Liberation G. Orofino tr.; Prism Press 1990 P.31)
(3) adapted from p. 40; Trungpa/Fremantle
(4 )ibid p.42
(5 )adapted from (1)p.122. Longchen Rabjam, Nyoshul Khenpo:A Marvellous Garland of Rare Gems Padma Publishing 2005)
(6) the entire section on becoming adapted from Tulku Thondup- lecture on 8/06 in Boulder, Co, and Peaceful Death Joyful Rebirth 5,pp.85-18; Shambhala Pubs 2005

General References:, Fremantle: Luminous Emptiness;; Sogyal Rinpoche:Tibetan Book of Living and Dying; Crystal Mirror ;Erik Pema Kunsang tr.Treasury of Sublime Instructions; The Tibetan Book of the Dead tr. Gyurme Vajra, tr., Viking 2005; Tsele Natsok Rangdrol:Mirror of Mindfulness , Rangjung Yese Pubs 1990; Teachings on Bardo; Orgyen Kusum Lingpa;


© 2007 Douglas Penick, 18550 Folsom Street #606, Boulder, CO 80302