bardo...

[alan...]

I had no idea that the Bardo teachings were being promulgated outside of the Vajrayana..and certainly not that they are being looked for in the Pali Canon.
Obviously that puts a different spin on the issue.

yes, in fact the sarvastivadins even had teachings about it and they far predate or at any rate are in part a predecessor to the vajrayana. at least as far as i know, my sarvastivadin teachings information is a little shaky. but i believe this is true and the vajrayana have suttas that are from the sarvastivadin canon.

[gendun]

According to Vajrayana Bardo teachings of course this very existence is also a Bardo. One of six such.

[alan...]

According to Bardo teachings of course this very existence is also a Bardo. One of six such.

so are dreams. cool stuff. i researched dream yoga for a while. in fact bardo simply meaning "interval" all traditions have them. only five instead of six for the ones that do not include an in between death and rebirth bardo.

[gendun]

Among current Buddhist schools the Vajrayana may be unique in actually formally practising transferring the stream of consciousness between the Bardos. Unless anyone knows differently.
In other words consciously modifying the nimittas.

[Nyana]

Although anecdotal reports of NDEs neither prove nor disprove the existence of a postmortem intermediate state (antarabhāva), they do indicate the possibility of such an event as well as the role of kamma and conditioning in the content and interpretation of such experiences. For example, see Eleven Thai Near Death Experiences.