Detail of Padmasambhava: Transference of Consciousness

​In this painting, the legendary tantric master Padmasambhava is surrounded by vignettes featuring his various emanations protecting beings from suffering. The scene highlighted here depicts a yogi passing away while seated in meditation. When practitioners observes the signs that their life is nearing its end, they are encouraged to begin death practices so that they may consciously control their rebirth. A ritualist recites aloud the Bardo Todrol (known in the West as the Tibetan Book of the Dead) to assist the deceased in their travel through the bardo (the state between death and rebirth). From the top of the yogi’s head, a rainbow is projected toward an image of Amitabha in his Pure Land of Sukhavati. This represents the process by which, when full enlightenment is not achieved in the bardo, the deceased can direct their consciousness to be reborn in Amitabha’s Sukhavati Pure Land, or another Pure Land of his choosing, through a yogic practice called powa (transference of consciousness).

Padmasambhava is connected with a special class of texts and practices called treasures (terma). He is believed to have hidden texts throughout the Tibetan landscape, to be found according to the needs of future generations. Over the centuries, predestined treasure finders (tertons) have discovered these terma, such as the teaching of the Bardo Todrol.