Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. “Epistemological fantasies” — the habitual misperceptions we project onto reality, like sunglasses tinting a snow mountain — is the central thread Ven Jampa Gendun pursues in this 89-minute talk. He builds a psychological case for practice: our beliefs organize what we know, so mistaken beliefs produce suffering, and “realization” simply means removing those fantasy-layers. He then contrasts Freudian backward-looking determinism with a Buddhist forward-looking orientation — choosing a new story, intending to become a Buddha — and introduces going for refuge through faith and constructive anxiety. After a short guided compassion meditation, the talk turns to the nine-round death meditation: death is certain; its timing is not (illustrated with a Persian folk tale about Death in Tehran); and at death, only mental cultivation avails — possessions, loved ones, and the body itself cannot follow. Suited to practitioners with some Lamrim familiarity.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 25 HMA 1996 07 24.mp3
UUID: 88659034-f8af-46e3-881a-1b204829442b
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-07-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 89.3 minutes
Words: ~9,106
The word path in the Tibetan language is lam. Many of you have heard the expression of lam rim, lam. Lam rim means graduated path. So lam, the most simple definition of the word lam translated back into English is clear realization. So what does it mean to realize?
All need these realizations, whatever they might be. Well, what exactly does it mean to gain realization? So as far as Buddhism is concerned, to realize is to remove superimpositions with regard to an object. That is to say, to remove our fabrication, the fantasy element, the illusory image that we layer upon some object the way it exists, the way it is. So the removal of that fantasy image or that illusory image, that fabrication of our own mind from the way the object is or the way the object exists is what we mean by gaining a realization.
You know it’s like seeing a snow mountain as green because you’re wearing sunglasses. That is to say we’re superimposing a color upon the actual way that mountain exists, the actual color of being white. The moment we remove the sunglasses we see the way the mountain actually exists in terms of its true color. So we gain a realization as to the true color of the mountain. So this is what we mean by realization.
This is what it means by traveling a path, to gain realization, to remove our fantasy in terms of the world, our illusory images that we’re continually projecting upon the world. You know, psychology of suffering is very much a product of the dysfunctional ways that we view our world. You know, how we come to know our world. And it’s the fundamental assertion of Buddhism that knowing is an organizing into the known. And this is really one of the most profound and essential assertions of all of Buddhism.
You know, that the world does not exist independent of our own minds, independent of our our premises, our our presuppositions, our assumptions, our beliefs, our ideas, our world view about the world, the mental maps that we use to navigate, to travel the terrain of our lives. Now the point is that if our ideas and our beliefs and our worldview are in some way faulty, are in some way mistaken or incorrect, confused, impaired in some way, then we will come to only know pathology. That is to say some degree of disease or neurosis or ill being. There’s a misfit between ourselves and our world. Our approach to life is going to be problematic.
Simply most of us are going to experience suffering in some way. Our beliefs inform our perceptions. The world that we find ourselves in, the world around us that we perceive perceive and experience, is appropriate to our system of beliefs about the world. What we come to know is inseparable from how we know. How we know is dependent upon our beliefs, our premises, our assumptions, these mental maps, the codes, the way in which we organize our world.
It doesn’t exist independent of our own ideas about the world, the way the world appears to us and the way that we relate with it and thereby experience the world. Most of this organizing quality of the mind is going on unconscious to ourselves. You know, if we experience our world pathological, as pathological, that is in some way unhealthy, dysfunctional, unworkable, problematic, That is because our beliefs about it unknowingly are also. We look at our world through dark glasses, just like these sunglasses. We see the world in a confused manner, in a way in which we relate with it in inappropriate manners.
A world of health and well-being is impossible, incompatible with a pathological world view, with a mistaken, misconceived, dysfunctional way of approaching life. This is one of the most basic premises of Buddhism, another premise in which we approach the practice of Buddhism. It’s for this reason that traveling a path, making effort in all these various activities that we’re talking about, you know like reading, studying the teachings, reflecting upon them, meditating, practicing them, That they are important because they are helpful in a way about learning of our situation. How did our present situation evolve? What’s its nature?
Becoming aware of alternative possibilities for ourselves. And how we can actualize those possibilities and modify our beliefs, our ideas, most precisely our distorted ideas, our mistaken beliefs, our inaccurate maps. That is to say, how we can go about eliminating the illusory images in which we’re continually laying upon, projecting upon the world about us. That is to say, in other words, how we can gain realization. To come to know that what is real as opposed to, there’s a big word, epistemological fantasies.
epistemological fantasies. It’s a terribly important word to Buddhism. It’s a terribly important word to our life and we don’t have to become scholarly about it or intellectual about it. It just simply, epistemology just means how we come to know things. You know, how do I know this person is an enemy?
