Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A participant’s candid account of living with serious illness — the humbling loss of control, the daily practice of asking “what if I die tomorrow?” — opens this 48-minute session before Khensur Rinpoche begins the formal instruction. He leads a brief loving-kindness contemplation extending goodwill to all beings, then turns to a verse by Śāntideva on impermanence: birth itself is the primary cause of death, no special circumstances required. Using the image of a wilting flower and two sheets of paper held together by glue, Rinpoche explains how karma binds body and mind, and how their gradual separation is what dying means. He then traces the ordered dissolution at death — the five aggregates, four elements, and five senses failing in sequence — pairing each stage with its outer physical signs and inner visions: the water mirage, drifting smoke, and sparks in darkness.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 A of D 1993 08 07.mp3
UUID: 312c27e0-ecce-4ffb-832c-63652993dae9
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Art of Dying Workshop (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1993-08-07
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.7 minutes
Words: ~2,658
So humiliating. I thought, oh, you are, that’s what it’s like.’ And also I guess the other thing that has been so vital is the sense of support that I’ve had from my friends here at Buddha House and from my friends outside. The support has been absolutely invaluable and has really helped guide me on the path that I’ve taken. I just feel that my life is incredibly precious. Have much more of a sense of it being able to live in the moment.
It really is irrelevant when I die. If I can be mindful of that, can feel the absolute vital importance of that, then that can guide me through my everyday living. As Ian Gott says, he thinks about dying tomorrow. What if I die tomorrow? And keeps that in mind all the time.
I’m not very good at keeping that in mind all the time, but at some level I do have much more of a sense of that. But it’s kind of irrelevant, it’s the quality of life that’s really important. So humiliating, Russell, there you are, that’s what it’s like. And also I guess the other thing that has been so vital is the sense of support that I’ve had from my friends here at Buddha House and from my friends outside. The support has been absolutely invaluable and has really helped guide me on the path that I’ve taken.
I think I just feel that my life is incredibly precious. Have much more sense of it being able to live in the moment. It really is irrelevant when I die. On the one hand it’s irrelevant. On the other hand, if I can be mindful of that, of the absolute vital importance of that, then that can guide me through my everyday living.
As Ian Gott says, he thinks about dying tomorrow. What if I die tomorrow? And keeps that in mind all the time. I’m not very good at keeping that in mind all the time, but at some level I do have much more of a sense of that. But it’s kind of irrelevant, it’s the quality of life that’s really important.
I know within time I will feel completely healed, not just in my body. So I think that’s what I’ve always said. So we’ll begin by dedicating our love for the next ten minutes. What is it that we mean by love? We begin with understanding ourselves and the fact that we want happiness and extend this to the fact that all living beings, whosoever, they too also want happiness, that we are all exactly the same from this point of view.
And so developing the attitude of mind which is expressed in the words that may myself and all living beings have a happiness bereft of all suffering and they have the causes of suffering. If we were to meditate on this attitude even for five minutes, then it would act as cause which would ultimately bring a result of our own happiness bereft of any suffering. If we simply wish happiness for ourselves alone, then this is really a very extremely narrow minded attitude. It doesn’t have any real power. It doesn’t have any real capacity.
But when we consider the happiness of others, others are infinite in number. And in wishing the happiness of others, we have a very tremendous power. It it empowers our mind a great deal. So cultivate the thoughts as follows. It would be wonderful if myself and our living beings had happiness and the causes of happiness.
This is the attitude of love. Yes. And then the aspiring prayer of love, may myself and all living beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. Then cultivating the kind hearted attitude of exceptional resolve, is expressed in a thought that I myself will bring happiness and the causes of happiness to myself and all living beings. There are a few preliminary prayers that are usually recited before the teaching.
If you’d like to join in, you’re quite welcome. First one is verse number three, then verse number two, and finally verse number five. Three, two, and five. Today, we’re going to discuss death. according to a verse by an ancient Indian master, Śāntideva, and it’s discussing the nature of impermanence in terms of death.
