Talk:Bardo Thodol

"Paul van der Veld"

The article claims something and cites the name Paul van der Veld but this is not then cited in the references. If the claim is valid, then whoever wrote it please make the proper citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.64.241 (talk) 20:09, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Chikhai and chonyid bardos

1. the chikhai bardo or "bardo of the moment of death "
2. the chonyid bardo or "bardo of the experiencing of reality"
...
The chikhai bardo features the experience of the "clear light of reality", or at least the nearest approximation to it of which one is spiritually capable.

The chonyid bardo features the experience of visions of various Buddha forms (or, again, the nearest approximations of which one is capable).

When comparing 1. and 2. with the two descriptions below, it appears that "chikhai" and "chonyid" have been mixed up. Maybe someone who is more knowledgable on the topic than I am will be able to clarify this.

Seems there is no mixup.--Klimov 10:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

In short: I was wondering about why chonyid is referred to as ...reality under 2. , because the description for chikhai given in the paragraph below seems to makes the identical notion of ...reality although it is associated with ...death under 1.

Yes, it seems I did understand your concern correctly.

It seems to me there is no mixup.--Klimov 10:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Yidams

The section titled "Yidams" could benefit from some explanation. It sort of comes out of nowhere and isn't tied in any obvious way to the rest of the page. What are yidams, and what do they have to do with the Bardo Thodol? DuelinMarkers 04:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, seems to me also.--Klimov 10:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Fremantle (2001: p.20) states

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/subdivisions/tibetan_2.shtml

It would be helpful to know who/what Fremantle is. There is no decent bibliography explaining this. Is it a book title, the author of a book(if so what book),...Ect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.200.168.35 (talk) 05:24, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup

The background information on this book is incomplete, as noted by the above comment. Since it's been several months with no appropriate changes made, I have added a cleanup tag. -Rolypolyman (talk) 03:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The information doesn't seem incomplete to me. This is an in print edition of the The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation Through Hearing in the Bardo, but of course is not authored, only translated by the named due to its traditional nature.

81.99.156.250 (talk) 00:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

In Fact the full reference for Fremantle 2001 is given in the references list, but it is difficult to find because that list is not alphabetical by author, and one is misled by looking at the other Fremantle title. I hesitate to intervene, but suggest the list of full references should be rearranged to be alphabetical by author, for ease of reference. Eebahgum (talk) 01:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It would be helpful if searching for 'Tibetan Book Of The Dead' led to this page. Can anyone make it happen? --77.250.154.137 (talk) 19:27, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Redirecting

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is actually known as ¨Great Liberation through hearing during the intermediate state¨ according to this article. I´m redirecting this page to ¨Great Liberation through hearing during the intermediate state.¨ Prowikipedians (talk) 18:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Personally, it seems to me that using the Tibetan title would be more appropriate. There are multiple translations of the name, and I'm not sure what the BBC article uses to establish that what you mention is the "official" one; to my knowledge, there's no such thing as an "official" translation. The best known name in English-language works is certainly the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is certainly not accurate but is the common name; given the confusion over how to identify the work in English, it seems that the easiest thing is to leave it under the Tibetan title, rather than wrangle over alternate translations of the name. --Clay Collier (talk) 11:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree - the title should be Bardo Thodol with appropriate redirects. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 00:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree, as well. I have the sense that "Tibetan Book of the Dead" more describes an orientalist cultural phenomenon than the text itself. Are we stuck with the spelling "Bardo Thodol"? I would prefer either a more rigorous phonetic spelling (Bhardo Thödröl) or a simpler one (Bardo Todol)—"Bardo Thodol" is unsatisfactory from both sides—one might say that it is too intermediate. However, the latter does seem to be significantly more common.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 00:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I moved it back to Bardo Thodol yesterday. It wins the Google fight for most common transliteration by a landslide, but I'm open to the option of moving it to a more technically correct transliteration in the future; I don't, however, have the right expertise to know for sure what that would be, and worry that I would just vote for whoever presented me with the most umlauts. --Clay Collier (talk) 09:12, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Bardo Thödol

I read the book a few months back, and it was titled "Bardo Thödol", with an ö.

I'm sure that's how it was printed in that case, but there's nothing official about that spelling—the only "real" spelling of a Tibetan word is in Tibetan. Systematic Roman-letter equivalents include:

• Bar-do Thos-grol in the Wylie system;
• Bhardo Thödröl in the Tournadre Phonetic system;
• Bardo Tödröl in the THDL Simplified system (with Bardo Todrol as a perhaps acceptable variant);
• Parto Toichoil in the official PRC system.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 20:41, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Well now that is just plain confusing. If there is no official spelling, how do you name the article? Why was Bardo Thodol chosen of all the possibilities? I always forget to sign these things...Mátyás (talk) 12:16, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Bardo Thodol was chosen because it is the most common way of transliterating the name; it's not the most technically correct version of the name, but it's the version that readers of an English encyclopedia would be most likely to encounter. General policy on Wikipedia is to use the most common or familiar name of something when there isn't an official designation. --Clay Collier (talk) 12:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Aha. Understood. Just, I liked the ö.Mátyás (talk) 14:15, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

It's actually just plain weird if they used ö for the first vowel and not for the second, since they are the same sound.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 20:20, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Comparison with the Western experience of death

While I personally don't doubt the parallels drawn in this section, absent a citation they are original research. I've marked the section w/ fact for now rather than outright deleting. The source at the end doesn't specifically [that I can see] support the claims in the first para. PlainJain (talk) 15:18, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Date of Discovery

The Background says that Karma Lingpa discovered the Bardo Thodol in the 12th century, but Lingpa's page states that he was born in 1350. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.58.96.124 (talk) 22:13, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Dead Weblinks

1. The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Way of Life First part of a documentary filmed in Ladakh by NHK, Mistral and CFB
2. The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation Second part of a documentary filmed in Ladakh by NHK, Mistral and CFB

These links do not work any more. (JimRenge (talk) 13:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC))

Is there anybody (with a working brain) out there?

The lowness of homo sapiens mental capacity never cease to amaze me.

The book, for the ones that have read it, does not contain dead rituals nor does it talk about reincarnation or life after death. Instead, it is a manual on how to take the most from the oniric journey of every night. The "reincarnation" is the awakening of the morning. The "daemons" are our fears and regrets. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.18.226.44 (talk) 14:58, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

@79.18.226.44: Well yes, you're on the right track. It is about purifying / transforming / transmuting the gross physical and mental dharmas during this life - or attempting to recognize their innate purity at the point of death (which is of course very difficult to do if you have not practised this meditation during one's life - including in the "bardo" between waking and sleeping (and that between sleeping and waking)). The "hundred wrathful and peaceful deities" are said to be pure forms or symbolic representations of the purified psycho-physical constituents or dharmas which we need to recognize as such. So, if you like, it is a kind of abhidharma practice of the vajrayana. These manifestations are only "demons" when one doesn't recognize their pure / empty / enlightened nature. However, although it is a practice supposed to be done during ones lifetime, the book is also read at the time of death (along with associated rituals vividly invoking these "deities") in order to remind the practitioner of the pure/empty nature of phenomena - because it is believed that the point of death, when the constituents of body and mind are "dissolving", is a particularly opportune time (maybe the last opportunity) to recognize this.

☸ Chris Fynn (talk) 20:06, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

lack of clarity of what constitutes the work

The article says, "despite knowledge of texts and practices related to the Bardo - the book as found in the west is say over dead people in Tibet in the title or form" and also "The Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State is recited by Tibetan Buddhist lamas over a dying or recently deceased person". These two statements are nearly contradictory.

Can anyone elucidate how the following things relate to each other:

• 1 Karma Lingpa's Peaceful and Wrathful Ones
• 2 Karma Lingpa's Great Liberation upon Hearing
• 3 Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State
• 4 Great Liberation through Hearing: The Supplication of the Bardo of Dharmata
• 5 Great liberation through Hearing: The Supplication Pointing Out the Bardo of Existence
• 6 What Tibetan lamas say over dead people and where they read it from (unless it's memorized)
• 7 Bardo of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities

It does seem clear that 4 and 5 were combined by a Nepalese book Wentz worked from and published as "The Tibetan Book of the Dead". Were they combined sequentially, or is it more of a mash-up? When folks offer the newer "complete" translations, what's included? Complete versions of the two texts Wentz' work was derived from, or do they also include other elements of the up to 38 works included in Peaceful and Wrathful Ones?

All these texts form part of the Zhitro terma cycle revealed by Karma Lingpa which is known in Tibet as the Karling Zhitro. The text which forms a major part of another Evans-Wenz book "The Tibetan book of the Great liberation" is also another part of that same cycle - which, all together, in Tibetan constitute two large volumes in its most extensive edition. The English version of the "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" translated by Gyurme Dorje and published by Penguin / Viking is the closest thing to a complete translation of all the texts in the cycle. There are several other similar Zhitro cycles in Tibet in both the Buddhist and Bon traditions. All these Zhitro texts and practices are actually based on the Guhyagarbha Tantra. Strictly speaking, the Bardo Thodol refers only to the "Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State". As to what Tibetan lamas "say over dead people" in short form, for lamas of the Nyingma and some of the Kagyu traditions, it is quite often this (or a similar text from one of the other Zhitro revalations). In long form Nyingma / Kagyu lamas may perform the complete (2 large volume) ritual cycle for 49 days. Other Tibetan traditions have quite different death rituals - the extensive ones focusing on tantric mandalas of Akshobhya or Amoghasiddhi. Various Amitabha practices are also commonly used as death rituals by lamas of all Tibetan Buddhist sects. The "Tibetan Book of the Dead" became famous in the West because of the Evans-Wenz book - but it is certainly not the most commonly used text or ritual for the dead used in Tibet - but any Nyingma or Kagyu lama - and most others - would have heard of it, so to say it is "virtually unknown" is not right either. I'm afraid this is just another case of people with only a very shallow half-baked knowledge of the topic they are writing about editing Buddhist articles on Wikipedia - at least editors should try and read all the important books and published articles on such topics first. Chris Fynn (talk) 19:14, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Merge with article Zhitro?

It might make sense to merge this article as a section of the article Zhitro. There does not seem to be much point in having both articles (both of which need a lot of work) and this one would most logically go under that article. Chris Fynn (talk) 18:56, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

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Missing cite in Bardo Thodol

Copied from User talk:Joshua Jonathan#Missing cite in Bardo Thodol

In Dec 2014, you added short cite to "Fremantle, Fremantle & Trungpa 2003" but no such source is listed in bibliography. Can you please add? Also, suggest installing a script to highlight such errors in the future. All you need to do is copy and paste importScript('User:Svick/HarvErrors.js'); // Backlink: [[User:Svick/HarvErrors.js]] to your common.js page. Thanks, Renata•3 02:17, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

@Renata3: the reference was already there; I just converted it. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:16, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Huh? It was added in this edit. It did not exist prior in the article. Renata•3 22:49, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

End of copied part

@Renata3: it did, under "Translations and summaries": Fremantle, Francesca & Chögyam Trungpa (1975) The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo by Guru Rinpoche according to Karma Lingpa. Boulder: Shambhala ISBN 0-394-73064-X, ISBN 1-59030-059-9 (reissued 2003). Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:21, 20 May 2022 (UTC)