Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute talk recorded in 1983, Jeffrey Hopkins explains the Buddhist physiology of death according to tantric Tibetan Buddhism, moving through eight progressive dissolutions. He opens with the subtle anatomy—the white drop at the crown and the red drop at the navel—and describes how, as the winds withdraw during dying, these elements gradually descend and ascend through the central channel, producing characteristic appearances: radiant white, radiant red or orange, and then black. Hopkins grounds this abstract teaching in measurable physiology, recounting his collaboration with Harvard researchers studying heat yoga, where meditators demonstrably raised body temperature by five to eight degrees centigrade in their extremities. He walks through the final dissolution into the mind of clear light, the subtlest level of consciousness, and explains how ordinary dying people experience this state but pass through it unaware, while advanced yogis can consciously extend and use it. He emphasizes the practical relevance: even in anger or desire, one can recognize the basic luminous and knowing nature of the mind beneath these coarse states. The talk closes with audience questions about brain death, the intermediate state, and compassion. Suitable for anyone interested in Buddhist death practices and the interface between traditional cosmology and modern neuroscience.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 Death, IS and R no date.mp3
UUID: c2d530d6-dd7a-4211-9e46-df06c0d13803
Teacher: Jeffrey Hopkins
Collection: Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth (Jeffrey Hopkins)
Date: 1983 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~4,666
But then I don’t know what that would mean for women. And I also don’t know what that would mean for my theory that this white material is basically protein. Now, is there something in the head that controls the production of protein? I, you know. Okay.
In any case, this is in the form of what’s described, it’s the letter H A M, up in the Tibetan form of it, and which is like the Sanskrit form of it, upside down in the head, which means something, like so it it would it’s said to be cold, white, and capable of melting. When people do heat yoga, the claim is that a heat is generated in this part of the body that goes up through the central channel and begins melting this faculty up here, which causes these white drops to drip down in the central channel. And as they pass down in the central channel, they create states of bliss. So again, I keep emphasizing, there’s a physiological description of something that they’re capable of inducing, unless you think it’s just absolute nonsense, but they’re capable of inducing through meditation, you see, through imagining such things as happening. There wouldn’t have to be an exact physical correspondence, but it may turn out that there is a very interesting physical correspondence.
So, with the loosening of the knot at the top of the head, all the winds entering in to the central channel at the top of the head, this white drop, which is like this upside down letter and has the nature of water, comes downward. It moves downward. When it arrives on top of the six circled knot of the right and left channels at the heart, that’s when you get this radium white appearance. So if the six are like so, it has come down to this point. But, of course, for the dying person, you don’t have any sense of something loosening here and six things here and something coming down.
So what you have as the dying person is the sense of this radiant white appearance. So that’s called appearance because there’s an appearance like moonlight, and it’s called the empty because the levels of wind or air that serve as the mounts of the eighty conceptual consciousnesses have ceased. So, it’s empty of them. Then, the next state is that of radiant red or orange increase. Now just as in the fifth day, the air or winds that were in the right and left channels above the heart entered at the top of the head, so these became deflated.
Now, from the heart down, those winds in the right and left channels deflate out of the right and left channels into the central channel. So through that, the channel knot in the sexual organ and the channel knot at the navel gradually loosen. Thereby the red drop Now the text says the red drop is obtained from the mother and the white drop from the father. They seem to associate the redder, fleshier substances in the body as having come from the mother. I mean, that’s their genetics.
And, the whiter, bony substances is coming from the father, bone being white. There doesn’t seem to be any any verification of that at all. In fact, falsification of it probably. Right? So it doesn’t mean there aren’t these red and white drops, but that one would be obtained from the father and one from the mother.
I don’t know about falsification yet, but certainly no verification. We haven’t discovered some chromosome or whatever that is gotten from the father that is the cause of the whiter elements of the body at all. I would probably say falsification. Alright. So there’s this red source that is four finger widths below the navel, the navel center, that is in the shape of a spike.
That means it’s thicker at the top and thinner at the bottom and has a it’s red and is like fire, warm, and has the sense of going upward. Okay? Like fire. Some people have mistranslated it thinking it was like the letter ah. And really the reference is in Sanskrit, if you want to add a short ah or the letter a to a letter, you just add in this spike like line.