How do I know this person is my friend? How do I know what is going to bring me happiness? How do I know what is the nature of suffering? You know, I have ideas about those things, beliefs about those things. I have a view of the world and how I’m going to deal with it, how I’m going to relate with it, how I’m going to get what I want out of it, how I’m going to get rid of what I don’t want.
I have all these premises and assumptions about the world. And we have to, Buddhism is saying that many of our assumptions, many of our premises and therefore beliefs which are based upon these premises and assumptions are mistaken, they’re crooked, they’re wrong and they can only bring about ill health, neurosis, suffering in the end. You know, we don’t have any choice. We need to begin to develop, relate with the world in ways which are fundamentally functional, more skillful, more appropriate to what it is that the world can actually give us. What it actually has the capacity in terms of happiness and suffering.
The ultimate realization is the optimal way of knowing and being in the world and that is awakening. And unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening is what we mean by Buddhahood. So, you know, we’ve talked about, you know, in terms of the three principal aspects of the path, many of these mistaken assumptions that we’re operating on on the basis of many of these inaccurate beliefs. Most basic are what? Ignorance, misconception as to the nature of the world about us in terms of how it exists.
The world exists interdependently upon our minds and interdependently upon causes and conditions upon its parts, etcetera. And interconnecting with the causes and conditions. The major cause of which is our own minds, own ideas about it. But we misconceive of the world to exist independent of all external factors to itself. This glass, this table, all things including the I ourselves exist as independent, unchanging, unitary entities.
That’s our misconception. That’s our most basic misconception and we have to work through that in order to come to an understanding of the way things actually exist so that we begin to relate with the world in more appropriate, more functional manner, more skillful ways of dealing with the world. There’s this functional pattern of self centeredness. You know this tendency to evaluate and to think of everything and everyone in terms of what’s in it for me. You know, how can it serve my purposes.
This continual self referencing exaggerated self concern which we bring to all our relationships. But there are you know there are level upon level of misconceptions. Just like you know I’ve used the image of like an archaeological dig where level upon level of civil izations, level upon level of mistaken ideas and beliefs one built upon the other are exposed. We think, we act, and we speak according to these deeply held beliefs and views. We’re always in the grasp of our ideas about the world.
There’s no other way for us to be in the world except as an expression of the ideas of the beliefs that we hold. We hold, you know, for example, that at some level of awareness most all of us harbor a deeply entrenched idea about ourselves that we’re limited, that we’re somehow insufficient, incomplete, that we have which we’re talking about presently in terms of our idea about ourselves that we’re going to live forever. Perhaps if we were to even acknowledge the fact that we’re going to die, it’s always unassumed, an unconscious assumption that we’re going to die at some time in the far distant future, not any time soon. You know, we believe that in some way that we are victims of something. Maybe it’s our family.
Maybe it’s our economic or our social or our cultural background. Some historical circumstance. Something which is external to my own self and over which I have little control. You know something about which I have no choice that I don’t have to take in a way responsibility for. That somehow my happiness and my suffering are out of my hands.
Some level we believe that. You know we believe that that which is by its very nature dissatisfactory has the capacity to bring us complete contentment, complete satisfaction. We believe that that which is impermanent is going to remain unchanging and last forever. We believe that that which has no self identity and that in fact has some kind of intrinsic nature to itself. In other words, the point is, within our minds there presently exists a vast subterranean network of interconnected erroneous premises and presuppositions, wrong beliefs, mistaken assumptions, some kind of distorted world view.
With such an inner world of what we might call epistemological fantasies, that is fantasy created out of misknowing, misunderstanding. When that type of world view collides or comes in contact with the world as it is, you know, they inevitably must follow some type of conflict. Invariably there must be some kind of disappointment, frustration, dissatisfaction. Always some kind of flawed fundamental approach to life. You know, it’s like someone who refuses to acknowledge that summer changes in the fall into autumn.
And and they dress inappropriately and they become sick. They they refuse to acknowledge the action and recognize the nature of the situation. So their action is somehow inappropriate to what would be most functional, what would be most in keeping with their own self best interests? You know we are aware of reality to the extent that our survival makes that awareness necessary that much and no more. We all lie on a continuum somewhere between oblivion, which we’re all struggling for, it would appear, and awakening.
And as long as we lie upon that continuum, no matter what we do, regardless of what we do, we’re going to suffer. The psychological construct construct of our own egos is the primary delusion in which we live. The display of our own egos is all that we see. And in that way we’re alienated from reality, the way things in fact are. This is what it means by of epistemology.
That means an unhealthy way of knowing the world and therefore an unhealthy way of relating with the world and therefore an experience of unhealth, of disease, of sickness, of suffering. This is what Buddhism is very much aiming at. This is what it means to travel a path, gaining realization, Removing these superimpositions. Removing these misconceptions, these fantasy images that we’re continually projecting upon the world. You know, like we, it is as if we believed a piece of chocolate cake.
