Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 75-minute talk, Ven Jamyang breaks down the moment of death step-by-step: how gross consciousness tied to sense organs gradually dissolves, leaving subtle consciousness, which itself dissolves into the very subtle consciousness—called the clear light, the final moment of this life. He describes what follows: entry into the intermediate state, a 49-day period in a subtle body, before rebirth as human, animal, hungry ghost, or other realm. The mental state at that final moment shapes the outcome: compassion and peace lead to human rebirth, while strong anger, attachment, or ignorance drive rebirth into lower realms. He frames this as practical: we can train our mind now through ethics and meditation to face death peacefully. The Q&A engages modern concerns—dying in hospitals, whether mediums contact the actual deceased or impersonating spirits, the apparent unfairness of karma. Suitable for those new to Buddhism and those questioning how these teachings apply to ordinary life.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2009 03 17 jamyang – mind healing 170309.mp3
UUID: 8f09631a-8a45-45d1-9eaf-b208f2a20820
Teacher: Ven Jamyang
Collection: Jamyang Mind Healing (Ven Jamyang)
Date: 2009-03-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 74.7 minutes
Words: ~6,410
Is it working? Now is it working? No. Oh, I didn’t have it on. It wasn’t on, so I hope nobody needs this tape.
But what I say is that our consciousness, what we experience at the moment is a gross consciousness. It is a consciousness that is related to our sense organs. It is everything that we see, what we hear, what we taste, what we feel, what we smell. And then there is the gross thinking. So, at the time of death that consciousness starts to dissolve in the sense that consciousness can only exist when it is supported by the elements.
Consciousness and matter, they go together. So, the elements somehow support consciousness. And when the elements start to stop supporting the consciousness that consciousness just disappears. The gross consciousness, yeah. So then, so they slowly disappear one by one.
If I say disappear, people might get scared and they think, Oh my God, I’m going to disappear. But it’s just that gross level that goes away. It’s as if when we go to sleep, the gross level also goes away. We can’t hear anymore, we can’t see anymore, we don’t feel anything in our body anymore, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t exist. Right?
But the gross consciousness when we go to sleep dissolves, disappears. It’s exactly the same. When we die, it’s exactly the same, what happens, very similar process. So then what stays is very subtle consciousness and subtle consciousness. They are still there.
And the subtle consciousness that is all the what they call the natural conceptions, which has to do with strong attachment, strong aversion, things that I’m not sure if we can say that. Things that are very primary to the mind, things that everybody carries with them. And when they also start to dissolve because they are connected to the wind element and that wind element starts to become more and more subtle and starts and because of that, the consciousness dissolves. And then eventually there’s only the very subtle consciousness left. And when that manifests, you know, so when the gross consciousness is manifest, the subtle ones we can’t see, we can’t perceive them.
It’s like they don’t exist. Then when the gross dissolves, we can start seeing what a very subtle one is, what a subtle one is. Then when that starts to dissolve, we can see what a very subtle one is. That very subtle consciousness, the moment it becomes manifest, that’s what I call the clear light of death, That’s the last moment of this life. And as soon as that starts to fade or how should I say that?
Okay. A moment of that. From that, the more coarse levels come back again. And the moment that that starts to happen, you actually move out of your body. The more coarse levels of consciousness.
So you go from a grosser level that is also into the subtle. That is also into the very subtle. And this is called the clear light of death. I’m not sure if you have heard of that. And then when this starts to happen, it goes back to the subtle.
In that moment, you leave the body. So in the Western in the Western medical science, when you are at this stage, they say you die. Death according to Westerns. So the doctor comes and he takes your pulse and he said, oh no, there’s no pulse, there’s no heartbeat. There is no breath anymore.
So the person has died. Buddhism says, well, actually you haven’t really fulfilled, you haven’t gone through a whole death process. You still have to dissolve your very subtle level of consciousness into the very subtle and then you move on to your next life. So, this is a time where there is still heat at the heart, where you still have the feeling the person hasn’t gone completely, you know, and you can feel that when a doctor says the person died, you can feel that there is still warmth at the heart. If there is still warmth, Buddhism says, well, actually the person hasn’t gone yet.
