During the 2025 Summer Camp in Braga, Portugal, Rinpoche gave a teaching on the topics of Phowa, Bardo, and Chod, basing his talks on the text ‘The Root Verses on the Six Bardos’ from the terma of Karma Lingpa. He explained that a bardo is a transitional state of consciousness, and there are six of them: the Bardo of Life, Dream, Meditation, Dying, Dharmata, and Becoming.

Rinpoche began with the Bardo of Life, emphasising that it is a period of transition and that nothing, not even our body or possessions, can be taken with us after death. He encouraged living a life filled with kindness, compassion, and joy, and stressed that true wisdom comes from understanding oneself and the impermanent nature of everything. He introduced the practice of Chod, which involves a meditative offering of one’s own body to all beings, as a way to overcome the strongest form of self-grasping—attachment to the body.

He then described the Bardo of Dream and the Bardo of Meditation, and taught that learning to recognise a dream as a dream is a powerful practice that prepares us for navigating the other bardos by training the mind to be less susceptible to fear and attachment. The Bardo of Meditation, he explained, is the practice of resting the mind in its natural, non-conceptual state, which cultivates the clarity and stability needed for these transitions.

The Bardo of Dying is the period when the five elements of the body dissolve. This is a crucial moment when, with proper training, one can achieve enlightenment by recognising the mind’s true nature, which manifests as a “clear light”. Following this, the Bardo of Dharmata is a state where peaceful and wrathful visions appear as manifestations of one’s own mind. The key is to recognise them as such, without fear or attachment, in order to achieve liberation.

Finally, the Bardo of Becoming is a state where consciousness is unbound by the physical body and is highly susceptible to thoughts and emotion. Rinpoche taught that this is a critical time to focus the mind on positive aspirations, such as being reborn in a pure land like Dewachen, to avoid being pulled into negative realms. He presented Phowa as a practice to train to transfer one’s consciousness to a pure land.

For more information, visit: https://bodhicharyaportugal.org/summer-camp-2025-english