Ep. 50 of The Road Home Podcast: In The Bardo - What Happens Now

Exploring 2020 through the lens of the Tibetan bardos, Ethan Nichtern illuminates the awareness and aspiration involved in integrating the personal, interpersonal, and collective levels of our being.

Returning from a short hiatus, Ethan Nichtern begins the show by sharing rawly about his struggle with seizures at the hands of his recently diagnosed epilepsy. Offering compassion for anyone effected by illness right now, he explains his personal healing journey, before zooming out to the pressing global issue of the surging coronavirus pandemic. Touching on both the gross and acute trauma created through this pandemic, Ethan invites us to step into the bardo, and ask, “What happens now?”

Entering the Bardo

‘Bardo’ is a Tibetan word that means ‘island’ or ‘space in-between,’ usually referring to the transition between the time of death and the time of rebirth; however, ‘bardo’ classically refers to any kind of ‘gap’ between the dissolution of one state, and the beginning of another, even times of transition in waking life. These bardos can often be scary, intense, and acute karmically, as well as incredibly powerful for practice – for working on one’s mind and aspirations for liberation and compassion for other beings.

“In general, you could say the entire beloved dumpster fire of the year 2020 is a bardo, is a gap experience, an experience of an intensification of systems, structures, and identities dissolving; and not really reforming yet.” – Ethan Nichtern