Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session, Ven Margaret McAndrew guides practitioners through a detailed meditation on dying—the ninefold death meditation that traces the moment consciousness leaves the body. She maps the five elemental absorptions and the visions accompanying each: mirages, smoke, fireflies, a reddish glow, culminating in the clear-light vision of emptiness. She then walks through the intermediate state (Bardo), the disorienting 7-to-49-day period before rebirth in a subtle body. The teaching connects this to what follows: rebirth into the three lower realms (hells, hungry ghosts, animals) created by harmful karma. Rather than dwelling in despair, McAndrew emphasizes that meditating on these realities clarifies how suffering arises from action and kindles determination to practice the Dharma. For practitioners with background in Buddhist cosmology.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 D and R 1999 08 12.mp3
UUID: fe0828fe-f0ec-4801-b808-138cf17428b9
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: Evening with V M McAndrew (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1999-08-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.4 minutes
Words: ~4,585
To get off by, yeah, sitting on my face. It’s about why we’re here, checking with what motivation did we come here tonight, with what motivation are we sitting here. If we find that we have some sort of concern that’s only involved with this life, if we find that we’re that our mind’s caught up in delusions in negative thoughts, then we can correct our negative thoughts and replace them with positive motivation. And the the greatest motivation is the thought of feeling about not only our own everlasting welfare through the practice of Dharma, but thinking about all the suffering sentient beings and having the thought of dedicating ourselves to bringing about their welfare through becoming able to lead them on the path out of all suffering to enlightenment, to everlasting happiness and freedom from all the disturbing emotions. And if we’re going to be able to do this, we need to acquire the qualities that will give give us the capability to do this.
And the only being who has full capability to help a countless number of sentient beings to enlightenment, to everlasting happiness, is the enlightened being, the Buddha. And so we have to think of attaining this state ourselves over the course of our practice. And by setting our thoughts directing our energy and our merits in that direction now so that our practice on the path becomes Mahāyāna practice and becomes directed towards cultivating the attitude of bodhicitta and attaining enlightenment for the benefit of others. So last week, we were going through death and the certainty of death, and I’m not quite sure where we stopped. Did we go through the actual death process?
No. We stopped before that. Yes. We did the ninefold death meditation. Yes.
Yes. Well, I thought we would do that. It would be a pity to miss it. Well, if we don’t do it on a meditation, then we won’t perhaps enjoy the trip as much when it comes. Then that’s where we stopped.
I wasn’t sure whether we actually I knew we hadn’t done the in between state. I wasn’t quite sure where we’d stopped. So I won’t go into a lot of introductions. Something might not have had the build up to this, so you might not want to do this meditation. It might be a bit confusing.
So if that’s alright, then if that’s how you feel, just sit there and watch your breath and just practice practice mindfulness of the breathing or something else, anything else that you like doing. And we can carry on with the next topic after that. So I’ll I have to make this meditation fairly brief. On the other hand, if we rush through it too much, it becomes a bit pointless. But we’ll just spend a little bit of time on each of the visions because we haven’t got a full session to do it in.
And so we’re thinking that we meditate on how death is definite. And there’s also the explanation. This isn’t something we generally find in early Lamrim classes. It’s something that’s a sort of Kopan tradition that Lama Yeshe used to teach us at the Kopan courses. And in actual fact, it relates to some practices that are done in the Tantric teachings where we do focus on the experience at the death time.
But there it’s used in a different way. But here we’re just going to imagine ourselves going through this experience. So the idea is what we’re going to do is to first of all go through the visions that we’re taught happen to the being who’s dying and then we’ll meditate on the in between state and think that then that leads to a rebirth. And then we’ll be going on to what happens after rebirth, which will be the the suffering realms. We’re we’re taking it for granted.
They they can ask me fortunate rebirth or suffering rebirth but we’re going to focus on suffering rebirth because that’s the next topic of meditation. So first of all we should think that we’re dying, that we’re becoming weaker and weaker, that we have some sort of illness we’ll think that it’s a gradual death, so we’re passing away from some sort of gradual physical cause such as sickness and experiencing the loss of our strength, loss of the awareness that our life is finally coming to an end, that we’re not going to be able to keep going. We’ve tried everything, all the medicines and so on, All the treatments have failed us, and we haven’t had any success. We’ll start to have to realize that we are going to leave this life, our friends and relatives, everything that we were attached to in this life is going to be left behind. So just think about that for a short time.
During this time, we’ll experience a karmic vision. And if we are going to experience the ripening of bad actions in the form of lower rebirth, then what will be experienced will be a frightening vision. And then we experience the absorption of the physical elements one by one. Each of these elements is said to be absorbed, but it actually means that it ceases to function. Associated with each element failing is particular vision.
So first of all, the earth element will fail. The physical body is becoming very, very weak, and, we experience the, the sign which is a, a a silvery blue mirage-like vision or like water, like a, like a great expanse of water or like a heat mirage. Then after some time, the heat the mirage-like vision, gives way as the, the next element is absorbed, the the water element, then this mirage like vision is replaced by a vision of smoke. The person is becoming weaker all the time and, at this stage is, becoming quite dissociated from their involvement with external, events, external impressions. Next, the process is continuing.
The dying person is no longer able to discrimination, remember who their friends and relatives are around them. And as their senses become weaker and weaker, the sign that is experienced with the absorption of the, the air element oh, sorry, of the fire element is, a vision like sparks of fire or like fireflies all around. Next, the the air element is absorbed. The person at this stage is completely unable to move. The breathing ceases.
They appear to be dead to the ordinary view, but the process within the person is continuing. The, air element being absorbed is marked by a vision of a dim reddish glow like the glow from a, a dying candle flame or lamp flame. And the next thing that happens is that the energy winds concentrate, come to the central channel and withdraw back into the heart center so that the energy winds are no longer circulating through the body. And at this point, the white drop from the crown of the head descends because the energy wind is no longer holding it in position. And this is accompanied by a vision of whiteness, like an autumn sky full of the brightness of the moon, a very clear sky in autumn.
That’s followed by the red vision, a vision of a copper red reflection in the sky. This is caused by the red drop coming up from the lower and and the navel chakras to the heart. And then when these two come together and the consciousness that has withdrawn into the heart center is enclosed between the two drops, we experience the dark vision, like dark empty space. And after some time of the dark vision, the mind actually falls into complete unconsciousness. Then after some time, the subtle mind arises.
All the, gross conceptual minds have temporarily ceased to function because of the, the stilling of the energy winds. And at that stage stage, we experience the clear light vision, a vision of complete emptiness, very clear, like the sky of an autumn dawn. And then the, the knot or the enclosure opens, and the subtle mind goes out leaving the body and takes the intermediate state body. And this is the actual death. And, taking the intermediate state body, the, the visions are experienced in reverse very quickly.
And then the being arises in the form of the body, the Bardo body or the intermediate state body, which is formed of wind energy, not of atoms or of coarser matter. But the body of the intermediate state is formed by karma and delusion, and the being is still under the power of suffering and of the deluded mental states. And this in between state is very frightening. The the being is very confused, doesn’t remember how what what it has been through or, how it came to be in this situation. There is, fear because the, the being has certain certain psychic powers, can go wherever it thinks of, but it’s tossed around by the by the power of the wind energy, by the power of the delusions, and undergoes various frightening and confusing experiences.
This state can last from seven to forty nine days. In fact, after every seven days the being, dies and takes either another Bardo, existence or takes an actual rebirth. And so we should think then that we’re experiencing this Bardo state and that eventually we, experience rebirth into one of the, lower realms. So if we’re reborn into the animal realms, we can, have parents. If we’re born into the, the hell realms, these beings are born spontaneously into their suffering states.
hungry ghosts, I’m not so sure. Some of them seem to have parents. Anybody have any questions about this meditation? Okay. Yes.
Well, then you get a force of rebirth. The the next topic is the suffering realms. So we have to imagine it was a bad one. Just for the purpose of this particular meditation because we’re trying to incite ourselves to Dharma practice. In fact, general, it’s better to sort of, yeah, I suppose, think positive.
But when we’re when we’re thinking about this particular kind of meditation and we want to remember the bad, yes, The bed aspect. So so that, anyway leads on to the next topic, is the suffering of the lower realms. And, the reason why we need to meditate on suffering of the lower realms is so that we can avoid going there. And so, that that leads to the topic after that, which is the need for refuge. So I’ll just go quickly through the, the lower realms and, just to give a general idea of the kinds of things that we’re trying to avoid.
So, a lot of people have a bit of a problem taking some of these topics literally, And, if that’s the problem if that’s the case, then I think the, the main thing is to take it, in a a symbolic sense to think that we can be, we will be reborn. The main thing is to get a conviction about rebirth that, we’re going to be reborn and that our next rebirth state can be either a good one or it can be a very suffering one. And if we can understand that there is this danger, we can be born into situations where we can be under the influence of gross suffering and not be able to get out of it during the course of that lifetime, then this is the essential fact that we need to get hold of in order to engage in the practices that will prevent us from having to actually experience that kind of result. So we we’ve done these these visions of the the death process and so on. We’re going to have to go through that and then looking at what happens to us after that.
It we hope it will be a good experience, but we’re looking at this possibility that, if we do if we do it wrong in this lifetime, we’ve got the possibility of going to these lower realms. So, there are three categories, which are called the hells or naraks, n-a-r-a-k, and also the hungry ghosts or pretas and the animals. So the hells are what we particularly don’t like hearing about. Nobody wants to hear about the hells because we have some sort of natural revulsion at hearing about these things. And it’s considered actually to be extremely beneficial to meditate on the hells.
In fact, Saint Teresa of Avila had many beautiful visions of Jesus and of all sorts of angelic beings appearing to her and other sorts of beautiful visions. And once she had a vision of being in a hell like experience, and she said that was the best vision she ever had because it really made her practice. So in actual fact, the the Lamas and the great beings who have gone along the path really emphasize that it’s important to do these meditations and although we don’t like thinking about these things, and it is really horrible to think of all this suffering. There’s enough suffering in this world to think about. You might think if you think about situations like what’s been happening in Kosovo, what happened under the Nazis and so on, what’s happening in Africa and Latin America.
There’s just so many things, so many sufferings in this world, let alone what’s happening to the animals. Why should you think about the But, the hells are the worst states of sufferings, and they’re the result of the worst actions. And they’re these are karmically created sufferings. And it’s said that there are actually eight hot hells and eight cold hells, and there are also four neighboring hells. And in addition to that, there are various what are called the occasional hells which are like part time hells.
So you’ve got a choice and in fact there are probably many many many hells and we probably each have our own individual hell as we create the karma for it but there are shared hells, and we share them with other beings. But as in this world, we all have our own particular experience to undergo in this life as human beings in the same way there are particular sufferings that you have to experience in the hells. And these sufferings, these hell states are commonly created. And the descriptions of the hell sometimes sound a bit improbable with all these animal headed guards and the torture implements and the iron burning red hot iron ground and being caught in burning houses and so on, boiling pots, all the sort of classical things that we think of as being the kind of torture that might be inflicted on somebody in the human realm being into the hell states. In any case, if you just think of these things as being the example of the kind of suffering that these beings have to undergo and that they are experiencing this very gross physical suffering as a result of having inflicted physical suffering on others.
And we don’t have to think of these hell states as being somewhere that we can go to physically by digging down into the earth or by sometimes it’s explained that way, or by off in a rocket somewhere to another planet. It’s not like that. It’s like another energy level. It’s like another sort of vibrational level of existence. In fact, the Hells are described as being a certain distance underneath the earth at Bodh Gaya, and somebody worked it out in terms of I think it was so many yojanas, which is an ancient Indian measurement, and somebody worked out how far a yojana is.
