Light of Kailash Lecture #8: In the Clear Light of Death 

In the Clear Light of Death: Luminosity, the Bardo, and Liberation According to Nāropa’s Six Yogas With Casey Forgues
In tantric Buddhist traditions, death is considered the greatest opportunity for enlightenment. Meditative technologies based on simulating the dying and death processes were developed, transmitted, and commented upon over centuries in India and Tibet, and continue to be taught and practiced to this day. Tantric programs such as Nāropa’s Six Yogas focus on preparing yogis and yoginis to consciously traverse the bardo stages of death, in which the bodily and mental elements collapse and the nature of mind reveals itself as the luminous dharmakāya. This talk will introduce the Buddhist views and methods underpinning Nāropa’s six-fold tantric framework, and explore how death and luminosity are connected to each yoga to provide a cohesive system for liberation.
About the Speaker
Casey Forgues is a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna and editorial director of Khyentse Vision Project. Casey received her MPhil in Tibetan Studies at the University of Oxford and has translated sūtras for 84000. Her research focuses on luminosity in the early Mahāmudrā tradition (eleventh-thirteenth centuries). She has published on topics including death and dying in tantric Buddhism, buddha nature, the six yogas of Nāropa, and the Kalācakra tradition. Casey is particularly interested in tantric philosophical views on the luminous nature of mind.