Literally: “in-between state”
A transitional state of existence between two lives — in Tibetan Buddhism, the intermediate space between death and rebirth, and more broadly, any gap or threshold between one state and another.
Etymology
Bardo (བར་དོ) is a Tibetan compound: bar (བར, “between”) and do (དོ, “thrown” or “suspended”). The word appears extensively in the Bardo Thodol (བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ), commonly known in English as “The Tibetan Book of the Dead,” an 8th-century text attributed to Padmasambhava.
Cultural Context
In Tibetan Buddhism, bardo is not just about death. The tradition identifies six bardos: the bardo of this life, the bardo of meditation, the bardo of dreaming, the bardo of dying, the bardo of luminosity (the moment of death), and the bardo of becoming (the transition to rebirth). Every moment of change is a bardo — a gap where transformation is possible.
The concept has profoundly influenced Western spirituality, psychology, and art since the Tibetan Book of the Dead was first translated into English in 1927. The idea that transitions contain both danger and opportunity — that the space between states is where consciousness is most malleable — resonates with Western experiences of life change, grief, and personal transformation.
Today bardo is used colloquially (even outside Buddhist contexts) to describe any liminal state: the uncertainty between jobs, the space between relationships, the disorientation of major life changes. The word gives language to the uncomfortable truth that we spend much of our lives in-between.
Modern Usage
After leaving my old career and before starting the new one, I felt like I was in a bardo — suspended between identities.
Related Words
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