A bardo is like an island in a lake, says Chogyam Trungpa in his commentary on the Bardo Thotrol: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo (The Tibetan Book of the Dead). “The concept of bardo is based on the period between sanity and insanity, or … between confusion and the confusion just about to be transformed into wisdom; and of course it could be said of the experience which stands between birth and death. The past situation has just occurred and the future situation has not yet manifested itself so there is a gap between the two. This is basically the bardo experience.”

Surely we recognize here our current experience in Pandemia: the entire globe, beautiful Planet Earth and her inhabitants, caught up in the explosive, terrifying, dangerous coronavirus pandemic. No escape.

How shall we be with this? Arising from our true need and longing, this question draws to us the brilliant light of the Dharma. Let us sit together—apart only in appearance—and call forth the wisdom of this very moment: the clarity and strength that are the essence of this great confusion and danger.

Teachings, practice, silence, communication… and communion.

 

“Life’s Song of Holy Praise” is a canticle, a song of praise from Life to our motherly planet Earth. It is given now, for the first time publicly, as medicine for our minds in a time of sweeping planetary changes. 

Lopon Barbara wrote down these lines in 2008 during a subtle vision of the great procession of life on Earth, called forth by a student prayer request to bring humans into right relationship with our planet. At that time Earth was already demonstrating signs of species extinction, loss of homeland for many kinds of beings, contamination and destruction of the natural world of which we are all made and upon which we all depend—signs of balance lost, life processes out of control, planetary body and atmosphere increasingly compromised. These immense dangers and losses deeply affect the minds, bodies, and behavior of beings on Earth. We are now witnessing and enduring pervasive confusion, grief, aggression, helplessness, fear, and despair as we experience directly the still-early stages of portended planetary changes. 

We need to understand two things: these Earth changes and the sufferings of beings are purification, and the changes most urgently needed are in the minds of human beings. Our minds. We are not helpless; we are powerful, for good or for ill. Our choice.

“Life’s Song,” as a practice, can transform fear and grief to love and holy praise, resonating love-wisdom, unborn and undying, throughout the realms of manifestation. This is the source of right relationship.