It is as if we believe a photograph of a piece of chocolate cake to be the real thing. You know, there’s a disparity between our belief on the one hand and the reality of the object on the other. It’s true nature divorced of our ideas about it, our opinions about it. No matter how many photos we may be able to accumulate, no matter how many photos of that piece of chocolate cake we may be able to consume, you might be able to force down your throat in one way or another, you’re never going to experience the pleasure and the level of satisfaction that you expect from it. We never get just what it is that we actually want.
Now, what is it that we want out of that piece of chocolate cake at a deeper level? What are we looking to that chocolate piece of cake to bring us? Some kind of final end to our craving, to our desiring of having to search, to go on acquiring, having to go on endlessly consuming. You know, that’s okay. There’s no end to our drive for consumption to find some kind of lasting satisfaction, something that really brings us contentment, satisfies this inner thirst, this search that we’re all involved in one way or another.
We never find in that photograph the fulfillment, the contentment, satisfaction of our psychological hunger. That chocolate cake was supposed to bring us. There’s always something missing. Something not quite right. Maybe we can’t even quite put a finger on what it is.
Some inadequacy of our world and ourselves. Something doesn’t quite fit together. And either our world is inadequate to ourselves or we’re inadequate to our world. You know, we constantly experience it if only and if only at the extreme borders of our awareness. Some kind of abrasive interface between the two.
There’s a sound you can make. A squeaking sound. You know, there’s a word, in other words, we experience dukkha. Dukkha is generally translated as suffering. But it broadly refers to suffering.
But in its original meaning, it meant a wheel that grinds on its axle. A wheel that grinds on its axle. You know, our life grinds on its axle. It grates on us. It jars us.
It hurts us. It wounds us. It doesn’t quite fit properly with ourselves. There’s some kind of misfit. Misfit.
So the path beyond dukkha, beyond this misfit, this grinding upon ourselves is necessarily a path of change. And that’s basically what we’re talking about. Changing our minds in terms of changing our views, in terms of changing our beliefs and assumptions. Changing our various false premises, our dysfunctional conceptions. They all have to change.
This is what it means in terms of changing our mind, changing our world view. We must necessarily look at the world in different ways than we do now. Through different eyes, through different ideas, more functional, more appropriate, more skillful ideas. And therefore, our world will then correspondingly appear in new and different ways. I’ve talked how ideals are the eyes out of which we see the world.
By changing our ideals we change our world. And we can begin to find some kind of fit in terms of our ideals with the world. Our world and ourselves become adequate for one another. You know, things will change. The misfit of our life is gone.
Our life flows more smoothly. We move about our world more freely with a greater sense of ease, a feeling of well-being. There’s a greater reassurance at the depth of our hearts, a calm, a deep calm in our hearts. We’ve come home at last. There’s a sense that we’ve given up the struggle.
It’s like when you’ve come home after a hard day at work and you’ve accomplished your task. There’s no more that needs to be done and you can finally rest. Maybe the world begins to, we begin to have a sense that the world actually is supportive of ourselves. That it’s no longer seen as hostile, alien to ourselves. That it’s in fact in tandem with what it is that we most want.
It seems supportive. It seems to be there for ourselves in some way. So the emphasis in Buddhism, there is another word called teleological. Another good word. Teleological has the idea of forward reaching instead of backward looking, instead of causological.
Looking at what’s happened to me, all the trauma that I experienced as a child, know, for one way or another. All that went wrong, you know, the wrong parents or the difficulties that I had to go through when I was little. So, it’s necessary to look at both of these areas in our lives. But in terms of how I got to where I am, but also where it is that I want to go. You know, to begin to look forward, you know, to begin to emphasize, to begin to conceptualize our present purposes.
What are our intentions? What are our goals? Buddhism is more concerned with the direction in which we are moving at present, where it is that we are headed, where it is that we want to go than it is with where we have been and what we have done. It sees future events in some way, in some sense projecting calls of power backwards in time and therefore needs to be taken into account in determining the way that how is the present moment going to flow into the future and not just in terms of predictability from out of the past. You know, if you only look at a person’s past, they’ve done this, this, this, this, this, therefore I can assume, I can project, I can predict they’re going to do this.
They’ve done A, B, C, I can predict they’re going to do D now. And that’s generally the way most people will live their lives. Buddha is saying we have to take into account intention, purpose, that someone can radically change the pattern of their lives. That it doesn’t have to flow out from the past necessarily, that they can interrupt the pattern and begin to create a type of future that they might want for themselves, that they can achieve Z if they wish, if they have the intention to do that. Past experiences influence the present.
They are not entirely determined unless we allow them to be. You know, in our present moment of experience, we feel these past experiences in our own way, from our own point of view, from our own perspective, for our own purposes. We synthesized our past experiences into a kind of story. The past person, who I have been. Most people are enslaved to the past, bound by the past rules, their inheritance, their continually repeating loop of inner self talk that is going on in our mind continuously telling us who we are, telling us what we will and will not do, what we can expect out of life legitimately.
