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    Chapter index

    Twenty-four chapters across the six bardos. Part I is published; the rest are being written in order.

    Part 1 · This lifeསྐྱེ་གནས་བར་དོ།

    The bardo we are in right now — birth to death. Impermanence, attachment, and the habits that will still be running when everything else stops.

    1What a bardo actually isBar do means gap — the space between one situation ending and the next one settling. The book is about six of them, and you are standing in the first.
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    2Impermanence, without the posterEveryone agrees that everything changes and almost nobody lives as though it were true. The gap between the two is the subject of this chapter.
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    3Attachment is not loveThe text treats grasping as the thing that makes transitions hard. Distinguishing it from love is most of the work — and it matters enormously at a deathbed.4Your habits are the thing that carriesWhatever the tradition means by continuity, the observable part is this: under pressure, you do not rise to your intentions. You fall to your habits.
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    5Rehearsing the gap while the stakes are lowSmall endings happen constantly. The tradition treats them as the training ground for the large one — and closes Part I with how to use them.

    Part 2 · Dream and meditation

    The two rehearsal bardos. Sleep and stillness as the places where letting go can be practised while the stakes are low.

    6The bardo of dreamSleep as the nightly dissolution, and what the tradition asks you to notice in it.
    Coming soon
    7Lucidity without the gadgetryDream practice stripped of the self-improvement industry that has grown around it.
    Coming soon
    8The bardo of meditationStillness as the third rehearsal — the deliberate gap.
    Coming soon

    Part 3 · Dyingའཆི་ཁ་བར་དོ།

    The dissolutions, the moment itself, and what the text asks of the people in the room.

    9The outer dissolutionEarth, water, fire, air: what the tradition says goes first, and what is observable at a bedside.
    Coming soon
    10The inner dissolutionThe stages the text describes after the senses have gone.
    Coming soon
    11The ground luminosityThe moment the whole cycle is built around, presented as the tradition presents it.
    Coming soon
    12What to say in the roomThe reader's instructions — the oldest part of the text, and the most practical.
    Coming soon
    13When it is not peacefulAgitation, terminal restlessness, and the limits of anyone's framework.
    Coming soon
    14Afterwards, in the first hoursWhat the tradition asks of the room once breathing has stopped.
    Coming soon

    Part 4 · Realityཆོས་ཉིད་བར་དོ།

    The visions of the chönyid bardo, read the way the tradition itself reads them — as mind, not as visitors.

    15Entering the chönyid bardoThe visions begin. The instruction is one word: recognise.
    Coming soon
    16The peaceful deitiesRead as the tradition reads them — projections of one's own mind.
    Coming soon
    17The wrathful deitiesWhy the frightening images are said to be the same mind in a different costume.
    Coming soon
    18The lights and the coloursThe dull light and the bright light, and the choice the text describes.
    Coming soon
    19RecognitionWhat the whole of Part IV is asking for, in one chapter.
    Coming soon

    Part 5 · Becomingསྲིད་པ་བར་དོ།

    Rebirth, continuity, and the long work of grief for those left behind.

    20The bardo of becomingThe srid pa bardo, and the pull toward the next situation.
    Coming soon
    21GriefFor those left behind. The longest chapter in the book, and the least metaphysical.
    Coming soon
    22ContinuityWhat the tradition claims carries forward, and what can be said without claiming it.
    Coming soon

    Part 6 · Using it today

    Daily practice, and bedside practice. What to actually do.

    23Daily practiceThe whole book compressed into what you would actually do on a Tuesday.
    Coming soon
    24Bedside practiceA practitioner's and a family member's checklist for the room.
    Coming soon
    Front cover of The Modern Bardo — jade and gold typographic cover with the Medi-Chi mark

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    The Modern Bardo — chapter index

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