In some schools of Buddhism, bardo ( Wylie: bar do) or antarābhava (Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese: 中有, romanized in Chinese as zhōng yǒu and in Japanese as chū'u) is an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between death and rebirth. The concept arose soon after Gautama Buddha's death, with a number of earlier Buddhist schools accepting the existence of such an intermediate state, while other schools rejected it. That is to say that during the so-called third Council in Pataliputra (Patna) the Asokan section of early Buddhism rejected this concept of àntāra-bháva. Some of those monks who, during this Council, were disrobed and sent away re-introduced it in Hybrid Sanskrit manuscripts. Franklin D. EdgertonEdgerton, Franklin, 1885-1963 Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary (vol. 1) Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, via archive.org Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary (both vols) Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, via books.google.co.uk mentions àntarābhávika in the Bodhisatttva-bhumi: "someone living in the intermediate state", and àntarābháva in the Làlita-vistára and Abhidhárma-kosa.
The concept of antarābhava was brought into Buddhism from the Vedic-Upanishadic (later Hindu) philosophical tradition.John Bowker, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, Publisher: Oxford University Press, Print Publication Date: 2000, Print Bryan Jaré Cuevas, "Predecessors and Prototypes: Towards a Conceptual History of the Buddhist Antarābhava", Numen 43:3:263-302 (September 1996) Later Buddhism expanded the bardo concept to six or more states of consciousness covering every stage of life and death.Francesca Fremantle (2001), Luminous Emptiness: Understanding the Tibetan Book of the Dead, p.53-54. Boston: Shambala Publications. In Tibetan Buddhism, bardo is the central theme of the Bardo Thodol (literally Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State), the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a text intended to both guide the recently deceased person through the death bardo to gain a better rebirth and also to help their loved ones with the grieving process.Tibetan Buddhism and the resolution of grief: The Bardo-Thodol for the dying and the grieving, by Robert Goss, Death Studies, Vol. 21 Issue 4 Jul/Aug.1997, Pp.377-395
Used without qualification, "bardo" is the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. According to Tibetan tradition, after death and before one's next birth, when one's consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one experiences a variety of phenomena. These usually follow a particular sequence of degeneration from, just after death, the clearest experiences of reality of which one is spiritually capable, and then proceeding to terrifying hallucinations that arise from the impulses of one's previous unskillful actions. For the prepared and appropriately trained individuals, the bardo offers a state of great opportunity for liberation, since transcendental insight may arise with the direct experience of reality; for others, it can become a place of danger as the karmically created hallucinations can impel one into a less than desirable rebirth.
Metaphorically, bardo can be used to describe times when the usual way of life becomes suspended, as, for example, during a period of illness or during a meditation retreat. Such times can prove fruitful for spiritual progress because external constraints diminish. However, they can also present challenges because our less skillful impulses may come to the foreground, just as in the sidpa bardo.
Intermediate state in Indian Buddhism
From the records of early Buddhist schools, it appears that at least six different groups accepted the notion of an intermediate existence (antarabhāva), namely, the Sarvāstivāda, Darṣṭāntika, Vātsīputrīyas, Saṃmitīya, Pūrvaśaila and late Mahīśāsaka. The first four of these are closely related schools. Opposing them were the Mahāsāṃghika, early Mahīśāsaka, Theravāda, Vibhajyavāda and the Śāriputrābhidharma (possibly Dharmagupta).Bareau, André (1955). Les sectes bouddhiques du Petit Véhicule, p. 291. Saigon: Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient.
Some of the earliest references to an "intermediate existence" are to be found in the Sarvāstivādin text the Mahāvibhāṣa (阿毘達磨大毘婆沙論). For instance, the Mahāvibhāṣa indicates a "basic existence" (本有), an "intermediate existence" (中有), a "birth existence" (生有) and a "death existence" (死有) (CBETA, T27, no. 1545, p. 959, etc.). André Bareau's Les sectes bouddhiques du Petit Véhicule provides the arguments of the Sarvāstivāda schools as follows:Bareau, André (1955). Les sectes bouddhiques du Petit Véhicule, p. 143 Saigon: Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient.
The intermediate being who makes the passage in this way from one existence to the next is formed, like every living being, of the five aggregates (skandha). His existence is demonstrated by the fact that it cannot have any discontinuity in time and space between the place and moment of death and those of rebirth, and therefore it must be that the two existences belonging to the same series are linked in time and space by an intermediate stage. The intermediate being is the Gandharva, the presence of which is as necessary at conception as the fecundity and union of the parents. Furthermore, the Antarāparinirvāyin is an Anāgamin who obtains parinirvāṇa during the intermediary existence. As for the heinous criminal guilty of one of the five crimes without interval (ānantarya), he passes in quite the same way by an intermediate existence at the end of which he is reborn necessarily in hell.
