Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute talk recorded in 1983, Jeffrey Hopkins introduces the Tibetan Buddhist framework for understanding death and rebirth, moving from abstract theory to practical meditation. He opens by reflecting on the irresolute status of his own travel plans—a vivid reminder that death’s timing is completely uncertain—before pivoting to the structured eight-stage process of dying described in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist texts: outer signs (mirage, smoke, sparks), inner signs (white, orange, black consciousness), and the mind of clear light. Hopkins then reads an extended teaching by Ladirumacha, a Tibetan lama from Gandhin Monastic University in South India, which anchors the philosophy in lived wisdom. Ladirumacha emphasizes three pillars: that death is certain, its timing indefinite, and only mental practice helps at that moment. The talk works through concrete obstacles to facing this truth—attachment to wealth and comfort, procrastination on practice, denial that death applies to the young or healthy—and concludes with stark observations: possessions cannot follow us, friends cannot prevent our going, and a single breath alone separates this life from the next. Suitable for anyone new to Buddhist perspectives on mortality or already engaged in death-awareness meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 Death, IS and R no date.mp3
UUID: 38e74688-2a37-4a43-9d24-085575c4440b
Teacher: Jeffrey Hopkins
Collection: Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth (Jeffrey Hopkins)
Date: 1983 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~6,306
Tomorrow, I am hopefully delayed to Sydney, stay overnight, and then go on to Vancouver. I’m staying for a year teaching at the University of British Columbia. But indeed, no one can guarantee that I will be able to leave. No one could guarantee that one could finish today. Whether today is sooner or the death is sooner is not definite.
Death, however, is definite. When it comes, it’s so indefinite that one could not you know, you couldn’t I couldn’t sign a piece of paper saying, I definitely will leave Adelaide tomorrow. But of course, if I did die, you you couldn’t collect on the signature anyway. So day by day we live as if making plans and so forth as if it’s just going to go on and on and on, whereas it is not necessarily. I hope one of the possible helps from hearing and reading about the process of death as it is set forth in these Tibetan Buddhist texts, these being based on Indian Buddhist texts, is just some closer thought about the actual process of death itself and death then not being quite so vague, not just some black happening somewhere in the future, although, of course, according to this system, the seventh state does involve the black consciousness.
I want to thank the Foundation to Preserve the Mahāyāna tradition. They are the group that set up the various talks, and Buddha House here in Adelaide. Everything’s going extremely well. The Tibetan culture is at a juncture where internally in Tibet, for the most part, the Chinese communists are seeking to end the old culture entirely. This is an example of what they’re trying to end, the sort of knowledge and teaching based on this sort of text.
The one hundred thousand or so refugees who have come to India and then been dispersed in various places throughout the world are attempting to keep the culture going. And it’s interesting to see how successful they’ve been to quite a degree. Mean, they’ve set up small replicas of their universities in South India especially, but in other parts of India too. But they’re only small replicas. So it’s a time when Westerners have an excellent opportunity for studying something that normally wouldn’t be open.
And I think much in the spirit, as I said on the first day, which is just yesterday, as I said yesterday, yesterday morning, the spirit of the Dalai Lama’s exchange of ideas about consciousness, about the development of consciousness, about the process of consciousness, what happens with consciousness among people of different systems, not seeking to convert people from one system to another, but presenting something to see if it’s of any use in their own particular system. That’s interesting. It’s an interesting attitude. Of course, if there isn’t anything that’s particularly interesting or helpful, then as he says, leave it. In other words, quite often systems get together and start complaining and arguing with each other, and the explanation of a system becomes a source of combat.
So actually, this morning we talked about the taking of rebirth, how the intermediate state ends. One explanation being that if one is to be reborn as a male, one sees what will be one’s mother, wishes to copulate with her, rushes to that spot, and then becomes annoyed, angry, when one finds there just a sexual organ. I would think one would be a little bit upset. Once we were born as a female, it’s just the opposite, of course, with the father. This causes death interesting, this hatred on top of the desire causes death in the intermediate state, and one passes from the eighth sorry, from the first state to the eighth in the usual process of death.
