In this episode I am once again joined by Dr. Ian Wickramasekera as he recounts his dramatic nervous system collapse and near-death experience as a consequence of COVID-19.

Dr Wickramasekera is a Bön Buddhist practitioner and associate professor of Mindfulness Based Transpersonal Counselling at Naropa University.

On the 19th of March Ian woke up with a headache, dizziness, and fatigue - he had contracted COVID-19. While symptoms initially receded, and it seemed like this might be a light case, events soon took a devastating turn for the worse.

What followed brought Ian to the very brink of death and forced him to draw on all his decades of advanced meditation and hypnosis training.

Ian recounts how, his life hanging by a thread, he experienced the dissolution of his bodily elements, slipping into the between-lives realm of the Bardo, and the emergence of the clear light of the nature of mind.

We learn how, while fighting for every breath and subject to painful experimental medicines, Ian’s practice of Tummo transformed his bodily agony into spiritual bliss.

Ian also reveals the life changing consequences of this near-death experience, and the radical change it has effected in his being.

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https://www.guruviking.com/ep79-dr-ian-wickramasekera-agony-into-bliss-facing-covid-with-dzogchen/

Audio version of this podcast also available on iTunes and Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.

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Topics Include

0:00 - Intro

1:08 - Exposure

3:50 - Beginning of symptoms

6:35 - Symptoms worsen and Ian has a stroke

11:30 - Was Ian afraid?

13:02 - Fever induced hallucinations

15:33 - Neurological breakdown, accusations of opioid overdose, and rushed to hospital

24:42 - Arrival at hospital and diagnoses of Epstein-Barr and Guillain-Barre

28:16 - Ian draws on his hypnosis and meditation training as his breathing begins to fail

30:55 - Psychic experiences entering the Bardo

33:33 - ‘Prepare for death’ - advice from Ian’s teachers

37:45 - A dire prognosis

39:51 - Dissolving of bodily energies and emergence of the nature of mind

45:43 - Time travel in the Bardo and practicing Tonglen for the dying

50:42 - Experimental medicine and using Tummo to transfer the agony into bliss

56:57 - Surviving and the helpful insights from psychedelics

1:04:10 - Lasting insights from Ian’s near-death experience

1:08:31 - Ian enters intensive rehab to recover the use of his body

1:19:39 - Impact on the subtle body and wisdom energies as the body’s energies dissolved

1:29:45 - What was Ian’s death plan?

1:35:16 - Tummo and connecting with bliss

1:42:09 - The responsibility to share the teachings that comes with spiritual insight

1:47:08 - Learning through loving

1:50:09 - Ian’s teachers and how others can learn these practices

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Previous episodes with Ian:

- https://www.guruviking.com/ep61-dr-ian-wickramasekera-devolving-the-self/

- https://www.guruviking.com/ep67-dr-ian-wickramasekera-tummo-hypnosis-realising-rigpa/

- https://www.guruviking.com/ep74-dr-ian-wickramasekera-gurus-hypnosis-toxic-devotion/

To find our more about Ian, visit:

- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ian_Wickramasekera2

- https://www.naropa.edu/faculty/ian-wickramasekera.php

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For more interviews, videos, and more visit:

- http://www.guruviking.com

Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James