Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute talk, Jampa Kaldan introduces students to the Buddhist approach to mortality and impermanence as a path to meaningful living. He begins with impermanence as the foundation for all opportunity, moves through a guided meditation on life’s precious opportunity that asks practitioners to compare their situation to four other beings—an animal, a physically handicapped person, a criminal, and a religiously persecuted person—to cultivate appreciation and rejoicing. He then shifts to the main topic: matters of life and death. Rather than treating death as morbid, he frames contemplation of mortality as liberating, arguing that honestly facing impermanence clarifies values and reveals what truly matters. The talk is part of a multi-week course reviewing earlier teachings on Buddha’s messages for moderns, the nature of mind, and Buddhist concepts like Buddha-nature and clear-light consciousness. Suitable for those new to Buddhist practice seeking existential grounding.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2002 02 04 09 Matters of Life and Death 4-2-02.mp3
UUID: aa46e993-1f04-42c8-9bf2-b30023e7ce2a
Teacher: Jampa Kaldan
Collection: Matters of Life and Death (Jampa Kaldan)
Date: 2002-02-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~4,575
A problem for some of you who maybe have to leave at nine. We’re trying to squeeze a lot into only a short time, an hour and a half. Maybe put maybe slide that window up. We might get a bit more breeze through. It’s quite stuffy.
Oh, yeah. Maybe could you maybe put that fan just real low, perhaps on the lowest setting? So our program similarly to the other nights what we’ll go we’ll do the following steps first we’ll spend a few minutes in readjusting our motivations bringing our minds to here and now away our busy lives and considering what it is that we’re doing here. And then we’ll we’ll do some meditation. Then we’ll have a a leg stretching break for a minute.
And then we’ll have the main topic for the talk tonight. And then a few details about the course, homework, so on. And then we’ll stop for a tea break. And after the tea break, ten minutes after we break the tea break those who wish to join us for the discussion sitting in a circle at the end are most welcome to do so but firstly to readjust our motivation and each night we’ve been looking at two questions trying to answer the questions how is it possible that we come to be gathered here and secondly what might be the significance for us of our being here and I’ve titled tonight’s talk tonight’s little readjusting motivation I’ve entitled it change as the mother of opportunity And I’d like to start off by reading a quote from his holiness, the Dalai Lama. This was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald in nineteen eighty nine when his holiness was visiting Australia at that time.
And His Holiness had the following comment to make. At daybreak, if the weather is fine, I go into the garden. This time of day is very special to me. The sky is clear and I can see the stars, and I have this special feeling of my insignificance in the cosmos, the realization of what we Buddhists call impermanence. Now impermanence is a central theme in Buddhist thought.
This idea that everything is constantly changing with new things arising, growing and evolving. Tomorrow tomorrow the sun is going to rise and we do things like travel in our lives and meet new friends, we get new jobs, we gradually grow up and with experience get new insights and understandings about ourselves and others and at the end of the day at the end of a busy day the evening comes and we can take rest this changing this also operates at a very subtle level of course not just at that higher level our bodies are constantly growing new cells and those cells are constantly exchanging chemicals and atoms and ions with their environments and those very atoms themselves we are told are in a constant state of flux some sort of a complex dynamic field that’s ever changing so without all this change and becoming an impermanence the world in fact could not exist would not be possible for the world to exist without all of this changingness this impermanence there couldn’t be life there’d be no beautiful flowers, there’d be no works of art and there’d be no consciousness. In fact, it’s quite certain that we wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for changingness and impermanence.
So an answer to our question is because of this universal impermanence that we’re able to be here. It’s what it’s sort of like one of those deep underlying characteristics of the way reality is that allows it to be the way it is. So what might be the significance of that for us here? We have in fact in this moment a fresh new opportunity. The constant changingness gives us a possibility of growing and developing fulfilling our potential.
We’re not fixed and static we are these dynamic processes. We’re a very dynamic thing and we’re ever changing and this allows us to take hold of the precious opportunity that we have in our lives so that we can extract the essence from it. So the significance of our being here is that there’s no reason at all why we can’t begin the task of extracting the essence from our lives because this changing nature of reality is always making this opportunity available to us. Every moment we come to an opportunity to do things differently if we wish. So change is thus the mother of our opportunity for spiritual practice of course it’s the mother of the opportunity for everything but in this context here change is the mother of our opportunity just for spiritual practice.
So to meditation tonight and in the meditation tonight we’re going to do an analytical meditation the previous two weeks we’ve done meditation on our breathing We’ll start the session with a little bit of meditation on our breathing breathing meditation being that type of meditation that we use to calm and stabilize our minds and then a typical pattern that we’ll follow from now on is once having stabilized your mind a little bit we then begin some analytical meditation. So the whole point of stability in Buddhist meditation is it’s never an end in itself we stabilize our mind so that we can use the increased power and ability of that stabilized mind to then undertake the real activity that we’re trying to achieve in the meditation in this case an analytical meditation and the topic that we’ll work on in this analytical meditation will be the topic of last week’s readjusting the motivation about this idea that we have a tremendous opportunity in our lives even though we think badly about ourselves I’ll just explain that a bit more in a minute but first another general comment about the what we do when we go about engaging in meditation to give it some more context about how we go about it in this tradition.
In this tradition, we always start our things like meditation or wherever possible when we’re doing some sort of what we think is practice to do with our spiritual work or life. We always try and start that off by deliberately developing a very positive motivation just as we did at the beginning of the meditation last week we deliberately try and establish now what am I doing this for? Ah, I’m doing it for this reason. Let me clearly establish that reason in my mind. That’s why I’m meditating.
We did that at the beginning last week. We’ll do it again. We’ll do a similar thing tonight as we did last week and I’ll explain that again in a minute but then another dimension of it we establish a motivation and then we do the activity like the meditation and at the end of the activity we then do what we call make a dedication so we we have this little beginning activity of motivation and at the end we round it off and complete practice by doing something called dedication. Here we think of having done this activity it’s been a very positive useful skillful thing for me to do it’s generated some positive energy I want to dedicate that positive energy for some purpose. I will recall why I’m doing this and then I will offer this positive energy to some maybe to someone so this can be for a benefit for me for benefit of you so this three step process is what we’ll want another one of the cycles that we’ll use over and over for the rest of this course We will begin an activity like our meditation by by developing our motivation.
We will then do it, and then we will think about some sort of finishing off or dedicating of it at the end. So in the the actual motivation that we do tonight, I will we will do the same again where we will envisage someone that we someone in front of us, some friend or relative but choose tonight a different person than you used last week so we will imagine this person sitting in front of us and then we will develop firstly loving kindness loving kindness being sorry, we’ll first develop compassion for the person compassion understood in Buddhism as being this wish or motivation that this person could be free of all their problems and difficulties and then we’ll develop loving kindness for this person which is the wish that this person can have every happiness and I’ll get you to imagine this person someone different to last week but still someone who’s very close naturally brings up a sense of affection for you and if you and someone of the opposite sex at what you chose last week so if you chose a man last week choose a woman this week and vice versa to imagine in front of you And then we’re going to do the the actual meditation after that on life’s precious opportunity.
And we’ll we’ll do we’ll run through the following things. I’m gonna guide you through step by step some things to analyze for yourself and we’ll use visualization to help so this meditation is titled life’s precious opportunity and the purpose of it is to help us to familiarize ourselves and to help us to to counteract some of the negative self limiting ways that we often talk to ourselves we often put ourselves down think less of ourselves than we can achieve and often find ourselves grappling with negative self talk or even if we think we’ve got our lives pretty well together there are probably quite subtle ways that we put limitations and restrictions on our capacities this meditation is meant is trying to take those types of ways of looking at ourselves head on and it does it by making comparisons with other people primarily who are far worse off than what our situation is to highlight for us what an incredible opportunity and situation we actually have here. So we’re gonna I’m going to ask you to consider four living beings, three of them humans and one animal, and one after the other, I will ask you to imagine these in front of you and or imagine a specific individual if you can.
Firstly, some animal, for example, a stray dog or some other just imagine an animal out in the forest living a wild life or maybe you can think you’ve seen a stray dog somewhere, not a very nice existence and secondly someone who’s a physically handicapped or crippled person if you can imagine a specific individual you know it’s best and the third person some sort of hardened criminal someone who you might have seen on TV something who’s in jail for life or something like that for some terrible crime. And the fourth one will be some individual who’s suffering maybe political or religious persecution in the world, perhaps somewhere in China or Burma or somewhere. And we’ll go through each of these we’ll put ourselves briefly in this person’s shoes or this animal’s feet and feel what’s it like to be that in that situation and then come back and like but how am I compared to that wow and one after the other we’ll go through the four and we’ll finish off with this sense of rejoicing about what an incredible situation I have right here and now compared to all of each of those other four in fact what I have right here and now is this amazing capacity that I we talked about last time to engage in spiritual practices and transform myself to whatever degree I wish or am able I can do that my being here tonight is the proof of that capacity and that wonderful opportunity and then at the end we’ll dedicate the energy and I’ll lead you through a little thought for that so let’s start off by bringing our minds to our posture Just running through the points that we’ve talked about now looking at your legs just thinking about your legs crossed and if you’re sitting on a chair sitting if you’re able to manage you preferably sitting forward so that your so that your back is nice and straight so we imagine our our back and the the thread coming up down through the spinal column and just gently lifting us up without any force so the back’s nice and straight Shoulders loose and deliberate and just check and make sure they’re falling down and they’re not hunched up from the pressures of the day.
Hands nice and relaxed however you feel comfortable having your hands the head slightly tilted forward the mouth with a jaw apart and relaxed the lips slightly together and eyes slightly downcast either open or closed as you wish just bring your mind for a moment to consider if there’s some discomfort anywhere in your body perhaps some tension or pressure from the day in your neck often or back or shoulders be aware of this and acknowledge that tension be gentle with it it’s okay I’m here I’m going to look after you relax let it flow away a little bit and then we’re going to bring after we do the motivation then we’re going to bring our mind to the breath for just a minute or two just help stabilize our minds and then I’ll lead you through the the life’s precious opportunity meditation so I’d like you to imagine in front of you someone who’s close to you, a relative or dear friend who when you think of this person you naturally feel a great sense of affection and kindness imagine the person you can see his or her face and if choose a different person to last week and of the opposite sex to whoever you chose last week if you’re able and think of this person you can see his or her face think where where the person is now what he or she is doing think about some difficulties and problems this person might be having in life at this time and now let’s develop compassion for this person and just let your mind respond to the following thoughts that I that I express and you’re expressing these thoughts towards the person in front of you how wonderful it would be you could be free from unhappiness, if you could be free from all dissatisfaction and suffering.
May you be free from all difficulties and discontent, and I want to help you to achieve this and now developing loving kindness. How wonderful it would be if you could be happy. May you be happy and have every contentment, and I want to help you to achieve this. However, when I look at myself, I realize I’m not really able to do this for you at the moment. I have neither the skill, wisdom or the compassion.
