Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 115-minute teaching, Venerable Lobsang Namgyel offers a comprehensive guide to understanding death from a Buddhist perspective, framing it as essential preparation for a peaceful final transition. He begins with motivation—distinguishing worldly goals from genuine Dharma practice rooted in bodhicitta—then walks through the eight stages of dissolution: the progressive absorption of the elements (earth, water, fire, air) and sense powers, marked by external signs such as bodily weakness, loss of movement, cessation of breathing at the fourth stage, and culminating in increasingly subtle visions (mirage, smoke, sparks, then white, red, and dark visions). He emphasizes that the eighth stage—the clear light vision—is where enlightenment can be achieved if one knows how to maintain meditation on the mind’s emptiness. Throughout, he addresses practical concerns for the dying: the importance of not being touched after death (which forces consciousness out prematurely, potentially leading to worse rebirth), organ donation as an expression of compassion, living wills and powers of attorney, and how to support someone approaching death. He concludes with a guided meditation through all eight stages. Pitched at serious practitioners and those with prior Dharma background, though newcomers will find clear explanations of rebirth, karma, and pure lands.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011 10 26 Ven Namgyel – 01 – Wed 26thOct.mp3
UUID: 7e617a14-7c91-4aea-ab4b-a3dafa63a87d
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: Peaceful Living & Peaceful Dying (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Date: 2011-10-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 115.5 minutes
Words: ~12,762
Page four of this little booklet. So refuge bodhicitta, four immeasurable, seven limb. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings be inseparable from the happiness that is free from suffering. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for friends and hatred for enemies. Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, mind. I present clouds of every type of offering, actual and imagined.
I confess all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time. I’m rejoice in the virtues of all holy and ordinary beings. Please remain until the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of dharma for living beings. I dedicate my own merits and those of all others to the great enlightenment. Idam guru ratna mandala kam nirya tayami. This ground, anointed with perfumes, strewn with flowers, adorned with Mount Meru, four continents, the sun, and the moon, I imagine this is a Buddha field and offer it.
May all living beings enjoy this pure land. O holy and perfect pure lama, from the clouds of compassion, that form in the skies of your dharmakaya wisdom, please release a rain of vast and profound Dharma precisely in accordance with the needs of those to be trained. Idam guru ratna mandala kam nirya tayami. So then we set our motivation. When we think about, doing our Dharma practice, is it only for ourselves?
If it’s only for ourselves, if we’re only trying to benefit ourselves in this life, then it’s not even Dharma practice. So that’s really worth thinking about. If it’s something worldly, wanting, praise, wanting to gain something, then it’s not Dharma practice. If it’s for liberation just for yourself, then it’s also not Mahāyāna because this is, something just for you, liberating yourself from your suffering. Doesn’t relate your practice to others.
So then that’s not Mahāyāna. So then the Mahāyāna motivation is I want to be enlightened. I must become enlightened as quickly as possible. Why? Because all sentient beings are suffering the same as me, but the advantage that I have is that I know my situation.
I know that I’m suffering. I know that even the pleasure that I have is also in the nature of suffering. And so as quickly as possible, I must liberate myself from Samsāra, become enlightened, and then be willing to come back and use whatever I have, whatever resources I have. My enlightenment is to be used for others. It’s not for me.
It liberates me, but the purpose is not for me. The purpose is for others. So then, what we’re concentrating on is bodhicitta. So this is great love, great compassion with wisdom, along with the special motivation I must become enlightened as quickly as possible. I must be liberated on this cushion, on this seat, in this session as soon as possible because I can’t stand the thought of sentient being suffering for even one more minute.
It’s unbearable. So it’s as if your hair is on fire. Right? If your hair was on fire as quickly as possible, you want to put the fire out. So you have to have that level of enthusiasm that as quickly as possible, you must become enlightened.
It’s not valid to think, I’m willing to wait three countless eons. On the other hand, you need to have the patience that says, well, if it’s going to take three countless eons, I’m willing to wait three countless eons. So it’s a bit of a paradox. On one hand, you’re saying, want to be as enlightened as quickly as possible. But then if it is going to take three countless eons, you can’t give up.
You can’t say, well, this is just not quick enough. I give up. You know? I’ve had enough. I’m going to go to some other system or I’m just going to enjoy saṃsāra.
Okay. So any questions that came up in the last week? Any problems? It’s very suspicious. Very suspicious.
I think you’re just shy. It’s not possible that you’re that intelligent even though you are from Adelaide. Yeah? Judy, isn’t it? Judy.
Airplanes. You’re probably not alone. I mean, how many of us are thinking, I really hope it’s worse than this life? You know? How many of us are praying for that?
Send me to hell. I’m going to hell. You know? How many of us are willing to do that? So I think you’re being honest in that you’re saying what we want is something better.
We invest something, and we want a good return. Right? If you put your money in the bank, you want a return, isn’t it? You want ten percent interest. You want them to get a good a good rate of interest.
Right. You’re the boat person. I think I think you you’re on the boat rowing, and they’re with you, and you’re all going together. But so maybe you like that feeling of let’s all go together. So you’re not thinking, may I go ahead?
And they’re behind. Yeah. But who knows what you’ve done in your past life? This is what I say to people. We don’t know what we’ve done that leads us to where we are now.
You know, imagine that we’ve already done three countless eons of practice, and this is the last life, but we don’t know this is the last life. Right? So we may be thinking, oh, I’ve just started, and now there’s three countless eons more, but we’re not aware of how much we’ve already done. I think you can tell how much Dharma practice you’ve done when you’re dealing with the the realities of life, the sufferings. You know, they’re the realities, aren’t they?
The suffering of birth, the suffering of aging, the suffering of sickness, of death. So I think for ordinary people in society, we talk about death, and they, oh, don’t talk about it. You know? Don’t later, when I’m older, getting closer to it, and then the line keeps moving. I’ll talk about when I’m sixty, when I’m seventy, when I’m eighty, but there’s no point when they say, oh, I’d like to talk about it.
You know? So for ordinary people, because there’s no philosophical background, it’s very difficult to talk about these subjects. But if you’ve got experience from the past, past lives, then you come in contact with the conditions, then you find that what you’re hearing really suits you. You want to talk about death, and not in a bleak way, but in a very positive way of, I’m going to another life. You know?
And that’s very positive that we know about it, that we have the road map. We want the map. We want the compass. We want the guidebook. You know, we want to know how to do it.
And that’s what Buddhism is very good at doing. It’s very good at making things clear. We’re not here to make more confusion. We’re here to make more clarity. And so I think if you’ve had a Dharma practice in the past, you have this need for more clarity.
And if you don’t get it, that’s confusing. That makes you feel like you you don’t quite know what’s going on. You know? I mean, it was like when I was small, I kept asking in school and in the church. So why Biafra?
If there’s a creator, why does this creator make Biafra, make Africa? And they said, be quiet. You know, you you can’t ask these questions. Now if I got a rational answer at that time, I’d probably still be in the church. But if you don’t get a rational answer, the reason why these things happen, then you feel disturbed.