But if we can begin to see the causality of our lives, how we arrived at where we are now, once we recognize the patterns, the story becomes vulnerable to change. To the degree that we’re aware, to the same degree that we’re going to be less determined by our past, that we to create the space for free choice in our life. You know, Buddhism is asking us to focus upon taking conscious possession of our life story. The story that each of us, either with awareness or unawareness, is telling ourselves about ourselves which is our lives, lives, which very much determines the quality and outcomes of our lives. That we be forward looking and begin to tell ourselves another possible story, another alternative of what we could could be.
And begin to assume the responsibility for making it come true. To make a kind of shift, a reattuning of ourselves from who I have been to who I can become. There’s a great difference in that perspective, in that orientation. The emphasis in Buddhism is on what I, is not, you know, what can I be and what can I now do to become that? Not on who I have been or what I have done or what has happened to me.
You know, we are what we do and we are free to do what we choose. So the future person is seen as yet to be actualized possibilities which exist within the present moment. The future is not determined. The past only comes up to the present. With an awareness of alternatives and taking responsibility in terms of choices we can begin to create another future for ourselves.
In terms of the Buddhist past we begin to create the future in terms of becoming a Buddha. The inner focus of our life becomes Buddha. This is the person I choose to be. And no matter what I have done in the past, no matter what are the recurring compulsive patterns which are brought to me here to where I am now, I can intend to be something radically different. I can change.
This is the great optimism, the great possibility which our humanity presents us with. And we can implement, we can take responsibility and actually bring it about in terms of the Dharma, the methods, the means, the truth, the tools that we work with to change, to bring about that Buddha. And this process all occurs within the social context of a spiritual community. Those who assist us in the process. I am proposing a description of human beings as given motivation by the new possibilities, the goals and ideals which attract and pull them toward the future.
We don’t have to allow ourselves to keep going through the same patterns, the same cycles, to stay with the same misconceptions, the wrong assumptions, the same dysfunctional premises. We can change those. We can gain realization. We can become forward looking. We can be someone else.
We can create that someone else. This does not omit the fact that we all partially push from behind and determined by the past, but it unites this force with the other half. It gives us causality in which reason why and purpose are united. The former is part of all human experience since we all participate in the finite natural world. In this respect, each of us, in making any important decision, needs to find out as much as we can about the objective facts of the situation.
This realm is particularly relevant in the problem of neurosis in which past events do exercise a compulsive, repetitive, chain-like, predictable effect upon the person’s actions. Freud was right in this respect that rigid deterministic causality does work in neurosis and sickness. One of the main characteristics of neurosis is compulsive repetition, going through the same patterns over and over again. This is one of the resistant forces which we have to work with. The momentum of our present current thinking to change, to create a new future for ourselves.
But he was wrong in trying to carry this over to apply to all human experience. The aspect of purpose which comes into the process when an individual can become conscious of what he is doing opens him to new and different possibilities in the future and introduces the element of personal responsibility and freedom. Now determining what it is that you want to become, to become forward looking, to create a purpose and intention begins to interrupt this pattern. You know this chain like predictable, repetitive quality about our lives. If we don’t, we’re going to simply repeat more of our history, more of the same mistakes because nothing has changed basically in terms of our ideas, our premises, our world view.
And this is to determine the quality of our lives. Nothing out there in our own minds. So, it is our faith, the positive meaning, the significance, energy and the reality that we invest in these new possibilities. Having faith in the possibility of becoming something radically other than who you are at present. And all that might hold for you in terms of the quality of your life.
This having that faith which makes it real, the real possibility of being a Buddha, being a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being, which incites us to exercise our freedom, to wish. I want to become that. To admit that really, that attracts me. That’s what I want for myself in the future. The world begins with a wish.
Who we are began with a wish. Another quality of neurosis is a sense of emptiness that even if we did care, we really don’t have the power to change, to make things any different. This is why nothing changes. This is why nothing is ever different. To overcome that sense of infancy.
To begin to determine what it is that I want. You know, to begin to orientate, preoccupy ourselves with, to choose, you know, begin to commit ourselves to something. To create some kind of direction in our life. And it is constructive anxiety, you know, this undercurrent of apprehensive concern about that these past dysfunctional patterns are simply going to repeat them endlessly into the future which induces us to change, to actually begin to take responsibility to bring about change in fact. Through faith we overcome the paralysis of fear.
The fear about the unknown, about the unaccustomed, the unfamiliar. Through constructive anxiety we overcome the stagnation of our false hopes that things are going to get better somehow all by themselves. I really don’t need to do anything about it. I can simply hope that things will get better. But they won’t.
Things will repeat. They won’t get better. You have to give up this false hope that they will. The faith empowers us to positively wish. May it be so.
