When I saw the posting about the Buddhist teachings at IC, though I didn't attend, it reminded me of what I'd learned from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The book is an ancient Tibetan manual on how to guide a person through the intermediate stage between death and their next rebirth, so they might avoid taking rebirth again in "cyclic existence".

But what relevance does that ancient text have for those of us who are living?

In that vividly written instruction manual for "the between", the souls traveling have to make an important realization. They have to understand that the lights, sounds, and figures that appear to them in that confusing disembodied journey (of course within the Buddhist Pantheon) are not evil villains to be fought with or feared, but aspects of themselves. They have to identify with icons of terror, in other words, and that identification will "wake them up" to their true natures, and pass them swiftly out of the game.

Game Over! You've done it.

...And what did you do?

Well, when you've understood that what appears to be outside of you is truly inside of you, what is left? Just you.

That, to me, seems to be the whole point of the text. Though it is a copiously detailed explanation of what to chant to the deceased person to help them make this realization, it points to the central truth of the whole ideology.

There is only one of us.

That, to me, seems really practical for daily life. How are we to deal with strange, often frightening, things that appear in our lives? How are we to cope with the people who threaten us, who annoy us, who challenge us? Identification. When we state to ourselves "this is me" it is not only a nice coping tool given by New Age therapists, it is the Truth, and perhaps it is even a shout out to the Creator saying "Hey, I get the idea. I don't need to play this game anymore, you can take away this lunatic now."

Of course, we can't just say it, we have to believe it. That would be the challenge. But even if the disturbances in our lives never disappear, wouldn't it be beautiful if the people who came in and out of the movie screen testing how well we understand that "truth" were people that we loved... as much as we love ourselves?

TAGGED WITH: Buddhism, spirituality, Tibetan