Tukdam
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In the Vajrayana tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, tukdam (, Wylie: ) is a meditative state said to occur after clinical death, in which the body shows minimal signs of decomposition, retaining a lifelike appearance for days or even weeks. Practitioners are believed by Buddhists to be in a profound state of meditation, merging their consciousness with the Clear Light. Buddhist tradition considers that is available to all people, but only the expert practitioners of meditation, when dying, can recognize it and use it for spiritual purposes.
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In the Vajrayana tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, tukdam (, Wylie: ) is a meditative state said to occur after clinical death, in which the body shows minimal signs of decomposition, retaining a lifelike appearance for days or even weeks. Practitioners are believed by Buddhists to be in a profound state of meditation, merging their consciousness with the Clear Light. Buddhist tradition considers that is available to all people, but only the expert practitioners of meditation, when dying, can recognize it and use it for spiritual purposes.
==Description== Practitioners believe that one's consciousness can remain in a meditative state known as the "Clear Light Stage" after death. A person is claimed to exist in this state anywhere from a minute to weeks, depending on the level of their realization, but only expert practitioners of meditation, when dying, can recognize it and use it for spiritual purposes. As Sogyal Rinpoche describes it in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Tukdam” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.