The Original Tibetan Book of the Dead

Everyone has heard of "The Tibetan Book of the Dead." Almost no one has heard what Padmasambhava actually taught — before Western translators reshaped it for the modern world.

Death is not an ending. In the Tibetan tradition, it is the most important journey a consciousness will ever take — a passage through the bardo, the intermediate state between death and rebirth, where liberation itself becomes possible. The teachings that map this journey were given by Padmasambhava, the Second Buddha and founder of Tibetan Buddhism, and preserved as the Bardo Thödol — the "Liberation Through Hearing." Yet much of what the world knows comes filtered through later Western interpretation. This book returns to the source.

In The Original Tibetan Book of the Dead, #1 bestselling author Ajarn Shaman Shu (Shri Surya Narayana Swamikal, Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola) presents what Padmasambhava truly taught about death, rebirth, and the bardo — the ancient science of conscious dying, restored to its depth and power.

Inside you'll discover:



What the Bardo Thödol actually teaches — beyond the popular Western versions

Padmasambhava's original teachings on death, rebirth, and liberation

The bardos — the stages of consciousness between death and the next life

The luminous "clear light" and the moment of liberation at death

How the dying and the living can use these teachings to awaken

The science of conscious dying and what truly awaits beyond

Part of the acclaimed Spiritual Reparations Series, this is the great teaching on death restored to its source — a guide to the most important journey of all, as the master himself intended it.

What Padmasambhava actually taught. Death, rebirth, and the bardo. The original Tibetan Book of the Dead.



OrishaUniversity.com and these books represent the restoration of what was taken from our people. The 256 Odu of Ifa are the original operating system of human consciousness. Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola has done what many generations prayed would one day be done. My full endorsement and blessing from Ile-Ife, the source of all.

— Araba Agbaye, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Àṣẹ.

About the Author
Robert S. Shumake, publishing as Ajarn Shaman Shu, has lived two lives in one — the builder and the priest — and his books are where the two meet. He rose from a Ford factory floor to become founding president and CEO of Inheritance Capital Group, a Black Enterprise-ranked private equity firm, served as honorary consul for Botswana and Tanzania, and founded Inheritance Media Group, owner of more than 300 publications produced by an AI-run newsroom. In spirit, each tradition that initiated him gave him a name: Buddhist Ajarn in the Theravada and Vajrayana lines, Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola in Ifá, and Shri Surya Narayana Swamikal in the Tamil Siddha line. He is the founder of Soul Tribes International Ministries and of Buddha Digital Temple and its universities — Orisha University, Buddha University, and Shiva University. He authored Detroit’s Proposal E, the 2021 ballot initiative that decriminalized entheogenic plants in Detroit, and is the author of more than 140 published books and 86+ DOI-registered academic publications. His philosophy: the Double Bottom Line — make a profit, and make a difference. Robertshumake.biz