God's Dogs
Chapter 4

0 nobly-born, thou wilt experience three Bardos, the Bardo of the moment of death, the Bardo [during the experiencing] of Reality, and the Bardo while seeking rebirth. Of these three, up to yesterday, thou hadst experienced the Bardo of the moment of death. Although the Clear Light of Reality dawned upon thee, thou wert unable to hold on, and so thou hast to wander here. Now henceforth thou art going to experience the [other] two, the Chonyid Bardo and the Sidpa Bardo.

Bardo Thodol, Tibetan Book of the Dead

Pax settled himself into a full lotus position after he ate, showered, and dressed in a fresh skin-suit. It was time to take care of himself. He had killed five people and left one for dead, assuming the local criminal element found the captive they left tied up.

Pax steadied his mind and dropped easily into a deep meditative state and floated there for an hour or so. Then he visualized the realm he would journey to – the bardo states.

Intention is the road one travels in the trans-rational worlds, and Pax had decades of practice. The first bardo was a bright place where newly released souls encountered various entities and struggled to accept their death. Pax drew the six terrorists to him from the bright chaos of this realm. There were six of them, so obviously the tied up captive was now dead.

Once they assembled around Pax, they began bickering and blaming, while alternately refusing to believe they were dead. Pax let them go at each other until they tired of it and noticed he was there.

Pax garbed himself in a simple brown robe with a hood. When they noticed him, he pushed the hood back and said with cutting force, “Are you done now?”

“Where are we?” they asked and huddled around him.

“You’re dead. This is the after life. I’ll guide you until you can guide yourselves. Or you can go it on your own.”

Faces, then, came out of the mist. They flew at each of the freshly dead men and passed through their insubstantial forms. The men lost focus and panicked. Pax knew their state of consciousness was like being in a dream with no control, and for these men the dream was a nightmare. The faces assaulting them were probably of people they killed or tortured, or the faces were representatives of their own self-loathing. This first bardo was a chaotic place for the unprepared soul.

“Focus on me,” Pax called with the power of compassion infusing his words.

They did, eventually, but the shock of transitioning to the in-between place they now needed to traverse was clearly overwhelming. Karmic debts were coming due.

“What you bring with you from here will dictate the path ahead of you. There are heavens, hells, the asura realm, the hungry ghost realm, animal incarnation, and human incarnation. Your karma will close some paths, but you can avoid the more painful paths.”

One of the men asked, “What are we bringing with us we need to get rid of?”

“Guilt for what you’ve done,” Pax replied. “All those faces that attacked you were reminding you of the atonement you owe them and yourselves.”

“Fuck that!” one shouted.

“Then go your own way,” Pax directed. “Follow the light as best as you can, and flow with the wonder of Creation. Do not grasp at anything in fear or greed or anger.”

He flew off and disappeared in the mist with other faces and images assaulting him as he scampered away in panic.

The rest began praying in ways they knew how, but it was fear-driven. They would gain some relief with their prayers of atonement but not much.

The bardo current pulled them along to new terrors, as if they were on a theme park ride through a horror story. Randomly a loving figure would appear – a mother, teacher, or friend, but those typically morphed into a different kind of monster.

In time they reached a heavy darkness and seemed to drift. Pax told them, “This is the shame you carry – the shame that comes from believing you are less than children of God. It’s this shame that allowed you to kill other children of God. You must release this lie about yourselves, or you will atone for your sins in one of the hells.”

They writhed in pain as the shame flowed through them.

Pax shouted, “Find the light within you.”

Three of them did replace the light within. Two couldn’t and spun off into the darkness.

The darkness receded and the drift continued. Then soldiers from the many ages of man – knights, Nazis, barbarians, and the like massed to attack each other. As soldiers, the three men responded immediately. Pax let them fight it out. Many of those Pax killed over the years settled in the asura realm, which was now before the men as a choice. It was a realm similar to Valhalla. Unlike Valhalla, though, the asura realm allowed those addicted to power over others, conflict, and the greed of conquest to learn about the absurdity of those pursuits.

He lost two of them here. They floated off on the mobile battlefield. The final man stared at them for a bit, then shook himself and began looking around with a confused expression on his face.

Pax moved closer, “Are you awake?”

He knew this man was achieving an awareness similar to lucid dreaming. He would be able to exercise some level of control. He was no longer driven solely by his karma.

“Yes,” the man answered. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

Pax nodded and said, “The path ahead of you requires you to relax and trust. If you make impulsive choices, you will just repeat what your last life was or worse.”

The man considered that before saying, “My life was filled with fear. I was afraid, and I worked to make others fear me. I don’t want to go back to that.”

“Fear is what you don’t want. What do you want?”

Puzzled, the man answered, “I don’t know.”

Pax nodded again and told him, “You have a choice to take a break and consider your dilemma, or you can trust your next incarnation will lead you to an answer.”

“I don’t know which to choose.”

“There is no rush.”

They floated there, with swirling pastel colors in the background, in companionable silence for a timeless moment.

Finally the man said, “I need to replace the answers.”

They began moving again. Soon a tunnel formed in front of them, and Pax said, “I must leave you here. Cling to the light, and courage defeats fear. Know that your highest best interests are guiding you, so don’t jump at the bait dangled to attract your weaknesses.”

“Thank you,” the man replied as he was sucked into the tunnel.

Pax severed his connection to the bardo realm and redirected his attention to his personal Sacred Area. He shifted to a hill overlooking a lake. The shoreline was alive with birds and animals. Pax soaked up the qi from this place until he felt cleansed and at peace with himself and his place in the Universe.

The decades of training for his role of protector not only prepared him physically and mentally for that role, but also emotionally and spiritually. Coyotes didn’t suffer from PTSD, depression, suicide, loss of nerve, or any of the other consequences of warfare. This was so because they guided those they killed, as well as their comrades and the innocent victims of violence, through the bardo states. Life continued for those souls as streams to the ocean of final Oneness. So there was no regret, the grief of losing a loved one, but also knowing that loved one was continuing the journey to Enlightenment – which was true for their erstwhile enemies as well.

Coyotes were, in one sense, perfect soldiers. They didn’t burn out. They didn’t crack under pressure. They didn’t spiral down to the dark places agents of destruction normally descended to. Even so, they weren’t soldiers, as soldiers were bound to obedience. The soldier archetype was all about following orders. Tyrants, dictators, indeed the would-be emperor himself relied on soldiers to secure lands and control the people living there. Coyotes were ill-suited to that task. Coyotes were trained as spiritual warriors, and that archetype was driven by the goal of ‘doing the right thing in each moment.’ At a bare minimum, they wouldn’t follow unlawful orders. In fact, they would probably execute the person that issued the order.

When Pax felt he had restored and refreshed the tripod of his existence – centered, grounded, and balanced, he shifted back to the quiet mind and became acutely aware of his surroundings. He held that state until it was time for him to go on duty.