"'When you walk, it shall lead you; when you lie down it shall keep you and when you awake, it shall talk with you.' (Proverbs 6:22) 'When you walk, it shall lead you,' refers to the Torah that goes before a man when he dies. 'When you lie down, it shall keep you,' refers to the interval when the body lies in the grave, for at that time the body is judged and sentenced and the Torah acts in its defense. 'And when you awake, it shall talk with you,' refers to the time at which the dead rise from the dust.
"Rabbi Elazar quoted the verse: 'It shall talk with you' (Proverbs 6:22). Although the dead have just risen from the dust, they remember the Torah they studied before their death. They will know all they studied before departing the world. And everything shall be clearer than it was before death, for whatever he strove to understand yet did not successfully grasp, is now clear in his innermost parts. And the Torah speaks within him." p. 190-191, The Essential Zohar
What I found fascinating about this passage is that Christians probably interpret the quote from Proverbs as referring to faith. It's a very simple, direct interpretation: when you walk (go forth or act in the world), faith will lead you (whatever you do will be righteous); when you lie down (rest) it shall keep (protect) you; and when you awake, it shall talk to you (
But the Zohar interprets it in a manner that I can re-interpret as squaring with the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Tibetan Buddhism describes the life and death cycle with three bardos of living (conscious life, sleep and meditation), and three death bardos (the point of death, the bardo of reality, and the bardo of becoming).
My reading of the death bardos and the guidance the Tibetan Book of the Dead counsels is that what we're striving for in the death bardos is the same as what we're striving for in the living bardos. Or striving for enlightenment in the living bardos is training for attaining enlightenment in the death bardos. Life and death are mirrored realities.
Actually the three elements of the quote from Proverbs can apply both to the three living bardos and the three death bardos, but what's fascinating to me is that I can interpret what the Zohar says to the death bardos at all.
Tibetan Buddhism is very meticulous about the death process and what happens between one death and the next incarnation of a . . . person, a soul, karmic energy. But there seems to be little in Judaism or Kabbalah about the mechanics of what happens after death. Just a far off resurrection and judgment that Christians took and ridiculously interpreted literally.
The book I've been reading, The Essential Zohar, doesn't explicitly state or endorse any theory of reincarnation, but the author seems pretty open-minded about the possibility of Buddhism-like multiple lifetimes and reincarnation.
The Zohar interprets Proverbs 6:22 not as some vague notion of faith leading us forth in life, but Torah, i.e., spiritual cultivation, leading us through the death experience. It doesn't explicitly say that the "when you awake"/"dead rise from the dust" is reincarnation, but that's how I read it, because it then fits in with Tibetan Buddhist ontology (alternatively it might not refer to reincarnation, but the awakening in a "mental body" in the bardo of becoming that precedes reincarnation).
Torah is what we do with spiritual energy in our lifetimes, how we cultivate it or not cultivate it. It's also karma. When we die, we take nothing with us except our karma, the energy patterns and habits that we've indelibly stamped on our manifestation of some primordial energy that is the basis of our consciousness through our behavior and thoughts.
We don't take our possessions, our body, or memories or anything that relies on brain matter for existence. Memories and thoughts rely on brain matter. Karmic energy doesn't. Our karma has no relation to our identity as a person, because our identities also rely on thought and brain matter.
So when we die, it is only Torah that leads us. All else falls away and dissolves. Tibetan Buddhism describes the death-point bardo as being so subtle that only the highest levels of practitioners can achieve realization/enlightenment in it.
For ordinary beings, the dissolution of awareness of the physical body elements and mental consciousness elements is so shocking and unfamiliar and disconcerting that it is impossible to maintain any stability to achieve realization, and it goes by like the snap of a finger.
The interval in the grave where the Torah acts as a defense can be likened to the bardo of reality where we are immersed in the primordial energy of the universe that is the substratum of what our human consciousness has become on this planet.
It is enlightenment, but we don't know it because of our conception of physical reality from having lived previous lives on this planet, karma. Even in the Tibetan description of the bardo of becoming/rebirth, a judgment takes place because that's what naturally emerges in this state as the wisps of karmic memory recall what occurred in our previous life and there is some recognition of "right" and "wrong". Enlightenment can occur in this bardo upon the realization that the judgment is itself mind, or created by "mind", and that right and wrong are manifestations of mind and not concrete or objective judgments.
What is Torah defending us against? Our spiritual cultivation defends us in the bardo states against the notion created by the karma from physically having existed that worldly manifestation was some ultimate reality.
The final bardo of becoming in Tibetan Buddhism describes the process by which reincarnation takes place. At some point there is a crux between a prior life and future life, and if enlightenment isn't attained, our karmic energy moves towards a future life.
Torah shall talk to you when you rise from the dust. If you cultivated yourself spiritually, that survives the death process whereby you lose everything that depends on material existence. With rebirth, your karma still applies, and if you studied the Torah, the Torah will remain with you. You can continue to undertake the spiritual path you were on in a previous life, provided you studied the Torah.
They will know all they studied before departing the world. And everything shall be clearer than it was before death, for whatever he strove to understand yet did not successfully grasp, is now clear in his innermost parts. That is literally exactly what is said in the Tibetan Book of the Dead regarding the death bardo states.
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| WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 7:44 p.m. |
