I'm still picking at the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead. In particular the second between, referred to as the "Reality Between".

The first between is the "Death Point Between", and involves what goes on surrounding the actual end of biological life; elements of consciousness, body, and perspective dissolving into a clear light. I really like that the death process is broken down into experiential components involving the dissolution of consciousness and reality awareness. That makes sense to me.

It may be a calm and peaceful transition, or it might be confusing and tumultuous, like raging fire, mountains crumbling, crushing tsunamis, and gusting winds. It does square with reports of near-death experiences of seeing a "blinding white light".

The third between is called the "Existence Between", and is the stage after a "soul", for lack of a better word, has missed the chances of attaining awakening/liberation in the Reality Between, due to negative evolution/karma and extreme attachment to physical existence, and begins the process of re-manifesting in the world.

The Reality Between is supposed to be extremely subtle, and most people are completely unaware of it and shoot right through it and end up in the Existence Between to be re-born. It's in the Reality Between that the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead is heavy on the Indian/Buddhist imagery/iconography/aesthetic that I mentioned last week and found potentially problematic.

And I'm thinking how the great adept Padma Sambhava mastered navigating the death between stages after numerous lifetimes of focusing on it, maybe even unaware that this was a process he was exploring lifetime after lifetime. In the end, he could accurately describe what he experienced in the Reality Between, and came up with the guide to be recited to aid the deceased to awakening there.

He reports that even though our existence is in the most subtle form in the Reality Between, our awareness, intelligence, and ability is extremely sharp, and uninhibited by our very limited bodily manifestations, senses, and perspectives. So attaining awakening in the Reality Between is relatively easy and instantaneous if we can realize ourselves in our subtle nature.

Anyway, Padma Sambhava's description of the Reality Between involves a bunch of mild and fierce Buddhist deities appearing, and one can attain awakening just by resisting reacting in a habitual manner – behaviors that were learned as habit as a human – and recognizing them as being creations of our own mind, no separation between them and you. BAM! Awakening.

Hearing that as a human, it's very difficult to realize that. Even being able to intellectualize or conceptualize it doesn't lead to awakening, because our fixation and belief in the matrix of physical reality is so ingrained. But in the Reality Between, if one hears it, it is much easier to realize to awakening.

I'm thinking that, of course, Padma Sambhava encountered Buddhist deities. He was a great Buddhist adept, so great that he was able to navigate the death betweens! No easy feat. And the time and the place and the people he wrote the guide for makes it logical that he wrote it the way he did.

Now I'm wondering about near-death reports of people who say their lives flashed before their eyes, like a movie. Where could that fit in? I'm thinking Reality Between. Keeping to Padma Sambhava's template of first encountering mild deities, followed by fierce deities if awakening is not attained, maybe a modern spin would be that first we encounter benevolent elements in our lives, which come to us like a film of nice moments in our past life, likewise followed by a film of the ugly moments and elements.

First we get the benevolent reel, and we encounter our friends, loved ones, mentors, family, and we have to resist our human habituated behavior of attaching to them, of desiring to be with them again, and we have to realize that they are creations of our own mind, reflections of our own mind, are our own mind.

If we don't, then we get the second reel/real, and we encounter all the nasty elements from our previous life, exes, bad parents, sadistic siblings, spiders, our worst secrets get manifested, our psyches get plumbed, the Spanish Inquisition (no one expected the Spanish Inquisition!) whatever, we all have something, and we have to resist being fearful, angry, or ashamed, or running away, and we have to realize that they are creations of our own mind, reflections of our own mind, are our own mind.

And that's exactly it, isn't it? We encounter these things from our lives in the Reality Between and all we need to do is realize that they are us, no separation. And that's exactly what, according to Buddhism, awakening is for us here in this world – to encounter the same people and elements in our lives and realize we're all one thing, we're all interrelated, there is no I, there is no you to the enlightened.

The book of the dead is just a flipside of the book of living.