That’s what I want. And then this constructive anxiety. I’m talking about these two basic causes for going for refuge. Faith and constructive anxiety. Constructive anxiety moves wish forth to the level of will to.
We actually exert. We overcome our impotency, our sense of insufficiency and we do something. It’s faith and constructive anxiety which causes to go for refuge to new possibilities. The possibilities in this context are Buddha Dharma and the spiritual community. It is these Buddha Dharma and the spiritual community by means of which will, too, become something is transformed into actually being what it is that we are seeking.
Now it is so. It moves it over into an actuality, not merely a mental intention. It becomes real in our lives. In terms of going for refuge, mentioned that not only is there faith and constructive anxiety, but additionally for the Bodhisattva there is the cause of great compassion. You know, it’s great compassion which overcomes the Bodhisattva’s fear of self absorbed oblivion of his own or her own passive peace.
And it is due to that combination of faith, constructive anxiety, and great compassion that the Bodhisattva is moved, that the will to, the will to help others is moved to the level of unremitting spontaneous transcendent altruistic activity that his or her life is permeated with a dedication to the benefitting of others. So these are the causes. We can create these causes and bring about that change. The inner focus of our life becomes Buddha. The Buddha within the side of ourselves.
This becomes our refuge. We’re trying to become forward orientated, in a way goal-orientated. So that our life has intention. Our life has purpose. And this begins to interrupt these past patterns.
They no determine our future. We begin to take, know, quality of intention enters into the evolution of our life and who we become. It becomes a part of our story. Who I want to be. I want to become a Buddha, that Buddha inside of myself.
I can begin to actualize, I can begin to take responsibility for bringing about that effect by means of the Dharma within the social context of the spiritual community, those who assist me in the process in trying to raise the level of motivation again and again and again while we’re doing what we’re doing to include an ever widening circle of other. So this becomes our intention and motivation behind our various acts, why we do what we do including what we’re doing tonight together. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge into awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Community, I go for refuge into awakening.
Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Community, I go for refuge into awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech and mind, and present clouds of every type of offering, those actual and imagined. I disclose all my destructive acts accumulated since time without beginning and rejoice in the skillful actions of holy and ordinary beings.
Please remain until cyclic existence has ended and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skillful actions of myself and others to the great awakening. Maybe we can would you like to stretch your legs and we’ll meditate? Bringing your arms to those areas and consciously relaxing, softening, letting the tension, tightness, anxiety, move down your body into the ground. Body becoming comfortable and soft and relaxed.
Sense of physical well-being. Now think of that person, that stranger who in some way you feel uneasy about. You’re going to visualize slightly. Just imagine that person is there in front of you. Just feel a sense of it.
Again, by cultivating compassion. Try to feel a friendly thought towards them in terms of it’d be wonderful if you didn’t have any difficulties or problems. I wish you didn’t suffer. See if you can feel that in a genuine way towards this person. I’m gonna help you.
Take responsibility in working with you and solving your problem. Cultivate love towards this person. Again, in terms of simple friendly thought, be wonderful if you have it. I wish you have it. Breath.
If I do look at the meditation that death is inevitable, death is death, certain. Let’s begin by looking through first your family members. Just the fact that can you be assured that any of them will be alive a hundred years from now? Just going through all your family members and noting that that is the case. That is a fact.
That none of them are going to be alive one hundred years from now. And your various relatives just going through one after another. Just to assure yourself, just to check it out. And when that’s completed, go through all your various friends, close friends, distant friends, one after another, just checking out whether they’ll be alive one hundred years now or not. Are they definitely going to die?
Maybe your work colleagues, people that you work with, trades people, the people that you come in contact with in your daily life, going through those in your mind, noting. This person will die within a hundred years, definitely, for sure. Maybe the people in this room, have you ever noticed anyone in this room that’s present here that you felt might never die? Is everyone in this room going to be dead a hundred years from now? Can you think of anyone in South Australia that you know to be an exception?
I bet in all of Australia, is there is there anybody? Prime minister, general, the army, someone who’s very saint, athlete? Can you think of anyone in the entire world? However strong, however powerful, it’s not going to die. All the possibilities.
Are you essentially any different than all of these people? All of these many, many people that you investigate in terms of that they’re definitely going to die. Are you any different than them? Is there something special about you? Even as we sit here, our lifespan is decreasing.
I’m just trying to get a general sense that the seconds are ticking away. Seconds become minutes, minutes become hours. Slowly our light creeps on in at its petty peace. Eventually, it’s going to come to an end. There’s a definite border, a definite stop, end point to it all.
And we’re gradually approaching that end point. Even as we sit here now, we’re moving towards its end. How many hours did you sleep? How many hours did you work? Either in the home or outside of the home?
How many hours did you spend traveling? How much time did you spend eating? Cooking. Cleaning, socializing, watching television, entertaining. Just laying around feeling lazy or depressed.
