Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Venerable Pende Hawter explores the Buddhist perspective on death and dying in this 46-minute teaching, moving from the eight stages of dissolution to what happens after consciousness leaves the body. He covers the physical signs that consciousness has departed—heat leaving the heart, the subtle sense of the body becoming an empty shell, decomposition—and emphasizes that consciousness can exit through any part of the body, though exit from the crown facilitates a higher rebirth. He introduces practical techniques used by Buddhist hospice workers: Powa pills (blessed pills placed on the crown to draw consciousness upward) secured with Blu Tack, and smaller Mani pills placed in the mouth to bestow blessing at death. Hawter stresses that while state of mind at death is ultimately most important, these supplementary practices can help redirect consciousness toward a better rebirth, especially for those whose negative actions might otherwise dominate their death experience. The session concludes with a detailed guided death meditation, inviting practitioners to rehearse the eight stages, the inner visions of mirage, smoke, fireflies, and candle flame, then the clear light stage, offering direct experiential preparation for this natural process.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 D and D 1994 11 12.mp3
UUID: 80a29b4e-8cb6-4028-8828-b05ecb0d849f
Teacher: Ven Pende Hawter
Collection: Death and Dying (Ven Pende Hawter)
Date: 1994-11-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.9 minutes
Words: ~5,225
Think a lot of fear and anxiety as he approaches death. So it’s the way we live will determine the way that we’re going to die. Any questions? Any other questions at this stage? Joy, can we have the next overhead?
This one? Yes. Perhaps perhaps can you cover up so if we just talk a little bit now about what happens from the Buddhist viewpoint what actually happens after the consciousness is left we’ve talked about the dying process we’ve talked about the signs of the consciousness leaving the body. I haven’t yet talked about the effect of stimulating the crown but we’ll cover that tomorrow when we talk about helping the dying But let’s just talk about briefly to, if in a sense, fill in today’s discussions about what happens in the Buddhist perspective to someone after the consciousness has left the body. So we talked about the the person going through those eight stages of death.
So once the they’ve completed that those eight stages, I’ve forgotten some couple of other things I forgot to mention, the signs of the consciousness leaving the body. So another sign of the consciousness leaving the body is that as long as the consciousness is in the body that the body doesn’t decompose or smell. So sometimes with the meditators even in hot climates, if they’re sitting in meditation even for days or weeks as they can the body doesn’t decompose or smell it still retains or it still smells fine. And then a final sign is that if a meditator has finished his meditation then the body will tend to slump. Even after he’s died, a meditator can sit up unsupported, but once the meditation is finished then the meditator slumps down, it’s said.
So again, just in summary of those signs of the consciousness leaving the body: the white or red drops leaving the nose or sexual organ, the heat leaving from the heart region, the subtle sense of the body going from being a body to an empty shell, the body starting to decompose or smell, and in the case of a meditator, the body tending to slump forwards. So there are different ways that you could perhaps check to see whether the person is still there or whether they’ve left. I don’t know of any others other than the fact that if you’re clairvoyant then you can tell, can follow the actual person’s consciousness from one life to the next. So then the consciousness leaves the body and it can leave through different can leave from any part of the body. And perhaps it’s important to mention at this stage that the best exit of the consciousness is from the crown.
It’s that if if the consciousness leaves from the crown, that that can most facilitate the consciousness going to a higher type of rebirth. Perhaps I will just mention now that when a person dies after the breathing has stopped, then it’s very beneficial. Well, the first part of the body you should touch is the crown region. And I must confess I’m slightly confused here because I had thought it was eight finger widths back from the crown, but a couple of other sources I’ve looked at and lamas have said that it’s four finger widths back from the crown. But I think it’s basically the area of the fontanelle.
It’s it’s further back on on the head and not so much it’s eleven fingers from the eyebrows. Oh, it’s eleven fingers from the eyebrows. So where is that more? Where does that come to on your head? So that’s a little bit more little bit more up from the fontanelle.
Anyway, towards the top of the head. I thought it was a little slightly more back. Yes. Okay, acupuncture point. Alright.
Alright, okay. Anyway, towards the top of your head And when I when I say going back from the hairline, then my usual point there is from the original hairline. Some particular people otherwise, you might sort of end up on the back. You better do it from the eyebrows. I think it might be safer.
And so I said to when a person dies to to stimulate that point by rubbing that point pulling, tugging at the crown hair or if they don’t have any hair, then tapping tapping that point of the skull and that said to wherever you touch the body is said to help to draw the consciousness from that part of the body and that will help to draw the consciousness from the body, from the crown and most help towards a happy type of rebirth. Now it’s very interesting what I’ve discovered over the years giving these workshops is that very often Christian members or ex Christian or Christian members of the group relate similarities between what I’m saying and the Buddhist teachings. And at one workshop, one lady said that one of the Catholic traditions is that when a pope dies, at the head of the procession, they have a tray with a silver hammer on it, a little silver hammer. And apparently, even forgotten, most people have forgotten the symbolism of the silver hammer. But it said historically when the Pope died that they’d tap the top of his head with a silver hammer, which I think is quite fascinating.
Joy was saying one of the interesting things for her hearing some of these teachings is that there are things she’s been intuitively doing for years. And one of the intuitive things she said she’s always done is immediately when someone dies, she rubs the crown or tugs the crown hair, which proves that was a Buddhist in her last life. It’s probably a high lama who used to do Paiwa in all her patience. So there’s no coincidences. And so that’s something that’s recommended to do is to stimulate and if you can pass my bag oh just just pass that over sorry it’s heavy and so as I sang last night in this is called Buddha Show and Tell.
So traditionally, there are certain types of blessed pills called Powa pills, transference of consciousness pills. And I have my little Powa kit that I carry with me, Buddhist monk’s death kit. So included in that is a couple of these. They’re very they’re quite they’re not really tiny. They’re not as tiny as like money pills or the the generic pills, but it’s a small pill which is placed on the crown at the time of death.
And that’s after the breathing stopped for perhaps for twenty, thirty minutes or more. It’s placed on the crown. And these are particular these pills, they have certain blessed ingredients in them. And these ones apparently were in the Dalai Lama’s bedroom for about twelve days and blessed by him. So they have a very strong ability to help to draw the consciousness through the power of the blessing of the pill.
They’re called Powa pills. Traditionally, these are fixed on the crown using honey or butter in Tibet, But that’s a bit messy. So as a modern equivalent, I use Blu Tack. And so part of my monk’s kit is to use Blu Tack as well as my Powa pills. Yes, they’re also recyclable.
So and so you can use them on on many different people. And the Blu Tack doesn’t leave a mess on the head. What do do with the Blu Tack? Oh, you just What Blu No, you just put a bit of Blu Tack on the pill and then you affix that to the crown, you see, so it stays there. Or you can just hold it there with your hand.
How long do you leave it there? Twenty, thirty minutes or as long as possible after the breathing has stopped, and that helps to draw the consciousness from the crown. No. Because they’re all little Your Powa show bag at the Buddhist Royal Show. But often people like Buddhist people working in hospice, I have a number of these pills in Brisbane for instance, several bags of these pills.
So normally they’re just put on the crown as I said. I remember when one of the dogs at Chenrezig died, I lent one of my precious Powa pill to Geshe Tashi Sengye, and much to my dismay, he crushed it up and made it into a paste and put it on the dog’s head so he didn’t recycle it. But I’m sure it did the dog a lot of good, so I wasn’t unhappy. At least he had the blessing of that pill plus Geshe la’s prayers. So now, although Buddhists believe this is a very powerful technique for drawing the consciousness from the crown, If you if you have tech I’ll do it as a general thing.
You you have to respect, of course, the person who’s dying and their family’s particular spiritual beliefs. Now if you go into a Catholic, a strict Catholic person’s home and whip out your Powa pill, you’re not going to be very popular, so you have to use discretion and common sense if you have some of this armory or these techniques. And sometimes I will surreptitiously pull out a Powa pill and just place it on the person’s head if I think that the family is not going to be open to that idea and often I won’t use it at all if I’m at the bedside of a dying person so very much depends on the situation but anyway that’s one thing that if you’re a Buddhist working in hospice and I think it would be very good if you could get a Powa pill and I could supply you with that So please, people like perhaps Sylvia and some others perhaps Carrie and others think would be useful for you to have something like that. There’s many other sorts of things as well just while I’ve got my kit. There’s another type of blessed pill so I’m talking about some specific specifically Buddhist practices here for perhaps Buddhist patients, Dharma patients.
There’s another type of very small pill you won’t really be able to see there’s about a third of the size of the Powa pill and these are called Mani pills, M A N I, being short for om Mani Padme Hum or Chenrezig, sort of Chenrezig pills. Actually these are all blessed by the Dalai Lama as well. These ones are put in the mouth of a person shortly before death and that’s said to affect some sort of blessing by having it in their mouth or swallowing it. I’ve recently given some of these to I mentioned the non meditating fellow with AIDS and I’ve given him some of these which he agreed to take. So at least I was thankful for that to affect some sort of blessing.
And I think sometimes these can either help to perhaps either prolong the person’s life or perhaps help them to die painlessly and quickly. And it’s interesting, that’s actually generally true of Tibetan medicine that it will either help the person to recover and get well or if they’re not going to get well it’ll help them to die quickly and painlessly. So it works both ways. The other things there we’re running out of time so I won’t go into the other things in my kit. But that’s, as I said, those of you who are Buddhists working in hospice, then I think it would be useful for you to have one or two of these Powa pills that you can use to help people who are dying.
