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26 EASTERN HORIZON | FEATURE

“O nobly-born, that which is called death hath now come.
. . . Do not cling, in fondness and weakness, to this life.”

Listening to the lamas, my family members and I could
think about our own situations. We were encouraged
not only to let go of my grandmother so we could
carry on with our lives, but to make the most of our
precious human existence by considering other ways
that attachment and denial might be hindering our
path forward—were we clinging to a dead marriage, a
meaningless job? I found myself reflecting on how hard
it can be to acknowledge “what is” even as we know
reality is there whether or not we choose to face it. And
I was moved to realize that The Tibetan Book of the

Dead is 8th-century tough love powered by compassion:
The author lights a butter lamp with her grandmother before her altar
in Darjeeling, India. | Photo courtesy the author at the same time, we’re told to rip off our blinders and
confront reality, the lamas offer us companionship
and support. “We are like a spiritual friend to your
Not long after the conversation with my husband,
grandmother,” one lama explained. Day and night they
my grandmother died, at the age of 100. I left home
stayed by her side so she was never alone and, as I
in Tokyo for Darjeeling and after three days of travel
grieved, their presence reassured me.
arrived at my grandmother’s house in the Himalayan
foothills. Her body had been laid out on cushions in the
The second thing happened in Tokyo six years later,
altar room and covered with white silk khada blessing
in 2010, when I contracted a life-threatening heart
scarves; five lamas seated at her side read aloud from
infection called endocarditis. Bacteria proliferated in
the Bardo Thödol, playing horns, ringing bells, and
my mitral valve; possible complications included a heart
banging a drum. On the old wooden altar painted with
attack, stroke, catastrophic organ damage, intracranial
Tibetan lucky symbols, butter lamps burned beneath
hemorrhage, and neurological failure. Stunned and
the statue of Guru Rinpoche that generations of our
terrified, staring day after day at the white walls and
family had prayed to. Condolence callers filed in,
offering incense and khadas. ceiling of my hospital room, I thought about how the
term bardo also refers to intervals when ordinary life
is suspended—like during illness or an accident—and
In the days leading up to the cremation, we sat with the
I remembered a story about my great-grandfather.
lamas next to my grandmother’s body. I’d never quite
Riding his pony back down to India from Tibet after
grasped the concept underlying the literal translation
a diplomatic mission in 1912, he got caught in an
of Bardo Thödol— “Liberation in the Intermediate
avalanche. “The whole party including the mules was
State Through Hearing”—but, as the lamas spoke to my
buried,” my grandmother had told me over tea one
grandmother, the idea became clear: hovering in the
afternoon in Darjeeling, twilight falling on the peaks of
after-death bardo, my grandmother could hear Guru
Mount Kanchenjunga. “Only my father survived! Praying
Rinpoche’s teachings, be enlightened by their wisdom,
with his prayer beads, Save me, Guru Rinpoche, save
and move on to her new life.
me, he waved his arm up through the snow. The search
party saw his hand with the beads and he was saved.”
Another point I hadn’t fathomed but now understood
was how The Tibetan Book of the Dead could benefit
I’d heard many stories from my grandmother about
both the dead and the living. The lamas urged my
her father’s devotion to Guru Rinpoche. A police
grandmother to face reality, saying things like this:
officer, diplomat, and Buddhist scholar who worked