What about death rattles? They come with being Who’s that? Death rattles. They come with. Last breathing.
That’s here. It’s gross. Yeah. When that ceases, that’s all. No.
No. It’s not the same because gross can be also subconscious. Subconscious. Subtle is normally, we do not access this in life and this definitely we never access this in life, but this we can go to meditation levels where we can go into this. Also, when we fall into sleep and we go into deep sleep, we this one does manifest, you know.
This never manifests during life in normal human beings, only at the moment of death. And I say it can come very quickly when you sneeze or when you have an orgasm or when you cough. I heard cough somewhere, and I said, alright. But sneezing, orgasm, that’s it. High meditators, what they do if you have very advanced practitioners, they meditate on this and they meditate on this especially when they die.
So, I don’t know if you have ever heard that meditators, they can stay for a week in the process of death. What they do is they go through this process and they stop here and they experience the clear light of death and they meditate on this and they can do that for a long time, two, three, four days, a week. And in that period of time, although their heartbeat has stopped and their breath has stopped, the breathing has stopped, they still have no signs of deterioration in their body. So the body can still even smell very nice like flowers, they say. And then at a certain point, it depends a little bit on the circumstances, but sometimes they ask the person to please move on to the next life because they want them to be reborn very quickly, you know, and to end their meditation.
And then when they leave the body, in that moment, you can see that the body starts to show signs of deterioration. This one. This one. From there to there. I’m thinking about Oh, to here.
Yeah. When we leave the body. Yeah. As soon as they take an organ out of your body like your heart, you know, that that moment you’re gone. Right.
What is there are different theories, right? They’re with different stories from different Lamas. So, Lamas say it’s very important to have that as an undisturbed process because that might determine where you’re going to end up in your next life. So, you have to make sure that the whole process goes very peacefully and they say do not touch the body for three days after somebody has passed away so that you do not disturb anything that is happening on a very subtle level. What?
Smell it. Well, as soon as it starts to smell, you know, the person has moved on, you know, then then you can start cleaning it up. You don’t have to wait and think, oh, maybe the person is still here. It’s not. Definitely not.
So there are different ways around us. Right? So, so that can take up to three days, but it can happen sooner. If somebody says, oh, you know, the smell is going to come, then you know it’s So sometimes it can be an hour, it can be two hours, it can be twelve hours. You can feel it when the heat has gone.
You can you can observe it. Sometimes when the when the mind leaves the body, you can see some blood coming out of the nose. Oh, really? Uh-huh. Very interesting.
And then what happens after four, five days? It’s gone. The energy is gone. Yeah, depends very much on the person and I don’t know if that is related to practice that you have doing or even practice that you have been doing in previous lives, I don’t know. I’ve seen a lady that I was sure that she was still there for a couple of days and we had, we just didn’t ring the doctors.
And we just left her, do her thing, you know. And if you can do that, you can do that. It’s like it’s not really necessary, is it? How does one organize that in Western society? Well, this was in the West.
Yeah. Well, when you die in hospital, these are all different things, you know. So you so you have to go with what is happening. Sometimes you can try to explain in a hospital, this is what I really would like to do. This is what I need for that.
Can I do that here? You know? So it’s we got to try to do something here, you know, because I think it’s important that people can die in a peaceful way. This can also take a very short time, you know. If you think about somebody having an accident, it can happen like that.
Your mind is gone, your mind is normally not going to stay and even the whole death process might be happening in a different way. Or if somebody has been sick for a long period of time then also it happens in a different way. You know, you can’t say this is how it goes. This is how it goes ideally when you are just old, when you’re laying on your bed, you’re about to die, you know, this is the process. But then every situation can be different and disturb that.
So here, the mind separates from the body. And I said at the moment that the mind separates from the body there is no connection anymore. We talk about people who are attached to the body and who stay with the body or Buddhism says no, as soon as you have separated you don’t actually recognize that body as yours because that moment it’s not yours anymore. So, then what I say is when you go back to a more subtle form of consciousness you enter the same moment you enter the intermediate state. Can you see the scale?
So before you take rebirth, first have a period of time where you are what I call an intermediate state. In the intermediate state you get straight away a body which is a subtle body. So you’re not going to a gross consciousness, you just have a subtle body. The subtle body is like your wind body. It is so subtle we cannot see it with our eyes.
And we can’t, we know that, isn’t it? If somebody dies we don’t see somebody appearing in another body. The person is gone for us, but that person can still be there or that person can be anywhere. If you have a subtle body as an intermediate state, because it’s so subtle you have clairvoyance, you body can you move your body, how to say, unobstructed, so you can walk through the walls. If you think about somebody in Canada, you immediately are in Canada.
You know, it’s like there is no time and space that is influencing your how you travel or what you see. That’s the border, yeah. Yeah, same. So what it says in the body, after the body you go to another body and you can go to different realms. You’re necessarily becoming a human being.
So what happens is that in the body you have a body that is similar to the body that you’re going to have in your next life and you can see those who are in the same they’re going to be reborn in the same realm. Can you go back to see deeply loved people you’ve known in your previous life? Just for a moment to see and then go on? You can see them at all all times. You can?
Yeah. So you know what But I’m not sure if there is attachment to them. Recognize if you don’t recognize that body as being Yeah. I don’t know. I I wouldn’t think not not not necessarily.
That’s true and the memory is the gross consciousness and the subtle consciousness, yeah. So then you stay in the intermediate state and they say that that you stay there for maximum forty nine days or seven times seven days and after every seventh day you go through a small death and you get reborn again. So it can be that for whatever reason imagine that you die and you in an intermediate state you see that you have the body of a dog and then your family is doing a lot of practice and making offerings on your behalf and you die small death when you’re seven days after seven days and then your next you have a human rebirth, you know, due to the merit that’s created. I don’t know. This is just my story.
Wanna come back as my dog. As my I wanna Don’t don’t wish wish that. It’s very different, very dangerous. So we can die seven small deaths before we are reborn in the next body or we might not have, you know, we might after seven days find already a new body. Not a lot of time off in between, is it?
Seven days. Yeah. Know, don’t have a break. I know. But at the same time, I think time, you know, there is a very different feeling of time here.
And what we also do is we drop that everything that is related to this life. You know, everything that we’re tired of is gone completely. So we have even no memories of that while we are reborn in the next life. There is time too but the time might be different. Know, if there are realms, you know, for instance a dog, how many lives does a dog?
It’s like, oh a cat has every years. Yeah, every seven years that we live the cat has one or something, what is it? Or the other way around. One year, if you consider it a dog. Yeah, yeah.
So there are in the other realms, there is a different measure of time in a different way. When you have the god realms, they say you can you can live for thousands of years and, you know, the days last very, very long. And What they say about people who can see these intermediate state beings or beings yeah, they say in Buddhism they say after forty nine days you cannot see that being. If you still see being either you see something that you have created yourself, because Geshe-la is very strong in that, or what you can see, there is a spirit realm and spirits can appear in your form. They can appear as you.
And because spirits have clairvoyance, they can see what happened in your life and they can stories about your life and spirits use that to make contact with human beings. Any spirit. Spirit. Spirit who has these qualities can do that. So according to Buddhism this whole thing that happens where you call the death and you have all these stories, they say you’re just talking to spirits.
You’re not talking really to the person. That person already has moved on. Is the spirit realm the background to me? Do you pass through the lower realm and It is a lower realm because spirits spirits suffer from a lot of hunger and thirst. There is not much much dharma available.
So that’s why they also want to be connected to human beings because there is more available for them to to satisfy them. The concept of a a spirit being actually infiltrating a human is feasible. Yeah. The lamas normally say, no. It’s not possible.
You know? And some say, yes. It is. But Uh-huh. And you could see that?
Did you ask him what he wants? Didn’t confer no. I didn’t really sort of get into too much details. I just sort of, you know, move on. Uh-huh.
As much as I could in my own Yeah. Mhmm. So the spirits Spirits, normally, they have a need. You know? They’re very needy.
So they’re looking for something and then normally they say it’s quite draining? Oh, it is draining because they want something, you know. So if you ask what do you want? What do you want? And then give it somehow.
They reincarnated as spirits. They they are reincarnated. What happens if you tell her what? How can you tell her that? Oh, she will she will communicate.
Yeah. You get feelings. You get feelings or ideas or See what happens. So when you go to the intermediate state after that, you can take rebirth. I heard somebody say complicated.
So you can take rebirth in different forms. So you can’t be reborn as a human. You want to know this? Yeah? Some people do not like to hear this as an animal or a spirit or we call them hungry ghosts.
Animal or a spirit or we call them hungry ghosts. Yeah. And it’s like no matter what they what they they can never satisfy their needs in the realm where they are, you know, they’re suffering a lot. What have they done that’s caused them to live that life? Strong attachment.
Greed and aggrievance? Greed, addictions, know, sexual drives, any strong desire that you keep on following, that’s a cause to be reborn there. Until their karma is finished. Can be. Can be.
And it’s you do not have so much opportunity to create merit, you know. You can help. There are also spirits who help human beings, you know. You can help but because you’re always hungry and you’re always needy, it’s very difficult to create merit. Can we help them?
Yeah, asking them what they want and give it to them. Yes, yes. There are practices where you feed them. But even the Chenrezig practice, why we sing that, you can you there are practices where you oh, maybe I shouldn’t the practice for that? Yeah.
But even when we do Chenrezig practice and we visualize that all suffering beings might be relieved from their suffering, you can actually go through all the realms specifically and think about their suffering and then, you know, we have done animals, humans and animals and, you know, micro-beings. Followed by the other beings. No. No. Oh, tomorrow we’ll do that. Yeah.
human beings. And then we have the gods and the gods. So, say that the moment before you die and now I’m not sure if that is here or if that is, it should be here somewhere. The state of mind that you are in before you die is going to determine where you end up. Right?
So that’s why in Buddhism we try to familiarize ourselves with loving, peaceful, compassionate states of mind because when we can die with compassion and can die with love, we will and then we make prayers to be reborn as a human being. We will be reborn as a human being or maybe in the god realms, but this is not we don’t think this is so fortunate to get reborn there. What if someone who, like, is really into doing all this? Like, is really into doing all that you just did all that good stuff. Yeah.
They did really do that. And then they hit someone with a hammer just before the lightning strikes them. Yeah. And they’re really angry. Bad luck.
That seems unfair. Yes. Very unfair. But your car was supposed to be fair. No.
It’s not. It’s not. But you said it was cause and effect. Cause and effect. So the moment before you die, what happens is that your consciousness is a stream, isn’t it?
Yeah. From moment to moment. So if I have a very peaceful mind, then the next one will be peaceful too. Right? Yes.
So you might be be say that, you know, they end up in a hell but maybe that won’t last that long or something like that. Yeah. One teacher of mine always said, you know, with taking initiations and doing practice, he says, you know, we we were gonna end up here anyway one day, so better go there with something good in your in your backpack. You know? I would say, because you said it you must have known something about Buddhism.
Didn’t know anything about Buddhism. Maybe not from this life, you know, but maybe some seeds are ripening. I don’t know. That sort of assumes that Buddhism has a franchise on true love and maybe it doesn’t. Maybe other things.
Yes. That’s true. That’s true. But she comes here and she has been. Can I go back to the hammer?
Yeah. Because I wanna go back to the hammer too. Does karma put the hammer in her hand to pick them? No. karma doesn’t put a hammer in her hand.
No, no, no, don’t think like that. It’s like you have a state of mind where you are in. And if that state of mind is peaceful, then here we have no control anymore, right? So, when this is a peaceful state of mind then naturally will move on to more peaceful states of mind. That is just how it goes.
Normally when we are a little bit agitated, something happens, the anger is there, right? Or when we are very peaceful, same thing happens and nothing really happens in our mind, right? Why not? Yeah. Must have had brownie points if you like this whole lot.
He has brownie points, and he will never lose these brownie points. He did it’s it’s well known the day before death that the person dying has an extremely distressing day. And then they become Not everybody. No. No.
No. Don’t don’t generalize. These these are things that happen. Right? And this is really awful to see.
And if you know this, it’s really awful to hear. But only a lama would know where he would move to. But I know that once a friend of mine, her friend committed suicide and she had a feeling he was still around her and she went to the Geshe and said, My friend has passed away and I feel he’s still here. He said, no, that’s all your own mind making that up. Your friend is already in hell.
And she was like, oh my God. And but he’s for them. It’s just a natural thing. There’s no judgment. There’s no no thinking of, oh my god.
I don’t wanna be there. That is But we think of hell in our tradition. We think of hell as internal, whereas it might be like that for someone who’s had an angry moment. This is just what I picked up from what you said. It seems to me what you’re saying is you still got your backpack.
Yep. But if your moment Yeah. Is an angry one, there’ll be then, you know, there’ll be a consequence of that, and that might be a quick dip. But then That’s my interpretation, but I might be wrong on that. But but It’s different from our thing if you go to hell, you’re there forever.
No. It’s not forever. It’s it’s it’s normally a long time. Hell years are very long and the suffering is very big. Oh, icy colds.
It’s very hot. So these suffer from hunger and thirst and these suffer from heat or cold and from pains, huge pains. As you know, if you, they say to be born be reborn as a human, you need to practice ethics. That means you have to, what they call, to abandon the ten non virtues. Did we talk about that?
You have to abandon all the negative actions of your body and speech. So we have done that previously. Otherwise, we need to be down. Yes. Okay.
So we can say, oh, wow. We did that. Look what that is the result of our practice. We have to abandon covetousness, which is that we constantly wanna have something that belongs to somebody else and ill will where we constantly wish others to suffer, right, or wish them harm. So being reborn as human is a result of ethics, then during our life we commit non virtuous actions.
We also commit virtues. So the virtues will help you to stay up here. The non virtues are causes to be reborn here. In order to create a cause to be reborn here that karma needs to be complete. So, you need to have a strong negative motivation, you have to commit the action, you have to rejoice in your action and the person has to suffer from that action before you die, right?
Before that action can actually has the before that action has the power to impel you in one of these lower realms. There are texts that that say if you have, you know, not such a strong negative motivation then you’re going to be reborn as an animal. If you have a stronger negative motivation you’re to be reborn there. If you have a very strong negative one you’re going to be reborn there. Others say if you are mainly your main delusion is stupidity or ignorance or, you know, just not knowing, the chance is big that you’re going to be here.
If your main delusion is strong attachment, then you’re going to be reborn as a hungry ghost. If your main delusion is anger, then that is the cause for the hell realms. So, think we just have to make sure that we stay both here, you know. So we have many many actions that are causes for this. Right?
We have created that in this life. We have created that in previous life. They are all a mental continuum waiting to be triggered by something. So what we try to do is not to trigger these seeds because we try to be reborn as a human where we have the capacity to purify all that. I’m not asking you that.
I just wanna ask about the thumb. Yeah. If the person hits their thumb with a hammer and says, but not meaning bad intent at anybody, then that couldn’t be following that continuum. But it’s still an angry mind for that moment, unless they have a non angry mind following it. I’m just curious about Well, anger anger, the mind of anger is the mind that wants to harm.
Why can’t it be just a response to pain? Suddenly, she’s hurt herself. In Buddhism, Buddhism, you don’t call that anger. Or aversion to pain. Yeah.
Well, that that why can’t that anger be aversion to pain? She said it hurt herself. Well, she said the guy’s angry. So then I said, yeah. But I was thinking of angry So maybe.
Yeah. Yeah. Now it makes sense. And for us it’s very difficult to judge, you know, what is really in the mind. We we cannot say what happened, you know, to your friend or what was really in his mind before he died.
We cannot we will not know what happens to us before the moment of death, you know. And we might be have been our whole life a good human being trying really hard and something happened and you say, oh, you know, or whatever. You get really upset, you get angry, get distressed. That’s, you know, you’re just not so lucky at that moment. No.
I I don’t exist anymore. No. I don’t know. Because with hell on earth, we we suffer so much of it. And why would any loving creature, whether it be Buddhist, God, or anyone, want anyone to suffer the agony of burning pain?
Yeah. It depends on the situation. It be really cold. Yes. It’s too cold.
Okay. So we have a Christian mind and that hears all these things, and that is not what Buddhism says. And also because I don’t believe in it. It doesn’t exist, you know. That is Well, I’ve had it on earth so why would I be getting it after life?
But so, okay, so when you hear the story you can get really scared and that’s not the purpose purpose of the story is that you realize that when you practice ethics, when you stop harming others, you know, your chance to die peacefully and to have a higher rebirth is pretty high. When you talk to these families, do you feel bad when you do it? They’re doing it? I don’t know. Don’t know.
I do not know. I do not know. They say you lose that attachment to your body as soon as you leave the body. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
There that’s where we started. Yeah. So this so imagine you’re gonna be reborn as a spirit. Right? I’m gonna be I I will be reborn as a spirit.
I have lots of attachments, that’s gonna be my path. But I actually quite liked it in the human realm and I really like these Dharma teachings, you know. I really like these Dharma teachings and I like to go to Buddha house, right? So me as a spirit I have a body that you cannot see. It’s very subtle and I can just move wherever I want.
So I come to Buddha house and I want to have contact with you guys, right, as a spirit because I’m so hungry and I need you to hear the Dharma. I cannot hear it because I don’t have any ears. But if I have connection, really strong connection with you, I can hear it. So I can sit on somebody’s shoulder, you know, and then somehow get the essence. But what I can also do is say I like to have the contact with the human realm and there are people who can see spirits, right?
I can appear to that person in any form I like. Right? So if I want to have contact with the human realm and somebody is calling for spirits, I can appear as your dad and I would because I have clairvoyance I can see what your dad knew and what he was talking to you and you know the special secrets that you both have together and I make that known to the person who’s talking to me, to the clairvoyant. And you think there’s only one person in the world who can know that, that’s my dad. It must be my dad.
Buddhism says it’s not your dad. Your dad has already taken it’s a spirit who can see the past and the future and takes on that form. If there would be the hungry ghost, they would not they would not have that connection with your that how to say? As soon as you’re reborn as another you are another person as soon as you are reborn. You’re not your dad anymore.
You cannot say, my dad is now a hungry ghost. That is a completely separate body. And for the hungry ghost it wouldn’t matter if it is your dad, you know, even if that was the continuation of your dad, there would not be that connection. It’s like if I had a previous life, I don’t have a connection with her. I do have a connection but at the same time I don’t.
If I would see that person as a complete stranger to me, even if that person we have the same mind stream in a different moment. But if I see you or you or you and one of you had the same mind stream as me, for me I don’t see any difference. Anyway, it’s not this is not to So when you go to see the medium, that person’s not there, that person’s not there. It’s true. Is that Well, might be or might not be there.
I don’t know. Not in the body. Well, normally they’re not in the body. Yeah. Yeah.
When I was at my grandmother’s funeral, we I I just thought there was nothing in the in the there was nothing in the cup. Yeah. My grandmother’s not there. And I started I started laughing, and I thought I said to myself, but she’s not there. She’s not there.
And my mom got so upset. She started started to hit me, and I thought, oh, this Now I understand that. I’ve been through the same experience. And I thought, what am I doing here? She’s not in that coffin.
So the person has you know, there is the person is not there anymore. There is just a dead body. Mortal remains. It’s mortal remains. Yeah. We say, know, a body.
Mortal remains, isn’t it? They don’t say, you know, mortal remains. No. No. No.
Well, you see it. You know it. And if somebody’s there, you also know that. You know, you can see that. Yeah.
When did the body tear? They shouldn’t be there. No. But I’ve also been to a funeral with somebody that I that I knew that was there. You know?
Not in the body but he didn’t realize he had died. And he died in an accident and got unconscious and moved on from that. I thought he was he was he was in the church and he had no idea what was happening. He was very confused. I, yeah, felt that.
And we were in the three of you? Yeah. Don’t know. I don’t know. This was long before Buddhism.
I don’t know. I just know that that that happened. Yeah. No. That was a lot of work, actually.
Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Is nothing.
This this is pure consciousness. This is just purity. There are no stains, there is awareness but there is no concepts, no nothing. It’s pure unstained consciousness. This one.
I think the stages before death can be painful, you know, because what happens is that our body, our body is like our companion that we have been walking with through our whole life. We identify very strongly with the body, and that starts to stop functioning. And that can give a lot of panic and a lot of hurt and a lot of, you know, like feeling deceived almost by your body, feeling left alone, feeling abandoned, feeling it’s very painful can be a very painful process. Yeah. There are many ways of dying and there are many ways, you know, you can say, oh, I don’t believe this or but we do not have that much control, you know?
We do not have that much control of how we die, the circumstances that we die, and so what’s going to happen after. So whatever we’re trying to do in Buddhism with training our mind, we’re just trying our best, you know, but it’s not a guarantee that on the moment that you die you have a good state of mind. If you, normally when you die there is a lot of many times. It is very likely that when we die there was a lot of suffering before we die, suffering from pain and all the mental suffering. So training to work with the pain that is there helps you that when it’s difficult there to keep your mind more calm and more peaceful.
I struggle to do that when I’m leaving. I know. I’m serious. I know. I know.
So that’s Buddhism says, so how do you think you’re gonna do it when you’re gonna die? We have to train it now because this is our opportunity to get some control. When we are when we are about to die, it’s it’s like we are we are lost if we have no training. Yeah, it’s very difficult. And then you just follow your karma and your karma might be good.
But you might your karma might be not good, you know. It’s the wheel of life is according to Buddhism is very big, you know. And they don’t have something like, oh, you have to be reborn here. That it’s just wherever, you know. There are human beings or sentient beings are everywhere.
It’s not that in their mind. We only think about these beings. These are not really part of our life. In Buddhism, they’re part of their life. They all have feelings.
I need to ask you something. Yeah. And I want to know, you tell me it’s terribly selfish. I believe. You already know my answer.
Because I have worked so hard to change my life for such a long time, and because the changes have been extraordinary, I really believe that I have a right to a loving rebirth because of the work I’ve done in this life. Now when I say I have a right, I just feel I will have a good rebirth. Now that’s, in your opinion, is very selfish. Why? Because that’s what I feel.
I don’t feel I’m coming back as an animal or anything. Yeah. Good on you, you know. But I mean, have I the right to think that? Because I know how much work I’ve done.
And how much You have the right to think whatever you would like to think. But the changes that I made were huge. I know they have been huge. They have been huge. I know that.
Yeah. And that’s why I feel surely that I’ve earned my right to come back as a human being. I can’t I can’t see any point while I would come back as an animal. That seems so unfair. So what would you like me to say?
Well, I’m just telling you that I’ve got that belief that I’m gonna come back. And I really hope, you know, that is gonna happen. I don’t know why I’ve got that belief, but I just feel it. Why do some people come back and start feeling that in South Africa with AIDS, food, and suffering? Shall we talk about it break.
Shall I have a small break? Yeah. Why do you interest in your body like that?