In the Buddhist understanding of enlightenment, it is not enough to see or meet the clear light—we need to become one with it. This merger happens through the ability of being able to recognize the clear light, and therefore this is why we find a lot of emphasis on this in The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

   In my case, I clearly experienced being part of the light, realizing it was my true nature. It was as if after leaving my body, I become one with the light. This was the experience of truth—the true nature of reality, and I experienced this as the ultimate homecoming. 

   This is generally described in the near-death experience as being “enveloped in light and love,” and with having no sense of separate identity. One person testifies that, “I was the light and one with it.”[i] While some people see the light as a barrier and a point of no return, it is clear that other people directly describe entering the light.[ii]

   I experienced this as being pure mind of unbound awareness. This is what Raymond Moody calls people feeling as if they are “pure consciousness,” where they are able to see everything around them.[iii] Also in the research of Kenneth Ring, we found the “transcendental awareness” (mindsight) where people were able to see everything in a 360 degree angle around them.[iv]   

   The Bardo Guidebook to the Tibetan Book of the Dead teaches that our mind within the physical body is like the space within a jar. At the moment when we die and leave the body, “the jar breaks, the space within and without merge…consciousness merges with the primordially pure nature, the ground luminosity.”[v]

   The ground luminosity is the true nature of reality expressed through the clear light. In the Tibetan Book of the Dead the true nature of the mind is the true nature of reality. This absolute nature of our mind is empty and this emptiness is in fact the light: “Inseparable from emptiness is the luminosity—the presence of what is real.”[vi]

   Now, here I must be humble and admit that the Tibetan Book of the Dead is much more complicated than my experience and the individual stories of near-death experiences. This text describes different bardos, or intermediate states, and many places that are sometimes featured in near-death experiences have a different meaning in the Tibetan tradition. For example, entering a beautiful city would mean that one would be reborn as a human, and entering a white light means that one would be born as a God.[vii] A full understanding of this traditional text requires intensive studies or teachings from a master.

   Still, one thing is clear. We all have the same experience when we die, and enlightenment in both life and death comes from the knowledge of our true nature—who we truly are. And so, the Tibetan Book of the Dead reveals a great deal about the moment of enlightenment at death, and reminds us, “At this moment, know thou thyself; and abide in that state.”[viii]    

   The true nature of the mind is like a cloudless sky where “the naked spotless intellect is like unto a transparent vacuum without circumference or center.”[ix] This was very much like my experience, and one of the most important masters in the Tibetan tradition, Milarepa, told us that, “The Dharma-Kaya of thine own mind thou shalt see; and seeing That, thou shalt have seen the All—The Vision Infinite, the Round of Death and Birth and the State of Freedom.” 

    Near-death researcher, Peter Fenwick says that often people have a feeling of profound knowledge, and a realization that they have been given the answer to all the secrets in the universe. One account describes that “I understood I was born on earth and knew the answer to every mystery,” and another account; “Enlightenment is the wonder, and here I understood the universe.”[x]

   Raymond Moody also found that people got brief glimpses into a separate realm of existence in which “all knowledge—whether of past, present, or future—seemed co-exist in sort of timeless state,” and this was experienced as a moment of enlightenment with complete knowledge.[xi]

    The Tibetan Book of the Dead teaches us that to reach enlightenment by recognizing the light of our mind it must be free from darkness or obscuration. The clear light is “a state of minimum distraction,” which means that the mind must be calm and undisturbed: “The natural state is totally free from any mental constructs, whether good or bad…it is perfectly empty.”[xii]

   Therefore, from a Buddhist perspective our consciousness should be free of either a positive or negative influence from the life-review. Both my life-review and preview took me out of the light, so my experience fits with the understanding that the mind needs to be clear and empty without images or projections.     

  The state of the mind in which to recognize the light is described as “self-contained in its own nature like water poured into water, just as it is, loose, open and relaxed.”[xiii] In this state, by knowing our true nature, we can hold on to the light: “When the light arises, hold that thought” because “one is instantly liberated by the mere understanding of the identification.”[xiv]  

   Here there is a distinction between white light and clear light, where the normal white light we know from this dimension is not the same as the clear light of the mind. For me, it was a kind of transparent light, which fits with the Buddhist description of clear light:

The subtlest light that illuminates the profoundest reality of the universe…It is an inconceivable light, beyond the duality of bright and dark, a light of self-luminosity of all things. Hence “transparency” is a good rendering, as is “clear light,” as long as “clear” is understood as “transparent” and not as “bright.”[xv]

   We can also find similar descriptions of the light in the near-death experience, where people do not only use the color white to describe it. Generally it is a very bright light (without hurting the eyes) that is very difficult to describe as being “unearthly” or having an “indescribable brilliance.”[xvi]

   The Buddhist tradition tells us about this “mind light” that, “Whoever can hold this light will experience the limitless awareness and highest bliss of enlightenment. All separation between space and energy, here and there, past, present, and future then falls away.”[xvii]

   At this point we will experience the fundamental truth of reality where all dualities merge into transcendent oneness and we experience the Supreme Joy.[xviii] This is exactly what we find in the near-death experience when people relate the joy and ecstasy of experiencing the light. We also have the experience of absolute peace and oneness, and it is this feeling of completeness that defines the sense of “coming home.” This is described, as Fenwick told us, “as if they had always known this state and that birth, life with its pains, and death, are all departures from an underlying consciousness.”[xix]

    Fenwick adds that it seems probable that this emotional state is primary and spreads into the images that arise in the near-death experience. Because nearly 90 percent of the accounts in his study described feelings of peace or joy during their experience, he concludes that this heightened awareness with the “feeling state” is the essence of the near-death experience.[xx] And as we saw earlier, the feeling state is then at the heart of the experience—what we call heaven.  

   This feeling state is an immensely powerful sensation, and Soygal Rinpoche lets us know about the clear light that, “Even though the Ground Luminosity presents itself naturally to us all, most of us are totally unprepared for its sheer immensity, the vast and subtle depth of its naked simplicity.”[xxi] For me, it was an incredibly powerful sensation to meet the light, which I have described as an internal explosion of gravity pulling my atoms apart.    

   In Dante’s Gate of Fire we find that, “There, where the ascending light from your heart meets heaven’s fire, you will encounter your radiant guide, the soul of your soul. There, in that place of luminous encounter, you will become one.”[xxii] Dante calls it the meeting of “heaven’s fire” and this is the sheer immensity of merging with the light.

   So, how do we prepare for a meeting of such overwhelming power? The guide through heaven’s fire in my experience, and in Buddhism, is the mind as the soul of the soul. The essence of the experience is the mind, and therefore, knowing who we are becomes the rock in this wild river. Buddhism teaches that people who do not reach enlightenment do so either because they do not recognize the clear light or because they are not able to remain in its continuity.[xxiii]  

   To train in the continuity of the ultimate nature of the clear light means to practice a state of wakefulness—resting in who we are, whether we meditate on emptiness or practice mindfulness while doing other activities in our everyday lives. “Luminosity refers to what is actual; simply that which is naturally present…training in it means simply maintaining a continuity of wakefulness.”[xxiv]

   Wakefulness is simply the true nature of the mind free from mental constructs. The true nature of reality is the nature of things as they are. The space outside the mind is empty and unconditioned, and enlightenment is simply the realization that the mind is in essence that space of naked awareness. Through this realization the space inside can merge with the space outside like a river flowing naturally into the sea and liberation is instant.