Anyway, that reddish source, it’s said to be involved with blood, With group of doctors from Harvard University, and I, I went over as like their liaison, went over to study the heat yoga that uses this physiology, really. And one meditates on this line here and focuses the consciousness on very tiny, very fine red line and generates heat in the central channel in order the purpose of it is to melt these white drops. Well, they felt they could measure the change in temperature in the body Because it’s reported that yogis will do this heat yoga and then do contests even of dipping cloth into water, cold water, and seeing who can dry the most of them. And, we did indeed find, by putting thermometers, I mean little devices that measure heat, in various places in the body, rectal thermometer, and various places, toes, that in the extremities, there was an increase from five to eight degrees centigrade of heat. And this was considered to be unusual, remarkable, but not, you know, it’s not as if the yogi’s body disappeared or he walked through the wall or something phenomenal on that level.
Previously unheard of. It’s published in Nature magazine. In fact, it aroused the interest of some Russian professor. I think it was the Russian government, who wrote to me and asked for a copy of the article. The yogis told us, or three of them, that they use it during the day in cold weather to keep warm.
They just keep a small version of it going all day in order to keep warm. I knew that. Coming from the summer of the southern part of America to the winter of the southern part of Australia. The change in temperature at this point in their body where they were meditating was only one degree, and it was consistently one degree, but in the extremities, higher. At first, they thought this was due to an increase in blood circulation, which seemed to have something to do with that blood moving faster in this yoga.
And it started out that way. The heart was beating faster, but then the heart would also slow down and the level of temperature remained. So I don’t know if anyone’s well, as far as I know, no one in the group has been able to posit yet how it happens. But, would assume it’s just physiological, but perhaps it’ll take us a while to work it out. So, here in death, this double ring of — what are you saying?
Knot. Sorry? One on the right, one on the left, wraparound at the sexual organ and at the navel loosen, and this allows the red spike hot thing to come up in the central channel. Until it arrives below the six circle knot of the right and left channels at the heart, a red or orange appearance arises as it’s moving there. And the author is careful to say throughout here that this isn’t a case of sunlight appearing from the outside, or in the previous that it’s moonlight appearing from the outside, or in the next one that it is darkness appearing from the outside, or in the last one that this is the dawn sky appearing from the outside.
And maybe as a key in various systems that refer to sun, moon, darkness, and so forth, that indeed, they’re not talking about moon, sun, darkness, and dawn, but an inner experience. Then, in the seventh dissolution, the physiological description is that the upper and lower winds inside the central channel that have gathered within the central channel at the heart, okay, that have gathered there, and through the force of this, the six circled knot of the right and left channels at the heart is loosened. So the white drop that is above in the aspect of this upside down letter descends, and the red drop that is below in the aspect of the spike ascends. These enter into the middle of the white and red indestructible drop at the heart. Now, it’s said that at the heart there is a tiny drop the size of a mustard seed, a large mustard seed, it said, or a small pea.
There would seem to be a range of size. Even a small pea wouldn’t be the same size as a large mustard seed. I wouldn’t think. Mustard seeds are very small. Small peas are not that small.
So, it must be a range of size. That at the heart, in the central channel, is a like box. If you had a jewel box that was round and would close the two parts would close together, and the bottom side would be red and the top side would be white, it said that the mind of the the subtlest mind is inside that drop, which seems to mean, as one lama put it, that the switch for manifesting that mind is there. You don’t have to sense when it’s manifested of being in some small drop. So, this element, red element, has come up from below.
This white element has come down from the top to this tiny pea like drop that’s red on the bottom and white on the top in the central channel at the heart. These, the red and white, the white and red elements enter into the middle of the white and red indestructible drops, it is called indestructible because it lasts until death, that exists in the manner of a closed case in the center of the central channel at the heart. Due to their meeting, the radiant appearance of black near attainment arises, this black consciousness manifests due to these two coming together. So this black mind, black consciousness, is called near attainment because it’s near the mind of clear light. It’s called the great empty because it’s devoid of all of the coarser consciousnesses and all of the coarser winds.
Then, with the eighth dissolution, physiologically what happens, the white and red drops dissolve respectively into the white and red indestructible drops at the heart. And all the wind, they completely dissolve, and all the winds inside the central channel dissolve into the very subtle wind inside that drop. Now it’s not like something under tremendous pressure then. It’s rather that these are the place where they come together and disappear. Apparently, when some yogis try to induce these experiences, they do get a sense of pressure, there’s a danger of going crazy.
