Advice from the Bardo
When I reflect back on the last few years, I realize that the majority of my spiritual practice has been concerned with navigating change. Nothing has challenged my inner peace quite like transition — whether it’s been a breakup, a death, a career change, or moving to a new city. One moment, my life feels stable, neatly stitched together by my routines and relationships; and the next, it begins to unravel. My old world has dissolved, but my new world has not yet taken shape. Whenever I’m left holding loose threads, the scramble to weave them back together into something meaningful also brings with it deep feelings of fear.
Given my attachment to steadiness, it’s probably not surprising that I’ve also had a fear of flying. Over the years, I’ve realized this fear is less about my distrust of planes, and more about my distrust of the unknown. Airports and airplanes are neither fully here nor there but suspended between destinations. They remind me of what we call the bardo in Tibetan Buddhism.
The bardo is a liminal space— a realm of in-between. It is most famously known as the interval between death and rebirth, described in texts like The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Yet, bardos are not confined to the afterlife. Life itself is a continuous series of bardos, each transition a threshold where the known dissolves into the unknown.
Much like the bardo, airports ask us to leave behind the familiarity of one place and prepare to enter the unknown of another. You can almost be certain that there will be a lot of waiting, little control, and a decent dose of discomfort. And to be honest, dealing with discomfort hasn’t always been my strong suit.
Whether or not you have a fear of flying, almost all humans are resistant to transition and uncertainty. We fear loss, we fear failure, and we fear the unfamiliar. The lives we build — at home, at work, with others — become fortresses of stability. And when the ground beneath us shifts, our survival instinct is to tighten our grip. Navigating a bardo, whether in life, death, or the metaphorical in-betweens, can feel destabilizing. But our resistance only amplifies our suffering. The Buddha taught that by clinging to what is transient, we engage in a useless struggle against the nature of reality itself.
One of the profound teachings of the Buddhist path is that stability can be found, not in external circumstances, but within one’s own awareness. Awareness is like the sky: vast, open, and unchanging, even as clouds of thoughts, emotions, and experiences pass through it. In the bardo, where the familiar dissolves and the future remains unclear, anchoring in this intrinsic stability becomes a lifeline. Through mindfulness and meditation, we can train ourselves to observe the flow of experience without being swept away by it. Stability in awareness doesn’t mean escaping discomfort but meeting it with openness and equanimity.
By recognizing that awareness itself is never shaken — only the contents of experience shift — we gain the strength to move through transitions. In this way, the bardo becomes not just a challenge or threat but an opportunity to deepen our connection with the stillness and spaciousness of our true nature. Habitual patterns can be released and fresh perspectives can be embraced. In my own experience, adaptability is key. It’s through letting go of fixed notions and attachments that I’ve found the most freedom — freedom to evolve, to discover new possibilities, and to align myself with the flow of life.
“The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute.
The good news is, there’s no ground.”
― Chögyam Trungpa
While it's easy to speak of letting go in theory, practicing it is another story. Letting go often feels like standing on the edge of an abyss. But if we can honor the pain, fear, or resistance that arises and remember its impermanence without pushing it away, we can create space for our emotions to move through us, rather than becoming trapped by them.
Letting go is not merely a mental exercise but an embodied experience. The body holds the tension of resistance — in clenched jaws, tight shoulders, or shallow breaths. To truly let go, we must bring our awareness into the body and allow it to release. Practices such as mindful breathing, yoga, or somatic meditation have deeply supported me in this process. This embodied presence allows us to meet the experience of letting go not just with the mind, but with the fullness of our being.
Now when I travel, I try to see the airport as more than a gateway to a physical destination — but also as a portal into self-awareness and growth. I try to relate to the changes in my life the same way that I relate to the sunset outside the plane window — with a sense of appreciation of their fleeting nature rather than fear. Even when there is turbulence, I remember that change is neither an anomaly nor an enemy, but a fundamental rhythm of existence.
The sky remains open despite the weather. And while I might not be enlightened, I’m no longer afraid to fly.
