Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute talk, Jeffrey Hopkins explores the Buddhist understanding of death as a gradual physiological and mental dissolution process rather than a single moment. He begins with the distinction between coarse and subtle impermanence, then systematically walks through the eight dissolution stages of dying: the appearance of a mirage, smoke, fireflies, a sputtering flame, a steady flame, white consciousness, orange consciousness, and finally black consciousness. As each stage dissolves, the mind becomes subtler and less dualistic. Hopkins then introduces the eighty conceptions—grouped as thirty-three, forty, and seven—which correspond to different qualities of consciousness and the movement of energy toward objects. He explains that death culminates in the mind of clear light, a state of profound non-duality compared to direct realization of emptiness. He concludes by connecting this to tantric practice and the potential for advanced yogis to recognize and use this deepest consciousness at death to achieve liberation. The talk includes detailed references to the channels and winds of the subtle body physiology that underlies these experiences.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 Death, IS and R no date.mp3
UUID: 827b976a-8a66-4acd-abc7-0711e01a9474
Teacher: Jeffrey Hopkins
Collection: Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth (Jeffrey Hopkins)
Date: 1983 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~5,376
So when Buddha first began teaching, he taught about impermanence. Two types of impermanence are distinguished. One is coarse impermanence and the other subtle. Coarse impermanence is not so difficult to realize. It’s like the breaking of an object, or for a human being or living being, it’s that being’s death.
Whereas subtle impermanence is the disintegration of any object that is made by whatever causes moment by moment. The type of time unit that is used is to take the time it takes to snap the fingers, which is said to be the same time it takes to blink the eyes of a healthy person. Divide that into three hundred and sixty parts, and one three hundred and sixty sixtieth of this, it is said that things are changing on a subtle level. You know, I feel, oh, this is the room where we were this morning. Well, it indeed is a continuation of the room that we’re in this morning, but it’s not this morning’s room.
It’s moment by moment changing, moment by moment disintegrating because it’s under the influence of causes and conditions and doesn’t have the power to remain even for a second moment. Therefore, a great deal of meditation is put into realizing not only coarse impermanence, but also subtle impermanence. Interesting thing about coarse and subtle is that we’re talking about death. Death is coarse impermanence, alright? But during the process of death, the most subtle type of minds are made manifest.
So, in compared to subtle impermanence, in one way it is coarse or gross. But during this process, the most subtle of all minds become manifest. So, it’s a guide to the Buddhist view of the layers of the mind, in one sense. It’s not that with layers you have for instance, if there were eight or nine layers that all exist at the same time, and as you went down through one, you’d come to the other. Whereas, really here, they’re not all existing at the same time.
It appears that in Buddhist thought, the most subtle one exists during all states. Whether it is operating or not, it’s there. This is the subtle mind of clear life. And the other consciousnesses appear and disappear. It’s not that during one of them, the others are all there, but we don’t know it.
But that one, like, takes the place of all of them except the mind of clear light. And then when that ceases, another one of a more subtle level appears. So, if these consciousnesses are in levels, the levels have to be seen as existing over time. So, we were talking this morning about you know, when we say we were talking this morning, the we there, we have a sense of was the very same person who was talking this afternoon as was talking this morning. But, it’s a continuation of that person.
There tends to be a process of identification in the mind. I mean, you ask yourself, are you exactly the same as you were this morning? Well, no. But we tend to conceive ourselves as being, you know, the same one who was here this morning. And that is called the conception of permanence.
And as long as you have the conception of permanence, it’s difficult to conceive that you’re going to die, to have an intimate sense of it. So anyway, this morning, we we went through the first four cycles, the first four phases of death. And the fifth in the fifth dissolution, we’re saying that these that the conceptual consciousness, which is more subtle than the sense consciousnesses, dissolves or ceases. Someone was saying as I was going out that perhaps that’s brain death, a nurse who works in the hospital. That the breath ceases in the fourth step, and the fifth step, the, brainwave comes out level.