Various problems had said to do with the energies or winds associated with this heart center. So this causes this mind of clear light to become manifest. This is the clear light mind of death. It is the fundamental, innate mind of clear light. It is the basic, luminous, and knowing nature of the mind.
Thus, in many Buddhist practices, one tries to get a hold of this luminous and knowing nature of the mind now, even within coarse states of consciousness, and to pay attention to it. Many systems for that. That no matter what kind of consciousness it is, very desirous, very hateful. Once it’s consciousness, it has a basic nature of luminosity and knowing. And thus, even at that time, in the midst of, say, a hateful or desirous consciousness, one can pay attention to this luminous and knowing nature of the mind.
By paying attention to it, it’ll cause the hate factor to disappear in time, the desirous factor to disappear. So this is the most subtle level of mind. So, eight. Right? Mirage, smoke, fireflies.
No. Fireflies is not good in Australia. Sparks. Is that better? Sparks within the smoke.
Sputtering butter lamp. Right? Not butter lamp. Candle flame. Is that the best word?
Candle flame? Sputtering candle flame. And then, like, sort of between it and the fifth, steady candle flame. Then, I I it’s almost helpful to me to say white consciousness, to get out of this terminology a little bit. White consciousness, orange consciousness, black consciousness, and then mind of clear light.
So the Dalai Lama was asked at a lecture, was at Harvard, about something to do with death or his own practice, and he said that six times a day he goes through these states as part of his regular practice. They see take them go down to the mind of clear light and then use the mind of clear light as the basis for the appearance of yourself. You see, the normal process, say, when you’re going to sleep, is to go down these eight, then right from eight to one when you begin a dream. At the end of the dream, one to eight. And then at the beginning of the next dream, eight to one.
Then you die within that dream, right, one to eight, and wake up eight to one. Well, meditatively, yogically, one pretends that one goes through the eight and then uses that subtleness of minds to appear without going through the grosser states. This is called deity yoga because you’re appearing as like a deity, a divine or ideal being, an ideal sort of being that doesn’t go to these grosser levels, but is capable of appearing in form, of interacting with with beings and helping. Six times a day. Now, one an ordinary person stays in the mind of clear light for up to three days, and as we’re saying, some stay less.
Might not even be a day. This teacher of mine who died recently, it was February or March, apparently, think it was about seventeen hours his body was a good deal spent. At the end of the period, well, as it’s about to say, some blood did appear on his tongue. His body first his body shifted some. Then they thought, consciousness has left.
And then they looked in his mouth and there was a little blood on his tongue. There was nothing coming out of the nose. They figured it couldn’t get up to the nose and came on the tongue. So they’re very careful not to move him during that period. So, one is in this mind of clear light, and then there’s a slight quiver or movement that within this mind of clear light.
And then that begins the backwards process, going to the black consciousness, orange consciousness, white consciousness, candle flame, sparks in smoke, smoke, and mirage. And that at that time, one has entered into the intermediate state, bardo or bardo. Par means between, do means two. It’s not a normal word for two. Usual word for two is ni, But do also means two.
Between the two means between the two lifetimes, the former lifetime and the new lifetime. So, at this point, the very subtle wind and mine leave this drop. So the drop opens. It opens in the sense of the white part. You see, the white element has come down to it, and it then continues down, opening the drop.
And the red element has come up, it continues coming up and it opens. And this subtle mind leaves. Well, as it leaves, it passes through these states eight to one. And that’s the beginning of the intermediate state. And because of this movement, the grosser white constituent comes out of the sexual organ and the grosser red constituent comes at the, usually I say nose, but now I have to think maybe in the mouth, tongue.
So maybe tomorrow we should talk about the intermediate state. Any questions? Yeah. An arhat is somebody who can go to the eighth and reappear without going backwards. You see, from eight to one.
Yes. Within using only the wind of the eighth state to make something that looks like a body. Yeah. Yes? Yes.
I guess the first apparent death would be at the fourth cycle, the fourth phase, with the stopping of the breath. The next apparent death might be at the fifth cycle, with the dawning of the, white consciousness. Maybe that’s what’s being called brain death nowadays. You know, that’s just maybe. But that sounds pretty good to me.
