Meditations on Living, Dying, and Loss: The Essential Tibetan Book of the Dead

by Graham Coleman (Contributor), Dalai Lama XIV (Introduction), Gyurme Dorje (Translator)

Selections from Penguin's authoritative first complete translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead

One of the most inspirational and compelling works in world literature,  The Tibetan Book of the Dead presents a visionary exploration of both the after-death state and the inner workings of our perceptual states during life.

Meditations on Living, Dying, and Loss offers selected extracts from this influential text, focusing on perspectives and insights that are the most relevant to our modern experience of life, death, and loss. Each chapter is prefaced by the editor of the acclaimed unabridged translation, Graham Coleman. Here, in his accessible and moving essays, he illuminates the text's secrets, revealing the immense creativity that deepening our insight into the relationship between living and dying can bring.

Genres: Buddhism, Spirituality, History, Religion, Asia, Death, Philosophy

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2008

About the author

Graham Coleman is President of the Orient Foundation for Arts and Culture(UK), a major Tibetan cultural conservancy organization. He has been editing Tibetan Buddhist poetry and prose texts in cooperation with various distinguished translators since the mid-1970s.
Graham Coleman was born in Richmond, England, in 1951 and raised in Luxor, Upper Egypt, where his father was the Head Artist with the University of Chicago’s Egyptological expedition.
Educated at Mill Hill School and the University of Bristol where he received an Honours Degree in Psychology and Drama.
Writer and Director of the acclaimed feature documentary ‘Tibet – A Buddhist Trilogy’ (Arts Council of England and Thread Cross Films), 1976 to 1979. (http://www.tibetantrilogy.org.uk)
Studied Tibetan language and literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1975 to 1976, and between 1976 and 1989 received teachings on Tibetan Buddhist theory and practice, privately, from HH the 14th Dalai Lama, HH Trijang Rinpoche, HH Dudjom Rinpoche, HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and HE the 6th Tharig Rinpoche.
Chief Executive of the Orient Foundation for Arts and Culture (http://www.orient.org), 1983 to present.
Directed the creation of the world’s largest online multimedia archive of classical Tibetan knowledge (http://www.tibetan-knowledge.org), and established a network of multimedia documentation sites and libraries in the major Tibetan monasteries of India.
Co-Founder, in 2000, of the Academy of Classical Arts in Chengdu, Sichuan, China, which resulted in the creation of the first online training resource for classical Tibetan artists (http://www.tibetan-arts.org).
Between 2001 and 2004, initiated and managed a cooperation between the Orient Foundation for Arts and Culture, Microsoft Corporation and the Royal Government of Bhutan, which integrated Unicode based Tibetan script computing into the Microsoft Windows operating system and Microsoft applications. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology...).
In 2002, while working in Bhutan on the integration of Tibetan script into Windows, he met Dechen Chhoden, from Galing, in East Bhutan. They married in February, 2003 and their son Rinchen Sangay Coleman was born in December, 2003.
Editor: ‘A Handbook of Tibetan Culture’, Rider 1993; the first complete translation of the ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’, Penguin Classics 2005; and ‘Meditations on Living, Dying and Loss’, Penguin 2008.

Reviews

[Maira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Powerful. My only critique is I would have appreciated greater depth of explanation in regards to some of the more niche/specific concepts referred to. Definitely a book to be read again, perhaps in the form of the original Text.

[Bash · Rating 4 out of 5]

A spiritual book. The meaning and interpretation is dependant on your own state of mind when you read it. Some of the parts are silly when I view it through the lens of rationality. Others are profound everyday obvious facts perceived in a new way.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll probably reread it a few times in my life. Expanded my understanding and gave me a lot to chew on!

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author of this book is the translator for the famous book The Tibetan Book of the Dead. This work by him is kinda of an extension and elaboration of the root text. It is also practical for Westerners who practice death meditations during their life and can put these into practice at the time of their death.

It emphasizes deity yoga, the practice of visualization oneself as a deity as advanced or deity in front of their crown as lower level. Anyone who practices deity yoga and masters high level of concentration can benefit from this. It is known in the Tantric path that highly advanced practitioners can utilize death and intermediate state to realize emptiness and manifest the two bodies of a Buddha (Truth and Form bodies: dharmakaya and rupakaya). The exact details can be found in many different books explaining the Highest Yoga Tantra.

Never the less, people who don't have the opportunities to practice the Highest Yoga Tantra can still benefit from this book. The dying person who have spent their life practicing deity yoga and achieve meditative stability can still utilize this to achieve a more fortunate rebirth with conducive environment to learning dharma.

This book is not a read-for-fun book and it is easy to be misinterpreted by people who has no prior knowledge of the tantric path.