Well, probably in the fifth step here you see all that appears is this white light. I and it’s uniform. So maybe at that point indeed the brain wave would be, you know, or I guess there wouldn’t be a brain wave or I don’t know what, but at least the line in the machine shows nothing going on. So maybe that’s brain death. That’s interesting.
So in the Buddhist way, still not dead, but dying, in the process of dying. Now, the conceptions are limitless in number, but in this system, there’s a division of them into eighty. And those eighty are broken up into three groups, thirty three, forty, and seven. The thirty three corresponding with this white consciousness, the forty corresponding with the next one, which is orange or red, and then the seven. I said orange or black. Ridiculous.
Orange or red. Orange or red. Maybe we need to get the same person back here. The group of thirty three corresponding with the white consciousness. The group of forty corresponding with the next one, which will be red or orange.
And then the group of seven corresponding with the next, that being black. Now all eighty dissolve at the same time. It’s not that there are three groups of dissolution. But with these white, we can say orange. Orange will mean orange or red.
Orange and black consciousnesses are deeper levels of consciousness. And our various types of conceptions are like reflections of them. As you pass down in the in the fifth, sixth, and seventh cycles through the white, orange, and black consciousnesses, one is passing to subtler levels and to less dualistic levels. Now you would think with the white consciousness, since all that is appearing is white consciousness, you would think that it was totally non dualistic. But there’s a slight element of dualism.
There’s a different order of conceptuality. In other words, not like the eighty conceptions that have dissolved, but there’s a slight element of dualism. What it is, I can’t explain. Okay? But what’s said is that the wind or the energy on which these consciousnesses ride, the in the white consciousness, that there is more movement.
In the orange one, there’s a middling level of movement. In the black one, there is a very, you might say, slow or weak level of movement. Now, within the eighty conceptions, the thirty three have the nature of this stronger movement of wind, of energy, of air, of whatever it is the consciousness is riding on to the object. In the middling level, I have a middling level of the strength of this wind or air, the movement of the consciousness to the object. And in the group of seven, the Did I get them right?
Thirty three, forty, and seven. In the group of seven, the movement of the wind or energy air to the object is very weak. So one is, you see, becoming more and more non dualistic. The final mind on the eighth stage, the mind of clear light, is even beyond this weak movement of this energy to the object. It is totally non dualistic.
Now if you look at the list of conceptions in the eighty, some of them are easy to understand. It’s easy to understand why this is on page thirty nine why they’re in the group that they’re in. In some, at least for me, it’s very difficult to understand why they’re classed in a specific group. Really, if we start with the last seven on page bottom of forty one, These seven are forgetfulness. Now if you think of forgetfulness, it’s just sort of a blank state of mind where you there isn’t any force of the mind’s moving to the object.
So it makes sense that this is in the group of seven that corresponds to this black consciousness, which is, what do you say, on the last dualistic level of little of weak movement of energy toward the object. So forgetfulness. Mistake. Mistake here is like in apprehending water in a mirage. This is interesting, because when you see a mirage, is there something about the consciousness being more withdrawn on this side?
Is there? Less movement of the mind to the, ocular? I don’t know. The next is not speaking. Just a very literal translation, which means not wishing to speak in that sort of state.
It sounds like, catatonic, withdrawal. Definitely. Everything is quieted down out there to the point really where you can’t move. Depression, again, being defined here as a mind of annoyance but of withdrawal, laziness, nonenthusiasm for virtue, doubt. Well, it’s there’s a Tibetan saying that you can’t sew with a two pointed needle.
You know, no matter where you stick it in, you can’t get it through. So with doubt, you have a two pointedness of mind, which leaves you in the middle. And then it says, middling desire, which really means a mind of ambiguity, of ambivalence, sorry, ambivalence between desire and hatred. So you can see with these seven, which correspond with this black consciousness, that indeed they are a reflection of that level of consciousness. But, if we look at the first group on page thirty nine, and they speak of great middling and small lack of desire.
