Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A tender story about a little girl named Kezia begging her grandmother to “promise never to die” opens this 27.5-minute talk by Ven Jampa Gendun on using death-awareness to live more fully. He argues that contemplating mortality is life-enhancing, not morbid, drawing on Pabongka Rinpoche’s six benefits of keeping death in mind and six costs of ignoring it. He then introduces the nine-round death meditation and works through the first of its three roots — everyone must die, our lifespan is constantly shrinking, and almost none of our daily hours go toward inner development. A train-journey metaphor and a Tibetan story about a meditator who missed four death-warnings from his teacher illustrate the stakes. The second and third roots continue the following week.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 24 HMA 1996 07 17.mp3
UUID: 839b509d-e6b6-4e6c-8cc7-eb2db69a319c
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-07-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 27.5 minutes
Words: ~3,808
Obstruction into rot. This sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod and the delighted spirit to be bathed in fiery floods or to reside in thrilling regions of thick ribbed ice, to be imprisoned in the viewless winds and blown with restless violence around the pendant world. You know, the the essence of of cowardliness is not to admit our fears, you know, to to systematically cultivate an unawareness with respect to our fears. Most of all of us have, at some level, have some dread around death. You know, we we we would like to pretend it just doesn’t exist, Or we would like to turn the television knob to another channel.
Let’s not talk about it. There’s a little bit of a story between a grandchild and her mother and her her grandmother. The little girl’s name is Kesia. She asked her grandmother, does everybody have to die? Everybody.
Me? Kesia sounded fearfully incredulous. Someday, my darling. But grandma, Kesius waved her left leg and waggled her the toes. They felt sandy.
What if I won’t? We’re not asked, Kesius, she said sadly. It happens to all of us sooner or later. Kezia lay still thinking this over. She didn’t want to die.
It meant she would have to leave here, leave everywhere, forever. Leave. Leave her grandma. She rolled over quickly. Grandma, she said, and a startled voice.
What my pet. You’re not to die. Kezia was very decided. Ah, Kezia, her grandmother looked up and smiled and shook her head. Don’t let’s talk about it.
But you’re not to. You couldn’t leave me. You couldn’t not be there. This is awful. Promise me you won’t die.
Promise me you won’t ever do it, grandma, pleaded Kesya. The old woman went on knitting. Promise me, say never. But still her grandma was silent. Kesya rolled off to the bed.
She couldn’t bear it any longer, and lightly she leapt up on her grandma’s knees, clasped her hands around the old woman’s throat, and began kissing her under the chin, behind the ear, and blowing down her neck. Say never. Say never. Say never. She gasped between kisses.
And then she began very softly and lightly to tickle her grandma. Kesya, the old woman dropped her knitting. She swung back in the rocker. She began to tickle Kesya. Say never.
Say never. Say never, gurgled Kesya, while they lay there laughing in each other’s arms. Come. That’s enough, my squirrel. That’s enough, my wild pony, said old missus Fairfield, setting your cap straight.
Pick up my knitting. Both then had to get both of them had forgotten what it never was about. You know, in talking about death, you know, I I think it’s really tremendously empowering to consider death. It’s not the least bit morbid, but in fact life enhancing to become aware of death and our terminal issues. The significance of becoming aware of death and mindful of death is neither just to become conscious of our fears around death nor as a means to overcoming our fears around death.
The significance of contemplating death is to appreciate life and thereby to ensure that we don’t waste our lives, to ensure that we’re not one of those who die many times before their death, know, like the living death of, you know, the banality and hypocrisy and impotency and inauthenticity, a living death, a kind of an existential death, a life of meaninglessness and purposelessness, of, you know, a series of hollow events which pass for life, you know, a poor imitation of life at best. You know, a student went before his his teacher, and he asked his teacher, master, how do I prepare for death? And the teacher answered, learn to live. And, again, the the student asked, well, how do I learn to live? And the teacher answered, prepare yourself for death.
You know, to to face and take control of our fear around death means to take control of our life. To accept death is to begin to accept life. To to always keep death before one’s mind’s eye and before one’s self is to keep always keep what is important to you as a unique self actualizing being before yourself. And know, what is uniquely important to you? You won’t lose sight of it anymore in the face of death.
All else pales in the light of death, the significance of death. You know, we we allow ourselves to be distracted. We allow ourselves to live other people’s values because we feel ourselves to be mortal, as if we can get around to what it is that we want sometime in the far distant future, hopefully. But that time never comes. You know, to become aware that we are always dying is to become aware that we are always living.
That, you know, that we have to try to live life to its fullest until it actually comes to an end, till we actually die. You know, death can become an ally in our living of life. Our death becomes like a wise adviser to ourselves. We keep what is important before ourselves in life. The thing to do when you’re impatient, he proceeded, is to turn to your left and ask advice from your death.
An immense amount of pettiness is dropped if your death makes a gesture to you, or if you catch a glimpse of it, or if you just have the feeling that your companion is there watching you. He leaned over again and whispered in my ear that if I turned to my left suddenly, upon seeing his signal, I could again see death on my shoulder, on the boulder. His eyes gave me an almost imperceptible signal, but I did not dare to look. I told him that I believed him and that he did not have to press the issue any further because I was terrified. He had one of his roaring belly laughs.
He replied that the issue of death was never pressed far enough, and I argued that it would be meaningless for me to dwell upon my death since such a thought would only bring discomfort and fear. You’re full of crap, he exclaimed. Death is the only wise adviser that we have. Whenever you feel as if whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you’re about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask it if that is so. Your death will tell you that you’re wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch.
Your death will tell you, I haven’t touched you yet. One of us here has to change and fast. One of us here has to ask death advice and drop the cursed pettiness that belongs to the man that lives their life as if his death never taps him. You know, though, you know, through an awareness of death, we can overcome we can learn in learning how to die, we can unlearn how to be a slave. You know, that that, you know, to to practice death is to practice freedom.
You know, the Buddha said that amongst all the various mindfulnesses, that is to say remembrances, recollections, are important for us to carry over the course our practical everyday life. It is the mindfulness of death which is most important, which is most profound and powerful, life enhancing and changing. You know, in talking about death, we’re not interested in death itself, but in life to ensure that we, you know, we live our lives to its fullest and with its greatest intensity. You know, whether you know, we can set aside whether we’re, you know, practicing Buddhism or practicing any religious tradition just to just to live a life in its most meaningful way to its to its greatest possible extent, you know, to search for meaning, search for what is uniquely important to yourself, to begin to live your priorities, to determine those priorities for yourself, to begin to live out of some principles and guidelines that you somehow that you’ve created over the course of your life, and not to lead another’s life because no one else can die your death, and no one you can you can live no one else’s life. It is only something that we can do for ourselves.
In his masterwork, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, this is by Pabongka Rinpoche. He lists six benefits of keeping your mind on death. Your practice becomes really pure. It gains power. The thought helps you to start practice.
They help you to strive hard during your practice. They help bring your practice to a successful conclusion. And in the hour of your death, you will die with satisfaction, for you know that you have spent your life meaningfully. The Rinpoche also lists six problems that come from not keeping your mind on death. You neglect your religious life and spend all your days in thoughts of what to eat or where.
This life’s distraction. You consider death occasionally, but always think it will come later and delay your practice. Or you do practice but for the wrong reasons, with hopes of reputation. You practice but without enthusiasm and drop it after a while. You get deeper into this life.
Your attitudes get worse and life begins to hurt you. And at the death, you naturally feel intense regret for you have wasted all your efforts on the present life. You know, I I guess yeah. How much of our lives are spent in in in distraction? And I I don’t mean it’s not a matter that we are to spend all our times practicing Buddhism or in meditation, but just to live our life in in its fullest extent.
You know, how many times we find ourselves in at a party where we’re completely bored out of our mind, but somehow we tolerate it. If we thought of death at that moment, we wouldn’t allow ourselves to tolerate it. We would find something that was meaningful at that moment. We would search for it. We wouldn’t allow our life to be wasted in that way, in boredom and tedium and pettiness.