Mirage, smoke, sparks in the smoke, sputtering candle flame, and then when that quiets down, a steady candle flame, or the glow above such a flame, but steady, than the mind of we could call it white consciousness, orange consciousness, black consciousness, and mind of clear light. So then, when one passes from the mind of clear light back to state number seven, the mind of radiant black near attainment, or the black consciousness, that’s the beginning of the new lifetime. In one way you can say the beginning of the new lifetime is with the mind of clear light, But really, that’s the death of the intermediate state. So the beginning of the new lifetime is the mind of the black consciousness. And then one quickly passes through up to state number one and into the usual level of consciousness.
Now, I’m not going to go through the various points that are made in this chapter in that I think it’s quite easy to follow. It talks about the development of the fetus in the womb stage by stage and so forth. The development of the channel centers, the central channel, right channel, left channel, and the centers at the forehead, top of the head, throat, heart, sometimes between the throat and the heart, as one mentioned here. But throat, heart, solar plexus, so called secret region, and the tip of the sexual organ. So, this afternoon I thought to go through these series of mediteachings about death.
We live in such a way that although if we were asked, Are you going to die? We’d certainly say, Yes, eventually I’ll die, but don’t have the sense of the closeness of it. And in order to develop a sense of closeness of it, one does a great deal of meditation. Meditation basically means to accustom the mind to something one has decided is worth accustoming to. In other words, one needs first to intellectually decide whether point is worthy of meditation, then meditate on it in order to bring it home.
If it were sufficient merely to make an intellectual decision, such as that I will die and who would need meditation. But the point is that we don’t live with this sort of understanding, therefore it’s necessary to bring it home. And typical of the Buddhism of Tibet, the meditations are highly structured. You know, there are three main parts and each of the three parts has three subdivisions in it. Actually, this is has only a minor level of, number of subdivisions.
You often find it’ll have nine parts and the first will have four, and the first of those will have three, and the first of that will have one, and so forth. This sometimes gets in the way for people to think about a topic because we’re used to more of an unfolding narrative, even if it does have all of these points. However, for the sake of meditation, if one has memorized such a structure, then one can sit down and make use of that structure in meditation. And this is the main form of this type of writing. Highly structured.
But then within that, people are capable of bringing it to life. We need a more interesting narrative from the very beginning, and all the heavy structure gets in the way. So the three main parts of this are bringing home the realizations that death is definite, that the time of death is indefinite, and that at the time of death nothing helps except mental practice, religious practice, whatever one wants to say. In other words, the only thing that’s actually going to help at the time of death will be mental development. Because at that point, one’s at the deepest level of one’s life and that’s the level that’s going to go on.
So the level that goes on is not one’s property and so forth. So what I thought to do is to read, just a few pages of a talk that a Tibetan lama gave in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Lama is Lati Rinpoche. If you have this edition of the book, his picture is on the back, and there’s a short description of him as abbot of one of the Tibetan colleges in the Ganden Monastic University in South India. I spent some time, a couple months, with him there last year.
He spent, I think it was thirteen months, in the States with us. Prior to that, I had worked with him some in India, mainly retranslating back into Tibetan texts that I had translated into English to see if I had understood the grammar, the syntax, the structure of the sentence properly. He doesn’t know any English, so he couldn’t check my words. On the London edition, there’s no picture of him. In fact, on the back it talks a lot about me.
And then at the bottom it says, Lati Rinpoche is a member of the Tibetan community in India. Something like that. As if I had met him on the street somewhere and asked him a few questions in a bar. Otherwise, the books are exactly the same. What he says is very much to the point.
Sometimes it makes me laugh. It’s so poignantly simple, perhaps. It’s just things that are quite obvious, but when I hear them, I know immediately that I’m not living my life in the recognition of such simple truths, and sometimes that makes me laugh. I was giving a talk once in Illinois, and everybody was laughing after a while, except the two people who organized the talk. I kept looking as if they weren’t laughing.
Anyway, it’s not that funny. He says, We are all humans and as such have to go through many difficulties. But there are four main difficulties: the suffering of birth, which we do not remember well the suffering of sickness the suffering of aging and the greatest, the suffering of death. We usually do not fear death, but at the time of death, we don’t know what to do and even scratch into our chest. So as I was saying on the first day, the intention of these teachings is to cause one to become concerned about death now and then engage in some practice, getting used to the process, so that one isn’t afraid of it at the time of death.
Whereas in our usual type of behavior, what we’re doing now will cause us to become afraid of death. In other words, we become so attached to the present situation with sort of training and attachment that at this time when we have to detach, we want so much to remain attached that this causes trouble for us. We need to engage in a method such that we won’t wait until the time of death to become concerned about death so that we won’t fear death when it comes. A country prepares its armies so that at the time of war, it need not be afraid. Now it’s quite outmoded.
Right? We’re preparing the armies. The claim is that we prepare them so that we won’t have any war at all. Otherwise, if there is one, forget it. The method is, first of all, to become mindful of death.
If you do not think about death, you will be concerned with wealth and therefore not practice. If you are mindful of death, you are able to plan what will be helpful in the future. Without mindfulness of death, you cannot achieve anything in mental practice because you put practice off. If you are not mindful of death, you cannot renounce attachment to food, clothing, and good conversation, and will put great effort into achieving them, and will desire those who help you in this regard and hate those whom who harm you in this. If you are mindful of death if you are not mindful of death, you cannot practice continuously.
In other words, by being mindful of death, one has a one has perspective. One has a longer range perspective. One maintains the wish for happiness. It’s not that Buddhists are seeking one to overcome the wish for happiness, but to implement the wish for happiness more successfully in a in with perspective. This long term, including future lifetimes.
If you are not mindful of death, you will feel regret at the time of death for what you did and did not do. If you are mindful of death, you will seek to take care of future lives. With this sheet that you have, you’ll see that he’s following down the order, although in this case he’s not telling you where he is in the order. You will seek to take care of future lives. You will keep good ethics, engage in giving, and so forth.
If you are mindful of death, you can stop desire and hatred quickly and can accumulate virtue with great strength. In the beginning, mindful of death causes you to enter into practice. In the middle, it causes you to continue practice, and in the end, it causes you to complete practice. If you are mindful of death, you can die with joy and delight. Buddha said that the discrimination of impermanence is the supreme of discriminations.
You must think I will die. Not one of the people of great fame, good body, and great resources of one hundred years ago is alive today. True enough. There is no chance that I will not die. Remember one by one all of your friends and relatives who have died.
Would be, you know, interesting if the bones of everyone who died in the whole world were put in one place. It would be quite a you know, and they didn’t rot away and so forth. Be quite a heap. Remember one by one all of your friends and relatives who have died. There is no one in the world alive today who will be alive in one hundred years.
Well, there might be one or two. No one will be able just to stay alive. No matter where we live or what kind of body we have, there is no one who will not die. There is no place in cyclic existence where you can go where you will not have to die, under the ocean or in the sky or inside a mountain or any country. No matter how rich you are, there is not anyone to whom you can give your wealth to keep from dying.
This is more understandable in Indian culture where there’s a great deal of bribery, where, if you wanted to get out of some trouble you’re in, you just get a little money, things straighten out very quickly. But here in this case, I, you know, I suppose there’s no lawyer or there’s no doctor to whom one could give one’s money. No matter how powerful you are, you cannot fight a war to overcome death. If these were possible, somebody would have done so by now. Yes.
You cannot avoid death with deceit and clever talk. No matter how fast you are, you cannot get away from death. It is also not possible to avoid death by meekly begging. Please. One by one, think of the reasons why death is inevitable.
When you are distracted, come back. If you are mindful of death, then death is like a small child’s returning home. The example being of a child that wants to go home. What do you say? Feeling pleasantly, pleasantly returning to a place.
There is no way to add anything on to our lifetime. Our life is diminishing without interruption. With each day and night, we are getting closer to death. If you’re going to live one hundred years, each minute, that amount of time in the lifetime diminishes. Similarly, one minute, one hour, one day, one month, one year, our lifetime is running out.
It is constantly being used up. On the television last night, there was someone saying that he was contemplating retirement. It was like in a couple days, and he said he didn’t know what he was going to do. He said that all that and it was a forced retirement that all that could appear to his mind was that perhaps he’d become a drunk or go crazy. I think that such thought would be very helpful, really.
If you realize you’re going to die, then if you can think about that, you can certainly think about your retirement. It gives, again, that perspective. We go to work thinking we’re going to work forever. You know, I finally am what I am to be. Well, not at all in old age or bound to return to more like a childlike state finally, finally.
We begin dependent upon the kindness of others and we end usually dependent upon the kindness of others and in between have some seeming sense of independence. But it’s ridiculous that we would so give our lives over to a company that when we no longer can walk through the door of that company, we feel my life is now useless, or for young people who are unable to get jobs to feel that their lives are useless. You know, I’m on the door, so my lifetime is useless. Not at all. So similarly, one minute you know, this is the sort of thought which in one way seems discouraging.
Everything is disappearing, but in another way, when you face it, it’s encouraging. It gives perspective, causes you to see that you have something valuable here that can be used. A sheep being led to slaughter is closer to death with each step it takes toward the place of slaughter. So sheep’s a good example for Australia. We are living our lives in such a way that we are not achieving any means of help at the time of death.
The vast majority of people do not know that there is any practice they can engage in that will help them at the time of death. People are, for the most part, uncertain whether such a practice exists. Most do not believe in future lives. There are very few who even know that there is a thing called doctrine that is helpful at the time of death. They spend the first twenty years of their life in childish play.
Then they marry and raise children for ten or fifteen years, right, and do not have time for practice. When they do finally have some time for practice, they procrastinate, putting it off to the next day. Then they become old, at which time they are unable to practice. Then they can only say, I didn’t have time to practice. May I be reborn with the opportunity to practice in a future life?
They arrive at death without having practiced at all. It’s interesting in Tibetan culture, people look forward to retirement, trying to retire early, because they’ve put off a lot of practice so they’re finally going to get the time to do it. And people actually do then implement, use that time. That’s very interesting. Even the amount of mantra like, or something like that, that people are repeating.
See old people going around circumambulating, repeating mantra. When I see them, it seems to me that their minds are sharper. At minimum, it brings a sharpness of mind. Because you have to remember to recite the mantra, really. Whether you’re doing it orally from the mouth or mentally, you have to remember to recite it and it keeps your mind focused, sharper.
So far from thinking that retirement is useless, it’s they have the sense that they’re getting rid of the useless activity by leaving the job. It is important to think think about what will happen at the time of death. And he’s talking about it in a coarser way that’s very helpful. We’re talking about like the subtle stages that one passes through. One gets sick and is taken to the hospital.
Finally, medicines and injections will not help. You’re lying there and you see the doctor and nurse talking to each other over there and you realize that they’re not going to treat you anymore. The situation gets worse and worse. Of course it would be, I mean, terrible, if they decide to treat you when it is hopeless, which is what happens sometimes nowadays, keeping one alive on it’s a vegetable on machine. The situation gets worse and worse, and nothing will help at all.
One arrives at the point of death, breath ceases, and the body is taken away and is either burned or put under the ground. You have to realize that what we identify as my body and cherish so much is going to put is going to be put under the ground or burned. All the wealth we have accumulated, someone else will take. The children left behind will cry for two or three days and then forget you. Oh, yeah.