Well, lack of desire though. This is supposed to indicate a strong movement of the mind, a coarse movement of the winds that serve as the mount of this consciousness to its object. If you have back down to number five, great sorrow, middling sorrow, small sorrow, Can anyone understand why that has a strong movement of the mind towards object? Of course, you can be you know, you are concerned about something that’s that’s out there or somebody that’s gone. With sorrow, you can even get to the point where you imagine grief.
The person who has has died, say, is still there. Imagine the person so much that they appear. I don’t know. But some of them are clear, you know, like great fear, attachment, grasping, humor, thirst. Clearly, it would be in the first group a very strong movement of the mind to the object.
In the second group, it’s some of them are understandable and some of them aren’t so understandable. In any case, conceptuality, these are eighty different types of conceptual consciousnesses which are grouped according to how strongly the mind or the wind moves to the object. Once the wind moves, the mind must move. And, they all dissolve on this stage at this point. They must dissolve before the mind of radiant white appearance because they’re so different in character from the mind of radiant white appearance.
Now the mind of radiant white appearance, before it dissolves, we were saying, as these winds that serve as the mounts of conceptuality dissolve, one has the sense of a burning butter lamp for us to be a candle that was steady. And then remember, another system was that it wouldn’t be the candle the light of the candle itself, it would be the glow above it. But it wouldn’t be a glow that was sparkling like so. It would be very steady. Then, when the eighty conceptions have dissolved entirely, then one has this we could just call it white consciousness.
We understood as only perceiving, the only thing that’s appearing is this white consciousness itself. So the comparison is with an autumn sky at night that is full of moonlight. Now, the reason why the autumn sky is used is because this system comes from India, and in India the summer sky is full of clouds. Alright? And so a sky full of clouds is not suitable.
It has rained a great deal in the summer, and this has made the ground wet over the summer. So then in autumn or fall, you have a clear sky, no more the monsoon of the summer, and there’s no dust in the air, supposedly, although that’s hard for me to believe. Been to India six times and it’s very dusty. When you get rain water, you get dirt in the rain water. But anyway, the theory being that the earth has become moist and therefore there isn’t much dust in the air in the fall.
So you have a clean sky in the fall. Alright? It’s a night sky. The comparison is made with a night sky because it’s just full of white light, so you wouldn’t want the day sky. And then the experience is not of the moon shining in the sky, but of this space just being filled with this white light or really white consciousness.
So there must be reflections of this state as what my friend had in waking up and feeling that he awakened up. He was really still asleep, and seeing everything is made out of, in this case, orange light. But then that would be like perceiving this wall as made out of orange light. So this would be a reflection of the next state, a reflection of it, not the actual state. If it’s the actual state, then that’s all that’s perceived, this white consciousness.
So it’s consciousness appearing in the aspect of color. It’s not as if there’s particles of white color. So, maybe I’ll go through the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth without talking about the physiological explanation of why it’s happening, and double back and talk about the physiological explanation. Then, when this white, old pervasive white consciousness dissolves or ceases, what replaces it is a red or orange appearance, or red or orange consciousness, you could say. And here, the comparison is again to an autumn sky because the autumn sky is clear, and it’s a cloudless sky, and it’s pervaded by sunlight.
Not the sun shining in it, but it’s just, radiant light an experience like sunlight everywhere. Radiant doesn’t mean radiating like there’s light here radiating out, but just bright, strong, because it’s everywhere. So the white consciousness is called radiant white appearance. The red consciousness is called, increase, radiant red or orange increase, because the appearance is stronger or more vivid than that of the moonlight type experience. So you can see that sun and moon easily can be used as symbols for the experience.
Then when that mind ceases, when one passes to the seventh dissolution, the factor that’s dissolving is that mind of radiant orange increase. We can call it the orange consciousness. And what replaces it then is a mind of black appearance. We can call it the black consciousness. Again, the comparison is with an autumn sky, obviously, then a night sky, and there wouldn’t be stars.
Stars or moons shining in the sky, in the sky, just blackness. Now, the comparison is made to the thick darkness of the beginning of night after what do you have? Sunset, and then you have dusk. Right? After sunset.