Right? And so for some people, having faith in a god really works for them. Okay. He’s all knowing. He’s all creating.
He’s everything. So I just believe in him. I don’t have to do anything myself except have faith. The Buddhist system is much more complicated. You have to know about karma.
You have to know about rebirth because what’s the karma in relation to? Next life. You’re putting money in the bank, not for this life, for next life. So the death that we’re talking about is in relation to next life, the most constructive, the best death you can have, and then the best rebirth you can have because it’s in relation to the death, and then how to create the best such situation in the next life that you can become enlightened as quickly as possible. You need all those seeds that you’re planting in your garden.
Do you garden? You used to. So you know you have certain seasons for planting, isn’t it? You need to know when to take the bulbs out, when to put them in, which food to give them. That’s what we’re doing.
We’re creating the whole situation so that the plant will grow to its best ability. It will become the most beautiful plant that you’ve ever experienced. And the plant in our situation, the flower in our situation is the mind. We want to have a beautiful mind so that that beautiful mind in response to the world, responds in a loving, compassionate way. But not in a loving, compassionate something just came into my mind of, yeah, I hope that they don’t have suffering, and I hope that they are happy, but that’s it.
We have to do more than that. Because now we can see so much suffering in the world, so many problems. We have to be active. And I think as Buddhists, we’ve received a lot of criticism, for having big bums. You know what a bum is?
No. Oh, okay. Thank goodness for that. Thought I was going to have to go into that. It’s alright.
Though we sit on them. You know? This is what we’re known for. That, yeah, we sit on our bums and we don’t do anything. I don’t think it’s true anymore.
I think, you know, now Buddhists do have things that they do. They go out and they help people who are dying. They help the sick. They’re teaching children. And if we can get to the children and not give them the bad habits, they’re better off than we were.
Because we got the bad habits, and then we had to change them. So how incredible would it be not to have the bad habits? There was this amazing little boy here on Monday. Was there anybody here on Monday for the habits group? Well, for the Habits Group, there was this little boy here, maybe four or five, and he had a huge teddy bear.
Huge. Bigger than him. So he said to me, look at my teddy bear. And he put it on the floor, and he lay on top of the teddy bear, and he held it, you know, like I said, oh, I want a teddy bear like that. And he said, well, you can’t have one.
He said, this is mine. You know? This is mine. And I said, oh, okay then. He said, but you can buy one.
You can buy one. And I said, but I don’t have enough money. He said, well, you can save. This is under five years of age. You know?
It’s too much. So then I left them. They were here, and I went into the other room. And then he came a little bit later to talk to me. And then he said, you know, you can buy yourself one of these teddy bears.
And I said, oh, thank you very much. You know, he said, you save up. And I said, okay. And he went out, and then he came back again. He came back with two dollars, and he gave me two dollars.
He said, here you are. This is towards your teddy bear. You know? And I thought, wouldn’t it be incredible to have a mother like he’s got, to have an upbringing like that where the mother doesn’t say, what are you doing? You know, giving away two dollars.
You know? You can have a mother that’s saying, don’t do that, and don’t talk to strangers and, you know, to have some trust and faith. So I thought, yeah. We have to use what we have, the skills that we have in order to benefit others. And so in our peaceful living, peaceful dying, if we’re thinking about how we can benefit others, and it doesn’t have to be anything complicated.
It can be a smile. You know? I mean, a smile at this day this day and age can be something incredible. Not many people smile in the streets, in the malls. You know?
It’s a serious business going to the mall looking for something to buy, isn’t it? So it’s serious. You know, you go up and down the aisles with the trolleys, and it’s big business. And so, to have this sense of looking to see what can you do for others means you have to be more open, wiser, more compassionate, putting your practice out there, not just on the cushion, but out there in society. And so, I think we’ve been known as people who sit with our bums on the cushions, and the bum gets bigger and bigger, you know, because we just sit all the time.
This is what we were known as. As Buddhists. We were known as passive people. We didn’t do anything. But we had to have a certain level of practice from a Buddhist perspective in order to be able to go out and help.
Otherwise, you’re helping without wisdom and without compassion. So then your help can become harm. So now we have more wisdom, more compassion. What can we do with it? You start looking for ways to benefit in society that isn’t going to be very harmful, the least harmful possible.
It’s not going to be perfect because we may not be Bodhisattvas, we may not be Buddhas, but the least harmful and the most beneficial is what we’re looking for in our in our situation, whichever situation you have. That’s what we need to do. So then it’s putting your Dharma practice out there into society. And the repayment that you get from that is karma that’s inconceivable. You can’t even imagine what you’re you’re getting back because you don’t see it.
You know, you have your karma credit card and you’re using it, but you don’t get a balance. So by doing these activities, you’re actually accumulating huge amounts of merit, which which will ensure that the next life will be better, not worse. Because you’re using this life in order to make others happy, in order to benefit others. But we could be sitting at home thinking, me. What about me?
How can I benefit me? What can I do for me? But through your Dharma practice, you’re thinking, how can I benefit others? What can I do for them? And the result of that is that you receive benefit as much as they receive benefit.
You get more benefit than they get. So our Dharma practice is incredible, but I think often we don’t have the sense of joy about it. You know, that we forget. We’re accumulating huge amounts of positive energy, and we should be rejoicing. On a daily basis, we need gratitude, and we need rejoicing.
To be grateful for what we have, and also the Dharma practice that we came in contact with that enables us to become better people, and also having people to benefit. Imagine you want to give two dollars, but there’s nobody who will accept it. In order to give, you need to have people who will accept. So when people go to Asia, they say, so many beggars. It’s awful.
You know? But I think it’s an incredible opportunity. You don’t have that same opportunity in the West of seeing the beggar. You give anonymously. You know?
You give to Red Cross or any charity. You don’t necessarily see the people you’re benefiting. But in Asia, they’re there. They’re right in front of you. They’re the lepers and, the people with the maimed bodies, and you actually see the benefit that you are to them.
So I think on a daily basis, thinking about how grateful we are for what we have, for the resources that we have, and then, for the situation that we’re in because we have a dharma situation, and we’re using it for dharma purposes. How incredible. So then you think, how incredible. It doesn’t have to be complicated, you know, with holy language or anything, but you just think, how incredible that I’m in this situation right now. I could have been in many other situations, but my karma has brought me to this particular situation, teaching me how to benefit others, which means automatically I’m benefited.
And then rejoicing, think back over all the benefits that you’ve brought to others, all the goodness that you’ve offered to others. I think, over time, we’ve done a lot, but maybe we forget. We forget to rejoice. And rejoicing increases the power of the activity. So go back over your Dharma time and rejoice at all the goodness that you’ve offered to others.
Okay? Anyway, you you don’t have a problem next life, Judy. Judy. You don’t have a problem. You took refuge.
So Buddha said, you take refuge, you close the door to the lower realms. Click. You know? You lock it. Don’t open it again.
Our our anxiety and our fear can open it again. You know? You sort of look down. You think, oh, it’s enough. You know?
You did what you had to do. You you closed the door to the lower realms. Now what you need to be afraid of is wasting time in the upper realms, the god realms, the demigod realms. Particularly good to go to a pure realm, a place where Buddhas are teaching, because there you can become enlightened very quickly. The simplest one is Amitābha.
Amitābha’s pure realm. So if you research, look into Amitābha. In Asia, they chant Amitofu. Amitofu. Amitofu.
It’s very simple. But they have such a belief in Amitābha that they have this very strong connection with this Buddha who has a pure realm where you can go very easily. And then you take teachings, and then it said you come out of that pure realm. You come back as a human being one more rebirth, and then after that, you’re enlightened. Easy.
Easy peasy. You know? This is the bargain basement, the cheapest way to go. Then you have the other pure realms, are more difficult. You know?
You’ve got Tārā’s pure realm, Chenrezig pure realm, Lama Tsongkhapa’s pure realm. Each Buddha has a pure realm where they still are, they’re teaching. So because they’re pure, they create a pure realm. What they see is everything pure. So in order for you to experience it, you have to also be as pure as possible.
So that’s why it’s difficult to get in. It’s not that there’s a high entrance fee or, you know, you have to Mastercard it. It’s not like that. It’s that you need a certain karma to get in. And so Amitābha made special prayers to help those whose karma isn’t so strong so that we can get into Amitābha’s pure realm.
So it’s very good to get an Amitābha prayer. I’m sure they’re in the prayer books. And you pray to Amitābha, please may I be able to come to your your your pure realm. If you’re not sure about your practice, you’re not quite sure where you’re going in the next life, this is the best thing to do. It’s insurance.
It ensures that definitely you will do something very beneficial. Good for you, good for others. Okay? Anything else? Sure?
So I thought what we’d do is I’ll go through the stages of death, which is not conventional according to hospitals and doctors. So the time of death is different according to Buddhism and, Western medicine. And then, once we’ve talked about that, I’ll answer your questions, and then we’ll do the meditation based on this. So this is the eight dissolution, the eight stages of death. So this is very good for you to know because if you can meditate on this, then you’ll know the visions that will happen at each stage, and then you know which stage of dissolution are happening and, what’s coming.
It’s important for you to know what’s coming rather than not knowing at all. So, the first stage, you know, we have various aggregates. In the Heart Sūtra, it talks about various aggregates. So we have the aggregate of form. So this form.
So the aggregate of form is absorbed. So it doesn’t mean that, the form suddenly disappears, but what it means is that the subtle energy connected to the form is disappearing. And so the subtle, energy of form is absorbed, and then there’s a sign of that. And then the sign is that the physical body is becoming thinner, and it’s losing power. So what you will feel as the person who’s dying is that your body is getting thinner.
You’re losing power, but this is also something that you can see externally. Somebody looking at you can see this sign. Then there’s the great mirror like wisdom, which is absorbed, and this wisdom is something like a mirror that can reflect many objects simultaneously. You know, if I hold a big mirror here. Within that mirror, that mirror can reflect many, many things.
So this is called the great mirror like wisdom. So now, because this mirror like wisdom is absorbed, it means that we can’t do so many things simultaneously. We can’t be aware of so many things around us. Whereas up to now, we’ve taken this for granted. I can sit here and and notice all of you.
But now with this wisdom absorbed, then we become aware that, the vision and the mind is becoming more narrow. So, this is the wisdom that reflects many objects simultaneously. That’s being absorbed. So that means you cannot be aware of so many things. You can’t multitask is another way of saying it.
You can’t be so aware of many things happening around you. Then the next element, this is all in the first stage, so I’m still on the first stage. The earth element is absorbed, and there’s an external sign of the physical body becoming very thin. Again, the hands and the legs are very loose. So there’s this feeling of not being able to move the hands and the legs so cohesively.
You have you don’t have so much control over the hands and the legs. The big sign is, I think, that you feel this great weight of earth pressing down on the body. So somebody who’s dying in the first stage will say to you, I feel as though something’s pressing down on me, a great weight of earth. This is caused by the earth element. Then the eye sense, this is the the eye EYE.
So the eye sense power is absorbed, and this means you can’t control or move the eyes. So whichever direction the eyes are facing, that’s now the direction they stay in. You don’t have the ability to move the eyes any longer. And then the inner subtle form is absorbed, so we had the, the aggregate of form. So now, this is something much more subtle.
And the external sign is the color of the physical body is fading, and the body is losing its strength completely. So, before before the death process, the body would have had color, but now through this first process, the first stage, the limbs were becoming weak. You lost the ability to move the eyes. You can’t be aware of so many things happening around you. And now the physical body has completely lost its strength, so there’s no feeling that you can move your body.
There’s not there’s not a feeling of, power and strength within the body. And so now this is the end of the first stage, and at the end of the first stage, there is a vision. At the end of each stage, there’s a vision. So what you’re looking for particularly is this vision, which tells you the first stage is finished, and you’re about to go into the second stage. And the vision is a trembling silver blue mirage.
So this looks like water in the heat. You know, on a very hot day, it looks like there’s a silver blue water in the distance, and it’s trembling in the heat. So that’s the sign that the first stage has finished. Okay? And this can be happening over weeks or months.
It’s not necessarily that somebody will start the death process today and be dead by tomorrow. It can happen over months. I don’t think years, but I think months is very possible. Really? How long has it been happening?
Right. He can be your clinical study. Yeah. Yeah. Now people often say, where do you get all this information from?
And it’s from enlightened minds of beings who can remember this whole process. And so they pass it on to you so that it’s less frightening. If you know this is what’s coming, it’s not frightening. Whereas if it’s unknown, it can be very frightening because he he might be thinking, so why am I losing so much weight? Why don’t I have such an ability to move?
But if you know that this is connected to the first stage, you make use of your time. Active. Right. Right. Right.
He’s not spiritual. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it’s helpful to talk to somebody outside of the situation. You know?
Somebody he doesn’t know. Somebody very attractive. I think we know who we’re talking about, don’t we? Oh, not me. I was thinking I was thinking of her.
Because we have a group of people, you know, who help with the with the dying. So I think, if you get along with somebody, and they’re not part of the family, you’re not in a relationship, you can actually start to ask things and talk about things that you wouldn’t normally ask and talk about. It has to be somebody outside. So ask him, would you like to talk to somebody? Ask him.
Say, I asked. You know? There’s no harm in asking because all he can say is no. But you can say, anyway, the offer’s there if ever you want to talk to somebody, not in a religious way, but just to be able to explore the possibilities of what’s going to happen at the time when we die. You know?
It’s important for him not to feel afraid. Of course, even though we know deep down inside, still this is unknown, in that we can’t remember that we’ve been through this before. It might be good to to get a book like the Bardo, you know, Tibetan Book of Living and Dying or, you know, one of these books and just leave it lying around. And maybe he’ll read. You can’t give books to people and say read.
