Question of the Month: What Can One Do in the “In-Between Time?”
QUESTION:
What do you do in that “in-between time” when your life is transitioning from one path to another and you have yet to discover your new purposeful path?
ANSWER:
The Tibetan Buddhist call this in-between time a “bardo,” which is defined as a transition or gap between the completion of one situation and the onset of another. The term comes from “bar” which means “in-between” and “do” which means “suspended” or “thrown.”
There are many bardos in life where one feels upside down or thrown. Birth, adolescence, college, first job, loss of a job, marriage, divorce, loss of a loved one and death are some examples. One’s own death is the most supreme of all bardos. The Buddhists espouse bardos and diligently prepare for these during their entire lifetimes through spiritual practice. They believe when you die your spirit is in a flux of vibrating at a very high frequency, and if you have prepared properly, at death you can step out of samsara (the cycle of birth-death-rebirth) into Nirvana, an enlightened state in which you are united with the universal spirit.
There is an excellent book called “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” by Sogpyal Rinpoche. I was reading that book when my son Tariq died. There are 150 pages in that book on bardos. I remember reading those 150 pages a hundred times – often aloud!
So unlike Western thought, bardos are to be espoused even though one feels lost and upside down. This is where quantum growth lives. Look at your lives and see when you were in a bardo. You probably made the biggest leap in your evolution. The reason is that while in a bardo state, you are awake and very present to the information and inspiration you need to make the quantum leap. When Tariq died, I remember if someone on the North Pole even whispered how to deal with a loss of child, I would have been able to hear that person.
So if you are in-between your purposeful paths and you are unsure where to tread, again ask, “Why did I attract this bardo in my life?” The answers you get will be where profound learning and growth manifests
Posted in News, Question of the Month
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