[Joshua Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was like CliffsNotes for the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

[Richard Gartee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tibetan Book of the Dead or the Bardo Thodol is a fourteenth century scripture by Karma Lingpa. Possibly the deepest explanation of the after-death experience in publication, it described in exacting detail what one experiences in the moments up until death, and for up to 49 days after. Tibetan Buddhists believe in reincarnation and nearly every point in the book is an instruction in how to break the cycle of rebirth.
Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, the Bardo Thodol goes far beyond what we now accept as after-death visions of a tunnel and bright light.
The gist of its methodology is that the deceased can hear for some period of time after death, and that by reading aloud its oral instructions of what the deceased is seeing after death can bring clarity, peace, and guidance.
I had heard of and read the well-known English translation by anthropologist, W. Y. Evans-Wentz many years ago. But this new translation by Graham Coleman has a foreword by the Dali Lama who verifies the accuracy of Coleman's translation.
Living, dying, or just curious, this small book is packed with interesting insights into the death state continuum.

[B · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book contains some interesting glimpses into beliefs about death and the afterlife in Tibetan Buddhism as found in the famous Tibetan Book of the Dead. In short, however, I found it to be much more supernatural than psychological in nature -- and it thus seems to have little practical application for those outside the Tibetan Buddhist fold. A belief in the karmic cycle and the powers of various deities dominate its pages; frequent references are also made to (sometimes gruesome) post-mortem torments and nefarious "hell beings". For those looking for more practical and less supernatural Buddhist teachings, I would recommend the (short) Dhammapada and John J. Holder's Early Buddhist Discourses.

[Richard Pickett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to rate this one.

I was constantly reminded throughout this book how Hindu-based beliefs overtook the simple insight of Gautama, infusing that basic insight of self, mind, and existentialism with the beliefs of reincarnation and karma.

On a scale of 1-5 for "impacting me in the areas listed in the title": 1

On a scale of 1-5 for "explaining details of after/pre/inbetween-life from a Tibetan mystical perspective": 5

[Audio Athena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook duration: 3 hr 42 minutes
Narrator: Stephen Hoye

This was a neat book in that it highlighted the bits of the Tibetan Book of the Dead that are still most relevant to today and discussed them in layman's terms. It was very interesting and is a good stepping off point for anyone wanting to explore more into death ceremonies and reincarnation.

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Occasionally inspirational, but mostly too esoteric.

[Dan Thiry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This booked helped me understand and move forward after a close friend of mine passed away. RIP Dan Shwartz

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author makes the content much easier to understand than the original work. It still comes off as dry and academic but it is the best option I've seen thus far.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an interesting but hard to read book for me. Not being familiar with any of the Buddhist dieties, made it more difficult to read for me. I saw some commonalities with Christianity.

[Lukas Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t feel any more prepared for death.

[Ilib4kids]

294.3423 KAR
CD 294.3423 KAR ( 3 discs)

Tibet: A Buddhist Trilogy ( 2h 14m 9s) Streaming Video

Nyingma 紅教
The Nyingma school considers Padmasambhava to be a founder of their tradition.

The Bardo Thodol , Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State, is a text from a larger corpus of teachings, the Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation through the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones,revealed by Karma Lingpa (1326–1386). It is the best-known work of Nyingma literature,and is known in the West as the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

The Tibetan text describes, and is intended to guide one through, the experiences that the consciousness has after death, in the bardo, the interval between death and the next rebirth. The text also includes chapters on the signs of death and rituals to undertake when death is closing in or has taken place.

[The Girl with the Sagittarius Tattoo]

Having read a few books by now on Buddhism and more than a few written by the Dalai Lama on a range of subjects, it amuses me to recall my journey from a teenager "no idea what Buddhism is really about except that it looks very peaceful and vegetarian and I hate what China did to Tibet," to my current generalizations.

1) The Dalai Lama is even better than you think.

2) Buddhists are WAY smart. They spend a lot of time contemplating EV-ERY-THING. Subatomic particles, the massiveness of the universe, death, rebirth, big questions, tiny trivialities and absolutely everything in between. It's all worthy of perusing.

3) They have a hard time simplifying their observations. That shouldn't imply they aren't worth reading... just make sure you turn your brain on and are in the right mood.

4) This book is why the word "esoteric" was invented.

If you want proof of generalizations 3 and 4, try this book. At least it's short.

[stormhawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think of this little book as a kind of tasting menu of Tibetan Buddhism. There is more that I feel I would need to know to make better use of the practices described here, but the ideas are well presented, and the poetry quite beautiful.

[Sean Conner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic.

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The excerpt intros are great but the best part might be the clear and accessible glossary.

[David Talach · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh...