Death and Rebirth Teachings & Related Science

Teachings on Excellent Death &/Or Rebirth From Tibetan Buddhism
& Related Contributions from Primarily Western Scientists

• NEW Dying Well Tibetan Style - an ongoing monthly study in the Sunday Topics time slot. Open to everyone. Nonmembers $10 per session

• "Dying Well In Tibet" a Teaching at KTC by Ven. Bardor Tulku Rinpoche



• "Buddhism For Body Worlds" -Speaker's Notes by Lama Pamela Holtum



• NEW THE ULTIMATE JOURNEY: Consciousness and the Mystery of Death by Stanislav Grof, M.D. ISBN 0-9660019-9-0. p 21-22.

  "Preindustrial societies thus seemed to agree that death was not the ultimate defeat and end of everything, but an important transition. The experiences associated with death were seen as visits to important dimensions of reality that deserved to be experienced, studied, and carefully mapped. The dying were familiar with the eschatological cartographies of their cultures, whether these were shamanic maps of the funeral landscapes or sophisticated descriptions of the Eastern spiritual systems, such as those found in the Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan Book of the Dead. This important text of Tibetan Buddhism deserves special notice, since is represents an interesting counterpoint to Western civilization's exclusive pragmatic emphasis on productive life and denial of death. The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes the time of death as a unique opportunity for spiritual liberation from the cycles of death and rebirth and a period that determines our next incarnation, if we do not achieve liberation. In this context the intermediate states between lives (bardos) can be seen as more important than incarnate existence, and consequently it is essential to prepare for them by systematic practice during one's lifetime.

  Another characteristic aspect of ancient and preindustrial cultures that colors the experience of dying is their acceptance of death as an integral part of life. Throughout life, people living in these cultures spend time around dying people: handling corpses, observing cremation , and living with the remnants of their relatives. For a Westerner ... where this attitude is expressed in its extreme form, can be a profoundly shattering experience. In addition, people in preindustrial cultures typically die in the context of an extended family, clan, or tribe... Powerful rituals are conducted at the time of death to help individuals face the ultimate transition, or even provide specific guidance for dying, such as the approach described in the Bardo Thodal.

  ... The common denominator of such practices is that they involve non-ordinary states of consciousness, or a special important subgroup of these states, for which I have coined the term holotropic (Grof 1992). This composite word literally means 'oriented toward wholeness' or 'moving in the direction of wholeness.'"