The Tibetan Buddhist Bardo: What Happens Between Death and Rebirth

Beliefs vary among Tibetan Buddhist schools and teachers, and the bardo is not accepted by all Buddhists. This article gives general guidance; families should ask their own lama or teacher what applies.

What does “bardo” mean?

Bardo is Tibetan for an in-between state, a gap or interval between two points. Tibetan Buddhism counts six bardos, and they are not all about death: the bardo of this life, of dreaming, and of meditation are three of them, according to Wikipedia’s summary of the scholar Francesca Fremantle. But when people say “the bardo” without qualification they mean the intermediate state between death and the next rebirth. The idea is older than Tibet: some early Indian Buddhist schools accepted an intermediate state (Sanskrit antarabhava) lasting at most seven times seven days, while others rejected it.

How long does the bardo between lives last?

Up to 49 days. Encyclopaedia Britannica says the period between death and rebirth lasts 49 days and involves three bardos. Tricycle explains that practitioners are thought to pass through it in seven-day cycles that can repeat up to seven times, and that the number was borrowed from an Indian sutra. The World History Encyclopedia describes seven weekly phases, the first week given to preparing the body and the funeral rites. This is why Tibetan families hold rites at seven-day intervals and a final ceremony at 49 days. See Buddhist beliefs about the days after death.

What are the three phases?

Sources describe them with varying names; these are the common English ones.

1. The bardo of the moment of death (chikhai bardo). As the body’s elements dissolve, the clear light of reality is said to dawn. A person who recognizes it as the nature of their own mind can be liberated at once. Most, the texts say, faint or fail to recognize it.
2. The bardo of reality (chönyid bardo). The dead person’s consciousness encounters visions: first peaceful deities, then wrathful ones. The texts insist these are projections of the person’s own mind, not external beings, and that recognizing them as such is another chance at liberation. The World History Encyclopedia summarizes it as the positive and negative energies of one’s life manifesting as entities that block or open the path.
3. The bardo of becoming (sidpa bardo). Drawn by habit and karma, the consciousness takes a mental body, is pulled toward the six realms of rebirth, and finally enters a womb. The guidance here is about choosing a favorable rebirth and, if possible, closing the womb door.

One’s response to reality in life is thought to shape what one meets in the bardo, which is why the teachings are also practiced by the living.

What is read to the dying person?

The Bardo Thödol, which means liberation through hearing in the intermediate state. It is a set of texts said to have been composed in the 8th century by Padmasambhava, hidden, and rediscovered by Karma Lingpa in the 14th century, according to the World History Encyclopedia and Tricycle; it was not printed until the 18th century. A lama reads it aloud to the dying person, beginning before death if possible and continuing through the 49 days, according to Britannica, so that the consciousness recognizes what it is meeting and is not frightened. Hearing, the tradition holds, can liberate.

Why is it called The Tibetan Book of the Dead?

Because its first English translator named it that. Walter Evans-Wentz, an American with Theosophical leanings who could not read Tibetan well, worked with Lama Kazi Dawa Samdup to produce a translation published by Oxford University Press in 1927. He chose the title to echo the Egyptian Book of the Dead, a comparison Britannica notes he claimed to detect, and Wikipedia’s account notes that scholars have found his framework more Theosophical than Tibetan. Carl Jung wrote a commentary reading it as a map of the unconscious, and in the 1960s Timothy Leary and colleagues repurposed it as a guide to psychedelic experience. The World History Encyclopedia observes that the book as a guide for the living has taken on a life independent of its original purpose, which was to be read to the dead.

Do all Buddhists believe in the bardo?

No. Tricycle notes that the bardo is not universally accepted within Buddhism and is found mainly in Tantric traditions, and Wikipedia’s summary notes that some early Buddhist schools rejected the idea of an intermediate state altogether. Within Tibetan Buddhism the details differ by school. For how Buddhist views of rebirth compare with Hindu, Sikh, and Jain ones, see how Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, and Jain views of reincarnation differ.

What does this mean for a Tibetan Buddhist family after a death?

Practically, that the days after death matter. The body is ideally left undisturbed for a time while a lama performs phowa, the transference of consciousness, and prayers; the Bardo Thödol may be read; and offerings and rites continue through the 49 days. See Buddhist funeral traditions and, for one Tibetan form of disposition, sky burial. A family’s own lama is the right guide to what their tradition expects.

Beliefs vary between traditions, teachers, and families. Everendium describes what the sources say and encourages readers to consult their own teachers or community where appropriate.