I may have covered some or much of this before, but those delog (returned from death) accounts from Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth got me thinking. Granted all kinds of death speculation puts my thinking into runaway train mode.

Again, it seems to me the various accounts of what happened during the death bardos were similar because the delogs were all taught in the Tibetan cultural and religious tradition. There were differences because all individuals have their own conceptions and interpretations, despite being taught the same source material.

But, again, it's still most important to keep in mind that the experiences are subjective projections, not objective universal experiences.

Reading the book, I did find myself getting caught up and worried about, among other things, the descriptions of being called before the "Lord of Death" where good and bad deeds are counted up using black and white pebbles and then judgment being proclaimed as to whether beings would go on to rebirths in "higher or lower realms".

I don't believe in a Lord of Death. I've never been taught that, it's never been instilled in me, it's not part of my tradition, it doesn't make any rational sense that there is one, and I don't believe in external judgment of the ultimate being of a person anyway.

So what I make of it for myself is that we have our life experience stored in our memory. Can we recall most of it? No, I think if any average person recalled every memory they could possibly dig up from their entire life, it would be some minuscule percentage of all experiences received through their 5 physical senses over however many years of life they've lived, and then also throw in dreams, thoughts, meditations and musings, etc.

The collective information of our experience, stored in our brain structure, is hyuge. And the reason why we store all that information is because it's inefficient for our brains to have memory recall of all of it.

Our consciousness, what we sometimes refer to as mind, in our human form is limited by our physical bodies, in particular the physical brain, and constrained by our senses. The manifestation of our consciousness in sentient bodily form is limited and defined by what we see, hear, smell, touch, taste, and otherwise process mentally.

What I envision from the delog accounts of encountering the Lord of Death is that once the brain structure biologically stops functioning, the limiting attribute of the physical structure ceases. What they describe as a state of clarity far greater than anything they had as a physical being is actually the unleashing of our consciousness – all of that information emerging into sudden, unlimited recall.

The biological function of our eyes have stopped, we no longer see with our eyes, it is all part of this omni-consciousness with visual formations being just habit from how our eyes functioned before, and so it is with all our senses. All of this information and memory emerging, I think, is the overwhelming overdrive experience of the bardo.

The Tibetan delogs had been taught, subconsciously or actually, to focus the images into a certain experience. My interpretation is that as all our memories of all our life experiences – the most current being most vivid, but I'm not opposed to any suggestion that elements of all our past life experiences are part of the mix in the background – are unleashed, they become the bardo experience.

All our positive memories come out and simultaneously all our negative memories also form again and become present in our unlimited consciousness. Loves, enjoyment, happiness, good deeds, arguments, fights, injuries, interactions, etc., etc. ad nauseum, all come out and this is what I think is the delog description of counting out good and bad deeds with black and white pebbles.

It's the force of this emergence of our experience which ultimately colors the bardo experience as positive or negative. If our human life was full of hardship and we characteristically had a bad attitude about it, ultimately the recall in the bardo is negative, and that affects the continuing journey through the bardo and ultimately our rebirth in our next life.

If we had a lot of good experiences and warm memories and a lot of recall of doing good things for other people, it colors our experience with positivity, which then affects how we move forward. This is not a moral judgment, but just a natural outcome of our own behavior. We're not rewarded for doing good or punished for doing bad.

When we remember good times in our lives, we feel relaxed and happy. When we recall bad events in our lives, we feel anxious and tense. In the bardo, it's like that, but it becomes all of reality. It's much more than just memory. And actually, we can say the same thing about our experience in the life bardos, but the experience is much more vivid and the consequences more dire in the death bardos.

These are just general parameters and the possible variations are endless. You can have a person who suffered greatly in his or her life, but mentally was even-keeled, and that was the most important character attribute carried into the bardo. That equanimity opens the possiblity of avoiding being affected by negative experience in the bardo.

Or someone could have led a cushy, pampered life, but underneath was always insecure and afraid.

I might be in trouble at that stage in the bardo, sometimes referred to as the "bardo of reality", which is the second of three death bardos, but . . . I don't know. Maybe not.

On one hand when I set myself to recalling my life's experience, it's just filled with unresolved negativity. There is very little I would like to re-live again, and when I see other people at various ages in their lives, I recall myself at those ages and I would not want to go through any of it again.

On the other hand, even though that sounds like negative aversion to the experience, it may be simple detachment or non-clinging, which is good. Objectively, I can't say my life has been all that bad, with few, if any, major traumas.

Also I don't rule out that I remember the negative experiences because they stand out, and I shouldn't discount that on a daily basis, part of the background of my life was a positive appreciation towards being and this experience of being alive and healthy and free. I might even be able to add the effort, I'd say huge effort, I placed into overcoming a lot of the negativity.

Under my theory, all of this comes out when the brain loses its constraints on consciousness.

I'm also vaguely confident about meditative trainings to prepare me if this paradigm of the death bardos is actually what happens. Without training or preparation, it makes sense that most people are naturally swept uncontrollably through the bardo experience and guided by their karma to their next rebirth.

A nagging question, though, is if the delogs and the descriptions in the Tibetan Book of the Dead are right about the death experience, if some sort of realization or attainment can be had in the death bardos, then what?

The Tibetan Book of the Dead itself is slippery about the issue. On one hand, it suggest that simple exposure to these teachings is enough, and once in the bardos, consciousness becomes so clear that the slightest recollection of the teachings will lead to non-rebirth and attainment of reality. Easy.

On the other hand, the bardo experience is overwhelming, thousands times more intense than being subjected to the worst hurricanes on earth. If we try to recall the latest dream we had and the difficulty of becoming lucid in it and realizing we were dreaming, then realization in the bardo states is that much more difficult.

And what is this realization? This attainment? Is anyone foolish enough to think it is the absolute enlightenment/extinction of the Buddha? Even if I can have a bit of confidence in my efforts, what is the best case scenario I can hope for in the bardos? I don't know and it's just not explained.

I do notice that the way I write about this is trying to hold onto a rationalist view, hoping to win over other rationalists' favor, but there's nothing really rational about this, is there? Death is death, suicide is suicide. If I commit suicide, that's pretty much it and I have nothing more to contribute.

On another hand, someone with a different point of view may be hoping that I will trust and have faith in Amitabha Buddha to be born in the Sukhavati pure land, even though I've expressed doubt about the idea of a separate pure land out there somewhere. Just because I can't get my head around such a place, when it comes right down to it, I shouldn't discount that perspective, either. I just don't know. If this life is such a fairy tale, what makes what sounds like a fairy tale any less valid?