But if you leave them lying around, often they’ll read them. You know? So in these situations, you have to be skillful in that when somebody’s afraid, then they try to hide the fear. And so asking for help is showing fear. So it depends on the upbringing, doesn’t it?
Yeah. So the second stage the second stage is the aggregate of feeling is absorbed. So now the external sign is that the physical body isn’t experiencing pain, pleasure, or indifference. So up until now, we’ve had those three feelings, pain, pleasure, indifference, And now we stop experiencing those. So it’s it’s like we go into an into neutral.
And that would be quite disturbing because up until now, I am my body, but now you’re not experiencing your body. Your body is not giving you any feedback as to whether it’s in pain or whether it has pleasure or it’s between the two. There’s no sign coming to your mind that this is what the body’s experiencing. So this can be quite distressing when somebody thinks I am my body. Then the wisdom of equanimity is absorbed.
So this is the wisdom that understands the feelings of pleasure, pain, indifference. So this is similar except this one’s mental, and the other one was physical. Okay? So we had the physical feelings of pain and pleasure. This has now disappeared.
Now we have the wisdom of equanimity. So this is the feelings of pleasure, pain, and indifference, and now we see them all as the same nature. So we don’t understand them anymore. So whether it’s, seeing a friend, seeing an enemy, it all seems the same. We don’t understand the differences between people anymore.
Then the water element is absorbed, and this is all the liquids of the body. So remember, we’re going through the death process, but the person’s still alive. Okay? So the water element is absorbed, which means the liquids of the body, the urine, the blood, saliva, sweat, everything is drying up. It’s not completely dry because you couldn’t stay alive if it was, but there’s this feeling of dryness.
And then we have the ear sense power absorbed. So this is, the ears so that the external sign is hearing ceases. They can no longer hear anything. Again, this must be very frustrating. So you’ve lost the power of moving your eyes.
You you’re still aware of something. Now you can’t hear. So the the level of frustration must be building within the person who’s going to pass away. And then, you know, there’s a sound in your ear, which can be really irritating sometimes, but now that sound stops. So now you can rejoice.
If you have the sound, you think, well, at least I’m still alive. So that buzzing in the ear ceases. This is one of the signs that you’re dying. So the the fact that we have that buzzing sound all the time is a sign of life. Now you’ll rejoice when you hear it.
And now at the end of the second stage, we have the internal sign, which is a vision of smoke. So it’s usually said to be gray smoke. It’s like the room is full of smoke, and the smoke is a grayish or a grayish blue color. Okay. Do you need me to repeat anything?
Those of you who are writing? Okay. Then we go on to the third stage. So now it’s the aggregate of discrimination, which is absorbed, aggregate of discrimination. So the external sign is that you can no longer recognize relatives and friends.
And then the wisdom of discriminating awareness is absorbed. And this is the wisdom that helps you to remember who are friends, what the what the label is. So you remember who your relatives are, who your friends are. So the external sign is you can no longer remember names. A bit worrying if if you are getting older and you’re forgetting names.
You’re not in the second stage or third stage of dying. Just happens, doesn’t it? No. So irritating. But imagine you can’t remember anybody.
You’re sure that there’s something important to you, but you can’t remember what? I’m sure that’s my relative or my friend, but can’t remember who they are or what they are or what their name is. It must be so frustrating. So imagine if this is somebody who doesn’t know what’s happening, that that sense of frustration would be developing within them. Because you’re still alive, but you’re going through this process of losing all the qualities that you had.
One by one, they’re disappearing. Then the fire element is absorbed, and the external sign is the person is losing the heat element of the body. So there’s no feeling of heat coming from the body. And then another sign is the person is no longer able to digest food. So if there is any food within the stomach, if this is happening quite quickly, it will feel like there’s a lump of food just sitting in the stomach.
But, anyway, this person wouldn’t feel like they need they want to eat, and anything inside feels heavy. The nose element is absorbed, and so now the external sign is that breathing in is becoming difficult and weaker, and breathing out becomes stronger and longer. So the breath is now changing. Breathing in is weaker. Okay?
And breathing out is stronger and longer. So that’s a major change. So that’s the nose element. And then the nose sense power is absorbed, which means that you can no longer detect smells. So that’s the external sign.
Then internally at the end of the third stage, there would be a vision of sparks of fire. So this is, something like the barbecue, not the gas barbecue, but the wood barbecue. You know, when you poke the fire and these sparks come up, that’s the sort of vision that you have. Or like fireflies in the dark, these little specks of light. So fireflies or sparks of fire.
This is a vision that you’re going to get at the end of the third stage. Okay. Now we go into the fourth stage, and this is where, things radically change. So now the aggregate of compounded phenomena is absorbed. So what that means is externally, the physical body no longer moves.
Then the all accomplishing all accomplishing wisdom is absorbed. This is the ability to remember outer work, outer success, the purpose of your life. All this is is absorbed and lost. And you may think, anyway, who cares? You’re dying.
But I can tell you, any anything that you had before, you’re losing. So you may think right now you wouldn’t be bothered forgetting about your work or your success and what your life was about. But for this person, they’re losing all these abilities. So they’ve forgotten their family. They’ve forgotten their friends.
They’ve forgotten their partner. They can no longer smell anything. They can no longer hear anything. Their eyes can’t move, so they probably can’t see very much. But maybe up until now, they could remember, oh, my work.
You know, I was successful in my I was an artist or I was a poet or something like that. Now they even lose that ability. Sure. Right. The external sign is that the physical body no longer moves.
So before, it was losing its power, but now it cannot move at all. Before, there would have been this sense of, you know, maybe the toes could move or the fingers could move. There was a small movement available, but now there’s absolutely no movement. And so with this all accomplishing wisdom absorbed, the external sign is losing the idea of the necessity and the purpose of work. So there’s no no sense of, I think, connection between the self and the outside world and work.
Now the air element is absorbed, and what this means in is breathing ceases. So this is clinically what we would call death, but it’s in Buddhism, it’s just the fourth stage. So the air element is absorbed, the breathing ceases, And then after that, the the taste sense power is absorbed, which means the tongue is changing. The tongue will contract, and it thickens, and the root turns blue. So the tongue itself changes color.
The root turns blue, and the tongue, thickens. It looks different. This is the taste sense power. And then the last one is the tactile sense power is absorbed, which means, the body no longer can tell the difference between rough and smooth sensations. And, again, you think, well, you’ve just stopped you’ve just stopped breathing.
Why is it important? But it’s important to be clear about the elements as they’re absorbing and the effect that it has on the mind. It’s not that we’re saying it matters to the person who’s just stopped breathing, but one of the consequences is they’ve lose they’ve lost the last sense power, which is tactile sense, that sense of touch. So this is the last one to go. They no longer feel soft and rough sensations.
Now this is the vision of the fourth stage, which is it’s a dim red blue light dim red blue light, a little bit like if you have a candle burning and that candle is just going out. You know how it goes that red blue, and then it goes out. So there’s not a lot of light. It’s not a strong light. It’s a dim light as if the candle’s about to go out.
Okay. Now we go into five, six, seven, and eight, and these are visions. So at the fifth stage, you have the white vision. And inside your meditation is a vision of a very clear sky like that in autumn. So, the sky or the the visualization that we’re looking for, it’s a very clear sky, which is actually the mind, and the light is the light of autumn, which is different to the light of spring.
So the spring light would be very strong, whereas the autumn light is a little bit softer. Okay? And in the sky, it appears to be lit up by the moon. So you’ve got this autumn sky, which is lit up by the moon, but it’s not a very strong, bright, white light. That’s a different one.
So this light is caused by prana, the energy, moving in the left and the right channels, coming up into the head chakra, coming down through the central chakra sorry, central channel. So this vision is occurring when this energy is going into the central channel. So, you know, you have three channels. Maybe you don’t. We have three channels.
They finish here. It’s like an umbrella handle. So from here, the channels curve around into the crown and then go down following the spine. And the channels are subtle energy. You can’t actually see them, but they’re what you experience in meditation.
Then, they come down into the sacrum, and they curve again like an umbrella handle, and they finish just behind the sexual organ. So they start from the sexual organ and go up parallel to the spine and then come down to here. And then the chakras are along those three channels. So, usually, the the central channel is closed. Usually.
The central channel is where you want to put your energy when you’re doing meditation. If you can gather the energy of the left and right channel and bring it into the central channel, it then gives you single pointed meditation, a meditation where your mind doesn’t move. But, usually, what we’re doing is we’re moving from channel to channel. We go from attachment to aversion, back to attachment, back to aversion. But where your mind is when it’s not moving is in the central channel.
So you know these meditators who get buried under the ground or, sit for weeks without any food and water, and virtually their physical signs are are zero, you know, very little heartbeat. Their signs are very minimal. They’re in the central channel. They’ve moved the energies into the central channel. So what’s happening now is that energies are unblocking, and they’re moving into the central channel.
So the vision of white is coming because of the energy which has come into the crown chakra, and it’s come into the central chakra, and it’s connected with the white seed from the father. So there’s a white seed from the father and the red, seed from the mother. And this white seed is now coming down into the heart chakra, and this is called the empty vision. Empty. You have to be really careful that you don’t stay in meditation on this particular white light.
This is not the clear light of death. This is just the movement of energy of the white seed from the father. What you’re looking for is the clear light of death, and then you want to hold your meditation on that, not this. This is why you need to know step by step what you’re doing. So that’s the fifth stage.
And then the sixth stage is a red vision, and this is a vision of a copper red reflection in the sky. So same as before, you have the same sky, which is your mind, but now you have this copper red vision, which is appearing in the sky. And this is the energy, which is again going to the central channel in the heart. It’s opening the navel and the fifth chakra, and it’s coming from the red seed, which, was given by the mother. So now, the mother’s energy is moving, and this is giving a red vision.
And before, it was the father’s energy, which was moving and giving the white vision. So this red energy, red seed from the mother is coming into the heart chakra before we had the white seed from the father moving into the heart chakra. It’s okay? Now the seventh stage is called the dark vision, and this is a vision of empty darkness. So it’s a little bit like looking out into dark and empty space as if you went up into a spaceship and you’re out in space.
There’s no light. There’s no stars. There’s nothing. There’s just dark and empty space. So what’s happening now is that the white seed and the red seed are coming together.
They’re absorbed into a tiny seed at the heart. The bottom of that seed is red, and the top half is white. So you have these two energies which are absorbed into one small seed, And so as they’ve come together, they’ve formed a red part in the bottom and a white part in the top. And so this vision of darkness is happening when these two energies are coming together. After this vision of darkness, it feels like you’re fainting.
So it feels like you’re fainting away and you become unconscious. And then the subtle mind arises. So you’ve had these energies moving within the subtle channels, the red seed and the white seed. They come together. They produce a sort of swooning, you know, as if you lose consciousness.
And then what comes out of that is the clear light of death, the pure mind itself, the the Buddha potential. So the eighth stage is the clear light vision. So this is where you want to stop. You want to stay here as long as possible. This clear light vision is the mind itself and the emptiness of the mind itself.
So the nature of the mind is empty. So you want to stay on the emptiness of the mind. And the longer you stay, the more your physic the more your spiritual power develops and grows. So it’s said that you can become enlightened in this stage within this eighth level. You can become enlightened.
So Geshe Lama Konchog stayed six days in this. Lama Lhundrup stayed, I think, three or four days. By the way, one of the relics that Lama Lhundrup produced is a conch shell. Did you hear? It’s a tiny conch shell from his body, from the fire.
It’s a tiny conch shell with a perfectly formed that blows your mind. Right? You think, how is it possible? There was one meditator. He was in the Tibetan army.
He stayed in meditation for one year on the clear light. Ling Rinpoche stayed in the body, I think, thirteen days. Different people stay different lengths of time. Depends on how long they feel is beneficial for sentient beings. Usually, high lamas will stay a week, two weeks, you know, up to, say, two weeks.
But then they know that their students are waiting for them. And so they sort of they’ll wait long enough, but they want to get on with things. Whereas this, monk, he was just a simple monk. He stayed in the body one year. Yeah.
Now it they say it’s as if, there’s a beautiful smell in the room. I went to see Geshe Kachog, the old lama from Kopan who used to do all the divinations. I went to see him when he was sitting meditation. And there was a very beautiful smell in the room, and it was extremely peaceful. It was like he was in meditation.
His body looked like it was alive. And then when the body collapses, it’ll sort of slump, and then you’ll you’ll see blood coming from the nostril. So this is the seed coming out through the nostril. This tells you the person’s left the body. So this is what we’re looking for when somebody’s died within the public hospital system or in a hospice.
Preferably, you don’t want to touch them before this sign has happened. It doesn’t happen in every case, but in many cases, you do see this blood coming out, And then that tells you the consciousness has left the body. So for us, after the eighth stage, when the consciousness has left the body, is what we call death. But for, clinical death, you’d be talking about the full stage. Clinical death.
It’s difficult. It’s very difficult. I mean, I know with Lama Yeshe, he was in Mount Sinai Hospital, and the doctors, really liked Lamayeshi, and so they negotiated. There was a deal that they struck because they said, we can’t leave the body lying around. You know, we’re not allowed to by law.
And so they arranged for the body to be put in another room separate from his room for twenty four hours. They agreed to it. And so they kept the body in that room. They did pooches and prayers, and then, they had to allow the cremation. Well, the system that we have is against us, really.
You know? I mean, maybe dying at home, you may be able to get away with it. But within a hospital or a hospice, I think you can’t get away with it. It’s very difficult once the body is touched, the the consciousness tends to come out of the body. And so that’s why they say when you walk in to see the body, the worst thing is to put your hands on the feet.
That’s what a lot of people do. You know, they walk in and they sort of they want to touch something. And so they touch the feet, and that encourages the consciousness to come out of the feet, which encourages a bad rebirth. So if you have to touch the body, touch the crown. Pull the hair on the crown if there is hair or touch the crown, and that encourages the consciousness to go out of the touch the consciousness.
Yeah. And then they will have to go. But in the meantime, contact Kopan, you know, if you have a lama and ask them to do practices for you because there’s the transference of consciousness practice power of sending the consciousness to a pure realm. And so if you have people who can do pujas for you in that time before they touch the body, it’s very good to have that done. You know?
So this should all be organized before it happens. We shouldn’t leave it to the last minute and so, oh, now what should we do? We should be very aware of of the potential in the situation. And I think preferably stay at home. Or, you know, if the hospital will release you to go home and there’s people who can look after you, maybe that’s good.
But I think because Western society is really imperfect for this, there’s no understanding of this at all. I think we’re up against, a very difficult situation when we’re trying to get the most out of the death. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Don’t call him. What so what would happen in our system if when somebody’s died, if we don’t call the doctor, say, four or five days if the person’s in meditation, what would what would happen? Would you? Really?
Yeah? How would they know? Right. Because if there’s no signs of death apart from the breathing stuffing, if the person’s still in meditation, the bed the body still seems fresh. Rigor mortis only starts when the consciousness leaves the body.
Right? But this is something I wonder that we’d have to find out. What do they do? If it’s a Buddhist hospice group, how do they deal with this? Because, ideally, you should leave the body alone until the consciousness has left, but they probably have the same problem, you know, of not being able to leave the body alone.
Gosh. That brought up a lot of things, didn’t it? Now the self concern comes up. Yeah. Right.
Right. I think nothing because I think by that time, he would have gone. Because they do embalming and fiddling around with the body, isn’t it? Michel. Well, as soon as they start touching the body, wherever they touch the body, that’s going to encourage the consciousness to leave at that time.
I mean, what we’re talking about is a nice death, you know, in quotation marks. But what about a car accident, being hit by a car, something like that? This is not what we would call a nice death. And so in those deaths, usually, one to eight happens very quickly, and you come out of the body very quickly. So it might happen all within five minutes or three minutes, Whereas what we could be talking about is months.
It could be happening over six months. So in, say, the old days in Tibet, these traumatic deaths would not usually happen unless you were gored by a yak or, you know, you were taking the yaks to somewhere else and they fell off the mountain or something like that. But this would be the unusual. The usual would be you’d have a very pleasant death surrounded by family and friends, and, the body could stay there as long as it liked. But nowadays, we’re faced with a Western society which will not accept, I would think, leaving the body alone.
And so we’re losing the opportunity of the time of death. So we have to try and think what what we can do. Another question could be, on top of the autopsy, what about donating organs? You know, should you? And Lama Zopa says, you should even though it means them cutting into the body as quickly as possible, it’s more important to have the compassion to offer the organs than to say, don’t touch the body.
You know? My rebirth is the most important thing to me. So when you’re comparing one mind with another, offering the organs is the best. Yeah. I think better not to touch the hand.
It’s not the worst place to touch, but it’s also not the best. You know? Here here is the best. There or possibly the heart, but then you wouldn’t normally touch somebody’s heart. Know?
It’s true that we tend to hold somebody’s hand. Yeah. Yeah. But that’s going to encourage the consciousness to come from here, and I’m not sure what that what that karma is. It’s somewhere in the middle.
It may not be good, and it may not be bad. It depends on the person’s karma. There was yeah. It’s probably better not to have intervention if possible, and so this brings up another issue of writing a living will or, having a power of attorney. So years ago, it was that you could write a living will, which said they should not intervene.
But then I heard this was overturned in America, and, the doctors went against living wills. So then, now they say you should have a power of attorney. And you give the power to somebody, and you have to tell that person in specific instances what you want done and what you don’t want done. So before you die, you have to say, if I’m in a coma, don’t use machines and switch over blah blah blah blah. You know?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you have to be very clear about what you want to have happen.
Right. Or not, which you think seem to think not. Oh, from from which perspective? Yes. Yes.
So what’s happening in these stages of death is the gross dissolution and then the subtle dissolution of all of the energies. So once all the gross and subtle energies of the body, the five aggregates, form, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors, consciousness, once they have all dissolved and they have a gross aspect as well as a subtle aspect, That produces visions. It produces certain things happening within your mind that you’re aware of. So there’s signposts along the way. You know, oh, this is happening, and this is happening, and this is happening.
Then you come down to the fifth stage. So by that stage, we’re down to extremely subtle energies. So this is the seed of the mother and the father. And as these seeds move, then they produce visions. When these seeds come together, again, there’s a vision, which is a dark vision.
And then, virtually, that disappears, and then all that’s left is the mind itself. And so the mind itself is what we’re experiencing when we’re listening. It’s the mind that’s aware. So, that mind is now meditating on the emptiness of the mind. So it’s, again, it’s something extremely subtle.
When we think, is there a mind? If we believe in mind itself, then it’s as if the mind has an entity, has a form, which it doesn’t. My we only know mind through, what it’s reflecting. So then what leaves the body is mind, is that awareness, that consciousness. So that’s what leaves the body, and then that mind, that subtle consciousness, is then looking for another body.
So that, you can say it’s all of the imprints of all the actions that we’ve done from beginningless time. So all the positive imprints, all the negative imprints, and the, neutral imprints because the neutral is also, imprints of ignorance. Neutral is not neutral. It’s I don’t care, basically, is what we call neutral. So all of those imprints are carried forward, and they’re carried forward into a Bardo.
So now when we’ve left the body, this subtle consciousness, which we call mind, leaves the body. When it leaves the body, it goes into an intermediate state, which is called a Bardo. And in that Bardo, you have a subtle form. You have subtle aggregates, not gross aggregates. So these are gross aggregates.
Now you have a subtle form, and that subtle form looks like the form that you’re about to take. So if you’re going to be an animal, you’ll have a subtle form of an animal. If you’re going to be human, you’ll have a subtle form of a human. So this is what we could call ghosts, And then, you start looking for parents, and then you’re you have an attraction, for one of the parents and an aversion for the other, and then we take rebirth. So, what we come down to is something extremely subtle.
The mind, which has the potential to be enlightened. Desire and desire and attachment. Yeah. Your own desire and attachment. You have desire and attachment for your own body, for your own situation, your own guesthouse, your own hotel.
Right? So you you you checked into this hotel because you like the look of it, the mother and the father. Now you’ve checked out involuntarily. They said enough is enough. You’ve been here a long time.
Time to get out. Now you’ve got the opportunity to check back in to another hotel. We want the ability to discriminate which country, which family, where are we going, instead of just I’m desperate for a body, I want to take anybody. Thank you. Ah, so desire and attachment and ignorance create saṃsāra and create saṃsāra rebirth.
Then when you’re taking rebirth because of compassion, wisdom, you’re taking rebirth not out of saṃsāra, but out of your love and compassion and your concern for others. And so somebody like Lama Yeshe can decide he wants to be Spanish. He’s decided the parents. He’s decided the situation because he knows this is the most beneficial for him and for others. But for us, we’re just desperate.
