The Tibetan Book of the Dead · Reading 25 of 170

The Bardo of the Experiencing of Reality

The Dawning of the Peaceful Deities, from the First to the Seventh Day

[Assuming that the deceased is karmically bound — as the average departed one is — to pass through the forty-nine days of the Bardo existence, despite the very frequent settings-face-to-face, the daily trials and dangers which he must meet and attempt to triumph over, during the first seven days, wherein dawn the Peaceful Deities, are next explained to him in detail; the first day, judging from the text, being reckoned from the time in which normally he would be expected to wake up to the fact that he is dead and on the way back to rebirth, or about three and one-half to four days after death.]