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Here’s a Comic Book Guide to the Bardo, the Tibetan Buddhist Afterlife

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Mahakala

This brilliant comic explains the Bardo, the intermediary period between life and death. To find out what Tibetan Buddhists think happens to you after death, read on.

According to Tibetan Buddhists, the bardo is the intermediary stage between death and rebirth.

It’s where a soul who has just left its body experiences a hyper-vivid “virtual reality” where its life flashes before its eyes. The soul then gets to witness first-hand the karma it has accumulated during that lifetime. The Nyingma school of Tibet teaches that this period lasts 49 days.

During this time the just-passed individual must come to grips with the life they’ve just lived and prepare for the next one. Each individual’s next life is determined by their prior karma and by their actions in the bardo.

These teachings are incredibly deep and complex, and critical for esoteric Buddhists. This is particularly because devoted Buddhists believe that this trans-incarnational period is an excellent opportunity to decide not to reincarnate. By not reincarnating, they avoid the suffering inherent in existence.

RELATED CONTENT: This Incredible Buddhist Mandala Depicts the Insanity of American Life

The teachings are contained in the Bardo Thödol, commonly known as the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The bardo was recently depicted incredibly vividly in the Gaspar Nöe film Enter the Void, about a man who dies while smoking DMT in Tokyo and must spend the rest of the film dealing with the bardo state.

The comic book below, created by Thomas Scoville, used to be all over the Internet. Unfortunately, it’s now vanished from all but a few backup archives. The graphics are pretty basic. However, the comic brilliantly sums up exactly what the bardo is, and how to transit it. I’ve saved it here for posterity—enjoy!

PS… Take This Before You Transit the Bardo (It’s Dangerous to Go Alone!)

The necessary skills to transit the Bardo are all developed by practicing meditation.

These skills include the ability to see through the delusions of maya or samsara, the ability perceive the primary clear light that is the fundamental nature of reality, the ability to not give in to the lower desires, and many more.

All of these skills are developed by true, real, deep practice of meditation.

In order to teach people these core skills (and escape the illusory nature of life and death!), Ultraculture created a course on Hardcore Meditation: The 8 Limbs of Raja Yoga.

In this course, you’ll learn how to meditate the real way, by following the ancient, eight-step Vedic science of Raja Yoga. (Raja Yoga was the core source code that Tibetan Buddhism was developed on).

This course will give you everything you need to know to begin the kind of lifelong meditation practice that can help you start seeing through the illusions of existence… and start preparing for the Bardo itself.

Click here to start learning hardcore meditation now!

(Top image via.)

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RELATED: The Buddha’s Eight Rules for Living Awesomely, and Mastering Life
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Start learning meditation now!

About Jason Louv

Jason Louv is the editor-in-chief of Ultraculture and has written for Boing Boing, VICE News, Motherboard and more. His books include John Dee and the Empire of Angels, Ultraculture Journal, Queen Valentine, Thee Psychick Bible and Generation Hex.

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