George Sanders focuses a lot on what
happens after you die in his book Lincoln in the Bardo. He uses
both the different aspects of Christianity and Buddhism to form his thoughts
and ideas about how the book should be worded and how the different aspects of
the bardo should be portrayed.
According to the teachings of
Tibetan Buddhism, the bardo is only supposed to last at a max of 49 days,
but along with this there are three different stages and the first one normally
lasts from 3 to 4 days. These stages are unconsciousness, consciousness, and
the bardo of becoming. He is using the different aspects of the bardos from
Buddhism, but I also believe that he is uses aspects of Christianity such as
eternal life to help with his story. Although the different reasonings and
aspects of the bardos are strictly pulled from the practice of Buddhism, the fact
that these characters have been there for years upon years instead of the max
of 49 days lets me believe that he pulls in the eternal life aspect of
Christianity so that the characters could be in the bardo eternally until they
have "let go" or "moved on" in the sense of progresses to
the next stage of the bardo or moving away from the bardo and disappearing in
the light as vollman describes in the novel.
“From off to my left came a shout—of terror
or victory, I could not be sure—followed be the familiar, yet always
bone-chilling, firesound associated with the matterlightblooming phenomenon.
Who had gone?” (Saunders 96).
The way that Saunders portrays moving on
in this book sounds terrifying. This may help represent on why the Reverend
Thomas is so scared of what is to come after leaving the bardo. The Reverend
saw something so terrible that he ran and ran until he ended up at his
gravesite again. This was better than the place he was taken to after he became
envious of his friends that were allowed to leave while he was stuck there at
the gravesite stranded without anyone around. These are the different scenarios
that are described throughout the book that help you see the different
religious tones that Saunders has taken from both Buddhism and Christianity.
With these he is trying to emit a better understanding of what is to become
after one dies, but the truth is you will never know until you die yourself.
Saunders, George. Lincoln in the Bardo. Random House, 2017.
“Tibetan Buddhism VII.” Buddhism in a Nutshell - Chap
104,
www.buddhistdoor.com/OldWeb/bdoor/0606/sources/teach104.htm.
Accessed 9 Sept. 2017.
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