Bardo Thodol
In some schools of Buddhism, "bardo" is an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between death and rebirth. It is a concept which arose soon after the Buddha's passing, with a number of earlier Buddhist groups accepting the existence of such an intermediate state, while other schools rejected it. In Tibetan Buddhism, "bardo" is the central theme of the "Bardo Thodol" (literally "Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State"), the "Tibetan Book of the Dead". Used loosely, "bardo" is the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth.