Category: Media

Tibetan Book of the Dead

Manuscript of Bardo Thodol

It’s dying to take you away..turn off your minds, relax and float down stream maybe quintessential Beatles or trippy mantra but some of these words connect to an ancient text via Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience.

But it was Aldous Huxley who introduced the Tibetan Book of the Dead to Leary via Walter Evans-Wentz’s translation of the Bado Thodol (1927, Oxford University Press). Evans-Wentz chose the title because of parallels he saw in the Egyptian book of The Dead.

The intention of the the text is to guide one through the experiences of consciousness after death and intermediary stages between death and rebirth. These transitional stages are known as Bardos. The text also includes rituals to undertake for the dead or dying.
The 3 Bardos are, 1) the Chikhai Bardo or Bardo of the moment of death or the clear light reality, 2) the Chonyid Bardo or Bardo of the experiencing of reality or the experience of visions of various Buddha forms and 3) the Sidpa Bardo or Bardo of rebirth hallucinations leading to rebirth and karmically impelled hallucinations.

Tibetan Book of the Dead

According to Leary, the Tibetan Book of The Dead is a key to the innermost recesses of the human mind and a guide for initiates and for those who are seeking the spiritual path of liberation.

The Psychedelic Experience

The Psychedelic Experience (1964, University Books) attempts to explain the symbolic nature of the hallucinatory experience when taking LSD. It’s not surprising those who’ve taken the drug describe experiences of intense white light & letting go of the ego, hallucinations of a karmic nature and another stage liken to rebirth or re-entry.

Whether or not this is the same as the inner journey as outlined in the Tibetan Book of the Dead is debatable.

John Lennon wrote Tomorrow Never Knows (1966) having read The Psychedelic Experience but felt LSD only exacerbated his personal problems. Other initiates weren’t so lucky stranded in permanent psychosis, the casualties of a drug phenomenon.

Thinking of Leonard Cohen

 

by Hazel FieldPortrait by Hazel Field

I first encountered Leonard Cohen in the ’80s during the music television experience and ‘I’m Your Man’ seemed to morph between melody and Cohen’s iconic face. But memory isn’t always reliable. Sometimes it tricks on recall and still the impression remains vivid. 

Years later an interest in poetry led to a second and more reliable encounter. My appreciation felt like a kind of binary experience where I took to the lyrics & then the changes. Or was it the melody before the words? Anyhow, it had little to do with me but rather having been drawn toward the beguiling personality as much as the verse. His career as singer, writer and his mainstream & commercial success defy conventional wisdom as he magically redefines the role of contemporary poet. What appears as a natural, almost organic public output is surely an implausible balancing act for others and his poems’ most private thoughts seem impervious to commercial exposure. Then there’s the phenomena where songs are so celebrated they take on a life of their own and become universal standards. Hallelujah’s multi verse complexity is counter balanced with its perfectly weighted hymnal changes speaking across generations. But to me it’s the private experience that’s the thing, something like finding a guitar in the back of the cupboard with a songbook in the case – and invariably it’s Dylan or..Leonard Cohen.