How much time do you spend purposely developing your mind, developing your wisdom, cultivating compassion, benefiting others? And see if you can, in terms of your feeling, come to a conclusion that I have to use my life wisely and mindfully, to make a quality of life that’s not going to last forever. And then bring your mind back. And slowly become aware of your your body, your posture, physical feeling sensations. So we’re looking at the verse the three principal aspects of the path.
Leisure and fortune are difficult to find and life has no duration. Life has no duration. So again, the path is to help us to overcome, help us to gain realization, and here the realization that life has no duration to overcome our misconceptions about it. The disempowering misconception that we’re mortal, We’ve got plenty of time to live the life as we would like it. Sometime in the far distant future, we’ll get around to doing what we want, to lead the quality of life, the way of life that we would want for ourselves.
And it is a Tibetan saying that the tomorrow when your practice, before the tomorrow when you are going to begin to live your life. And we can always be putting it off what it is that we want for ourselves, type of life and the quality of life that we might like to lead till sometime in the future. And that future and our death may come before that time. And it’s not certain. So this is the second root of the nine-round death meditation.
The first root is death is definite, inevitable. And the second root is that the time of death, Though we’re sure that we’re going to die, it’s not certain when we’re going to die. The time of death is unpredictable. And again, there are three reasons supporting this fact. When talking about death, men come and they go and they trot and they dance and never word about death, all well and good.
Yet when death comes, does come to them, their wives, their children, their friends, catching them unawares and unprepared, then what storms of passion overwhelm them? What cries? What fury? What despair? To begin depriving of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one.
Let us deprive death of its strangeness. Let us frequent it. Let us get used to it. Let us have nothing more often in mind than death. We do not know where death awaits us, so let’s wait for it everywhere.
To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. So, looking at the second of these two roots, that the time of our death is unpredictable, it’s uncertain, we simply don’t know when. And the first of the reasons supporting this root is that human life expectancy is uncertain. Again, we may acknowledge the fact that I’m going to die.
It’s said that it doesn’t take too long to gain this realization that death is definite. But it’s quite another matter to gain the realization that the time of our death is indefinite, uncertain. We may acknowledge the fact of inevitability of our death but we place enough veils between ourselves and that definite coming at the time of our death to have a notion, a vague notion, an unfounded notion that it’s going to be sometime in the far distant future. You know most of the people who are going to die within the next month probably never thought that they weren’t going to live a long, long life from today forward. And they have the same conception that we do.
The people are going to die in the month of July, but they too are going to lead a long, long life. Sometime into it, you know, die eventually perhaps in the far and distant future. But the fact is, you know, the reality of our situation is that we simply don’t know how long we’re going to live. You know, Beginning to look, again and again looking at the facts, reality of our situation to overcome our misconception about it. It is a disempowering misconception.
The misconception that causes us to relate inappropriately, unskillfully, which brings about suffering in some way or another. Know fetuses die in the womb. Babies die at birth. Infants die before they learn how to crawl. Children die at the age of five, eight, nine.
You know, these are not very nice things to think about and therefore we really avoid them. But it’s simply a matter of this avoidance which has caused us to maintain these misconceptions about the time of our death and the fact of our death. At least, you know, it’s an uncomfortableness. But it’s not in the least morbid. It’s meant to be life enhancing.
So, and to take the time and perhaps confront some of these issues and facts about our life and living which might be uncomfortable. It’s like a legitimate suffering. It has it actually has some benefit, something worthwhile about it. Most of our suffering leads us nowhere. It doesn’t even bring us any temporal pleasure, let alone any kind of ultimate pleasure.
You know, there’s a within the teachings of the moral discipline or the Vinaya of Buddhism, there’s there’s a there’s a verse which says that happiness which leads us to suffering is to be thought of as suffering. That suffering which leads us to happiness is to be thought of as happiness. So though, you know, talking about children dying, it’s not a pleasant thought. No one would rather, you know, no one would want to be preoccupied with such ways of thinking. But it is useful from time to time to think about these actual facts of life as a means of some advantage, some benefit to be derived in terms of our present ways of thinking.
You know, Teenagers die at the age of thirteen, fifteen, nineteen, young adults at the age of twenty two, twenty five. You know, middle age, thirty two. I mean, people die at the age of twenty one, twenty three, twenty six, twenty nine, thirty one, thirty four, thirty nine, forty two, forty four, forty eight, fifty one, you know, it stops there. You know, people die at any age. There’s no age in which people do not die at.
You know, you can you can ask a life insurance salesperson. They’ll they’ll they’ll give you the statistical probabilities on you dying tomorrow. You know, they’ll give you a policy and they know that sometimes they’re going to lose on it. That somebody will die tomorrow and they’ve got the odds on it. Sometime in fact they will die.