So I undertake this meditation as a step in the process of developing myself so that one day I can be of real benefit to you and now allowing the flavor of these thoughts to continue into meditation bring your mind to follow the natural flow of the breath watch the breath as it comes in and as it goes out and watch it at your nostrils or in the movements of your chest and when your mind becomes distracted as it will don’t worry about the distraction when you realize simply bring your mind back to following the breath. Now having stabilized our mind let’s use that stability to bring some focus onto our precious opportunity and consider first how you normally think about yourself and your capacities do you sometimes feel inadequacy or self doubt discouragement sometimes or even depression perhaps recall some of your common negative self talk And then acknowledge to yourself, yes, this self limiting way of thinking of my about myself it is a part of me I acknowledge that it is there And now imagine some animal, perhaps a stray dog that you might have seen, some other animal you’ve seen out in the bush somewhere, and think of this creature living in the wild, its limited intelligence driven by instincts like hunger and fear with almost no capacity to change anything in its life situation living in constant fear for its life try and put yourself into the skin of this creature and what must it be like driven by these instincts can’t change anything Always in fear.
And feel some sadness situation, the incredible restrictiveness of this creature, this animal. And now in contrast, come back to yourself and look at what’s here now. Think of your powerful intelligence, your great capacity to learn, and the overall wonderful security of life that we have here in our culture. And feel joy that you have these capacities and this situation. Situation.
And now let’s pause to take three breaths just to bring the mind back to the breath again before we go on to the next visualization this time bring to mind a physically handicapped or crippled person preferably someone you know or that you’ve seen so that you can recall a specific person and face if not maybe someone you’ve seen on TV or have read about imagine this person and once again go into the body of this person and try and get a feeling what it is like to have this disability and this restriction restriction in life cuts back your options so much and feel a little sadness at the handicap and the challenges that this person has to face. And now come back to yourself with this wonderful able body which allows you to have so many options to do whatever you like in a physical way. And just feel your body sitting here right now, this wonderful able body, and rejoice. And again, let’s take three breaths. Bring the line back to the breath for three breaths.
And now imagine some hardened criminal again someone that you at least try and call to mind some specific person if you can and if you can’t then just imagine someone who’s maybe on death row or imprisoned for life because of some terrible crime that they’ve committed and just think that perhaps this person has a mind that is terrorized by perhaps guilt maybe raging with anger against the world and try and put yourself into the persona of what it must be like to be that person not only in a physical prison but tangled up with perhaps some horrendous emotional difficulties guilt, and hatred, and feel sadness for the terrible state of this person’s mind. And now come back to yourself. Here I am again and my mind which is free from such overwhelming mental afflictions. How wonderful that I’m not so tied up with such horrendous emotional things as that and feel happiness at this. And a pause to take three breaths again.
Follow three breaths as the natural flow of the breathing. And the fourth person we’re going to imagine is someone who’s being persecuted. Perhaps someone in China. So many religious groups are being persecuted in China, the Falun Gong and the Tibetans. Maybe you’ve seen some pictures in the paper.
They’re not allowed to freely assemble and not allowed to practice the spiritual path that they would like to and try and go into this situation of being one of these people who are being watched perhaps by secret police and their very lives might be in danger just to get together and meditate with some friends and feel sadness about that situation. And now come back to yourself sitting here in a group of people able to do whatever spiritual practice we like and think of the great opportunity that I have to explore and practice exactly as I please without any restrictions. How fortunate I am to have this situation. And quickly, let’s again call to mind each of these four people that we’ve looked at and think of the the animal and our wonderful intelligence compared to that, the physically handicapped person and our wonderful able-bodied, the criminal and our emotional freedom, and the persecuted person and our freedom from that. What an opportunity we have and feel a sense of rejoicing at these four wonderful things that you have.
And then as a concluding thought, some sort of determination like this might come to mind. How wonderful it would be if I were to use this rich and rare opportunity that I have to do something meaningful with my life. And just before we stretch, let’s do our final little bit, which is the dedication. And I want you to imagine that having done this meditation, we’ve generated a lot of positive energy and potential for ourselves there’s some merit in doing this it’s really skillful and just imagine this positive energy at your heart as like golden light just imagine in this golden light at your heart is like a representation of the positive energy the creative potential that’s been generated by this activity and let it let that golden light spread out to fill your body to be a benefit for you and let it spread out to the person that right at the beginning let the golden light go out and share it with that person as well the person that you develop loving kindness and compassion for at the beginning so it can also be a benefit to them which is recalling the whole purpose of why I undertook this meditation to be a benefit to others as well as myself and recall a person you visualized at the beginning of the meditation last week imagine them also sitting here in front of you and let them have a little bit of the golden light as well Okay.