You know, if in the court in in in the face of death, these little arguments that we have between partners, how meaningless, how less than meaningless are are they? If you were to partner with your partner, say, in the morning and never to see her or him again, how much regret that would you have that you didn’t say I love you when they left, that you carry this argument through the course of your day? And then it begins to put things in perspective, begins to bring in intensity to our life. As a means to begin to confront you know, we have we have we have within our minds, whether we’re aware of it or not, a conception of permanency as if we are immortal. And this is a a the belief in immortality is disempowering.
You never have to quite get on with your life because you always have more time to live and to get what it is that you want sometime in the future. You will begin to live your life sometime in the future. It doesn’t have to be now. That’s that’s the consequence of the belief of immortality. And we have to overcome that by beginning in touch with the actuality of the fact that we aren’t immortal as a means to confront and challenge these grandiose ideas that we have and these beliefs surrounding our death, to become aware of death’s basic reality.
There’s nothing morbid about it. It’s not to make one depressed. On the contrary, it’s to add some kind of vitality to whatever it is we’re doing, to add an intensity. You know, to to help us to cultivate this mindfulness of death, Buddhism makes use of what is called a nine-round death meditation. And we’re going to go through this nine-round death meditation.
It has three roots, supported by three reasons, by means of which we come to three conclusions. Three roots, three reasons, and three conclusions — that’s why it’s called the nine-round death meditation. It’s a way of working with our mind such that we can overcome our our belief in our own immortality, our belief that death is sometime far off in the future, and that even if I were beginning to come to the reality of what it is that’s going to happen to you. You know, death has been described as a radical change of lifestyle.
But but, you know, that’s the big death at the end of this life. What about the the many, many little small deaths that we occur again and again throughout the course of our lives? You know, those times when either voluntarily or involuntarily, our life is completely turned upside down. All that we have valued is taken away from it. All that that we have believed in is is called into question, you know, through divorce, through death, through through loss of faith in something that you was of tremendous importance.
All of these you know, death is a gap. Something is ended, and the new is yet to begin. The new is yet to take birth. What what is it that helps us work through? What what is it that why is it that some individuals are willingly accept change, which is what death essentially is?
Enter into change, invite change into their life. And others, you know, they have to be they break their nails trying to cling on to what was, to to what is what is going out of their life, to what is the old, the habitual. You know, if we can begin to to to confront the the issue of the big death, if we can begin to understand what it is that’s important, what it is that we can actually rely upon, then perhaps we can begin not only to overcome our sense of dread around the big death, but of change itself, the small deaths which occur to ourselves over the course of our life. So the first root in terms of this nine-round death meditation is that death is inevitable. Death is inevitable.
And the first of the supporting reasons is that everyone must die. Again, and again, this is going to maybe necessary to point out, a lot of what is being talked about, what the Buddha is pointing to, is common sense. But again, it seems to be the case that common sense is not all that common, that we have to actually begin to look at the reality, the facts, begin to see the way things actually are. Our most immediate world is the display of our own egos. We live in a fantasy world which doesn’t really partake of reality.
We really don’t touch the real world. We only see our conceptions of it, our ideals about it, our beliefs surrounding it. We live in a in a rather illusory world. And part of this world is that people don’t die. Oh, maybe once in a while, but not us at least.
It’s never happened to me. How could it have death has never happened to ourselves. It’s always been an an another to actually begin to to open up to that this person who I am will someday cease to exist. It’s very difficult. It’s a great challenge.
So we begin to look at others first. In fact, everyone has to die. What’s so special about me? You know, why should the universe special, you know, single me out for special treatment? You know, whoever it might be, kings, and presidents, writers, musicians, philosophers, saints, criminals, laborers, farmers, bus drivers, salespeople, unemployed.
They all lived and they all died. They all died. They rule, they write, they play, they think, they aspire, they cheat, they work, they laugh, they eat, they hate, they enjoy, they suffer, all the many things, all the very things that human beings do. And then in the course of their lives, finally, they die. No matter how wealthy, how powerful, or famous, no matter how sincere, how strong, how pious, how devious, how inconspicuous, how sincere, everyone dies.