You know the fact that we presently are young or you might be presently young and healthy, there’s no guarantee that next week or tomorrow, even today before you get home, that you are not going to become terminally ill, that you’re not going to die. There’s no guarantee because there’s no certainty. You know, the vast majority of people who will be dead next month never thought they were going to be dead next month. And, you know, we may just because we don’t think about it or we irrationally reject the idea does not mean it cannot happen. People can die, and they do die at any age.
This is kind of, you know, it’s like the truth shall make you free. Buddhism places a great emphasis in getting in touch with the way things are. I mean, it’s the Dalai Lama said, for example, that if if scientific evidence is leads us to is so obviously, obviously, in its fashion, in the facts that it presents, then we have to set aside any type of Buddhist belief, and and we have to accept, adopt what is in fact the truth. Because it because Buddhism places emphasis in the liberative quality of the truth. That the closer, the more you approach truth, the more obvious it becomes.
On the other hand, as you approach falsity, the more you investigate it, the less, the more obscure, the less distinct it becomes until finally it disappears altogether. So there’s something about reality and getting in touch with going beyond falsity, gaining realization, which is liberative. That means our approach to the way that we’re living our lives, how we’re relating with the world becomes more effective, efficient, functional, more adequate to what it is that we want from the world and what it’s able to give us. So the first of these three reasons is that human life expectancy is uncertain. The second reason is that there are many causes of death.
Every day, so beginning to enumerate. I hope this isn’t designed to make us paranoid, but it is designed to make us aware of the world about us and what could happen to help us overcome the sense that we’re invulnerable. You know, sometimes we we take a surprise when we get ill. Sometimes, you know, as if we shouldn’t be ill. You know?
As if things shouldn’t be like this. I should be able to control reality such that it doesn’t have these effects on me. But if we look about us, you know, we hear of disasters all the time if you look on the news. You know, earthquakes, TWA airliners being blown up in mid-air, you know, landslides, forest fires in Canada. You know, there’s wars, there’s famines, there’s terrorism.
You know, we may feel safe, secure from all those types of violent deaths. But still for us there’s heart attacks, there’s cancer, there’s various diseases, there’s car crashes, there’s various types of accidents, there’s violent death. And then there’s always, you know, old age. Something is gonna get you out. Yeah.
People die in their sleep. They die coming home from work. They die going to school. Die playing sports. They die cooking dinner.
They die watching television. They die listening to dharma talks. They die while staying in hospital. They die you know, death occurs in any manner, at any place, at any time. You know, death is going to find a way to find you.
You know, it’s almost as if you’re going to find a way to find death when the time is ripe. A little story about that. A rich and mighty Persian once walked in his garden with one of his servants. The servant cried that he had just encountered death who had threatened him. He begged his master to give him his fastest horse so that he could make haste and flee to Turan, which he could reach that same evening.
The master consented and the servant galloped off on the horse. On returning to the house, the master himself met Death and questioned him, ‘Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?’ ‘I did not threaten him. I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I planned to meet him tonight in Tehran,’ said Death. So the second reason is that beginning to, I guess, again not to become paranoid, but to simply become aware of the fact of many possibilities, of the ways that we could die. There are many causes of our death.
And then thirdly, the human body is very fragile. We need to overcome our sense of invulnerability and invincibility that we might have about ourselves in some way. You know within minutes this body which can change from being strong and active to being full of pain and helplessly weak. Just within a matter of an accident or catching a disease. You know, a sliver of glass, a sharp piece of metal, a tiny blood clot in your bloodstream, a virus which you can’t even see.
It can all take your life in one way or another. You know, there’s this I sometimes think, you know, when you pass an accident on the highway and you see all that twist in the middle and you see all that glass, you have a sense that people shouldn’t be riding around in such hard things. You know, you appreciate how soft and delicate this skin which holds our life inside of ourselves. You know, that we should ride around with very soft things, you know, like sponges. So we so we sort of bounce off things instead of it doesn’t seem quite appropriate, all that glass and metal, hard surfaces.
And when you consider how soft and delicate they in fact are. All it takes is a prick and our life spills out of it. So the beginning to appreciate the fact of our fragility that the human body is very fragile. If we, you know, contemplating in this way, looking at the fact that there are many causes of death, that there is, that people die at any time, there’s no certainty of it in terms of human life expectancy. And then finally the human body is very fragile.
Coming to the conclusion, developing the second of these three determinations, that to begin the practice of developing our minds right now as the future is uncertain. You know, so we can have a sense, we can have a sense that I am mortal. I’m going to die. If we can begin to work through our sense of it’s going to happen sometime in the far distant future, then imagine the degree of intensity that we would add to our life. Now, how would you live your life differently?
You know, this is maybe a worthwhile question to ask yourself for some time in terms of if you knew who you are, you’re going to live one year. You know, it’s not to say we aren’t to make it a long distance plan, but we’re talking about the intensity of, you know, of the quality of our life. You know, however you might want to live your life, to begin to live it now because you don’t know how long you’re going to have. Maybe those who have been transformed by near death experiences, not in terms of what they might have experienced during the course of the death process and the light and the benevolent figures that they might have met, but just the fact of realizing that they could die at any time and how transformative that realization is in terms of what they do with their life. And then finally, the third root of these three roots is the fact that at the time of our death, only the development of our minds and what is imprinted within our minds is going to be of benefit at that time.