So in the post dusk period, it’s said to be the blackest time of night. Somebody in Melbourne was explaining to me that this has to do with with our some factors in our eyes, that light destroys the ability, to perceive certain colors. Well, we know that. If you suddenly turn out the lights, everything seems to be very dark. If you go into a movie theater, it’ll be very hard to see right away.
Right? And you wait a while and you find you can actually see quite a bit. So during the day, there are some factors in our eyes that are destroyed by light which are gradually replenished replenished in the darkness and thereby allowing us to see much more. Therefore, the comparison is here made to the beginning of night, the blackest part of night. So in this seventh step is divided into two parts, one in which one is still aware and the second half of which one has swooned as if unconsciously.
So I suppose if one were to make a joke about the white, red, and black races I don’t know where the yellow race comes in here. The white race is sort of superficial, and the red men are a little bit deeper, and black is very deep, very subtle. Buddhist monks, little children, when they first debate, one of the early not the early, the earliest, the first section on debating is about colors. It’s called the colors white and red and so forth. One learns about colors, and the monks debate with each other in a very stylistic manner.
And in that first section, one of the later debates is about whether a white horse is white. In the Buddhist system, animals are persons, have consciousness, think, and so forth. They don’t have to think in words, but can think in images, recognizing things by way of images. And so, the debate is about whether a white horse is white. And, the answer is that a white horse is not white because a white horse is not a color.
So, a speckled bull is not speckled, etcetera, etcetera. White, red, black, yellow are colors, and people are not colors. It’s very interesting in the States, people thinking, you know, I am white. Sometimes I feel to ask, are you a color? Might say yes.
This person’s black. It means they’re a color. So the color of the skin of a of a white person is white or maybe it’s pink. The color of a white horse is white. A white horse isn’t the color of white.
So, as one passes through the seventh level of the black consciousness, one gradually loses awareness, loses consciousness, swoons. And then with the eighth dissolution, with the dissolution of this black consciousness, one passes into the state of the mind of clear light. This is death, but even death here takes place, it says, usually over a period of a few days, that one is in the mind of clear light for even three days, unless one’s body has been consumed by disease, in which case one might not stay even for a day. So even though in the Buddhist system even, this is assigned as as death, it’s the state of death, and it’s not until the end of the state of death that it’s really safe to move somebody who’s practicing because it’s with the end of that state that, the consciousness exits from the body. Now, so the mind of clear light, this is compared to the, does it say autumn sky again?
Of a dawn sky in autumn. Now dawn precedes sunrise. Ah, sunset, sunrise. I’m trying to sit on the edge of my chair as well. Won’t make these mistakes.
Dawn precedes sunrise. Sunrise is with the sun appearing on the horizon. And prior to that state, right, prior to that time, the sky appears in its own natural color. You know, it’s a way again, we’re talking about the autumn sky, no pollution in the sky. We’re talking about, let’s say, no moonlight, no sunlight, and no darkness.
So there’s the natural color of the dawn sky. Now one’s consciousness at this point is compared to that type of sky. It’s not that one’s consciousness is sky, but one’s consciousness is like that. This is called the mind of clear light of death. It is similar to a mind that’s realizing emptiness.
When you search to find that kind of object that we were pointing to before, when you search to find some sort of object that covers from the top to the bottom, You search and search and search meditatively. Alright? Gradually, like a person who’s searching for his prized bull, it said, and there are three pastures to look in, and the bull’s escaped out of all three of the pastures. And the person looks through carefully all three and may comes to the decision that the bull is not there. The person has a sense of the absence of his bull, alright, in those three pastures.
In this case, the bull is somewhere else. With regard to searching for that type of object, if it doesn’t exist with the basis of designation of the music stand there, it’s not going to exist somewhere else. To find that solid object, you’re not going to find it with the chair or in the next room or somewhere else. If you search for it there and you don’t find it there, you’re not going to find it. So meditatively, one searches for such a thing and has the experience of the appearance of that music stand, such a solid music stand, clearing out entirely, and all that’s left is a vacuity, a vacuous sort of appearance that isn’t a nothingness, but is an absence of such a concrete object.