These two women were sitting here, and they were very serious. Meditation is a case of accustoming the mind again and again to something. Our lifespan, like a watch, lasts only as long as it is wound for. I will die so quickly that prior to it, I will not be able to do anything that will help at the time of death. You should think, I will definitely die without having done anything that will help, meaning if I keep living the same way.
It would be good if we knew when we will die, but we do not. If we knew when we were going to die, then we could spend some time overcoming enemies and helping friends. We could spend five years in pleasure and then five years in mental practice. However, the time of death is indefinite in our world. In Buddhist cosmology, there are some worlds where the time of death is known.
Earlier in this world, the lifespan was immeasurable. Again, in Buddhist cosmology, the situation used to be better on this planet and is steadily getting worse. It’s hard to say. We know that in the West, at least, the lifespan is increasing. But even in the Buddhist way, this could be a temporary blip.
It’s supposed to decrease down to the age of ten due to the use of weapons. So that could easily happen. So he says, Earlier in this world, the lifespan was immeasurable and is now decreasing to the age of ten. Then it will increase again from that point, a long time in the future. The people of this world do not have a definiteness of lifespan, and since I am of this world, my time of death is indefinite.
You know, sometimes you can sort of speak in general about the people of this world as if one is not one of them. So he carefully says, for the people of this world, the lifespan is indefinite, and I am one of the people of the world. Therefore, my lifespan is indefinite. And he realizes the necessity of making the connection. Furthermore, this is a time of corruption, and at such a time there is no definiteness about the time of death.
We do not think, I will never die, but we do think, I won’t die today. I won’t die tomorrow. And we keep up this thought. Our reason is that we are young. However, there is no definiteness that the old will die before the young.
Some children die in the womb, some at birth, some die after a few days. There is no definiteness that you will not die just because you are young. Some think I won’t die because I have no illness. But there are people who are very sick who outlive others who are very healthy. A few years ago, two other professors and I went to visit a professor who was aged.
He’s in his 80s. He was at home in a hospital bed, has cancer of the kidneys, has heart trouble, he has diabetes, he has gout such that his bones are disintegrating, and we indeed felt we were visiting him on his deathbed. And because I had heard such teachings afterwards when we went out, and one of them said, oh, he’s certain to die very soon, I said, well, it’s not certain. We don’t know which among the four of us, whether one of the three of us or or Bill will die first. And they said, oh, that’s so profound.
I was just just repeating this. Well, today, he’s still alive. He’s still alive. The three of us are still alive too. So all of us, I’m sure, are are watching to see who’s going to go first.
Maybe I should have told Bill. He could watch along with us. Some die as they’re walking along the road. Some die while they sleep. Some die while they’re eating.
I’ve really have the thought I won’t die while I’m eating, but We cannot say that there is any time when we will not die. True enough. When we hear that someone has died, we should think immediately, like that person, I will die. We should not let the he was watching the news one day, and he said, whenever you see something bad happen, you should think, well, you know, not just that it’s happening somewhere else, but this could easily happen to me in my situation. We have a tendency of mine to put everything bad somewhere else.
Sort of letting it, you know, come here. That’s not to make one situation bad, however. It’s just to not be putting it over there and refusing to recognize the situation. We should not let the death of others pass by without paying any attention. We’re making many plans for the future, but there is no definiteness whether we will carry out those plans first or die first.
We are making plans for years hence that we don’t know if we will be able to carry out. We’re making plans for coming months, but it is not definite that we will not die without carrying out those plans. We are planning things for tomorrow, but we do not know whether those things will come first or we will die first. There are many cases of people seen in the morning that are dead by the evening. Others seen in the evening who are dead by the morning.
