Practitioners are believed by Buddhists to be in a profound state of meditation,[2] merging their consciousness with the Clear Light, a fundamental concept in Tibetan Buddhism signifying the primordial nature of mind and reality.
[5][6] A person is claimed to exist in this state anywhere from a minute to weeks, depending on the level of their realization,[1] but only the expert practitioners of meditation, when dying, can recognize it and use it for spiritual purposes.
[4] As Sogyal Rinpoche describes it in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:[7] A realized practitioner continues to abide by the recognition of the nature of mind at the moment of death, and awakens into the Ground Luminosity when it manifests.
The state of tukdam represents an advanced level of spiritual attainment where the practitioner's consciousness remains in meditation after clinical death, merging into the Clear Light or Ground Luminosity.
Rinpoche writes that a realized practitioner recognizes the nature of mind at the moment of death and awakens into the Ground Luminosity, remaining in that state for several days.