What can help us at the time of our death? And again, we can translate this to some degree into terms of these little deaths occur over the course of our lives, and not necessarily that big death which occurs at the end of this life. What is it that takes you through these transitions, you know when something has come to an end and everything is thrown into question, everything that you’ve held, that you believed in, that you felt, that you found security in, everything that you held onto was valuable, gave you a sense of stability, purpose, been taken away from you one way or another. And there’s transition and the new is yet to begin. What gives you the confidence that you’re going to land on your feet on the other side of that change?
What gives some people the self confidence to enter voluntarily, to cultivate change, to invite change into our lives. Beginning to look at what is it that actually is of any benefit during these gaps at the moment of death, whether it’s a small death during the course of our life or a big death at the end of our life. So the reasons which are supporting this fact are the necessity to develop our minds, to imprint some positive imprints on our minds. First reason is our possessions and enjoyments cannot help us. Know, begin, look at, you know, our life experiences, you know, perhaps if you’re going through a separation or a divorce, you’re going through someone’s death, you know, that moment, how much benefit was your money or your material possession?
You know, could they somehow soothe the sorrow of your heart, lift from your heart the burden of this hurt, this pain that you’re feeling? Anything that you require to reinforce your life, in terms of your car, your house, your your computer. Computer. You know, could they somehow ease your pain that you’re feeling at this moment? You know, these are just even over the course of these little deaths, these little difficulties which we experience over the course of our life.
And here we’re talking about the big death at the end of our life. And think of all the furniture think of all material things which you’ve traded your life for, almost literally. That you spent a lifetime acquiring, you know, your home, your car, your furniture, your television, your computer, maybe a camera. And think about all the enjoyments which you have spent most of your life pursuing, running after in one way or another, whether it be entertainment, sports, hobbies, sex, food, whatever, at the moment when you are lying, they’re dying. You know, when everything is growing dark, when you’re confused and afraid, can any of that be of any benefit to you?
Can you take any of it with you? Can you take one piece you know, one cassette with you? In reality, not only can they not help you, but attachment to them will make will be a hindrance, will make dying all the more difficult for you. So, you know, we’re trying to getting some kind of perspective, putting on material possessions, on our it’s not to say, okay, know, we’re not losing, we’re never trying to take a middle path between indulgence and asceticism and self-mortification. It would never say, you know, you shouldn’t have a house.
You shouldn’t have a car. You shouldn’t have a material possession. All the goodies of life. No question. That’s not the problem.
The goodies of life are not the problem. It’s our opinions about those possessions, our attachments to them, magnifying their ability to their capacity to bring about the quality of life that we want for ourselves. Their ability to help us during these difficulties over the course of our life and at the time of our death. You know, putting them in some kind of proper perspective, that’s all. So we don’t, you know, things are in the saddle and they’re riding us.
So, you know, trying to reverse this relationship between things, our sources of entertainment, our sources of enjoyment and material possession so that we’re in control of them, they’re not in control of ourselves. They can’t be of any benefit at the time of our death. And the second reason is supporting of what can be of benefit at the time of our death is that your loved ones can’t help you. As the bond between your mind and body begins to break, begins to weaken, and your body begins to your mind begins to slip away from the body. You’re you’re totally alone in this experience.
Though those who sincerely loved you are near, and you’re crying. You know, you maybe even holding on to your hand. They can’t stop your mind. They can hold on to your body, but they can’t hold on to your mind. That’s simply not a reality.
Not possible. None of them can hold on to your mind. None of them can can go with you. Even if they would want to. Even if they were willing to die with you and hold your hand as you both go.
It’s not a possibility. It’s not a reality. And moreover, they’re clinging and grasping to you, and you’re clinging and grasping to them at the time of your death. It’s going to make death all the more difficult. So even those who sincerely love you care the most, I mean, who want the most, want the best for you.
At the time of your death, there’s nothing they can do. It’s not in their power. Then the third reason is that your own body cannot be of help at the time of your death. Now the, you know, this lovely body which, you know, this constant companion that we’ve had over the course of our life that we’ve shared in all the ups and downs, all the goods and bads of our life, all the various pleasures and pains. It’s been our constant friend, our constant companion.
It’s going to weaken. And finally, it’s going to become useless to our life. Cherish lovely body that’s given it that we’ve given it the best food, we’ve given it the best clothes that we could. We’ve kept it warm, as comfortable as possible. We’ve given it vitamins.
We’ve put lotions on it. We put perfume on it, and we’ve spent a great deal of our life dedicated to its welfare at the time of our death.