The Tibetan Book of the Dead · Reading 62 of 170

The Dawning of the Wrathful Deities, from the Eighth to the Fourteenth Day

Introduction

Reading 2 of 7

This is the Bardo of the Wrathful Deities; and, they being influenced by fear, terror, and awe, recognition becometh more difficult. The intellect, gaining not in independence, passeth from one fainting state to a round of fainting states. [Yet], if one but recognize a little, it is easier to be liberated [at this stage]. If it be asked why? [the answer is]: Because of the dawning of the radiances — [which produce] fear, terror, and awe — the intellect is undistractedly alert in one-pointedness; that is why.

If at this stage one do not meet with this kind of teaching, one's hearing [of religious lore] — although it be like an ocean [in its vastness] — is of no avail. There are even disciplines-holding abbots [or bhikkhus] and doctors in metaphysical discourses who err at this stage, and, not recognizing, wander into the Sangsāra.