bardo

American  

[bahr-doh] / ˈbɑr doʊ /

noun

(often initial capital letter)

plural

bardos

1. (in Lamaism) the state of the soul between death and rebirth.

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bardo British  

/ ˈbɑːdəʊ /

noun

1. (in Tibetan Buddhism) the state of the soul between its death and its rebirth

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Etymology

Origin of bardo

First recorded in 1625–30, bardo is from the Tibetan word bár-do “between two” (i.e., a transition, intermediate state)

Example Sentences

Jade Chang, novelist: I’d only known Taix as a raucous bardo of a French restaurant, then there was a memorial service for Alex Maslansky, my beloved friend Max’s brother, owner of Echo Park’s best bookstore, Stories.

From Los Angeles Times

A membership club called the Auric Room 1915 opened in May 2024 inside the Lone Mountain Ranch in Big Sky, Mont., for instance, and another club, called Club Bardo at the Hotel Bardo, launched in February 2024 in Savannah, Ga.

From The Wall Street Journal

Tristan’s passage between worlds is anything but serene, and dancers, subtly choreographed by Annie-B Parson, accompany him as he hovers in the tunnel that suggests the bardo of Tibetan Buddhism.

From The Wall Street Journal

They dominate his 2017 Man Booker prize-winning “Lincoln in the Bardo” with its multi-voice narratives exploring grief and American history.

From Los Angeles Times

George Saunders has published five collections of influential and critically lauded short stories, but in 2017 he found a wider readership with “Lincoln in the Bardo,” a novel that inhabits the impressions of ghosts witnessing the passage through the afterlife of Abraham Lincoln’s dead son, Willie.

From The Wall Street Journal