Except for those few individuals who are able to take rebirth under their own control, deciding whether to take rebirth and where to take rebirth, all other beings who take rebirth uncontrollably, all ordinary beings who are born are bound to die. With respect to the causes of death, birth itself is the main cause of death. That simply the fact of birth is the most basic cause of death, that there is no special cause other than the fact of being born for our death. If we take, as an example, a flower. Initially, the flower has causes for its growth.
But upon the second moment after its its potency has been realized in the in the growth of the flower, from that second moment on the deterioration of the flower begins, and the the cause has already been created. Its very growth is sufficient cause for its deterioration and eventual death. Because just as there is a cause for its growth, likewise is a that acts as a cause for its death. So our being is constituted of two factors, that of body and mind. And upon our initial at the our moment of conception, it is these two factors coming together in combination which constitutes our being.
And that which binds these two factors together is karma, action. Just, by way of analogy, we can have two pieces of paper and they are distinct, but we can we can combine them together. If we if we apply glue to the surface, then we stick them together. That that that which sticks them together, which binds them together, is the glue, and that’s analogous to karma or action. And with having stuck together these two pieces of paper, initially the bond of the glue is very strong.
They’re very tightly bound together. But over time, the bond begins to weaken through moisture, through air, and finally the the ability to to keep them stuck together weakens and is finally exhausted, and they become unglued, unstuck. And this is this coming unstuck and going returning back to two distinct entities is what we mean by death. The coming unstuck, the the dissolution of this bond between them is death. Because there was a coming together, there will be a moving apart, that each will become eventually distinct one from another.
These they cannot become they cannot be permanently joined together. So the body is the form aspect to ourselves, that which we are able to see. On the other hand, the mind is non physical. It’s not something that we can see with the eye or that we can hear with the ear. How can we know of of the mind’s existence?
We experience it for ourselves that within the body there is a a thinking faculty. That which is thinking, oh, I used to do this and then I did this and in the future I’m going to do this. That which is is doing this thinking process is what we mean by mind. And also accompanying this thinking quality, which we call mind, are other factors of consciousness. For example, feeling.
Feelings of pleasure, feelings of displeasure. These also accompany the mind. Also, accompanying the mind is our factor of consciousness which is able to recognize objects. So saying, this is a table, this is a flower, this is a person. That is to say the quality of the mind which is the consciousness which is able to recognize and discriminate, we call that perception or discrimination.
So along with mind, there’s thinking quality, our feelings and perceptions or recognition. And another factor of consciousness is thought constructions. This is the the expressed in the types of thinking patterns, I I am going to do this, I need to do this, that I making this planning and making this way of thinking about what needs to be done and what doesn’t need to be done. This is called thought constructions. Also there is a mental factor of contact, in which there is a base a seer a seer of various objects, a knower of various objects, like for example the scene of white coming in contact with the color of white or a color of red.
So that that consciousness which is doing which is the seer or experience is contact. So there is the mind and there are as if five companions to the mind. So each of these five accompanying mental factors have various functions. Some of them act they all have different work that they perform. Some of them experience happiness, some other suffering, some think to do this, some direct the mind to attend to this, others think that this is this, this is that.
So there is this combination of body and mind. And with with respect to the mind, it is the mind which is performing all of the various functions of of seeing, of of thinking, of experiencing happiness and various feelings, of thinking to do this and recognizing this is that. So that which is doing all these various functions is what we mean by mind. It also has the thinking quality which has likes and dislikes. With respect to those who we love, our loved ones, those we hold dear, it expresses a sense of liking and thinks to help them.
On the other hand, those who we see as our enemies, we develop a dislike and we have a thought to harm them. So between these two, body and mind, there is they are they are bound together by the force of karma. When this force of karma begins to weaken, its ability to to maintain this union of body and mind is lost, then there begins the death process. When we we become ill, we can go to a doctor and and if our illness is not severe enough, we can, through the taking of medicine, various treatment, be cured. But there’s no medicine which is able to cure death.
So once the the potential to maintain the furtherance of this life is exhausted, then no matter what method we might make use of, whether it be medicine or meditation, once that, potency is is finished, then death must occur. At at such a time, then no matter if we had if all of the people in the world were our friends and sought and sought to help us in preventing death, none of none of them could stop it. And if we had all of the wealth of the earth, it wouldn’t be enough to to prevent our death. The only thing that will accompany us after our death are the aggregates with which we were born. So once we have the death the death process begins, it begins as a gradual manner involving an ordered series of events, both with respect to various elements or factors within our body and mind.
With respect to there is a dissolution or a losing of potency or capacity of various factors within our body and mind as death proceeds. With respect to the aggregates, there is a dissolution in terms of the aggregates. First, the aggregate of forms for the body, feelings, perceptions, thought constructions, and consciousnesses. But additionally, there is a dissolution of the abilities of the elements to to maintain life, beginning with the earth element and the water, fire, and wind energy elements. And also there is a dissolution of the ability or deterioration capacity of the senses to be able to maintain their capacity to operate, beginning with the eye and then ear and then the nose, the tongue, and the body sense consciousness begin to deteriorate and lose their capacity to function.
So initially, there is a deterioration within the form aggregate. The form aggregate mainly consists of the body, which is commonly termed the body. And there is as its ability, its potency begins to degenerate, there is a withering away of the form. There is a loss of ability to move. And this is a company with the degeneration of the sense powers or sense or the the eye sense power, the eye sense faculty.
The it the our vision is no longer clear. And there is a within the elements begin to lose their potency to maintain the life. The elements begin to degenerate. And the first which begins to degenerate is the earth element. And one experiences this degeneration in the sense that there’s a tremendous heaviness of the body.
So this this what we have listed thus far are external signs. At the same time, there is an internal internal experience. And internally, the the dying person has a vision of a water mirage. For example, in a sandy area, on a desert where the sun is shining brightly, quite often there will be a shimmering mirage of water. This is the internal vision occurring at this time.
Why does this particular vision appear at this time? There a gradual dissolution of the four elements, earth, water, fire and wind energy element. At this point, the earth element is the potency of the earth element to maintain the life is being lost. So the next element, which is water, becomes more significant in its appearance. Therefore, there is an appearance of this water mirage.
Then following this, there’s the second cycle of dissolution which is occurring. And this one is no longer able to discriminate feelings when there is a neutral quality about what feelings have neither pleasure nor pain. And then there is a degeneration of the ear sense faculty where one cannot discriminate the pleasurability or unpleasurability of sounds. So at the second cycle of dissolution, it is the water element which is dissolving. That is, it’s losing its capacity or its potency to maintain the life.
And at this point, there is a drying of the saliva, of the various fluids in the body, like saliva within the mouth. The sweat begins to dry. There is no urine. And with respect to the the aggregates, there is a degeneration of our ability to discriminate, or that is to say, to be able to recognize. We are no longer able to recognize our parents as our parents or our spouse as our spouse.
We’re never no longer able to recognize our friends as our friends. So what we we just explained the external signs of the of the of the second cycle of dissolution. And internally, there is a vision of of smoke that the like a room filled with smoke. And this is this is appearance arises from the fact that the water element is losing its capacity to maintain the life force and now that which is most significant or predominant is the fire element. So this type of vision appears.
And at the third cycle of dissolution, the breathing becomes such that the exhalation is very much longer than the inhalation. The exhalation is extremely long where the inhalation is short. So here the fire element is losing its degenerating in its ability or its potency to maintain consciousness. And the internal sign is that of a sparkling, like a like the like the sparklers, the various sparks in in in the air, in in black in blackness, but with sparks appearing. And at the the the fourth cycle, the the aggregate of thought constructions is degenerating, and one loses the ability to move, one cannot get up to control the body.
And as the wind energy begins to lose its potency, there is a long exhalation.