Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute talk, Khensur Rinpoche opens with stark historical truth: every past buddha and master, no matter how accomplished, is now dead—only names remain. He teaches the second of three roots concerning death: while death is certain, when it will come is unknown. Three reasons support this. First, human lifespan is indefinite and declining over time (citing Vasubandhu). Second, many conditions bring about death and few support wellbeing; even things that sustain us—food, medicine—can become causes of death if handled wrongly (Nāgārjuna’s image of life as a candle flame in wind). Third, our bodies are extremely fragile; a stone to the head or even holding our breath can be fatal. The practical force: recognizing death could come tomorrow, we will stop assuming permanence and begin practicing Dharma now for future lives. For practitioners ready for philosophical reflection on mortality.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1993-08-17 – Side 1 – KR.MP3
UUID: a73fd179-27d0-42a0-84b7-4a3d0e3bcb92
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Three Principal Aspects
Date: 1993-08-17
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,512
There has come in the past many, many Buddhas similar to the Śākyamūni Buddha. And they all abandon their their aggregate of form, their bodies. And there have been many great masters, masters of India, great siddhas, accomplished beings, such as Nāgārjuna, Atisha, Āryadeva, Candrakīrti, etcetera. They were tremendous masters, almost unimaginable in their accomplishments, but they now are no more. There have been many great Tibetan masters such as Tsongkhapa and Milarepa, just just to name a few.
But now we only have their names. They too have passed on. And there have been many masters of Dharma in other countries in the world, Australia and America, Russia, China. Many, many great masters, and for some, all that is left is their name. And even for others, we don’t even know we don’t even have their names any longer.
They all were in the nature of impermanence, and they all passed on. So all of these great past masters, they’re they’re now are remains only biographies in various books, accounts of their lives, merely enumerating what they did and only their name remains. They were too, they too were susceptible to the impermanence the terms of death. And those beings who are now alive, they likewise will in the future be merely names. And those all living beings who are to come in the future.
Similarly, there will come a time when they will be merely a name. They all depart due to the impermanence in terms of death. So whatever is born that will die, this is definite. So we’re discussing impermanence in terms of death in the context of three roots, supported by nine reasons. And previously, we discussed the first of these three roots, that is, that death is definite, and this was supported by three reasons.
And now we will continue with with the second root, and that is that death the time of death is uncertain. And all of us all of us who are listening to the Dharma at present, perhaps after a hundred years, we’ll all be gone. But though we can be assured that we will all be gone after a hundred years from now, but within that time span, when we will go, that is uncertain. Some may may die after next year, some after next month. There’s no certainty.
If if we think in terms that today I didn’t die, but I could I could die tomorrow, that each day that it is possible that comes along, day after day that it is possible that that might be the day of my going, Then thinking in those in that way, we will not set our priorities in terms of this life, but we will begin to prioritize ourselves in terms of future lives. On the other hand, if we consistently conceive of ourselves immortal, thinking that I am not going to die today, nor am I going to die tomorrow, nor the day after that, then we will only make preparations. We will in terms of we are going to remain forever in the course of this life. We will not make preparations for future lives. So if if we were to think that we are going to remain forever in in our in this life, then we are simply all our activities will be directed to toward preparations for this remaining forever in the course of this life, and we will make no preparations for for future lives.
And then when when death suddenly comes to us like a a sudden shower of rain, And we will at the time of not only will our life have been led meaninglessly, but at the time of our at the time of that death, of our death, we will develop a a great sense of regret, a great disappointment, and we will it will be extremely sad situation, and we will incur great difficulty. But if if on the other hand, we are mindful of the of the uncertainty of death and we are constantly making preparations for the coming of death and our future lives, then each day as it comes, we we can say, well, I didn’t die today. That’s that’s great. But even if we were to die that day, we would have made preparations, so that’s okay too. So in in the first of these these three roots concerning death, we determined that death was definite.
That whosoever has lived in the past, they have died and there is no method, there is no means by which we can stop the coming of death. That it’s that death in fact is definite, whosoever it may be. But in the second root, we’re coming to we are trying seeking to come to a conclusion that, well, when am I going to die? And death is definite, but when? It but in fact, it could be next year, it could be this year, we simply do not know when.
And so coming to a conclusion that the time of death is uncertain. So the the root is the second root is that the time of death is uncertain. And the first reason is that there is no definite lifespan in our world. But this holds especially to in these degenerate times, that there is that our lifespan is indefinite. The lifespan of humans in our world is indefinite.
And quoting from a verse by Vasubandhu, I I just as an aside as an aside, I’m not sure if you’re going to accept this. I don’t think it’s if it’s going to find approval in your own in your own minds. But anyway, to quote this verse, it says that initially initially in in this world, the human lifespan was numberless. It was it was infinite and long. But slowly, it began to decrease down to the time of Śākyamūni Buddha’s coming, where the most, people lived to around the age of 100.
And it has continued to decrease, where now it’s decreased to about 60 years. And it’s going to decrease further down to 40 and 30 and 20. And there will come a time when the longest lifespan will be ten years. So why is this situation prevailing? Previously, the people’s minds were extremely altruistic, and they had various powerful minds, and they created great skillful actions.
And out of this came long life. Long life is achieved through the abandonment of killing. But now due to the due to the increasing force of attachment and anger, that more people are more and more inclined to kill and more inclined to create unskillful actions. And therefore, the lifespan is decreasing proportionally. And people are less happy.
They’re creating more negative actions, involving themselves more and more in the various and unskillful actions, stealing sexual improprieties, lying, harsh speech, creating many unskillful actions, creating less skillful actions. So the the obstacle the main obstacle to a long life is the is our own the killing of others. And and the the way in which this is overcome is through abandoning the killing of others. But in fact, the those who are kill who kill are increasing in numbers. And the and to in order to accomplish a long life and to achieve a long life, it’s necessary to abandon killing.
So it is through the saving of life that we can that we are able to achieve a long life. If if there were a sentient being who was about to be killed and we were to prevent that, we would save that life. That is we would be extending that being’s lifespan. And this is how the law of cause and effect operates, that in bringing about the life the lengthening of the lifespan of others, our own lifespan is lengthened. In shortening the lifespan of others, our own lifespan is shortened.
So this is aside from that time when the lifespan was numberless, in general, the lifespan is uncertain. And but this is especially true in in contemporary times. Now in such at present where we are creating more unskillful actions through such actions such as killing, but also creating less fewer skillful actions. So the way that we can determine the approximate length of people’s lives, if we we visit a a like a Christian cemetery and look at the gravestones, where it’s written the length of their lives, we can see that that many people have lived sixty or seventy years. Obviously, I don’t know how good it is.
So you can look for yourself in yourself. Our lifespan is continually decreasing over the course of time, but that when how long our lifespan will be is in fact uncertain. There are some people who were alive last year are not alive now, or there are some people who alive last month are not alive now. There are some people who are alive yesterday are not alive now. There are some who die immediately upon birth.
There are some children who die at the age of five or 10 or 15. Some die young before the old die. Some there are many cases where a mother outlives their child or a father outlives their child. So when it is our lifespan is uncertain. When it is that we’re going to die, it’s uncertain that we are going to die when we’re home.
So the, the root is that the time of our death is uncertain. The first reason that in general, in the world, that the time of, there is no time that someone does not die, but especially in our contemporary times, the time of death is indefinite. The people can die at any time. So for those who weren’t present at the earlier teachings, in the when we began our discussion of these three roots in meditating on the impermanence in terms of death, we said that, the first root was death is definite, the second was that the time of death is uncertain, and the third that at time of death it is only the Dharma which can be of any benefit. And then we are looking at the second of these three roots, that is to say that the time of death is uncertain, and the first of these reasons.
So each of these roots has three supporting reasons. The second root being the time of death is uncertain, and the first supporting reason is as was just explained, in our world lifespan is uncertain. Then the second supporting reason is as follows: that are many conditions conducive to death, And there are few which are conducive, to well-being. And even those conditions which are conducive to well-being can transform can transform into those which are conducive to death. So with respect to the preponderance of conditions of bringing about death.
There are both animate and inanimate conditions. Animate conditions are those those people who who would who could kill us. But there are not only people, but there are nonhuman beings who and malevolent spirits which can bring about our death. But also in terms of inanimate conditions bringing about death, there are, you know, where we wherever we go, we are able to see them. Are motor accident car accidents, airplane crashes, houses falling down on people.
Not only such types of violent conditions, but they’re just simply the fact that the body is in the nature of the four elements, the elements of earth, water, fire and wind energies. And these are always in a state of flux. They’re always and if there is a extreme imbalance in any of these elements, then we become sick. And if there if this such as we develop hot diseases or cold diseases. And if these inner elements are at an extreme imbalance, then we can die.
And we are susceptible to death at any moment. But even even those things even those conditions which promote well which generally promote well-being can can become causes can become conditions for our death. Such things as food and drink, which normally are conducive conditions to a long life, our well-being. If we eat unhealthy foods, drink unhealthy liquids, they are not only not conditions for our well-being, but they become conditions for our death. But even medicine, in generally is to benefit ourselves, to make us well, it it taking medicine in a wrong manner, even though medicine in general is beneficial, if taken in a wrong manner can become a condition for our own death.
So quoting a verse by Nāgārjuna where he points out the instability of our lives that death is certain but we don’t know when. That our life is like the flame of a candle in a wind. We don’t know quite when it’s going to be snuffed out. It’s going be blown out. So in this second reason, we are stating that there are many conditions conducive to death, and there are few conditions conducive to well-being, and even those few conditions conducive to well-being can become conditions for our death.
Therefore, the time of our death is uncertain. But now we are presently looking at the third reason. And though there in fact, there may be many conditions conducive to death, though there may be few conditions conducive to well-being, if we had very powerful bodies, it simply wouldn’t matter. That is, we still wouldn’t would not be able to be harmed. But in fact, that’s not the case.
Our our our bodies are like a bubble in water, extremely fragile. Just a touch and the bubble is destroyed. So even in the course of one day, our body can become extremely weak and wane. And this shows how extremely fragile our body is. So we we become weak.
Even if we don’t even if we weren’t to eat food for one day, we become weak. Our our face becomes waning. Just our body is is fragile to to the degree that a stone hitting us on the head can kill us, or a needle stuck into our body can kill us. If if we were to exhale and not inhale, then we’re finished. So if, as was said, if our body was extremely powerful, then it wouldn’t matter whether there are so many conditions conducive to death and so few which conducive to well-being.
But in fact, our bodies are not powerful. They’re extremely fragile. And and therefore, they are continually susceptible to harm and finally death. And this is the third reason supporting the fact that time of death is uncertain. So using if we reflect upon these three reasons, contemplating in our meditation, supporting the the root that the time of our death is uncertain, then we will develop the attitude, thinking, I didn’t die last night, and it’s not sure when I’m going to die.
And there’s there may be no time. Therefore, I must and it’s not sure when I’m going to die. Therefore I must practice beginning now.