So perhaps it’s time for a leg stretch. Our talk for tonight is on the topic of matters in life and death but before I start on that let me quickly review what we’ve done so far in the last two weeks in the first session we looked at six particular messages from the life of the Buddha for a modern twenty first century spiritual practitioner what might be those what might be some messages from the Buddha’s life and the six messages that we looked at were firstly the need for a shift from outer values of having and owning and possessing to inner directed values of being. Secondly, the importance of taking responsibility for our own development. Thirdly, the need for self compassion. Fourthly our great potential to grow and even awaken to full enlightenment fifthly the centrality of compassion for others and finally the principle of wholeness as distinct from some idealized perfection as our spiritual goal then in the second session we looked at the topic the nature of mind and we did three things we looked at three things first we considered the complications of the relationship between this stuff called mind and that other stuff called matter and we did that as a way of getting us to begin to look more deeply into our everyday experience into the everyday to try and help us break through a little bit that everyday just take it for granted I know everything and it’s all the way it should be and secondly we looked at the fact that according to the Buddhist understanding we all possess a clear light mind or what’s called Buddha nature and it’s this which means that the possibility for enlightenment for each one of us resides here with us it’s not some different place we have to go to it’s already a part of what we are we don’t realize it and thirdly we looked at the Buddhist characterization of what the experience of consciousness is actually like and the main thing we talked about amongst other things was that it’s a process of being of clarity and knowing clarity and knowing and that to understand and to investigate that and to look deeper into what that is like can be a very useful and important part of the spiritual path so in today’s talk we’re going to move on to matters of life and death and here tonight we’ll look at four things firstly some introductory comments then we’ll ask ourselves the question why should we bother looking at death thirdly we’ll then specifically take a close look at our deaths and then finally we’ll look at something that in response to having looked at this material we will consider the Buddhist concept of what’s called refuge So firstly, some introductory comments.
Earlier tonight, we noted this concept of impermanence, which is central to Buddhist thought, and as individuals, we are part of that ever changing reality, which means that we are born and we start and that each one of us is also going to die. That’s part of the impermanent reality that we’re embedded in. In our culture death is largely hidden away and it’s it’s treated as often like some horrifying event to be ignored if possible and I came across a lovely quote must have been from a quote I guess of Woody Allen’s which I thought got this across nicely Woody Allen says I’m not afraid of dying I just don’t want to be there when it happens Or our culture might think, like, if we do think about death, like the SBS program two weeks ago, it’s a technical challenge that we have to try and overcome so that we can all live forever or it’s like some sort of a sickness, a really bad sickness that it’s like an annoying complication to an otherwise well balanced and carefully managed life. So in such a context, looking closely at death may seem to be a bit unhealthy and even morbid.
In fact, I think it’s the very opposite to that. I came across a a story, one of those lovely little stories of Zen masters, and I couldn’t find the original, and so I’m just telling it from memory. And I hope I get it right, where the disciple comes to the Zen master and he says master how should I learn to face death and the master says well you have to learn how to live and then the disciple says well how do I learn how to live and the master says well you have to learn how to die looking closely and honestly at our impermanence can I think be a really empowering and freeing thing it it can be like turning up the contrast on the TV full contrast or if the lights really dull and you can’t hardly see anything in the room it’s like turning the dimmer switch right up full it brings everything into high very high contrast everything stands out very clearly it can highlight this rich opportunity that I have with my life if I’m going to die what are the implications for how I should live and what are the values that I should build my life around in the meantime Je Tsongkhapa, the great Tibetan master from the fourteenth cent