Deriving from a later period of the same school, though with some differences, Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa explains (English trs. p. 383ff):
What is an intermediate being, and an intermediate existence? Intermediate existence, which inserts itself between existence at death and existence at birth, not having arrived at the location where it should go, cannot be said to be born. Between death—that is, the five skandhas of the moment of death—and arising—that is, the five skandhas of the moment of rebirth—there is found an existence—a "body" of five skandhas—that goes to the place of rebirth. This existence between two realms of rebirth (gatī) is called intermediate existence.
He cites a number of texts and examples to defend the notion against other schools which reject it and claim that death in one life is immediately followed by rebirth in the next, without any intermediate state in between the two. Both the Mahāvibhāṣa and the Abhidharmakośa have the notion of the intermediate state lasting "seven times seven days" (i.e. 49 days) at most. This is one view, though, and there were also others.
Similar arguments were also used in Harivarman's *Satyasiddhi Śāstra, and the Upadeśa commentary on the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, both of which have strong influence from the Sarvāstivāda school. Both of these texts had powerful influence in Chinese Buddhism, which also accepts this idea as a rule.
The Saddharma-smṛty-upasthāna Sūtra (正法念處經) classifies 17 intermediate states with different experiences.
Six bardos in Tibetan Buddhism
Fremantle (2001) states that there are six traditional bardo states known as the Six Bardos: the Bardo of This Life (p. 55); the Bardo of Meditation (p. 58); the Bardo of Dream (p. 62); the Bardo of Dying (p. 64); the Bardo of Dharmata (p. 65); and the Bardo of Existence (p. 66).Francesca Fremantle (2001), Luminous Emptiness, p.55-66, Boston: Shambala Publications.
Shugchang, et al. (2000: p. 5) discuss the Zhitro (Tibetan: Zhi-khro) cycle of teachings of Karma Lingpa which includes the Bardo Thodol and list the Six Bardo: "The first bardo begins when we take birth and endures as long as we live. The second is the bardo of dreams. The third is the bardo of concentration or meditation. The fourth occurs at the moment of death. The fifth is known as the bardo of the luminosity of the true nature. The sixth is called the bardo of transmigration or karmic becoming.Shugchang, Padma (editor); Sherab, Khenchen Palden & Dongyal, Khenpo Tse Wang (2000). A Modern Commentary on Karma Lingpa's Zhi-Khro: teachings on the peaceful and wrathful deities. Padma Gochen Ling. (accessed: December 27, 2007)
+Table of Bardo Stages Bardo Bardo Name DescriptionDuring life This bardo is the state of waking life. It lasts from one's conception until one's death. This stage encompasses all of the conscious experiences of daily life. This bardo is a subset of the first Bardo. One is in this bardo when they are asleep dreaming. This stage is an opportunity to practice dream yoga. This can help to integrate the dream state into Buddhist sadhana. Like the second bardo, the third bardo is also a subset of the first bardo. It is stage experienced in deep meditation, usually only by advanced meditators, though individuals may have spontaneous experience of it.During dying The fourth bardo begins when the dying process begins, specifically when the outer and inner signs presage that the onset of death is high. The bardo continues through the dissolution or transmutation of the elements until the external and internal breath has completed.
This element dissolution leads to the state of consciousness known as the clear light of death. Those who were experienced at voluntarily sustaining the clear light consciousness during life are capable of retaining lucid awareness throughout the clear light, while others lose lucid awareness, blacking out. Meditation practitioners train to retain lucidity during the clear light of death, by practicing sustaining lucidity during the clear of light of sleep state, accessed via lucid deep sleep. The recognition of the clear light of death leads to the state of Tukdam. The fifth bardo begins after the final 'inner breath' (Sanskrit: prana, vayu; Tibetan: rlung). Within this Bardo, visions and auditory phenomena occur, known in Dzogchen teachings as the spontaneously manifesting Tögal (Tibetan: thod-rgal) visions. Concomitant to these visions, there is a welling of profound peace and pristine awareness.
Those who have not practiced during their lived experience and/or who do not recognize the clear light (Tibetan: 'od gsal) at the moment of death are usually deluded throughout the fifth bardo of luminosity. The sixth bardo is when the consciousness takes on a mental body. This stage endures until the inner-breath commences in the new transmigrating form determined by the "karmic seeds" within the storehouse consciousness.
History Since the Bardo Thodol was translated into English, different conceptions of the bardo have emerged over the years (Lopez, 1998: p. 43 and 83). In the translation of Walter Y. Evans-Wentz in 1927, the description of the bardo was an "esoteric" view of rebirth as an evolutionary system in which regression to the brutish realms was impossible. Almost four decades later, in 1964, Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert saw the intermediate states as being really about life, profitable as an account of an eight-hour acid trip. Chögyam Trungpa portrays the realms of rebirth as psychological states in 1975, and Sogyal Rinpoche uses his discussion of the six realms as an opportunity to lampoon California surfers and New York bankers, in the translation that was published in 1992. Two years later Robert Thurman (1994) interpreted the bardo, which is described originally as a Nyingma text, from a Geluk frame.
Fremantle (2001: p. 53–54) charts the development of the bardo concept through the Himalayan tradition: