The Tibetan Book of the Dead · Reading 17 of 170
The Bardo of the Moments of Death
Instructions Concerning the Second Stage of the Chikhai Bardo: The Secondary Clear Light Seen Immediately After Death
Reading 2 of 4
During this interval, the directions are to be applied [by the lama or reader]:
There are those [devotees] of the perfected stage and of the visualizing stage. If it be one who was in the perfected stage, then call him thrice by name and repeat over and over again the above instructions of setting-face-to-face with the Clear Light. If it be one who was in the visualizing stage, then read out to him the introductory descriptions and the text of the Meditation on his tutelary deity, and then say,
O thou of noble-birth, meditate upon thine own tutelary deity. — [Here the deity's name is to be mentioned by the reader.] Do not be distracted. Earnestly concentrate thy mind upon thy tutelary deity. Meditate upon him as if he were the reflection of the moon in water, apparent yet in-existent [in itself]. Meditate upon him as if he were a being with a physical body.
So saying, [the reader will] impress it.