In other words, one is taking the medicine of realizing that such a concrete object doesn’t exist. So even if you’re looking for your own body, and you had a sense of, you know, if somebody had a telegram for me, so I have a telegram for Jeffrey Hopkins, I would, you know, point to myself, mainly with respect to my body, for that sort of response, not to my mind. The person would be you know, I want would want the person to recognize the Jeffrey Hopkins body that’s from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. Alright? Somebody comes in the door and says, where is Jeffrey Hopkins?
And fellow in the back of the room and say, out there. And me pointing at the end of his finger down there would be something that he was pointing to. Right? Covering this spot. Alright?
So I’d have this similar sense, you know, to receive that telegram. So if you meditatively search to find such a being that covers such a body that covers from here to there, you can’t find it. The head isn’t that whole body, you know? There isn’t anything here that’s the whole thing. Such a there isn’t some entity that covers this spot.
Although we act within that, within that perception. So one searches and searches. Finally, what appears to one’s mind is just the vacuity, just this clear immaculate vacuity, which is understood as being the absence of such a concretely existing body. It’s not understood as a nihilism, as a nothingness, or realizing that body doesn’t exist, but the absence of such a concretely existent body. So, this mind of when one realizes emptiness, and when one realizes emptiness then directly, not just conceptually, imagistically, but directly, then once if emptiness were the water in this cup and the consciousness were the water in this cup and you took the two and poured them together in one bowl, alright, you couldn’t look in the bowl and say, oh yes, this is the water from this glass.
As one of my teachers said, both have to be fresh, clean water. Otherwise, you might see some streaks over here and you say, oh, that’s the consciousness. So you take the two clear and mix them together, and you can’t say, This is the water from the left glass. This is the water from the right glass. Alright?
So in this non dualistic state of directly realizing the emptiness of such concrete existence, the emptiness that is being realized and the consciousness that is realizing it are mixed like water and water. It doesn’t mean there isn’t a consciousness there. There is a consciousness there. It it it is realizing this emptiness of inherent existence. Alright?
So now the mind of clear light of death is being compared to this meditative state. But it doesn’t mean that at death we realize emptiness. Everything disappears, true enough, I mean, at this point, but that’s just the disappearance of all of the coarser levels of appearance and of mind. It’s not a realization of this absence of such concrete or inherent existence. So what a yogi tries to do is to now, while still alive, manifest this deepest level of consciousness and use it to realize emptiness, this emptiness of such concretely existent objects.
And a practitioner who’s dying the maximal sort of use of death is to use this subtlest state to realize emptiness. That means to realize the basic nature of phenomena, that they that they don’t exist in this over concretized way as we see them. We see them as if they exist in their own right from their own side. Of course, we do. Exist in their own right from their own side, whereas they don’t exist that way at all, and we build our emotions, generally speaking, on that type of object.
Both conceiving of ourselves that way and other people that way and other phenomena that way. As the little child said, how many parts of a Mercedes Benz do you have to take away before it’s not a Mercedes Benz? In other words, we have some grosser idea of what a Mercedes Benz is or a car is than is actually there. So the yogi wants to make use of wants to now, presently, make use of these deeper levels of consciousness because they’re stronger, because they’re more subtle. Subtle doesn’t mean weak.
Subtle means stronger. Sometimes if it’s a very fine breeze, it’s a weak breeze. You know? But here, subtle means more basic, difficult to realize. Now it said that most humans remain in the clear light for three days.
I asked the Dalai Lama what it would do to an ordinary person to be carted off to the mortuary, and say at the beginning of this period of three days. And he said, he made the amusing comment, that the death of an ordinary person is so confused anyway that it wouldn’t make much difference. But, that means I mean, what’s the line here with ordinary and non ordinary? I guess non ordinary would simply be somebody who would like a chance at making use of it. Therefore, one easily becomes non ordinary in this system.
