Determination (Between Worlds part 5)

[Christopher Stewart]

("Akshobhya Buddha" by VanemTao)

« Between Worlds » is a composition that started as a song entitled « Requiem » which was written in response to the deaths of my father and maternal grandmother, both due to cancer, at the beginning of the 1990s. Inspired by « The Tibetan Book of the Dead, » the piece eventually turned into a suite in five movements intended to present the successive stages of the death process as described in Tibetan culture.

The last section of « Between Worlds » is entitled « Determination » and is intended to depict the intermediate state of rebirth, known as the « sidpa bardo, » the bardo of karmic becoming or transmigration.

According to Wikipedia, this bardo features karmically impelled hallucinations, typically imagery of men and women passionately entwined, which eventually result in rebirth.

The title of the section was chosen to reflect the main characteristic of this state, which is the determination of the dead's next incarnation. Basically, the person will experience the rebirth that corresponds to the hallucinations to which they feels drawn to while in this state of consciousness. Thus, one who has learned to distinguish between what is truly beneficial and what is not in this present life will be able to enjoy a most beneficial embodiment in the next.

The clip presents the end of « Deliberation » followed by the beginning of « Determination. »