We’re, like, people have been living in India for many years and have never seen a supermarket, and somebody brings us to Australia and takes us to Coles, and we go berserk. You know? We’re running up and down the aisles and just putting all the stuff in the basket, and it doesn’t matter whether we want it or not. We’re just desperate. You know?
It’s this desire and attachment and grasping energy. It’s not particularly pleasant. And so when we’re floating around with that desire and attachment, you see two beings copulating, and you think body, and you take rebirth. It’s not necessarily desirable from the sense of Dharma practice continuing on. It’s more from the sense of body building, guesthouse.
This is why, you know, in Buddhism, we talk about three principles. We have renunciation, bodhicitta, and emptiness. So the first one, renunciation, is letting go. When you have a problem, breathe it out. Let it go.
When you have attachment, breathe it out. Let it go. When you have desire, breathe it out. Let it go. So you’re training yourself not to be so attached to the things of this world, the happiness of this world.
Then with renunciation, you have space because you’re not so tight about everything. You have space, and then you’ve got space for others. This is when bodhicitta can develop. But then bodhicitta can be the cause of the ego. Look at me, people.
I’m a bodhisattva. You know? So now you need emptiness of bodhicitta, which is ultimate bodhicitta. Yes. I have bodhicitta, but it’s empty of inherent existence.
If others didn’t exist, then I couldn’t be a bodhisattva. So it’s dependent, interdependent. You know? So why are you being egotistical? Well, I think maybe that’s a bit too ambitious.
If we’re ordinary human beings, what we’re looking for is to continue our Dharma practice. If you can be reborn with wisdom and compassion, you can rebirth be reborn possibly as a bodhisattva. And then a bodhisattva is taking birth from a different perspective than we are. We’re continuing our saṃsāra. We’re like suffering magnets.
You know? The suffering just keeps happening because we’re we’re magnets for it. But with a bodhisattva, then you took rebirth because of compassion and wisdom. And so everything that you have is a resource for others. You still have work to do on yourself, but you’ve got more resources to use for others.
Enlightenment is having no negativities at all. The mind has realized its potential. So it it’s pure. The mind is pure anyway, but obscured by karma and delusion. There’s no negative karma.
There’s no delusion. There’s only wisdom and compassion. And so, what that produces is a perfect body. And this is what we call the truth body or the form body of a Buddha, the dharmakaya. And so, this is much more subtle than what we have.
We have bodies that are made of ordinary samsaric material. Buddhas have bodies that are made of light because they have no need for flesh and and bones and that sort of thing. So their situation is very different from us. Theirs is perfect. Ours is imperfect without the judgment on it.
It’s just imperfect because of what we’re doing. We experience suffering. We create more causes of suffering. This is what we call saṃsāra. You know?
It just keeps going around. Mhmm. She can be sitting right next to you. Poke poke your finger through and see. You She’s on a diet.
It will get better. You know? It’s hard to say who are Buddhas because Buddhas want to manifest in ways that benefit us. So it’s said that Buddhas manifest in a way that benefits you. So it could be a dog.
It can be a human. It can be a bird. It can be a glass of water. Buddhas can manifest. You choose what it will be.
Right. Yes. Yes. It has to it has to manifest as solid and real because then you’ll say, oh, but you’re not a Buddha. So then you wouldn’t well, let me show you.
You know? And then you float on a lotus, then then that wouldn’t be a Buddha. So the Buddha would have to manifest in a way that is appropriate for us. You know? Something close to us.
Right? There was somebody over here. Yeah. Well, it’s tragic. First of all, you finished the karma that you were experiencing, but you have to continue it in the next life.
And then I think to die in such a suffering way, such a negative way, is very harmful to that person and to the others around them. I think what it does to families is tragic. You know? I don’t think, often families get over it because they can’t understand. You know?
Sometimes they don’t leave notes, so then they don’t really understand why did this happen, and could we have done more, but why, but how? You know? So I think it’s a horrible thing to do to others from the point of view of distress. Well, it can also be that your karma is forcing you into this thought. The only solution is to commit suicide, but you have free will.
Even though it’s very difficult, you have free will. And so to exert your free will to not do this. But, you know, for some people, maybe it’s the only solution for them. But very quickly. It’s it’s like this.
There’s no awareness. You know? If it was a bodhisattva, they could have awareness and they could have control. But for an ordinary being, they’re going to go through all of this very quickly. But because there’s also extreme suffering, the mind would be very negative, then I think it would be really difficult.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
I think so because I what I’ve seen in the lamas who are my teachers who passed away, they have a great sense of peace about it. But even ordinary Dharma practitioners also seemed to die in a very nice way. There was a German nun, in Dharmashala who died, and she used to take care of dogs. She had a lot of dogs. Any dog in the street, she would pick them up and take care of them.
And so she was in her eighties, I think, when she was dying. And then she went into a a virtually a coma, and so somebody brought a picture of his holiness and put it on the side of the bed. And just before she passed away, she turned her head and looked at the picture and just had a big smile, and then she went. So I think if you’ve got this, day after day, week after week, year after year practice, it culminates in a good death. You know, the the signs of that are there.
And I think that we’re training to be alone. You know? Renunciation is we are alone. We’re born alone. We die alone.
It’s not you saying this is this is not true. This is not real. It’s true. We’re born alone even though the mother’s there, but we’re alone. When we come out, it’s only me experiencing it, only my mind experiencing it.
When I’m dying, I’m alone. You may have people around, but you feel alone. And so if you train in your life to be alone, even though you’ve got people around, then I I don’t think it’s so traumatic. But if you if you keep cheating yourself and saying, I really must have people around and, you know, you have that grasping for people, attachment for people, you have more suffering because it’s not the reality. The reality is the mind cannot grasp onto anything.
Even your own body cannot be possessed, cannot be owned because we’re going to leave. But we cheat ourselves and we say, you know, it’s my body. It’s my mind. You know, like that. So I I think it’s very good to train to be realistic, to let go of the attachments, let go of the grasping, let go of the pets.
Pets could also get you, you know, at the last minute. I don’t wanna leave the dog behind or the cat behind. So that could be a big distraction. I want somebody to go with me. You know?
It’s not gonna happen. So better we’re very honest with ourselves and say, no. It’s not like that. This is the reality. You know?
We have the ability to control our minds. Then that gives us the ability to benefit others, which, by the way, benefits us. We’re not doing it for that, but, anyway, it’s going to happen that we’re benefited because we’re benefiting others. You know? Yeah.
I think I think if you’ve been training in this throughout your life, his holiness says he does it six times a day. He dies six times a day. And he says he’s very excited about death. Very excited. He wants it to happen.
You know? Whereas for us, if we don’t do this very often, we might have some some fear, some anxiety about it. And so it’s a little bit like the mind’s pushing it away. You don’t want to approach it. I think what we have to do is have courage and say, listen.
