Anna’s started up a blog, Buddhism and True Blood!

I understand that soon you’ll be able to find all her TB articles there, but to start the ball rolling, she has not one, but two fresh season 4 ones.

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by Anna

Part I

The intermediate state of reality is described in terms of brilliant lights and the colours blue, white, yellow, red, and green which are associated with various images that represent aspects of the enlightened mind.

Looking for images which might illustrate this aspect of the intermediate state, the most striking ones I could find came from Laffy and Jesus’s V-trip. So I dug a bit deeper and found another commentary which looks at the Book of the Dead as a manual for a psychedelic experience.

According to this commentary, the first state of the Bardo is an experience of things as they are, free of ego and of concepts. The second state is where the rational mind tries to make sense of the experience, and the final state is the re-entry into normal consciousness.

In the Bardo Thodol, the first set of visions during the intermediate state show the peaceful deities, and the second set of visions, their wrathful aspects. Each vision gives someone a chance to gain some insight.

All the images or hallucinations that manifest during the Bardos are based on the iconography that people are familiar with. The visions that are shown during most of the V-trip seem to be the product of Jesus’s mind, based on people and religious images that he is has known.

At first Jesus is pictured as the one in front who is leading the journey. Laffy is often shown as a guide, grounding Jesus through touch or by massaging his head. This changes half way through when they become connected, speak in each other’s voice, and start to be pictured side by side. Towards the end of the journey, it is Jesus who has his hand on Laffy’s shoulder.

After a series of flashing lights that could be seen as representing the Clear Light of experience of the first state, Jesus & Laffy enter into the next state.

The Intermediate State

Throughout the trip there are flashes of light which could be seen as moments of insight, and Laffy & Jesus experience a display of sound, light, and colour.

The dazzling blue light represents all-encompassing wisdom, which cuts through ignorance and delusion.

Brilliant white light represents mirror-like wisdom and universal kindness.

Yellow light represents the wisdom of equality and harmony.

Red light represents dicriminating wisdom and compassion.

The appearance of green represents the wisdom of all-accomplishing action and fearlessness, and bright green can be seen during the yellow and red stages. Finally all the colors appear together.

There is a marked change after this scene as Laffy and Jesus become more connected and a more nightmarish part of the journey begins. The same colors appear but the images associated with them are much darker, and there are also flashing sequences of the five colors.The final image is of Jesus’s grandfather ‘who had big plans for him,’ and at that point, Laffy returns to ‘normal’ consciousness.

The title of the episode is ‘I Smell a Rat.’