Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 103-minute teaching, Ven Lobsang Namgyel guides students through the eight dissolution stages that occur at death, a foundational practice for Tibetan Buddhist dying and rebirth meditation. He opens with anecdotes about hearing difficulties at teachings in Dharamsala, then sets the spiritual frame by reciting praises to Mañjuśrī and offering mandala, emphasizing that realizations are possible for all practitioners through sustained effort. The core instruction walks through each dissolution systematically: the absorption of the five aggregates (form, feeling, discrimination, compounded phenomena, and sense consciousness) paired with corresponding wisdoms, elements, sense powers, and internal visions. Ven Namgyel emphasizes the difference between guilt and regret in Buddhist practice, the importance of overcoming procrastination in spiritual work, and how to recognize each stage so the practitioner has a “roadmap” for death rather than shock. He stresses that the clear light—emptiness of mind—is the goal, distinguishing it carefully from the white and red visions that precede it. The teaching includes accounts of accomplished lamas who remained in clear light meditation for days or weeks after breathing ceased, and ends with a guided meditation through all eight stages designed to familiarize practitioners with the process in advance. Pitched at practitioners with some Buddhist background but accessible to serious inquirers.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 10 29 Ven Namgyel Oct 29 2013.mp3
UUID: f3564849-7666-4416-8fbb-29666d962a53
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: Ven Namgyel (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Date: 2013-10-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 103.0 minutes
Words: ~11,320
See if the batteries are working. Okay. Then the next one. Technology people. I remember years ago, we used to go to teachings at Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche in Dharamsala.
And there was a very old monk who had gone deaf. And so in order to listen to Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche, he had a hearing thing and a long pipe, like a hose pipe that you use for watering the garden because, you know, it’s India. Right? So a hose pipe and then a horn, you know, sort of like this, like old record players, like that. So he’d put all this together, and then he’d the first day, he went up to Rinpoche, and he said, please Rinpoche, and in Tibetan, blah blah blah blah.
And Rinpoche is laughing and laughing and laughing. And then he put this horn in Rinpoche’s lap. You know? So like this. And so it was from the lap there, and Rinpoche had to speak into the so I’m complaining about technology.
But, you know, there was this, for hours, this horn, you know, sort of sitting in his lap and Rinpoche had to speak and and the monk like like this. It was really funny. Okay. So this is our last day of teachings. We should do something auspicious.
Last time we did the wisdom sūtra, wasn’t it? Okay. So we’ll recite the praise to Mañjuśrī, wanting to actualize wisdom. This is on page six. It’s the praise to Mañjuśrī.
So you think very strongly in order to remove obstacles, in order to have realizations of wisdom, then we need help. We need inspiration. So we’re asking Mañjuśrī to give us inspiration. So in the praise, we’re saying, you’ve actualized something. You’ve done something really special.
I also want to do something very special in that I want to have these same realizations of wisdom. So it’s not that you’re looking to Mañjuśrī as the only person who can do it. Every one of us can have these realizations of wisdom, but we do need these teachings and we need these ways of inspiring us. So Mañjuśrī is there as an inspiration. Obeisance to my guru and protector Mañjuśrī who holds to his heart a scriptural text symbolic of his seeing all things as they are, whose understanding shines forth as the sun, unobscured by defilements or traces of ignorance, who teaches in sixty ways with the patient love of a father for his only child, all creatures caught in the prison of Samsāra, confused in the darkness of their ignorance, overwhelmed by their suffering.
You, whose thunderous dragon proclamation of the dharma arouses us from the stupor of our delusions and frees us from the iron chains of our karma, whose powerful sword of wisdom cuts down suffering wherever it sprouts, appearing, clearing away the darkness of all ignorance, I entreat you, O Mañjuśrī, whose princely body is adorned with the one hundred and twelve marks of a Buddha, who has completed the ten stages, achieving the highest perfection of a bodhisattva, who has been pure from the beginning, O Mañjuśrī, all loving one, with the brilliance of your wisdom, illuminate the darkness enclosing my mind. Enlighten my intelligence and wisdom so that I may gain insight into Buddha’s words and the text that explain them. Now you get to say, oh, wow. Is it possible? So it’s possible, but but it takes time to build up that breath, the power of the breath.
Then the mandala offering. Again, we’re transforming the environment into the pure land. This ground, anointed with perfume, 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.
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So by doing some prayers, we’re setting the direction. We’re inspiring ourselves to have realizations. So it’s the last night.
Somebody’s got to have realizations. Isn’t it Roman? I want to see somebody floating on a lotus up into the sky vanishing. How wonderful it would be. Maybe that’s the the picture we get, the concept we get, but in actual fact, when Roman becomes a Buddha, Roman’s still gonna be sitting there.
His head is still going to be glowing the way it glows now. Still the same, But something’s changed. So what changes? Is it physical or mental? So, of course, it’s mental.
What we’re changing is the mind. And by the mind changing, then the body follows. The body changes too. So Buddha’s body glowed with energy, with positive energy, and then he had wheel marks on his palms and wheel marks on his feet. So when he was walking, he would leave the sign of a wheel in the sand.
Then, Devadatta, the Buddha’s cousin, who couldn’t stand Buddha, you know, thought Buddha was a big fake. So, Devadatta, he said, I can do that also. You know? So he got wheels made, wooden wheels, and then tied them to his feet. And then as he was walking, he’d say, you see?
I’m the same as Buddha. I can do exactly the same thing. But, of course, it wasn’t the same because it it’s fake. It’s duplicate. You know, he’s putting the wheels underneath the feet.
So even Buddha had somebody who didn’t like him. This always inspires me. This thought that even Buddha has somebody who can’t stand him. Until Devadatta was dying, he couldn’t stand Buddha at all and was always trying to make trouble for Buddha. Always going in between, being divisive, saying bad things behind his back, sharpening the knife, know, I’ll plunge it in if I get the chance.
Did so many things against Buddha and what was Buddha’s response? Stay close. Always he kept Devadatta close to him because he knew that what Devadatta was doing was going to be extremely detrimental for his next life. So sure enough, when Devadatta was passing away, when he was dying, he turned to Buddha and he said, I’ve done so many bad things to you. And Buddha said, yes.
I know. And he said, now I have strong regret. And Buddha said, that’s a really good thing, that at this time when you’re dying, you have that regret. So even though we’ve done many bad things, I’m sure, varying degrees, we need to have regret for the bad things that we’ve done. We need to know that they’re harmful, whether they’re harmful to us, harmful to others.
We need to know that they’re harmful, and we need to have regret for them so that we can purify them and we can remove them. If we don’t have regret for them, we were talking last last time a little bit about guilt. If we only have guilt, guilt can make you feel that you’re a bad person, and then it’s difficult to move from that position of being a bad person. But in Buddhism, we don’t have bad people. We have negative actions, and those negative actions can be purified.
So there’s very much a difference between guilt and regret, and you have to find that difference between the two. In our society, we grow up with guilt. We don’t grow up with regret. So in Buddhism, we have to switch something in the mind. We have to understand what that difference is.
Because with regret, you see the lack of wisdom, you see the lack of compassion in your actions, and you wish that you had more at the time. But that the time that you did the negative action, you didn’t have. You would have done better if you could have, wouldn’t you? When you look back on that negative action, if you’d known better, would you have done better? Of course.
But you didn’t because you couldn’t. And I’m not giving you an excuse where you say, well, then it’s okay. You know, it doesn’t matter. But if you’d known better, you would have done better. Now you know better.
So now you know better, and you look back. And how are you going to look back? Are you going to look back with guilt? Oh, dear. I’m a bad person.
And then I’m sure you’ve got a bigger stick than this, and then you hit yourself over the head with it, don’t you? And you say, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Or you’re going to look back and have regret. If I’d known better, I would have done better. Now I know better.
So what do I decide to do from now on? I’m going to do better. Right? That’s where it takes you to better behavior. Whereas guilt just beats you up.
You know, you’re beating yourself up, and usually, we beat others up too. We judge them, and we criticize them, and we put them down. Isn’t it? This is what we do. When we’re guilty, we then put that onto others.
We make them feel guilty. So we make everybody around us feel bad because we feel bad. Well, Buddha didn’t say feel bad. He said have joy, have love, have compassion, have wisdom. You know, he gave you lots of positives to follow, but he didn’t say feel guilty, and he didn’t say put that guilt onto others.
So this is something we need to abandon. If you want to be interested in Buddhism, I don’t mean be Buddhist, but if you’re interested in Buddhism, I think something very fundamental to Buddhism is abandon guilt. Give up the guilt. If you’re gonna give up something for Lent, give up guilt. Right?
Take on regret and then start to look at the past. And what do you regret in the past and what would you change? If you were going to do it again, what would you change? This is an important determinant for the future. How would I behave in the future?
Given the same sort of situations, the same conditions, what would I do? And then how are you going to purify? So this is important, you know, the sense of purifying the negativities, but having also a sense of, time is passing, and we don’t have much time left. We’ve talked about this also because, you know, every one of us I think feels there’s a lot of years in front of us. No matter what our age is, we tend to extend our life and when we’re younger, know, I remember when I was in my teens, somebody in their twenties was ancient and you get to your twenties and you think thirties is old and you get to your thirties and it keeps going on and on and on.
Right? Now I think a hundred and fifty is a reasonable age, know, not so bad after all. So I think it’s like that. I think that’s what we tend to do. We move the line and this is how we keep this impermanence idea going, you know I’ve got longer I’ve got longer I’ve got longer I’ve got longer.
But in that case you don’t do your Dharma practice, you don’t engage, you stay on the periphery, you stay on the edge of the Dharma practice, but you don’t actually get into it because you always think you’ve got another day, another month, another year. Oh, I should do retreat, I’ll think about it tomorrow or I’ll do it next week or I’ll do it next month, I’ll do it when I retire, I’ll do it when I feel better, I’ll do it when I feel worse, whatever it is I’ll do it some other time than now. So I think we all have good conditions, you know, living in the West, things are pretty easy. I find the way that you live doesn’t take up many hours of the day. Living in India, things take a lot of time.
To cook lunch takes a minimum of three hours, you know, because everything starts from the from the beginning. If you’re cooking dal, you know, these sort of things, everything takes a long time. But here things don’t take so long so you have more time available, But do you use the time available for something spiritual or something else? You could be doing retreat at home. You know I know we all have this idea of going off to Kangaroo Island you know that paradise in the sun paradise in the sun Kangaroo Island or to go to Copan or something like this.
So you know often people say I’m saving the money one year I’ll go but what if you die tomorrow? We don’t know you know, so again this spiritual idea is being put into the future, but what about if you started today with your retreat today from home? All of you could do it an hour, two hours, you can do it, but again we’ll think oh you know and all the reasons not to will come up. I remember I met a lady in New Zealand maybe about four years ago, and she was starting a three year retreat at home. And it was with Sogyal Rinpoche’s group and they were doing an internet three year retreat.
Internet three year retreat. So they were meeting up through the internet to get teachings I think once a month but she was staying home and she was going to get her own shopping, her own cooking, but do her retreat at home. And then people might say, oh but it’s not pure, pure, you know? She’s not being locked in the house. You don’t have to think like that you know, you you make your retreat in the way that you can do it so that you get some spiritual experience rather than thinking in the future.
I’ll get that spiritual experience. We’re modern people, know, it’s no use thinking that we’re going back to Tibet, that we’re going to have caves and monasteries and you know that sort of situation. We have a modern situation that we need to utilize to have spiritual realizations and I think you have clean houses, quiet houses, conditions set up in which you can start so that at least when you die you have no regrets spiritual regrets isn’t it? Whereas if we don’t start now maybe we’ll be thinking next year I’ll do retreat then next year you’re thinking next year I’ll and then next year next year you know. This is the problem with procrastination is it goes on and on and on there’s no end to procrastination.
So my feeling is we need to stop the procrastination and start doing something. Even if it means five or ten minutes a day, I don’t care. But do something every day that relates you to your spirituality, to your heart, you know, because one thing that I think is a problem with the West with where we live here right now is connecting with the heart. In India for some reason it seems easier to connect with the heart. Everybody’s sort of open, see people dying, people being born, there’s all sorts going on it’s all happening on the street.
Here everything’s hidden away behind the walls so people die you don’t see the body, people born you don’t see you know everything’s sanitized and kept very clean. There’s a benefit to that but the downside is to develop the heart is more difficult for us. So to soften the heart and to open the heart is bodhicitta. Isn’t it? That’s what we need to do but we need to find our inspirations from somewhere.
And I think if you don’t do that practice on the cushion your practice can stay intellectual rather than something that’s felt, you know, and the practice needs to be something that we feel in the heart. Even if it moves you to tears, that’s fine. But it’s better than being cold in the head and sort of dissecting everything, you know. Intellectually, it’s like this this this this, but there’s no feeling about the practice. There’s no feeling about dying, being reborn, people suffering.
It’s just oh yeah well that’s Samsāra isn’t it? I think often people become like that just very matter of fact it’s Samsāra. We should be concerned about Samsāra, Really concerned because look at what just happened in Australia you know this terrible suffering and you don’t get the feeling from TV that there was much suffering somehow. It’s sanitized, know, it’s these fires blah blah blah, this person died but but you don’t get that feeling. So as Christians or Buddhists or whatever you are, need to develop the feeling.
And I think you’re very fortunate that you’ve got a nice group of people amongst whom you can open your hearts because when you go out there you can say to somebody your neighbor I want to open my heart Are you crazy? Know? What are you a bit lulu? I want to be more open. Something wrong with you?
So you know this isn’t appreciated by all people. When you’re beginning this practice of opening your heart, you have to be able to talk to similar people, and that’s why Buddha said, Sangha is the most important of all. Somebody asked Buddha, how important is Sangha? You know, where would you put it on the list? He said, the Sangha, Sangha, and Sangha.
That’s how important it is. He didn’t say, you know, oh, it’s quite important. He said, it’s the most important because for your spiritual development, you need the support of others. You need others who say, yeah it was difficult for me I understand but keep going. This is the obstacle we all hit isn’t it?
That wall that you want to keep going but you don’t quite know how to keep going. So the Sangha help you with that. You’ve all had Dharma teachings, you know, but we don’t always know how to put it into practice in everyday life And there’s people who have practiced and have hit obstacles and then know how to put it into practice. So sangha is very valuable from that point of view. So that was my inspiring talk.
Think this clock’s wrong. What time you got? Seven twenty five. Somebody wanted me to talk much longer. You thought you could trick me, didn’t you?
Quarter two. Okay. So tonight, we’re talking about the dissolution that happened at the time of death, the eight dissolutions. So I wanted to describe them to you, then we’re going to have a break, and then we’re going to meditate on them. I really like this meditation, and if you like it there’ll be a recording of it and, then you can do it by yourselves at home.
So this one is really important because it’s the five aggregates, so the five parts of being a person and, as those parts are absorbing, are disintegrating, then the certain signs that happen internally and externally. So internally, it describes what happens to you as the person who’s dying, and externally as the person who’s with somebody who’s dying. So the description is from both sides. So I’m going to tell you all of that, and then if you have questions, you can ask me. Okay.
So the first stage, we have the earth sorry. The aggregate of form is absorbed. So when the form is absorbed, the external sign is that the physical body is becoming thinner, and the body is losing power. So remember, this doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s all going to happen very quickly. It can happen over a period of months.
It could be weeks, it can be days. So it’s not all going to happen in one day necessarily. It can happen over a period of time. So as the first stage starts, the aggregate aggregate of form is being absorbed. The external sign is that the physical body is becoming thinner.
It’s losing its power. It then starts to absorb, the great mirror-like wisdom, and this is the wisdom that is able to see many objects at the same time. So just as if I had a mirror here and that mirror could reflect all of you in that mirror, the mind, the wisdom in the mind is able to reflect many, many objects. Whether it’s people or objects in the room, it can reflect all those objects and cognize them. So now this wisdom is being absorbed.
So this means this ability is being lost. And then this affects the earth element, and the earth element affects the physical body. It’s becoming thin. The hands and the legs feel loose. We feel as if as if we’re being buried under a great weight of earth.
So the person who’s passing away feels like there’s a great weight of earth on top of them. So they might start saying, I feel like I’m being buried. I feel like there’s something something very heavy on top of me. And maybe they want to get the blankets off. You know, they feel like the blankets are too heavy.
Have you seen this? Because they feel the pressure. Yeah. Yeah. Plucking.
Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. So this is the beginning, and it doesn’t necessarily mean within an hour they’re dead, does it? It can be a long time before.
So this is the earth element being absorbed, and then the eye sense power is absorbed, which is the ability to control or to move the eyes. So now you’re starting to lose the ability to move the eyes around, and it means that the eyes then stop in one place. Then the inner subtle form is absorbed, so the external sun is the color of the physical body is fading, and the body is losing its strength completely. So before we were talking about how, the form itself has been affected. So the arms feel loose.
The body is losing its, physical vitality, if you like. And now the physical body color is being lost, so it doesn’t look healthy. And then the body loses its strength completely. So the the person who’s passing away feels that they don’t have any more strength. And then this is the end of the first stage, and the person who’s passing away has an internal sign.
They have a vision. So this is what’s important for you to know the visions so that you know which stage is happening, which aggregates are absorbing, and then you know when to look for clear light. What you’re looking for is clear light. Do you understand what clear light is? Does anybody not know clear light?
Really? You all know clear light? Right. Clear light, to put it simply, in Tibetan it’s osel, o s e l. So osel means clear light and clear light is the emptiness of your mind.
Doesn’t mean your mind suddenly becomes empty, there’s nothing in your mind, you know, like watching the football or something, you know, with a beer. You know, how you can sort of zone out. That’s not emptiness. Right? That’s another emptiness.
Right? That’s spacing out emptiness. So we all have that emptiness too, isn’t it? But that’s not the emptiness that we’re talking about here. What we’re talking about here is the nature of your mind.
So what’s the nature of your mind? Is the nature of your mind delusions, negative karma? Is the nature of your mind to be angry, to have aversion, hatred? We know that these things take advantage of your mind, but they are not your mind. So what is your mind?
It’s clarity, it’s spaciousness, it’s not the delusions, it’s not the karma. Right? So it’s something pure, like I gave the example before of pure water that that’s then polluted, made dirty, alright? So you have to think of this clear light mind, so as if it’s, a laser beam of light, and that’s what we’re going to look for. That’s what we want to experience because in the death process, if we can meditate on the clear light of the mind, the pure nature of the mind, we can have realizations and we can actually become enlightened in the death process.
This is the opportunity. So for Buddhists, all the training is for death. Not because death is something negative and awful, but because it’s a tremendous potential to become enlightened. You’re looking for the clear light. So when you’re doing this meditation, you should do it many, many times to accustom yourself to the point in the meditation where your mind and its nature becomes evident.
All the baggage is falling away. The the aggregates are falling away. All everything that’s been holding you in saṃsāra is falling away, is being absorbed. And what you end up with is just mind. There’s the opportunity.
But it only happens for a short time, and then everything goes backwards and then you’re looking for another body. What? Just the way you described it. Didn’t sound so great, did it? It’s it’s a definite obstacle.
You know? I know with Lama Lhundrup, when he was passing away, he was in terrible pain, and they were giving him morphine. And he kept experimenting to where he could take minimum doses to remove some of the pain, but to be able to meditate. But he was saying that these drugs, really affect the mind and really stop you having your meditation. So this is an individual decision.
You know, we can give ideas, but we’re not in your situation of when you’re dying and you have terrible pain. If you have terrible pain, you may not be able to meditate at all. So maybe if you can adjust the meditation, the medication, and you can work with the doctors, you know, to do that, and in some situations you can and in some you can’t. So I think the thing is take away some of the pain, but maintain the clarity of the mind if the drugs allow you to do that. If not, then, it’s down to faith, looking at His Holiness’s picture or your Guru’s picture, and being inspired by that, and remembering that connection to your Guru, and holding on to that rather than trying to do practices.
You know what I’m giving you is if your mind is clear, for instance if you’ve got cancer and you’re dying slowly and you’re not under too much pain, you can do this type of practice. But if you have incredible pain, then I think you have to switch to the connection with your guru or your deity. You hold on that, and then through that, you’re okay. You know? Because if you’re in terrible pain, what are you going to do?
Really? We can conceptualize. Oh, I can meditate with pain. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. You know? I don’t think so. Even very good meditators like Geshe Lama Konchog, Lama Lhundrup, you know, I’ve seen that they’ve taken some drugs, but they keep it minimal. And, if possible, they stop it at the the important time.
So you have to have a flexible situation. I think hospices are better than hospitals at this if it’s possible. Here we go. Now remember we’ve got to finish this today. I’m not coming back.
No. This is it’s an unfortunate death. So in that case, it depends on the last moment of life, the mom the mind at the last moment before it leaves the body, and that can be anything. You know? It could be a moment of regret where you think, I’m not going to see my children, or my wife or my husband or something like that.
So it could be a very heartfelt moment, which would then produce a very good future, or it could be great anger. Why me? Gone. You know, like that. So, again, it’s important even under very difficult situations to keep a controlled mind rather than allowing the negative emotions to arise.
That’s when we were talking irritability. Right? When we’re talking about irritability, if you have the habit of irritability, somebody hits your car, you’re dying, irritability comes up, you’re leaving irritable. It’s it’s not a good future. Do you think if you hadn’t put the rosary, he might not have passed away?
Yeah. It was a good situation. I think often often people have to have this sense of being peaceful, satisfied. You know? And, that’s one of the things that you can do for somebody who’s dying is make them feel it’s okay to go.
We’ll take care of everything. Don’t worry about the children. Don’t worry about the family. Everything will be okay. You know?
So I think this is also important as a condition around the person who’s dying. Do what’s appropriate for them, and don’t challenge them at the time of death. You know? If at the time of death you were somebody who’s Christian, you don’t suddenly tell them, no, no, no, this is wrong. You know, you should believe in Buddha.
Leave leave them alone. And if they don’t have a belief, tell them to look for the light. Usually, they see some sort of light. But look for the light. Go towards the light.
But don’t challenge their belief system. You know? Leave it as it is. It’s too late. You have to decide these things before you’re dying, not start thinking about it at the time of death.
Yeah. It’s not the time to start reading a book. Oh, I’ve just gone through the first stage. What happens next? You know?
It’s too late. You can’t move your eyes anymore. You know? So you need to do all this before. No.
The Bardo bean. Not the not the dying person, unless it’s somebody who’s got, fifth level of concentration. But we haven’t got to death yet. But in the Bardo, you have a a clairvoyance. It’s not a full clairvoyance, but you can read people’s minds.
And wherever you think about, you can go to that place. So you can think, Sydney, and you’ll be in Sydney just like that. So you can move around because you’ve got a formless body. You don’t have a form. You can move very easily.
You can go through walls. You can just move around, and they know what you’re thinking. So that’s why in Buddhism, it’s said we should stay very calm, peaceful, good minds because they know what’s going on in your mind. If you’re thinking this is a disaster, why did she have to die now? That being knows what you’re thinking.
So, you know, it’s no use saying, it’s okay. We’ll be fine. But in your mind, you’re thinking, this is terrible. Why is she dying? You know?
You also have to train in order to help people who are dying. You have to be peaceful and calm, isn’t it? Okay. Second stage, the aggregate of feeling is absorbed. So the external sign is the physical body doesn’t experience pain, pleasure, or indifference.
So remember, we have these three feelings, pain, pleasure, indifference. You no longer experience that. So you’re still alive. You’re still within your body, but you’re losing sensations, you’re losing things along the way. So you think what you’ve lost in the first stage.
Now as you move into the second stage, you’re losing even more. You’re not having these feelings within your body. So the aggregate of feeling, then the wisdom of equanimity is absorbed. So this is the wisdom that sees all feelings of pleasure, pain, and indifference as having the same nature. So now you can’t differentiate between a good feeling, a bad feeling.
You can’t differentiate your feelings anymore. So one thing is you lost those feelings in your body, but now you’re losing the ability in your mind to differentiate between those feelings. So the external sign is we no longer remember those feelings. It’s the mind cannot perceive pleasure, pain, and indifference. It can’t put a label on it.
It thinks they’re all the same. Do you understand? So before this, we were able to say, that’s pain and that’s pleasure. Now we don’t know the difference mentally, but also physically, we’ve lost the ability to know the difference too. So that’s the external sign.
The water element is absorbed, so now the external sign is all the liquids of the body are drying up. So everything becomes dry. Then we lose the ear sense power, So the external sense is you lose your hearing. You go deaf. And then the inner sound is absorbed, and the external sign is that the buzzing in the ear ceases.
You know this buzzing that you hear? Many people complain about this buzzing and I say to them, well, at least just know you’re still alive, you know, because when you’re dying, it stops. So if you’ve got buzzing in your ear, you’re still alive. If it stopped, you’re in the second stage. Who’s in the second stage?
Arnold, you’re on your way out. Okay? So when that’s when that buzzing stops, this is the end of the second stage, and then in your mind, there’s a vision of smoke. So this is a gray smoke. You know, if the building’s on fire, so then in your mind, what appears is smoke.
This is a sign that the second stage has just finished. Okay? Clear up to now? So this is a meditation that you’re doing. Step after step.
So you’re sinking, these are the signs, first stage finished. These are the signs, second stage finished. Now I’m going into the third stage, and then I know what’s going to be happening, and I know what the signs are so that virtually it’s a road map for death, so that there’s no surprises. We know exactly what’s coming. The third stage is the aggregate of discrimination is absorbed, and the external sign is that there’s no longer recognition of relatives and friends.
You can no longer say, this is my relative. This is my friend. You don’t know them anymore. Then the wisdom of discriminating awareness is absorbed, and this is the wisdom discriminating and remembering who your relatives and friends are, being able to put a label on them, the name. You can’t do that anymore.
So this is the discriminating awareness. You don’t remember the names of your friends and your relatives. You’ve seen this happen? It’s already hap Arnold, I think you’re in the third stage. It’s just taking a long time, but you’re you’re there.
What happens if we get to the eighth stage and you realize you’re in the eighth stage? Yeah. So then the fire element is absorbed, so this is the heat element of the body, and it’s the capacity to digest food. So if there’s any food in the stomach, you can’t digest it. You’ve lost the heat element of the body.
This is the fire element. The nose element is absorbed, and this is, the breathing becoming difficult and weaker. And now the breathing out is stronger and longer. So breathing out, stronger, longer, breathing in is shorter. And then the no sense power is absorbed.
You can no longer detect smells, and the internal sign is a vision of sparks of fire. The Tibetans describe this as a butter lamp, but you may not know what a butter lamp is. But in Tibet, they used to use butter, this very good butter, to make lights. Something like lard or ghee. What’s ghee in in in clarified butter?
So you make a lamp out of this, and as it’s going out and it’s sputtering, it’s a sort of blue red light just before it goes out. So this is the vision that’s happening in your mind. So they say, this is like the trembling of the starlight or sparks of fire, you know, this sort of thing. It’s the the light is starting to go out. This means the fourth stage starts, and then the aggregate of compounded phenomena is absorbed.
So this is the meaning of this, the physical body can no longer move. Still alive, but you can’t move your body. Then the all accomplishing wisdom is absorbed. This is the wisdom of attainment. So remembering about your outer work, your success, all the things that you did in the world, you can no longer remember this, the purpose of your life.
So you lose the necessity and the purpose of your outer work. So you may think, maybe you think, so what? You’re dying. But can you imagine you’re losing your identity? Imagine if your whole life, your identity is your work, and now you lose what you see as your identity.
Can you imagine how distressing that is? This is why we talk about renunciation. Give up this attachment to your work, to your family before you die. You still have your work and you still have your family, but you have to give up the attachment because it’s the attachment that causes your pain and suffering at the time of death. At the time of death, it becomes evident that this was only temporary.
Your work, your life was only temporary, and you’ve got to let it go. You’re being forced to let it go. Right? But if you haven’t confronted this before the death process, it becomes a shock at the time of death, you know, because you’re being stripped of everything that was important to you. Everything that you held dear is being taken away from you.
So that’s why we talk about all of this before the death process, not let’s just leave it as a surprise at the end of life. So now the air element is absorbed, and your breathing ceases. Okay? So the air element is just absorbed. This is the fourth stage.
Your breathing ceases, but still, you have some more senses to absorb. So it’s very interesting that your your breath has ceased, but still you absorb the taste sense and the tactile sense after the breath ceases. So the taste sense is now the tongue contracts and it thickens and the root turns blue. So at the back of the tongue, you know, turns blue and the shape of the the tongue changes. And then the tactile sense, there’s no longer a feeling of sensation.
And then the internal sign is the last flickering of the candle. So the other one was a bit brighter, but now it’s become very dim, and it’s like the candle’s just about to go out. Then we come to the fifth stage. So this is where it gets confusing. We have fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth stages, and you may get confused between the fifth stage and the eighth stage.
And this is why you need to meditate constantly on the stages because the fifth stage is what’s called a white vision. And if you confuse the white vision for the clear light, you’re not going to get enlightened. Okay? So the white there’s a white stage and there’s a clear light, and there’s a subtle difference between the two. So the white vision, the fifth stage, it’s a vision of very clear sky like that in the autumn, full of the brightness of the moon.
So the vision that’s going to happen in your mind is as if the moon is in the sky, it’s a very clear sky, and it’s the autumn sky. And what’s happening is the prana or the wind energy is moving up through the right and the left channels into the head chakra and coming down the central channel. And the vision is occurring when the central channel is open and the white seed received from the father father comes down to the heart chakra, visualized in the form of the letter HAM upside down. This gets technical, and this is called the empty vision. So the main thing is this vision is caused by the movement of energies in the subtle energy system.
If you want to go into it more deeply, you can. But just know that this fifth vision, when the breathing is stopped, this fifth vision, the white vision, is not the clear light. It’s just a movement of energy within the body, and it’s the seed from the father moving in the channels. After the fifth vision comes the sixth stage, the red vision, and this is a vision of copper red reflection in the sky. So this is, a vision as if, the sky’s on fire.
It’s a copper red vision. It’s pervading your whole mind. And then again, this is caused by the wind, the prana, going up the central nadi to the heart, opening up the navel and the fifth chakras. And this is the seed from the mother. So this is the energy from the mother coming into the heart chakra, and this is the letter AH, which is upside down if you want to do the visualization.
But the sixth stage is a red vision. So the fifth stage, a white vision, then that vision is taken over by a red vision. And then the seventh stage, it becomes a dark vision, and this is as if you’re swooning, as if you’re fainting. So this is dark and empty space as if you’re going out into space, but there’s no stars, a feeling as if you’re fainting. And at this point, the white seed and the red seed are absorbed into the tiny seed at the heart.
The bottom half is red. The top half is white, and these two are coming together. And you feel that you’re going unconscious. And when you come out of that unconsciousness, you come into the eighth stage, and that’s the clear light. So a way to know is that feeling of swooning, of of going into unconsciousness, into this blackness, and out of that blackness, you come into the clear light stage.
And now you have to hold your meditation for as long as you can in the clear light stage, and this is what the Lamas do. This is the where they stay, and Geshe Lama Konchog stayed for six days, Lama Lhundrup for a few days. I mentioned this soldier who was in the Tibetan army who became a monk late in life, one year. Ordinary person stayed in the clear light for one year. The body stays fresh and it looks like they’re meditating.
With Ling Rinpoche, it was thirteen days And the police came, you know, because it was, I think, thirty eight degrees. And May, June in Dharmasala, and the police knew Ling Rinpoche very well. And they said to the Tibetans, you know, have you buried Ling Rinpoche or done done the cremation? And they said, oh, no. No.
No. He’s meditating. And they said, what do you mean meditating? You know, he’s been dead for days. And they said, no.
No. He’s in the clear light. He’s meditating. And so the chief of police said, you know, I have to investigate this and went into the room and sat in the room for a while and he came out and he said it was an extraordinary experience. He heard celestial beings singing, he smelt a beautiful smell but there was no incense, he said it was just such an extraordinary experience leave the body alone, I don’t know I don’t know what’s going on but just leave it alone.
So this is what you experience when these lamas are in the clear light, then you get this very special feeling from the situation. It’s not like sitting with a dead body. You really feel that you’re sitting with somebody in meditation. Then when they leave the body, blood comes from the nose and then the body slumps and then quickly the body starts to decompose. So that’s how you know the clear light stage is finished, and then the meditation’s finished, and then you can go on with the body and burning the body.
So they’re the eight stages. Any questions? It’s a meditation on emptiness. So in that meditation on emptiness stage, you can actually become enlightened. Or you can be, one one lifetime of enlightenment.
So, you can shorten your samsaric situation greatly, and, you can either go to a pure realm and then come back and then become enlightened after one life, or you can become enlightened in the clear light stage. Various things can happen. It depends on the meditator’s, experience. Or, there can be somebody like Geshe Lama Konchog who decides to come back in the form body, Nirmānakāya, to experience again the body, but a body made of light rather than an ordinary body, and they experience the world as a Rinpoche or the Dalai Lama, you know, something like this. So it depends on, I think, how they think that they can benefit sentient beings, whether they go to a pure realm.
You can go to Lama Tsongkhapa’s pure realm or one of those pure realms where you can take teachings and, you stay there for a while, or you quite quickly come back and you take a a body, Nirmānakāya body. So you can become enlightened. The best is you become enlightened in that in that time because you’ve got nothing holding you down. You still have mind. You still have the support of the body, but there’s no heaviness of the body.
There’s no senses pulling you down. You can purely meditate in that time and become enlightened, like I say. So that’s pretty good, isn’t it? It’s worth thinking about. Well, it wasn’t me.
This comes from Padmasambhava who described these processes, but also other lamas who have concentration, who can stay in that concentration through the death process, and then through the rebirth process have described all of these processes. If you listen to Lama Zopa describing birth, you really feel he was there when he was being born, not just the baby came out, but he talks about these two rocks, which is, you know, the mother. You’re coming out the the mother, the mother’s womb, and there’s something like two rocks, and you’re being squeezed between these two rocks and the incredible pain that the baby feels. And when he’s describing it, you really feel he was there, not from a text. So when you have this level of concentration, then your concentration isn’t disturbed in death or in rebirth.
For us, we have a suffering death, a suffering rebirth, and so we don’t remember anything of the past. So it depends on your spiritual level how much you can remember. For the lamas, I was with Lama Osel until he was about six, and he could remember things from the past. But they say at about the age of six, they start to forget. And it’s like then they start to live their present life rather than remembering the past life.
It becomes too confusing to keep thinking of past and present. You know, you have to live in the present, but the memories stay fresh until about the age of six. And then I don’t know whether they forget or whether they just say I can’t remember anymore. But I saw with Lama Osel many, many times when he met well, every time. When he met somebody that he knew from the past life as Lama Yeshe, he would do exactly the same thing.
The last thing he did as Lama Yeshe was the first thing he did as Lama Osel every single time. And it shocked people that he was doing exactly the same thing, and it gave them faith that this is Lama Yeshe. Because the problem for us is we don’t believe in rebirth. Right? It’s difficult for us.
Even as Buddhists it’s difficult. And so when you see that continuity, you think, it must be. Who else could it be? You know? There was a Dutch lady she was in an airport I think it was in Holland and Lama Yeshe by that time was very very sick because his heart was becoming bigger and bigger and bigger And I met his surgeon in California who told Lama Yeshe, you need to have a bypass operation.
And he said, you’re not touching my heart. Tibetans don’t like operations on their heart. So this doctor said to him, you’re going to die within a year. Lama said, no. Ten years.
The doctor said impossible. He said, you will die in one year if you don’t have this bypass operation. This man was Jewish. He became Buddhist because of Lama Yeshe. He told me this whole story himself, you know, I met him in Vajrapāni Institute.
And so Lama Yeshe went to the students and he said, if you do these practices and keep harmony, I can live for ten years. But if you create disharmony in the Sangha, I can’t live. So they did the practices. He lived ten years, exactly ten years. When they looked at the heart, because they had the cremation, the heart was found.
He had bypassed his own heart. He’d grown an artery or a vein around the heart. So he’d bypassed his own heart. That’s what kept him alive another ten years. So this lady, was in the airport and she knew Lama Yeshe’s very vibrant and very alive, you know.
And she saw Lama Yeshe with two nurses and on crutches, you know, sort of just standing there exhausted. And she saw Lama Yeshe and she said her heart broke because she felt oh dear you know not Lama Yeshe not like this and then he saw her and he threw the crutches away and he danced. So he did a little like a jig you know little dance and then back on the crutches and went woah you know as if to say this is not me you know it’s all just a play like that. When she saw him, and I think it was about two years of age in Holland, somewhere in Europe, he saw her, and the first thing he did was this little dance. And then she thought this is exactly the same thing.
And every single person like that that I saw, many many of them that I met personally, not just I heard about it, but I saw him doing this. So this is this level of concentration that you can hold through the same process. So it’s it’s been described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, by Padma Sambhava. Then there’s other lamas who give their commentaries, their own experiences. But this is just an inspiration for us to have an experience of our own.
It’s not enough for us to rely on Padma Sambhava. This is the information, the operating system. Right? But we need to put it into practice so that at the time of death, we’re not freaked out. You know?
We know what’s going to happen, and so we take advantage of it. Even if we can’t concentrate very well, but just to have faith that we can achieve something. And if you have great faith in his holiness or Medicine Buddha or Tārā or something like this, you hold your faith on that object then still you’ll be okay because it’s a virtuous object. You’re not getting negative thoughts, you know, at that time of death. You’re not thinking French fries, pizza, You know?
At the at the moment of death, know, oh, no. I’ll never have another pizza ever again. What would you be reborn as? An anchovy or something? A salami.
Isn’t it? But you know that negative mind at the time of death, think, oh no. I’ll never have a bar of chocolate ever again. Well, you know, then you’re reborn as a cow. Milk, chocolate.
I had a conversation with a lady in Mexico who told me she wanted to become a cow. She was a psychologist and she was teaching in Xalapa. You remember? So we had this long conversation driving to Xalapa in the fog. Really, it was a death experience.
You know, I thought any minute we were going to die, this deep thick fog and driving through the mountains and through tunnels and there’s trucks and oh, it was really frightening. And I’m saying to her, so when you die, you know, what do want to be? She said, I’ve decided I want to be a cow. I said why a cow? Just to stand in a field and eat the grass, that’s all.
I said really? Alright then we better think of which country you want to be reborn is, you know, because better not India, because even though they revere cows, sorry, but they don’t look after the cows, they eat the plastic bags, choke on the plastic and you know it’s not a very nice life, so better you don’t go to India, which is okay, India’s off the list. So where will I go? I would well, I was thinking New Zealand, you know. New Zealand’s very nice, green pastures, you know, like this.
I said, well, how about New Zealand? How would it be to be a New Zealand cow? So she’s thinking about this, might be very nice. So we’re talking about it and then she’s, you know, actually when I really think about it, I don’t think I do want to be a cow. So we have to think about it.
You may think I want to be a bird, want to be a cow, want to be a dolphin, whatever. But you really need to meditate on it. How would it be to be that as opposed to a human? Because sometimes, many times we get fed up of being humans. I feel like an animal.
I go to work, I come home, you know, it’s that on the treadmill, but actually we’re very privileged. We should be really, really thankful that we are humans, but I think often we don’t get that strong feeling. So generating that really strong feeling, I’m so fortunate to be a human, and I need to hold my concentration in the death process so that at least I come back as human with the dharma or I can go to a pure realm, I can go to, other situations, good situations, but you need to decide, need to think about this before the death process. Don’t leave it until later. Start to think now.
As if you were going to go to India next year, you’d start researching. How to avoid getting sick, how to avoid being ripped off, whatever the pitfalls are, you start to research. In the same way, to research death and the opportunities. What opportunity would you like to have? You didn’t ring your bell.
So because I want to get the meditation done. So go and have your break now, and then after the break, we’ll do the meditation. You’re all going to die. Except for me, I’ll stay alive through the process. You can do the whole lot.
You can do the whole lot? Yeah. You can cut all you have to do is copy from the other one, isn’t it? This is hard work. Do you have it with you?
Do you have the other one with you? Hot water, please. Okay, it’s time to die. Drug free death. Wouldn’t it be funny if everybody did die?
Funny, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it be funny? I’d have to leave leave Adelaide really quickly. I just leave a note. Bill and Kathy, clean up the mess.
I don’t know what happened. I was just leading this death meditation and they all died. They took it too seriously. I told them be light, but no, they were in the clear light stage. Okay.
When there’s no what When there’s just dead bodies sitting here? Be like Madame Tussauds or something like that, isn’t it? The wax works in museums. They look like real students, but they’re not. He might the worst thing would be if he taught and thought that you were all actually a lot that you’re all still alive.
Right? Good night everybody. And you’re all sit just sitting here. Yeah. And he goes home and he says, I think they were a bit warmer this week than they were last week.
You know? The crowd’s getting better. Okay. So we’re going to die in a nice way. This is not a traumatic way or a painful way, but just take a few minutes and thinking that getting older, your aging body, getting older, getting older to the point where you’d be happy to die, where the body becomes a liability.
The creaking in the joints and the pain in the the body, nothing gross, nothing really, really awful, but just enough where you think, I’m old enough to die, and I wouldn’t mind a new body. So that sense of giving up the body or renouncing the body. And you can imagine your family and your friends around you. They don’t want you to go, but this is the time you have to leave your body. Just like checking in, checking out of a guesthouse.
You have no choice. And as the first stage starts, the aggregate of form is absorbed, so your physical body is becoming thinner and losing power. And the great mirror like wisdom is absorbed. This is the wisdom that can see many objects at the same time. You lose that ability.
The earth element is absorbed, And externally, we can see that the physical body is becoming very thin. The hands and the legs are very loose, and we feel as if we’re buried under a great weight of earth. The eye sense power is absorbed, and you can no longer control or move your eyes. And the inner subtle form is absorbed. You lose the color, the healthy color of your physical body, and your body loses its strength completely.
In your mind, you have a vision of trembling silver blue mirage like water in the heat. And then the second stage, the aggregate of feeling is absorbed. So now your physical body no longer experiences pain or pleasure or indifference. The wisdom of equanimity is absorbed. This is the wisdom which understands feelings of pleasure and pain and indifference.
Now you can no longer remember those feelings. The water element is absorbed, so all the liquids in the body start to dry up. Your mouth becomes dry. Your eyes, all the liquids are drying. And your ear sense power is absorbed.
So now your hearing ceases. And the buzzing in your ear stops. And in your mind, there’s a vision of smoke. And then the third stage, the aggregate of discrimination is absorbed. You can no longer recognize your relatives and your friends.
You can’t remember their names. The fire element is absorbed so that you lose the heat in the body. You can’t digest digest food. Your breathing is becoming more difficult and weaker. Breathing out becomes stronger and longer.
And you can no longer detect smells. And in your mind, there’s a tiny light like a firefly or like the candle going out of many, many small lights in your mind. And then we start the fourth stage. The aggregate of compounded phononoma is absorbed so that your physical body can no longer move. You can no longer remember your work, your success, the purpose of your life.
And the air element is absorbed so that your breathing stops. Your tongue contracts and thickens. The root turns blue. You no longer experience sensations in the body. And in your mind, there is a vision of a dim red blue light like the last flickering of a candle.
Then we enter the fifth stage, the white vision. In your mind, there’s a vision of a very clear sky like that in autumn, full of the brightness of the moon. Then the sixth stage, the red vision, a vision of a copper red reflection in the sky. And then the seventh stage, the dark vision, a vision of empty darkness, like dark and empty space. And then you feel as if you’re becoming unconscious, as if you’re swooning into complete darkness.
Your subtle mind arises. And for a short time, all the gross obscurations absorb. And then appears the eighth stage, the clear light vision, a vision of complete emptiness, very clear, like the sky of an autumn dawn. This is the clear light. This is the nature of your own mind, the clear light.
Then we remember this is just a meditation. You remember that you’re sitting in this room on this cushion, doing this meditation in order to remove the fear and the anxiety around death, in order to take the maximum opportunity out of the situation. And then in your own time, finishing your meditation. Put up your hand if you actually died. Nobody.
We’re all back. Did you hear what they were singing? We know but we’ll meet again, who knows where, who knows when. I mean you can’t organize these things can you? Know just our karma spontaneously arises as we’ll meet again Vera Lynn isn’t it?
What’s that? Maybe it’s your mom back. And was it God save the queen? Yeah. And then God save the queen.
Oh, who was it? There is a Lama Osel. She was deep in meditation, but she can remember. But can tell you everything that was happening out there. Oh, dear.
Yes. They do. They go through the same stages because they have the same elements, the same aggregates. They’re just not as mature as ours, but they go through the same thing. Thing is they don’t have so much awareness, but I think there’s still a possibility for them to have good rebirth because they may not have such strong attachment and grasping when they’re children.
As we grow up, we learn more and more grasping and attachment, especially to the self. You know, there’s I, the sense of me, mine, you, yours. This is very much developed over time. So when children are younger, they don’t have this so strongly. Isn’t it around they say around the age of seven or eight, something like that, it kicks in.
And before that, we’re quite nice people. And then from age eight onwards, we’re lost. You know? So I think you can see this in children. They have their own wisdom to a certain point, and then society gets to them and, you know, these instincts get to them and you bring it all together.
If we could just give them better education, not such a strong education in attachment and grasping, this would be really helpful. But in our society, we have the child has its own room, its own furniture, its own bed, its own books. You know, everything’s mine. What I notice in with Indians and Tibetans, Asian people, everything’s mixed. You know?
Everybody sleeps together. They usually have one bed. Everybody sleeps in the one bed, and the toys are for everybody. You know? There’s not such a feeling of possessiveness.
So I think we train children in individuality, in this possession very early on. And one of the things is to think about how you can not do that so strongly. They’re going to get it in school anyway, but at home, how to make it less distinct that this is yours and this is mine, you know, like that. Just to have a family where everybody’s everything, isn’t it? Okay.
So I have my instructions that we’re we’re supposed to do the prayers a bit early because Judy’s going to do something. Yeah. No. You have that clear light, that, light that appears, that particular quality of light is the mind’s nature, and then you hold the meditation on that. So in the teachings, when we’re talking about emptiness, it’s to point the finger in that direction of the quality of the mind.
So all those words are to bring you to that realization, that understanding of the mind’s nature. In this meditation, it’s more visual, and then you come to what would happen in the actual meditation during the time of death. So when you get to the clear light, that’s what’s going to appear to you instead of having all these concepts arising and, these, I like this and I don’t like this and I want this and I don’t like that and I feel this and I feel I’m feeling this and I’m hearing this. All that’s gone. So it’s like being in an airtight room, a vacuum with no sounds, no no feeling, nothing, but also no thinking mind disturbing you.
So you can put all your effort just on this clarity and then extend that clarity. And the longer the clarity extends, the more karma you’re purifying, the more delusions you’re cutting, and the potential to enlightenment appears. Even if you can’t hold it for very long, still you can do something. You can remove some of your delusions, the roots of the delusions, because this is emptiness. Yeah?
Okay. Time for us to sing louder than those people next door. Okay? We’ll meet oh, no. Where are we?
We will start on page eight. Remembering the kindness of his holiness, the object of refuge of myself and of all transmigratory beings in all our lifetimes is the embodiment of the Three Jewels, the all encompassing three refuges in one, the guru, the wish granting jewel, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, the master Padmasambhava, the Dharma king Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen, the abbot Shāntarakshita, and the numberless holy beings who preserved and spread the Buddhadharma in Tibet and the Tibetan people who practiced and served Buddhism so faithfully for a thousand years, as well as those who, along with many others, died sacrificing their lives for Tibet and his holiness, may all their positive wishes be fulfilled immediately. Due to their limitless kindness, the son of Tibetan Buddhism has now risen in the West, which is a dark land. But now that I have met with the Dharma, I have received the perfect human body, enabling me to lead a meaningful life. Our refuge and savior, the supreme one, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan people have been so kind to us.
Remembering this, we make the following dedication prayers. May all his holiness, the Dalai Lama’s wishes be successful immediately. May the snow land of Tibet achieve pure freedom and develop the Buddhadharma even more. And may all mother sentient beings achieve enlightenment quickly. Excuse me.
Then over the page. Lord of Dharma, who in accordance with the various dispositions of those to be subdued, makes clear in the light of your well-spoken words, the sacred Ganden tradition, essence of Buddha’s teachings, oh foremost and holy Lama, to you who are supreme, oh Lama, please, please, live long. And if you go to the next page, it’s empty. Looks like a Kadampa. What is this Judy?
Oh I see, okay. Oh. Don’t take the pen.