Foreword from the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

The Bardo Thotrol ( Bar-do-i-thos-grol) is one of a series of instructions on six types of liberation.
Liberation through hearing, liberation through wearing, liberation through seeing, liberation through
remembering, liberation through tasting and liberation through touching.
They were composed bu Padmasambhava and written down by his wife, Yeshe Tsogyal, along
with the sadhana of the two mandalas of forty two peaceful, and fifty eight wrathful deities.
Padmasambhava buried these texts in the Gampo hills in central Tibet, where later the
great teacher Gampopa established his monastery.
Many other texts and sacred objects were buried in this way in different places through-
out Tibet, and were known as terma, " hidden treasures ."
Padmasambhava gave the transmission of power to discover the termas to his twenty five
 chief disciples. The Bardo texts were later discovered by Karma- Lingpa who was an
incarnation of one of these disciples.
Liberation in this case means that whoever comes into contact with this teaching,
even in the form of doubt, or with an open mind receives a sudden glimpse of
enlightenment through the power of transmission contained in these treasures.
Karma- Lingpa belonged to the Nyingma tradition but his students were all of the
Kagyu tradition. He gave the first transmission of the six liberation teaching,to
Dodul _Dorje, the thirteenth Karmapa, who in turn gave it to Gyurme- Temphel,
the eighth Trungpa,
This transmission was kept alive in the Surmang monasteries of the Trungpa lineage,
and there it spread back into the Nyingma tradition. The student of this teaching,
practices the sadhana and studies the texts so as to become completely familiar
with the two mandalas as part of his own experience.
I received this transmission at the age of eight, and was trained in this teaching by
my tutors, who also guided me in dealing with dying people. Consequently I visited
dying or dead people about four times a week from then onwards. Such continual
contact with the process of death particularly watching one's close friends and
relatives, is considered extremely important for students of this tradition, so that
the notion of impermanence becomes a living experience rather than a philosophical view.
This book is a further attempt to make this teaching applicable to students in the west.
I hope that the sadhana may also be translated in the near future, so that this
tradition may be fully carried out.
                                                    Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche