Modern engagement with the Tibetan Book of the Dead tends to move along two intertwined paths: one that treats it as a literal guide through death and rebirth, and another that reads it as a profound map of consciousness and inner transformation. In many Tibetan and Himalayan communities, its liturgies are still recited for the dying and the recently deceased, sometimes over a 49‑day period, to orient consciousness in the bardos and support liberation or a favorable rebirth. Related practices such as phowa, the transference of consciousness at death, are cultivated to assist this transition. In this more traditional frame, the peaceful and wrathful deities, the bardos, and the clear light are approached as real dimensions of postmortem experience, and ritual specialists, family members, and practitioners cooperate to guide the departed through them.

At the same time, many modern practitioners, especially outside Tibet, approach the text as a psychological and contemplative manual. The bardos are understood not only as postmortem states but as archetypal patterns of transition that appear in dreams, intense emotions, and major life changes. The deities are taken as symbolic of different aspects of mind—clarity, compassion, fear, aggression, attachment—and their appearances are contemplated as projections of consciousness rather than external beings. This symbolic reading allows the text to function as a mirror for inner life, offering a way to recognize how habitual patterns and karma shape both present experience and whatever may follow death.

As a meditation and mind‑training resource, the work is used to cultivate familiarity with impermanence, the dissolution of the body, and the emergence of the clear light of awareness. Practitioners engage in visualizations and contemplations that rehearse the moment of dying, training to meet it with calm, lucid recognition rather than fear. In traditions that emphasize the nature of mind, the clear light described in the bardo is identified with primordial awareness, and meditation aims at recognizing this same luminosity in life—during formal practice, in sleep, and in dream states. In this way, the text’s descriptions of the after‑death journey become a template for recognizing the nature of mind here and now.

These perspectives also inform ethical and therapeutic applications. Because the bardos are seen as expressions of mind, attention is given to cultivating compassion, generosity, and non‑harm, and to purifying negative habits that could give rise to fearful experiences. Some therapists and spiritual counselors draw parallels between bardo states and psychological transitions, using the text’s insights into perception and liberation to support those facing trauma, anxiety, or the prospect of death. In hospice and end‑of‑life care influenced by these teachings, death is framed as a transition rather than annihilation, and readings or spoken guidance may be offered to support the dying person’s consciousness. Alongside this lived practice, scholars and practitioners alike study the text historically and comparatively, producing translations and interpretations that seek to clarify its meaning while allowing it to speak both as a ritual manual and as a subtle exploration of consciousness.