The Bardo Thodol, known in the West as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, is a Tibetan Buddhist text meant to guide a person through the process of dying and the states between death and rebirth. This two-part film, a co-production between NHK of Japan, Mistral of France, and FBC of Canada, follows monks and teachers in Ladakh who still use the text in daily practice, and carries the story across landscapes in the United States as well. Leonard Cohen narrates the English version, his voice used to carry the text's imagery of light, judgment, and rebirth over footage of monasteries, rituals, and interviews with practitioners. Part one, "A Way of Life," grounds the teaching in how Ladakhis live with death as a constant presence rather than an abstraction. Part two, "The Great Liberation," follows the text's account of what happens after the body stops, and what the Bardo Thodol claims a mind can do with that interval if it has trained for it.