Thrangu Rinpoche has written a 200 page book on Journey of the MInd:Preparing for the Bardo in Life, Dreams, Meditation, while Dying, and Rebirth (available on this website under Thrangu Rinpoche's works ). The Bardo is the interval between between death and rebirth in a new body. For a person who is unprepared the Bardo can be a terrifying experience with sounds louder than thunder, lights too bright to look at, terrifying deities. For the meditator who is prepared for the Bardo can be a valuable experience where they can experience the world as it really is and they can choose a better re-birth.

Thrangu Rinpoche explains that while we are alive, our body possesses 100 deities, but we usually are not aware of them. So when our mind departs the body at death these deities appear to us in a very systematic order. Part of being prepared for the Bardo is recognizing and understanding what they represent. 

We were able to put four pages of color pictures in the book but many persons wanted to have much high quality and larger pictures that can enlarge and examine all the small details of these pictures. The Bardo deities are usually divided into the Peaceful Deities and the Fierce Deities (often called wrathful deities). All of these deities can help us if our karma has been good. 

Each of the five peaceful deities are depicted in the same way with deity and female aspect in union in center and four other buddhas accompaning them in the four directions. Each is a different color and this one is the Amitabha Buddha aand in the upper left is a high practitioner (perhaps a previous Karmapa), one of four peaceful protector also in red and below one of six sages.

This photo is of high quality (300dpi) and copyright free. You may download either the smaller 4 by 6 inch or the larger 8 inch by 10 inch photo each for $ 0.50.