No king’s decree, no soldier’s army, no rich person’s wealth, no scholar’s brilliance, athlete’s fleetness, no beauty’s charms can prevent it. None of this can help. None of it’s any use, no matter how brilliant the scholar, no matter how rich the person might be, no matter how saintly the individual is. And all the billions of people upon the face of this earth at the present moment will say a hundred, maximum hundred and twenty five years from now, they’ll all be dead. None of every one of them.
You know, everyone in this room will be dead a hundred years from now, seventy five years from now, probably. You know, who who amongst us is going to be the first? We don’t know. But for sure, we will all be dead. You know, you will be dead and I will be dead.
That’s our reality. Anything other than that is fantasy. You know, there’s a story about takes place in the mountains of out of Tibet in which a a a meditator went to his teacher. He was very concerned about his death. And he went to his teacher and he said, please, give me forewarning as when my death is approaching.
And his teacher agreed. And about a few weeks later, he received a message from his teacher saying, a villager to the west had just died. And the meditator didn’t take any particular notice of it. It didn’t concern him. And then a few days later, he got another message.
A villager to the east had died. And again, the meditator didn’t take any particular notice of it. It didn’t really concern him. And a few days later, again, message from his teacher, a villager to the north. And again, a message a few days later, a villager to the south had died.
And again, the meditator took no particular notice of it. It really didn’t concern him. And then a few days later, he himself became fatally ill. And he called his teacher to his deathbed. And while his teacher was there by his side, he said to his teacher, you know, I I ask you to send me a forewarning, to send me a message warning me about the approach of my death.
And you said nothing. And his teacher said, I did not say nothing. I sent you four messages. So the point is that the death of others should be a message to ourselves that we too are going to die. That death is approaching ourselves as well.
You know, the the bell tolls for ourselves as well. So that’s the the first reason in terms of everybody must die. The second reason is that your lifespan is continually decreasing. Your lifespan is continually decreasing. You know, even as we sit here in the course of our discussions together, life is passing by.
You know, seconds become minutes. Minutes become hours. Hours become days. Days become weeks. Weeks become months.
Months become years. Years become a lifetime. Know, imperceptibly, life is moving on. Without any pause, our lives creep on inexorably toward death incessantly. You know?
It’s like it’s like we were on a train trip, you know, an overnight trip, a long journey. And we over the course of this trip, you know, we’re we’re talking with the other passengers. We’re looking out the window. We’re laughing. We’re eating.
All the things that people do in their normal everyday life. And even as we sleep, even during the course, even over the night, the the wheels are still turning. The the train is still moving inexorably, incessantly toward its destination. And then when it gets to its destination, we we have no choice. We have to get up and get off.
Even as we sit here in this very at this very moment, there’s not you know, this isn’t a theory. This is this is connected with our reality is relevant to ourselves. We are approaching that much we have come that much closer to the time of our death. And when it comes, we have to get off. We have no choice.
The that life is continually passing ourselves by. And then finally, you know, beginning to think about how much time third reason how much time do you actually spend in the course of your daily life in development of your mind, is it’s really insignificant. You know, beginning to actually list how you spend your day in terms of asking yourself, how much time do I actually devote to understanding my mind, to practice? You know, in an average day, how many hours do you do you sleep? Now how many hours do you work?
How many how much time do you spend eating? How much time do you spend traveling? How much time do you spend feeling depressed? Do you feel feeling frustrated, feeling bored, feeling angry, feeling lazy? You know?
And then finally, how much time do you actually spend trying to understand yourself, you know, constantly trying to improve yourself, your own mind, cultivating wisdom, cultivating compassion, and trying to maybe working to benefit others? So in contemplating this way, these three reasons in terms of the inevitability of death, the certainty of death, we will come to develop a determination, some kind of conclusion to use our life wisely and mindfully with meaning and purpose. And we’ll finish the second and third of these roots in terms of nine-round death meditation next week. So, you know, this is all we have. It’s inevitable that we’re going to die.
Everyone else has died. Begin to live your life in terms of your values, what is important to you in terms of your your priorities. So we dedicate the creative potential that we’ve accumulated. In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful, remain to the end of cyclic cyclic existence.
May I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm through these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakened heart that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more. Thank you. Maybe we’ll see you next week. Hey, if you’d like to get a cup of tea, we’ll have a discussion group.
Otherwise, good luck.