Thus, you should think that it is not definite that I will not die the next year, the next month, or tomorrow. There is no one who could sign a paper when you go to bed tonight certifying that you will get up in the morning. So in this case, he’s not talking about you guaranteeing it, but somebody else guaranteeing that you will be able to get up tomorrow morning. We do not have the power to rise in the morning. It’s not in our own hands.
We’re under the control of a process of conditioning. When we go to the store, we do not have the power to come back. We cannot estimate that we will live even for another hour. In this way, you should sometimes we’re deceived by averages. You know, the average lifespan is sixty eight or seventy two or whatever.
The average has absolutely no applicability to one person. It doesn’t. If you’re going to die in an automobile accident at age twenty, that’s it. You don’t have a certain percentage chance of it. It’s one hundred percent.
The people who are doing demographics are realizing this. In this way, you should think from the point of view of many reasons that the time of death is indefinite. If you do not think about death in the morning, you’ll spend the whole day in activities just for this lifetime. If you do not think about death at noon, you’ll spend half the day in activities, ease meaning, that are just superficially directed for this lifetime. If you do not think of death at night, you will spend your time thinking about what you did during the day.
Over many lifetimes, we have lived in the midst of the afflictive emotions and have become conditioned to bad behavior. The results of meditation therefore come slowly. He’s really giving a justification in a way for his approaching the topic from many different sides. It’s not sufficient just to have one small thought. We need to think about things from many points of view.
Whether tomorrow or our own death comes first is indefinite. Therefore, we should set aside tomorrow’s activities and do what is helpful for the future lifetime. If you analyze, you will feel some concern because there is no certainty that going to bed tonight will rise in the morning. We do not have that power. The Gadamba Geshe’s, these were scholar yogis of some fame, the tradition probably beginning with a Atisha in Tibet in the eleventh century, turned their bowls over at night.
In other words, don’t plan on on me for tomorrow’s breakfast. If you train the mind in this way, your non virtuous thoughts will be less powerful. The only reason why we are staying alive is our own former actions, karma. Because when we consider the number of possible causes of death, there is no other way that we could stay alive. External causes are animals, weapons, poisons, fire, water, wars, enemies, robbers, and so forth.
Internal causes are the many types of disease. Not only are the causes of keeping alive few, they also can become causes of death. For instance, having a lot of money is a cause of keeping alive, but can serve as a cause of death if you’re killed by a robber. Cars, planes, houses, forty five thousand people a year die in the States on the highway. I forget the number on deaths by, guns.
You know, Americans have to have the right of keeping handguns in the home to kill murderers, to kill robbers. And usually they use them on their own family, get angry at somebody’s family member and shoot them. I believe it’s five thousand. It may be ten thousand, but it’s at least five. In any case, cars, planes, houses, relatives, relatives, food, drink, and even medicine, which are causes of life, can become causes of death.
There are many causes of death, few causes of life, and those causes of life can become causes of death. Even if there are these many causes of harm, if our body were tough, it would be better. But our body is not tough. It is like a bubble. It is very weak.
Even tiny causes of harm can destroy it. There are small bugs that can cause death, meaning microscopic organisms, but on up to some people die from bee stings and so forth. Our bodies are unstable and susceptible to small causes of harm. A candle in a breeze is ready to go out. Our body and life are similar.
They are liable to disintegrate very quickly. If mountains and rocks can be destroyed, what is there to say about our weak body? Nāgārjuna, who is the founder of the Middle Way School of Buddhism, and his a picture of him is in the announcement of my meditation on emptiness book. He has the the snakes above his head, the nagas above his head. He’s said to have gone to an area of nagas and brought back some of the scriptures of Buddha that were kept there for a long time.
After seeing Buddhism be or the attempt to wipe it out in Tibet and realization that often some distant places where the, communist organization can’t get at them, that it’s probably still going on, you can think about somebody going to some distant place and, you know, bringing back some books that had disappeared in a central area. Nāgārjuna said that it is incredible that we awaken after falling asleep. Between us and our next lifetime, there is only one breath. We think of our Sorry. If I’m losing my voice, it’s a good day to lose it.
Last day. We think of our future life as something far away. Therefore, we should not think of the future life as something distant, but as something that is just ready to come, it being a case that only a breath separates us from it. Death can arrive before tomorrow. If there is a practice that will help at the time of death, one should engage in it right now.
There is no end to worldly activities. They are the same as the hairs around an old person’s mouth. Just as when you pull one out, more come, so the more worldly activities are done, the more they increase. Tibetans especially, they use like little tweezers to pull out hair because they don’t have a lot of hair. So, you pull out one and you think you’re getting rid of it, but more come.
I believe that’s the metaphor. Therefore, we should be concerned about death. We think, Tomorrow I will finish my worldly activities and begin religious practice, but it is uncertain whether death or tomorrow will come first. The time of death, no matter how much property you have, it will not help you. The kings of the past who had fantastic wealth were not able to take any of it with them when they died.
Some really tried, didn’t they? Kill have a bunch of other people killed so that they could go along with them, which, of course, they can’t. When a king dies, he must leave his kingdom. When a beggar dies, he must leave his stick. We are all the same.
We are all people who are accumulating property. Most people see the accumulation of property as the essence of everything and are seeking to accumulate a great deal. If you have one house, it is not sufficient. You need two. I have a house on forty three acres out in the country in Virginia, and I know where I want the second house.
One thousand dollars is not enough. You need two and so forth. But no matter how much is accumulated, there is no one who can take it with him. If you accumulate enough food to take care of you for a hundred thousand years, you could not take any of it with you. You do need food, drink, and clothing, but you should not engage in dishonesty and deceit to acquire this.
You must know satisfaction. If you can achieve the things these things in a moderate way and at the same time work for your welfare over the course of many lifetimes, it is good. The reason that we cannot make progress in spiritual practice is that we are too attached to the pleasures of this lifetime. Thus, we are not mindful of practice, and if we are not mindful, we do not succeed. The best way to cease attachment to the pleasures of this life is to reflect on death and impermanence.
It will not help just to be frightened about death like an old person who’s about to die. We should develop some concern that death will be a frightful experience if we do not engage in practice that will help at the time of death. We undergo great hardship to accumulate possessions, and having accumulated them, we undergo the great hardship of taking care of You have to keep them. It’s called the suffering of accumulation and then the suffering of keeping what you have accumulated. When I bought my house, felt, well, you know, what more could one want than this?
Every year I put something into the house. At the time of death, friends are of no help. At the time of death, we cannot take one friend with us. Even if friends held each of our limbs at the time of death, they could not keep us from going. That’s a very you know, if a rich person or somebody who has a lot of friends hires or just asks the friends, six or eight of them, to hold them.
I prepared you while they’re dying. Then if you showed what was happening internally, okay, that the person is sinking under the sheet that is turning into a fortress of mud. We divide people into classes of friends, enemies, and neutral people. We engage in many nonvirtues for the sake of our friends, helping them to gain what they want, keeping enemies from getting it, and engaging in methods to cause our enemies to arrive in a bad state. Friends, enemies, and neutral persons are the same in their ability to help at the time of death.
Thus, one should not be overly endeared toward friends. As I was saying earlier, one tries to bring everybody up to the class of the friend and of the closest of friends. We form relationships with people as if they would be of help to us on the day of our death. That’s interesting. The interest in I don’t think the word is commitment or attachment is as if this person were going to be helpful forever.
But we are born alone and die alone. We undergo the sufferings of birth and death alone. The friends for whom we commit nonvirtues will not experience the effects of these nonvirtues. In this way, they harm rather than help us. We carry these nonvirtues with us, but we cannot take the friends with us.
At the time of death, our own bodies do not help. We cherish our own bodies greatly, and for the sake of sustaining it, we accumulate many clothes. We make many things to eat in order that the body will not be hungry.