“When we are dying, uncertainty, vulnerability, and insecurity can intensify, and we have the choice to desperately hold on or to let go into the freshness that comes with the dissolution. A completely open space becomes available to us if we don’t panic but let go — or if we panic, relax with that. This can be a time of full awakening, and it mainly depends on our ease or unease with groundlessness. Even just a moment of relaxation as we die will serve as well.

“In the bardo of dharmata, we might experience fear of being drawn into a bigger world, so depending on how we’ve trained in life, we’ll either be drawn into the toned-down, familiar world of suffering, or choose the stretch and let go into a bigger vision. Even if afraid, we can stay with that and let ourselves be afraid. If, in life, we’re trained in being okay with what we’re feeling, then we’ll be okay with what we’re feeling in this bardo [transition].

“If we arrive in the bardo of becoming, a key instruction is this: try not to run, but hold steady. If we panic, we can stay with the panic and resist the tendency to make any quick moves. In all the bardos of life and death, a key instruction is ‘Don’t struggle.’ Whatever is happening, stay there — right with what you’re feeling. Slow down and pay attention. Develop the capacity to stay in those uncomfortable, edgy places of uncertainty, vulnerability, and insecurity. Develop the capacity to flow with the continual change from bardo to bardo, from gap to gap.”