I’m going to die. So if I train on a daily basis, I’m taking away the anxiety, the stress, and I’m going to be able to do it in a very good way in that this gives you the map, the way of reaching where you want to reach bodhicitta enlightenment. So I’m absolutely sure, looking at very good practitioners, there definitely is a control over the mind. But also for ordinary practitioners, if we train enough and we have faith in our Guru, you know, and that seems to be the key also, that you maintain your mind on your guru, then at that time, you don’t have a problem. You know?
Ursula, this German nun, she looked at his holiness, and she just smiled and died. You know? Because she was so close to his holiness, she’d lived near his holiness, I think, forty years. She was a nun for thirty years. You’re not monks and nuns, but you don’t have to be.
You just have to have a beautiful mind. So how do you develop a beautiful mind? You look at your guru and you’re inspired. Isn’t it? You look at his holiness, you get inspired or or Rinpoche.
Your guru is Rinpoche. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So you you can be inspired.
So you keep a photograph near your bed, and then when you’re dying, you just look at the photograph. You remember all the love and all the kindness. You die with love and kindness, isn’t it? Then no problem. What’s the time?
Last one. Yes. As you are. Yes. As you are.
Yes. Yes. Oh, god. These sentient beings are such a pain in the neck. They want my eyes.
They want my ears. They want everything. Well, I guess it depends on are you cheating yourself or not. If you’re cheating yourself, you’re saying, take my organs, but deep down inside, you’re saying, but I don’t really want to give them. It’s like when you’re giving something and you think, you know, you don’t really want to give it, but you’re giving it because it looks good.
You know? You want to be a good Buddhist, and so you show. It’s like a show, but it’s not real. You know? So I I think that we have to be real in our practice, not cheating ourselves in the sense of if you’re not generous, don’t pretend to be generous.
You have to find your starting point. No problem. Yep. No problem. Lama Zopa says no problem.
He says it’s more important to give than to be thinking my body. You know? Because, anyway, you’re leaving the body. So, actually, it was a lady in her eighties who wrote to Lama Zopa. It’s in the book, ask a lama, questions that people ask Lama Zopa.
So it’s a lady in her eighties, and she said, well, this is the question I have. You know? Should I donate my organs? And I’m not sure they want my organs because they’re old, but what should I do? And Rinpoche says, give them.
It’s about the it’s about your your your motivation for living your life. So if at the very end, when you’re dying, you suddenly come up with this, me holding on to my body is more important than me giving organs to others, then again, you’re going back to selfish concern. So you want to hold on to that loving concern for others rather than for the self. And if you do that, the future’s no problem. You know?
How can loving concern for others harm you? This is what we keep coming back to, isn’t it? Yeah. It doesn’t matter because your loving concern for others is more important than the hand going on the body. You know?
But if you don’t have that loving concern for others, you need all the help you can get. Keep their hands off you. You know? Lock the door. Leave the body as long as possible.
But, you know, if you have that loving concern, they can do what they like. It’s not going to affect you because you’re focused on others. Then that means you’re. If I say last question, there’ll always be somebody who says, but that didn’t mean me, did it? What?
Oh, maybe. I guess they’re in countries where they don’t have donation of organs. They’re dying in India and Nepal. We don’t have our organ donation so much, and they’re usually old. Geshe Kachog was ninety-one.
I don’t think anybody’s gonna want his organs. Ling Rinpoche, I think, was in his seventies. Geshe Lama Konchog was in his seventies. Usually, they’re ages when, they don’t use the organs. But if it’s somebody younger, say, younger lama, then I think they would be willing for it to happen.
It depends on whether there’s more benefit to donate the organs to one person or to use the body to inspire many by producing relics. You know, Geshe Lama Konchog produced so many relics that really if if they gave the body away. You know? So for the lama, it’s the decision as to what’s the most benefit. What do I do with this body when it passes away?
And so if they make relics, then that inspires you into thinking there is something really special after death. I mean, producing a conch conch shell, very small, with perfect spirals. Can we imagine? You know? Isn’t it quite amazing?
It’s in Copan. Hopefully, I’ll see it. I’ll let I’ll let you know. Hopefully, I’ll bring it back. Just borrowing it.
Geshe Lama Konchog, they had so many of these self multiplying pills that keep multiplying till today, and five colored hairs, white, red, blue, yellow, green, different dakinis, really long hair, the tongue that was a Buddha in the tongue, female Buddha, and a female Buddha imprinted into the skull, and the heart isn’t burned. It’s like plastic. So incredible. There’s a whole room of the relics in Copan, and then relics went to every center around the world. Over a hundred and sixty centers received relics, and students received relics, and there’s a room of relics.
It shows you how many relics there there were. Yeah. Really incredible. So we’re going to do the meditation, maybe about fifteen minutes. So the most important thing when you’re doing meditation is to have a straight back.
Breathing through the nostrils all the way down into the abdomen. Breathing in peace and breathing out thoughts. And then just imagine that you’re in a comfortable bed surrounded by friends and family. The atmosphere is very peaceful and calm. The nurses and doctors have checked your signs.
You know that you’re dying. You’re not anxious. You know what’s going to happen. So your physical body is becoming thinner and losing power. Your mind’s not so aware of many objects.
Your hands and legs are very loose, and you feel as though your body is being buried under a great weight of earth. You can no longer move your eyes. You can’t control them. And you feel as though your body has lost all its strength. And at the end of the first stage, there’s a vision of trembling silver blue mirage like water in the heat.
And as we go into the second stage, your body doesn’t experience pain, pleasure, or indifference anymore. And you no longer remember the feelings of pleasure and pain and indifference. All the liquids of the body are drying up. You can’t hear anything, and the buzzing in your ear ceases. At the end of the second stage, there’s a vision of smoke.
At the beginning of the third stage, you no longer recognize your relatives or your friends. You can’t remember their names. The heat element of the body disappears, and so you can no longer digest any food. You notice that your breathing is changing. As you breathe in, it’s becoming difficult to breathe, and it’s weaker.
And as you breathe out, it’s stronger and longer. And now your nose no longer detects smells. And in your mind, there’s a vision of sparks of fire, trembling like starlight or like fireflies in the dark. And then we enter the fourth stage. The physical body is no longer able to move.
You can no longer remember the purpose of your work and how necessary it is. Your breathing ceases, And your tongue contracts and thickens, and the root of the tongue becomes blue. The body can’t discriminate between rough and soft sensations. And now in the mind, there’s a vision of a dim red blue light like the last flickering of a candle. And then you enter the fifth stage, the white vision.
You have a vision of a very clear sky like that of the autumn, full of the brightness of the moon. And then the red vision appears, which is a vision of a copper red reflection in the clear sky. And then we have the seventh stage, the dark vision. This is a vision of empty darkness, like dark and empty space. And after this vision, you fall unconscious into complete darkness.
And from that darkness arises the subtle mind and the eighth stage, which is the clear light vision. This is a vision of complete emptiness, very clear, like the sky at autumn dawn. This is the clear light. And then slowly bring your awareness back to the room that we’re sitting in, the cushion that you’re sitting on, and the meditation we’ve just been doing. In your own time, please finish your meditation.