The Vajra Path Module 6: Death, Dying, and Liminality
A seminar with Ian Baker on the Buddhist teachings about the death process and the states between, the closing seminar of the Vajra Path series.
The closing seminar of Ian Baker's six-part Vajra Path series, on dying and on the states between. Baker takes phowa, the ejection of consciousness at the moment of death, together with the bardo that phowa is meant to bypass, and draws on dark retreat, chod and the charnel grounds as rehearsals for it. He relays Niraj Kumar's finding, from the first full translation of the inner chapters, that the Kalachakra tantra mentions neither bardo nor phowa, being concerned instead with the stopping of time, and follows the Tibetan Book of the Dead from Evans-Wentz through Timothy Leary to the Beatles. Lecture and slides, then questions on less drastic ways of ejecting consciousness, and on shamatha as the foundation for any of it and as a trap that has to be broken. A revaluation of the traditional accounts rather than instruction in them.
What this course covers
- Phowa, and the bardo that phowa is intended to bypass
- Dark retreat, chod and the charnel grounds as rehearsals for dying
- Why the Kalachakra tantra describes neither bardo nor phowa
- The Tibetan Book of the Dead from Evans-Wentz to Timothy Leary
- Liminality, and the traditional teachings revalued
- Questions on gentler forms of phowa, and on shamatha as the ground
Sessions
- Module 6: Death, Dying, and Liminality 181 minutes