It’s about as far as an army can march in a day. And by multiplying the the number of yojanas that that were involved, they decided that if the Naraks if the hells were where they were supposed to be, then they must be in outer space on the other side of the southern Atlantic Ocean. So, you know, you can always take these things totally literally, but there’s something in there that we have to accept and and take to heart. These things we’re we’re meant to take these things very, very seriously, even if I do joke about it a little bit. And, you know, there are many beings experiencing these kinds of suffering and and it’s really if we could actually see it, then it would be you know, we would have so much pity for these beings that, you know, we wouldn’t be able to rest probably until we could do something about it.
So then the realm of the hungry ghosts so the the the hell realms are mainly the result of the of killing and harming beings physically and and of the worst kinds of of negative karmas. And then the the Preta Realms, particularly the result of miserliness and of actions that are created out of greed such as stealing. So the pretas have to experience all sorts of physical sufferings. They always seem to feel either extremely hot or extremely cold. The climatic conditions never seem to be moderate for them.
They have to experience various hardships. Their bodies are very weak, but they have to travel over vast distances trying to find something to eat. And then when they do find something, it’s just some moldy, horrible bit of food. And then if they do try to eat either, they can’t swallow it because their necks are very constricted. Or if they do manage to swallow it, it gives them such terrible indigestion that it causes causes them great pain and so on.
So and they’re constantly craving, and they are never satisfied. And this is the kind of experience that they have as a result of having followed craving and attachment into negative karma in human lifetimes. So in actual fact, sometimes we do see hungry ghosts because people see various kinds of spirit beings. And, some of these spirit beings there are a lot of clairvoyant people or even ordinary people sometimes have experiences under certain circumstances of seeing something that they wouldn’t normally be able to see. So these beings are invisible to us normally.
There could be one right in front of us here now or more than one, but we can’t see them but they could be there. For instance, once a few years ago at Tārā Institute I was giving a talk like this and there was lady in the group of students. I suddenly saw this incredibly astonished look come over her face and later on she came up to me and she said, did you see him? She was one of these people who are pretty clairvoyant actually. She was one of these people who can see ghosts.
She’d apparently seen the house ghost. He’d walked right across in front and she’d seen him so clear that she was quite sure that I’d seen him too. She didn’t expect the other students to see him because he walked she was sitting at the back and he walked between her and the rest of the students. So he was walking behind their back, but I was facing that way, so she thought I would have seen him. And yes.
So, anyway, these kinds of ghosts considered to belong to that realm, but are many kinds of hungry ghosts. And then animals, of course, we know all about animals, and we can see their suffering and even try to do something about it, but they’re experiencing the results of their karma. And there are so many animals and far more animals than there are human beings. And they have to experience all sorts of suffering, most of which we don’t have the power to relieve. Yes.
Particularly, negative actions done out of ignorance or stupidity. Yes. Sort of unawareness. So it’s animals have the lightest suffering of the three lower realms, but it’s still much worse than being a human being. Particularly they have the suffering of ignorance and they also have the suffering of preying on one another and never having a moment’s peace or security.
Course various sufferings like we know in the human realm of heat and cold and hunger and thirst and sickness all of these things and being made use of being forced to work or kept in cages all sorts of sufferings. So if you sometimes think it might be good to be an animal when you’re weighed down by all the cares and worries of human existence, that’s it’s better to remind yourself of the suffering of the animal realms and not start wishing that way because, in fact, as human beings, no matter how much we’re suffering, we’re really fortunate because at least we have the means at hand to do something to change that by by understanding the cause of our suffering and by working to bring about the cause for happiness. But animals, because of their ignorance, aren’t able to do this while they’re in that animal body. Of course sorry. I was gonna say, of course, all of these beings have the same essential consciousness as we do and can eventually come back.
But it’s very hard. While they’re in the lower realms, it’s very hard for them to bring about the causes to to attain human rebirth or any kind of upper rebirth. And so they tend to get born in the lower realms life after life for a long time. I don’t think I ever saw that. No.
Yes. You might. On the other hand, you might forget. Yes. I mean, there are some animals that have good life, but they’re in a tiny minority.
And these animals are an example of a sort of mixed karma. They have a bad cause for rebirth. What’s called the projecting karma is bad. It leads to lower rebirth, but then they’ve done some good actions during their lifetime, during their previous lives, particularly probably generosity. And so they have this good conditions during their life.
So we need really two main things in order to have good upper rebirth. First of all, we need moral conduct which leads to upper rebirth and then we need generosity which leads to good conditions during life. So if somebody only has the generosity but not the moral conduct, can lead to that sort of rebirth as an animal. Well fed, well cared for animal. On the other hand, you see people who have human bodies but they have wretched miserable poverty stricken lives and that’s the result of the sort of life where people have created the moral conduct that leads to having a human body but have been miserly and not generous to others.
And so they don’t have the conditions to to have the enjoyments of life. They’re always having to put all their effort and concentration into scratching a living, and they never really succeed very well. Yes. That’s true. Yes.
There’s something in these books in that quite often our karma works through causing us to put out sort of energy that actually drives away what we want. And so I get a few notes here. People have experience with that. If we can stop putting out that in fact, really, is how our karma works. If we could really stop putting out that sort of energy, then we would stop experiencing the results of our karma.
The thing is that most of us have very strong karma and we can’t totally stop experiencing its results until we actually travel a long way along the path. It can be worthwhile doing some of these self help things, particularly where the karma isn’t very strong or where there’s a very strong counteracting karma, we might be able to get results from it. It’s certainly worthwhile giving it a try. The main thing that we have to put our energy into is observing karma, creating cause for the future. And if we put our energy into that and keep on doing it, particularly according to the understanding of how to create karma skillfully, which is coming next week, so that we actually get the most mileage out of our good karma and the least out of our bad karma, then we can actually start to experience results even after a few years of practice.
You start to notice a difference and many people do that and this is really working with cause and effect And if we start to experience results in this often, we can be sure that we’ll be experiencing much greater results in future lives because most of the results will come in future lives. That’s right. Yes. Yes. Well, yes.
Yes. There there are things I can for instance, I saw a tape or part of a tape on money, I suppose, was done by Leon Farthing, the relaxation center chap. Actually, there seemed to me to be a lot of sound common sense in what he was saying. He wasn’t overlooking the moral aspect by any means. So, you know, I thought what he was saying was was and he was actually telling people that you you know, that this thinking positive thing is limited.
He said you can’t just sort of go out and think I’m going to be wealthy and then go out and buy yourself a Mercedes if you haven’t got any money because he said, you know, if you believe that you gave me wealthy, you know, if you could really think that very strongly, then it would work for you. But the thing is that we start then doubting ourselves and so then we sort of drive away that money. He gave people a sort of little meditation like we are the children of the universe and we’re entitled to share and to our share of the wealth of the universe and so on. So you know there’s something in all this but I wouldn’t put too much energy into it really. I think it’s better to you know to stick to the Dharma practice and as Susan is saying, you know, really you find the fundamental underlying methods in there anyway.
But we’re really focusing you know, there’s a danger of focusing too much on the things of this life. But if you’re doing it with Dharma motivation, so as to be able to carry out your Dharma practice effectively and to deal with the the sort of disturbing, distracting concerns of this life, you know, so so they won’t be worrying you so much, then it it can be quite positive. For instance, we have means. You can be initiating the practices to help you to get money and wealth. There are wealth initiations, and Lama Yeshe particularly told the directors of centers that they should take some of these initiations.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. We want to have fewer dramas.
We will have fewer dramas. More Okay. So, anyway, yes, particularly, we we don’t want the drama of the lower realms. So I’m trying to get through this in a hurry because I have to talk about refuge. So we’re supposed to be getting past the lower realms now and looking at how we avoid the lower realms.