Visualization in the tradition associated with the Tibetan Book of the Dead functions as a disciplined training of consciousness for the bardos, the intermediate states around death and rebirth. While alive, practitioners cultivate detailed inner images of the dissolution of the elements, the arising of lights, and the appearance of various deities. This repeated familiarization is meant to allow the mind, when actually passing through these states, to recognize what appears as manifestations of its own nature rather than as alien or threatening forces. Such recognition is said to reduce fear and confusion at a moment when habitual reactions are especially powerful. In this way, visualization is not a mere imaginative exercise, but a rehearsal for clarity in the most disorienting of circumstances.

A central focus of these practices is the visualization of peaceful and wrathful deities, including buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other figures encountered in the bardos. Through deity visualization, the practitioner learns to see these forms as expressions of enlightened qualities rather than as external beings to be feared or worshiped in a conventional sense. The same principle extends to the experience of the Clear Light, the luminous nature of mind that dawns at death: by meditating on luminosity and emptiness during life, one prepares to recognize that radiance when it actually appears. In this context, visualization serves both to evoke these forms and to deepen the understanding that they are inseparable from one’s own buddha-nature.

Visualization also plays a role in shaping the trajectory of rebirth. In the later bardos, when karmic visions and potential rebirths arise, the mind is vulnerable to being swept along by ingrained tendencies and desires. Training in visualization provides a counterweight, enabling the practitioner to orient toward refuge deities or pure realms rather than being passively drawn into less fortunate circumstances. This capacity to hold a chosen image or orientation in the midst of turbulence is presented as a way of influencing where and how rebirth unfolds. Thus, visualization becomes a subtle form of guidance at a point when ordinary control has largely fallen away.

Finally, these practices are not limited to the dying person alone. The lama or ritual guide who recites the text for the deceased is also described as engaging in visualization, mentally seeing the deceased, the bardos, and the deities while offering instructions. This shared imaginal field is believed to strengthen the connection between guide and traveler, so that the words of the text can more effectively reach and orient the departing consciousness. In this sense, visualization functions both as an inner discipline of recognition and as a compassionate means of accompaniment, turning the passage through death into an opportunity for awakening rather than a merely fated transition.