And then, with A Mind of Clear Light, an ordinary person, you’d have to say, is in the mind of clear light but is totally unaware of it, much like a dream that we pass through but don’t notice. Or a common example is, you know, I’ve looked around the room many times, but sometimes with a sweep, know, I noticed something that I must have seen before, must have appeared to my eye consciousness, but I didn’t notice. That state is called appearing but not noticed. And so the mind of clear light for an ordinary person is said to be appearing but not noticed. The ordinary person is so frightened of it, usually, that the person just escapes itself out of it.
It’s interesting to reflect that if the mind of clear light is our subtlest level of consciousness, and is thus the, most basic level the nature of consciousness, then and we become afraid of it when it becomes manifest, then we are afraid of our own nature. That’s interesting. Now, it’s said that a yogi can extend that period of time in the mind of clear light consciously. It’s aware of the clear light and can extend it. When I was in India, I think in the fall of seventy eight, a lama of the Kagyu sect was passing away down in anyway, not too far from where I was.
And it was said that he stayed in this state for thirteen days, that in fact some warmth remained at this point of his body. And he was sitting in meditative posture, and then upon exiting went like so. There are cases of ordinary people, however, who have stayed longer too. Does that say anything to your question? That’s what they were seeking to do for this, the Mongolian lama that because they knew he wanted to practice, they didn’t want to disturb him during that period.
And so they knew that if the body started smelling, he had left. So it was alright to move. Or if the body changed posture, or if the signs appeared of the red blood, either at the nose or, in his case, tongue, or the white fluid sexual organ. I don’t know if they checked on that. Although I have heard, there’s somebody here in Adelaide who works, as a I don’t know.
What do you call the person who, looks at tissue of dead bodies to a pathologist who’s definitely there is a seminal emission. She’s not here, is she? Wish you were. I was talking to her on the phone. No, I wasn’t.
I was talking to another woman who was her friend who reported this to me. She she called her from Melbourne. So for an ordinary person who wants to practice, yes, if possible. I don’t know how you get the power in the hospital. But in the Lama’s case, he said, I’m not going to the hospital.
So, as I was saying earlier, it would seem that we should have this right if we’re not smelling up the hospital. If you’re smelling up the hospital, that would be one thing. You know, if you insisted, well, you have to stay beyond the smell period for so long. But it’s not. Therefore, if you have the money to pay for the room, then, why not?
Maybe that could be worked up in hospices. Yes? Yes. In the eighth stage? Oh, well, he’s saying he can’t.
He’s saying he can’t. Well, or he’s saying that’s what yeah. I mean, he’s that’s what he’s saying. Yeah. In other words, it’s a common practice within Tantric yoga, to do, practice three times in the evening, three times during the day.
If it’s done correctly, it’s spread out three times during the evening, three times during the day. And, in the process, you go through the stages of death and reappear. In order to cleanse the process, and that means cleanse it very slowly. Much of tantric yoga is based on just ordinary states of consciousness and life in order to get control of them. So so a person so there are people refuted to be enlightened, they operate on a different Yes.
Only in the eighth level. Need it. They’re beyond it. Or whether the Dalai Lama actually is beyond it and he’s saying, you know, who needs to speculate? I don’t need to.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, well, not necessarily. Number one, you can mimic passing through the eight.
Okay? You can mimic it. And so you’re actually not doing it, but doing something like it. So a yogi could be doing that. But also there are stages within tantric yoga when you can actually manifest the eight, but you can’t stay in the eight.
In order to reappear, you have to go back from eight to one. It wouldn’t have to die, actually. Manifest it. And if you’re actually gaining control over it, you can manifest on a much more subtle level, but you can use the old body. You don’t have to leave it.
Well, it’s a bit too technical. There are all sorts of technicalities involved in giving an answer, in that it’s possible to manifest the clear light without manifesting it at the level at which one does at death. At death, all of the winds are withdrawn. And within the path structure, one might be able to manifest the mind of clear light, but not at that level. Alright?
So in this intermediate one, you know, if one wanted to give away half of one’s leg or something, could one do it painlessly and so forth? I I don’t know. I don’t know. Okay? Too difficult for me to answer.
However, certainly, the point at which one no longer needed the old body, then it’s just like a paper bag or something you can give to somebody else. But it takes a great deal, obviously, to get to that level. Yeah. Western what? Alchemy.
Alchemy. Is there a reference to what? Other colors? No. I mean, maybe in other teachings maybe, but this is this is it for these eight.
What others are you looking for? Just out of interest. Spectrum. The wind that’s associated with the mind of clear light is said to be five colored. It’s said to be white itself, but to give off a five colored appearance.
However, you wouldn’t be seeing that even during the mind of clear light. I don’t know when you would see it. Yes? Excuse me? That’s interesting.
In what I’ve seen, they, like with Raymond Moody’s book and so forth, they seem to be reflections of the fifth, sixth, and seventh state. Not the actual fifth, sixth, and seventh. In other words, you’d see a great white light, not everywhere, but often someplace, so there’d be a dark tunnel or a great white being would appear. That strikes me as something pre the fourth, fifth, and sixth states. Maybe it represents, maybe, a period of time between the fourth and the fifth when such lower level reflections of those deeper states could take place?
I don’t know. Yeah. That’s what’s said. Yes. That in fact, if as you’re going to sleep, you can recognize these phases, it’s then rather easy to recognize them at death because they’re more complete at death.
They’re very brief as we go to sleep. So it’d be similar to that if you had passed a certain level on the stages. I know some people seem to get very attached to it though. You know, that great white light. All those great white beings.
So I don’t know if you’d get hooked at some point. But certainly to have the experience of leaving everything must be helpful. Because it seems that our life is more like being in a bus station, you know, and we we meet some people and talk with them and so forth, and then each goes various ways. You you leave the you leave the bus station, you leave all of your friends, no matter what we’ve accumulated. At this point, if you think of the mind of, you know, the white consciousness, well, you know, money, friends, and so forth.
You’re still around, but the money, friends, and so forth aren’t much help at that point. Yes. Yes. Excuse me? But it’s still Yes.
There’s a distinction made between afflicted desire and non afflicted desire. Afflicted desire is something that’s built on this misconception of solidity, of concreteness, of inherent existence, and our normal types of desires and hatreds are said to be built on that ignorance which misconceives of such concreteness. All right? They’re built on it. Such that if you remove that ignorance, that desire and hatred can no longer operate.
It’s impossible for it to operate. Whereas with the desire, you know, this is the same well, somewhat the same word. It could be desire or wish for enlightenment, the desire to be of service to other beings. Although that can be mixed with ignorance, with misconceiving the nature of oneself, misconceiving others, misconceiving the nature of enlightenment, misconceiving the nature of the person who’s going to be enlightened. If that ignorance which misconceives the nature of these phenomena is removed, that wish for enlightenment doesn’t have doesn’t have to disappear.
It in fact is enhanced. So it’s said that an emotion like compassion is not founded on ignorance, whereas our usual desires are founded on ignorance. Even if compassion is, you can say, is a wish or desire for others to have happiness and the causes of happiness, and to be free of suffering and the causes of suffering, there’s wishing, it’s a desire, That wish is not dependent upon ignorance. Makes you realize it’s an understanding. Yes.
And then as one’s understanding deepens, in fact, and one really spots ignorance, then one can see that people are suffering from this ignorance and one’s compassion increases. So, wisdom and compassion work like so, eventually increasing each other. It’s also said that the compassionate consciousness strengthens the wisdom consciousness so that it can overcome this false appearance of phenomena as if they’re so concrete. Yes, so you get rid of the afflicted attachment and the other, if you call it attachment, desire, whatever, will increase in fact. That’s interesting.
That’s a very helpful explanation. So, yes? No. Through the BBC? ABC, yes, here.
Radio or video? Radio. Radio. Yeah, I’d like to. But I forget the title and that’s the forty time line is there live I can Right.
Is that this year or last year? Repeated last year. Good. Great. That’s interesting in terms of this question about brain death.
If this was recognized brain death and yet the person comes back from brain death, and if brain death is with the dissolving of the eighty conceptions. Five minutes? In the what course? First aid. First aid?
Oh, so you get five minutes from the time somebody stops breathing. Cessation of electrical wave patterns. That’s what you’re Between the fourth and the fifth. Begins looking as if a lot happens between the fourth and the fifth. Maybe many levels within that.
Yeah. Right. I’m sure we’ll make them too, you know, be helpful. What was that? Oh, yes.
Yeah. Yeah. So it’s three zero five. So we’ll meet tomorrow. What time is it tomorrow?
Ten o’clock. Go on and talk about the intermediate stay.