Of course, if you are it’s said if you’re moved at this point, then you quickly pass out of this. Now, to understand the process, it’s helpful to understand the physiology, although it could be that people have been able to report very well the states that they passed through and whether the physiology that is put forth here is as true as the reporting of the states is yet to be seen. In other words, if one was going to practice dying, get used to the mind, to these eight levels of consciousness, one wouldn’t need to know really the physiology, wouldn’t have to know it too well. Because the point then would be to imagine meditatively that one is passing through these eight states. Right?
That mirage is appearing, then smoke, and within the smoke, fireflies, Then a sputtering candle like candle flame. Then a steady one. Then the mind of radiant white appearance, then the mind of orange increase of appearance, than the mind of radiant black near attainment passing into unconsciousness and the mind of clear light. So either for somebody who wanted to get used to such a process just in order to think more, think have some idea of what death is like, that’s all one needs. The physiological description, one then doesn’t imagine is happening during this time.
Although there are complicated tantric teachings in which one takes it’s like you do a physiological replica of it and then make make these appearances occur with each step. So, what is the physiology that’s described? There’s, one has to understand the channels in the body. Channels, the term channel refers to veins, arteries, ducts, passageways. The word channel isn’t just a neutral word.
And there’s a the central channel goes from the heart up through the throat to the top of the head and down to the center of the eyebrows. It’s sort of near the surface on the inside here, and then it goes down back along near the backbone instead. At least meditatively, one meditates on it as in front of the backbone, not in the backbone. But the Dalai Lama makes the distinction between descriptions that are physiologically true and others that are used in meditation in order to bring about certain states. In other words, you don’t have to have physiological correspondence in order to induce certain states.
So, it may be that the central channel does pass through the backbone. In the case of meditation, it’s reflected on as being just in front of the backbone. So, it comes down not to the front where the heart is, the heart center being located at the bottom of the at the level of the bottom of the sternum. That means on a line with the breast. Although, at least with me, the bottom of the sternum and the breasts are slightly different.
Anyway, that level over near the backbone. So it extends up from there to the point between the eyebrows. And then extends down to the solar plexus along the back, down in the what’s called the secret region, the private region, and then into the sexual organ down to the point of the sexual organ. With a woman, it’s down into the sexual organ. So if you imagine that as like, you know, one of these mic what would you call it?
Pipes? But perhaps made out of balloon material and about the size of a reed or a pencil. And then on each side of it, a right channel and a left channel. Actually, this is sort of curved over like it, isn’t it? So it comes up and here’s the head and comes down like so.
A channel going up on each side. Then the channels on the right and left sides don’t just go up along it at certain important places like at the heart. It’s said that they wrap around the central channel. And here at the heart they wrap around three times each. So this one wrapping around three times and the other one wrapping around three times.
And the channels on the right and left side are like full of air and they constrict the middle one such that the middle one has no air or wind in it at all. That’s the ordinary state with wind or air moving in the right and left channels, but nothing moving in the central channel. So there’s this sixfold constriction at the heart, twofold constriction at the throat, two fold at the top of the head. I’m not sure here at the point between the eyebrows. It must be two again, but I won’t make the statement.
Two at the solar plexus, two in the secret region, two in the sexual organ. These constrictions. So ordinary life is characterized physiologically by the lack of movement of wind in the central channel. Now, if we go back to the fifth appearance, the fifth cycle, the fifth phase, the mind of radiant white appearance, the cause of that appearance is that the winds in the right and left channels above the heart, if we place the heart here, all of the winds above the heart in these right and left channels enter the central channel at the top of the head. So that would mean that this constriction here at the top of the head would be loosened.
It would be loosened, but because these are tied around it, they wouldn’t become untied, but it would be loosened. They would no longer be air in the right and left channels, but would be in the central channel. Now, it’s said that there’s a white drop, a source of white drops, which is located inside the central channel at the top of the head. Now, in tantric physiology, this is supposed to be that which regulates or increases and decreases the production of semen, sperm. However, as I was saying this morning, this is identified as existing in both males and females.
At the University of Virginia, a doctor identified that what controls the production of semen itself is in the head, somewhere in the head, some organ within the head. Organ? Gland.