Thanks for your kind words.  I have been busy at work.  I wanted to start a good thread about the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book of the Dead or Afterlife roadmap), but I haven't had the chance to give it the development it needs yet.  For now thought, I have a few small threads that I have been thinking on, and will put them out to see what everyone thinks.  It only gets interesting when we get several different points of view and experiences.


Doc

I believe the "standard" is:
Evans-Wentz (editor) Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup (translator).



Doc

Tim, with 30 years of study behind you, I'd be more interested in hearing your impressions of the Bardo states and how they correspond to focus levels, than my own outsider interpretation.  I believe that there are significant parrallels.



M

Tim is correct, that the Evans-Wentz translation has errors, and is truncated, but it has a lot of explanatory material by people who are both well versed in the discipline, and also in the idiom. The collected works by Evans-Wentz, "Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines" similarly is rather imperfect, but it presents a very nice scenario overall that gives an impression of the global itegration of the practice.

One of the thngs to bear in mind is that Bardo Thodol is a meditative discipline, and the book is simply one part of the entire package.

A couple related books that shed light on meanings, "The Practice of Dzogchen" by Longchen Rabjam (Snow Lion), "Wonders of the Natural Mind" by Tenzin Wangyal (Station Hill) and more closely related to Monroe's ideas, "Dream Yoga and Practice of Natural Light" by Nankhai Norbu (Snow Lion). I think you might find these helpful in that they express the same ideas in other ways, so that the "parallax"  in perspective makes them more useful.

dave