The Heart of the Practice

One of the most accomplished Tibetans masters of the seventeenth century, Tsele Natsok Rangdrol, explains the heart practices of the bardos --this life, dying, dharmata, and becoming-- in terms of the state of our present understanding of the nature of thoughts and emotions, and of mind and its perceptions:

Recognize this infinite variety of appearances as a dream,
As nothing but the projections of your mind, illusory and unreal,
Without grasping of anything, rest in the wisdom of your Rigpa, that transcend all concepts:
This is the heart of the practice for the bardo of this life.

You are bound to die soon, and nothing then will be of any real help.
What you experience in death is only your own conceptual thinking.
Without fabricating any thoughts, let them all die into the vaast expanse of your Rigpa's self awareness:
This is the heart of the practice for the bardo of dying.

Whatever grasps at appearance or disappearance, as being good or bad, is your mind.
And this mind itself is the self-radiance of the Dharmakaya, just whatever arises.
Not to cling to the risings, make concepts out of them, accept or reject them:
This is the heart of the practice for the bardo of dharmata.

Samsara is your mind, and nirvana is also your mind,
All pleasure and pain, and all delusions exist nowhere apart from your mind.
To attain control over your own mind;
This is the heart of the practice for the bardo of becoming.

Source:
Sogyal RinpocheThe Tibetan Book of Living and Dying(New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1992).