So it’s said for instance that if you touch other parts of the body especially lower parts of the body first, then that can cause the consciousness to leave through the lower parts of the body which may cause the person to have a lower rebirth if it leaves through the lower parts of the body. Now all of this stuff it sounds I know it can sound a little bit like Buddhist superstition because ultimately ultimately the only thing that can help you at the time of death is your state of mind and that’s a karmic thing which is a result of all our past actions. But these other practices these other practices I’m talking about can have some effect on the way the consciousness leaves the body and the type of rebirth you can have. And for instance, if a person has led a very negative life, has a very powerfully negative state of mind at the time of death, that can help to project them into a better type of rebirth. And conversely, for someone who’s led a very positive life and has a strongly negative type of state of mind at the time of rebirth can throw them into a lower type of rebirth time of death can throw them into a lower type of rebirth.
Now that used to concern me because it seemed a bit unfair that all of your past karma wasn’t coming into effect, but in fact it still does. And all it means is all of your past karmic causes still stay on the mind stream and still have the potential to ripen in the future, but it just means that for instance if you get thrown into a better type of rebirth then you’ve got the best opportunity to allow those positive potentials to ripen and if you get a worse type of rebirth then it’s more difficult for those positive potentials to ripen so that’s why a practice like Powa, Pohwa is described by Lama Zopa as I’ll say a bit more about tomorrow as a dakini for an evil person, not an evil person, something like a practice for the for the for an evil person at the time of death. And it it doesn’t mean someone who’s who’s, you know, rotten through and through, but it there’s different levels of practitioner and it basically means that if you don’t believe that you can become enlightened in this life or or enlightened at the time of death, then that’s the person who should use this Powa practice because if you it’s much better if you can use the power of your meditation, as I said with these yogis, to affect a high rebirth than to use a method like Powa.
So it said the Powa is a practice for the lowest level practitioner to use at the time of of death. So Lama Yeshe said to the people doing his course, he said, Then why are all you people here? He said, Why don’t you believe that you can become enlightened during this life? He said, But if you can’t, then Pohwa is a practice to use. Now time is slipping away and we haven’t really got far with intermediate state, but if you can turn that off, Joy, I’ll come back to that tomorrow morning.
As I said, it’s just such a vast topic and we can’t hope to cover it all in one weekend. So if you’d like to come back next weekend, then I’ll come back to Adelaide. We’re going to finish with this death meditation, and I’ve explained it in some detail already so that should largely remove any apprehension. But if the thought of doing a death meditation is is worrying or concerning for you, then, you know, either keep your eyes open or don’t follow through with the meditation or whatever. Now normally in groups, I would encourage people when doing the death meditation that you do it lying down because it’s easier to die lying down.
But we which Woody Allen which Woody Allen says is one of the benefits of death is it’s something you can do lying down or you can do it just as easy lying down. Of course, he also says that he’s not afraid what does he say? He’s He’s not afraid of death. He just doesn’t wanna be there when it happens which is perhaps how a lot of us feel. So if you want to lie down, the space to lie down, if you promise not to snore then it’s okay but otherwise we can just do it as a sort of a a little bit of a rehearsal and as I mentioned earlier there’s types of these recordings which you can get hold of.
If you snore joy you’re in trouble. There’s types of these recordings which you can take and practice at home. And of course, it’s available in different texts, etcetera, as well. So you just want to get yourself into a comfy position to do the meditation. And just the gompa is slightly small.
If you’re feeling tired, then you better do sitting up because it’s late in the day. So with the meditation, one reason I, you know if we’ve got a lot of space I would encourage people to lie down is that the main thing, main purpose of the meditation is to try and make not the main purpose but it’s very important to try and make the meditation as realistic as possible and if you you do it lying down then it’s easier just imagine that you really are dying but also you can do it you can do it in the sitting position that’s no problem. So first of all, in your mind, just closing your eyes and So just imagining to start with that you have become, perhaps you’ve been very ill and, your body’s become very weak. And you realize that you just no longer have the strength or the energy to recover from this illness, and you’ve been fighting it for a long time and you no longer have the will, the energy to keep fighting, and you’re ready now just to let go, not to keep struggling but to let go into the dying process.
Perhaps imagining that you’re just lying in your bed, perhaps just a sheet over you, and perhaps with your friends, your relatives, your loved ones gathered around the bed, perhaps crying distressed at the fact that they realize that you’re not going to recover. So you’re feeling very tired, very weak, and just ready to let go into this dying process. So as the dying process starts, your body has become very thin. Your limbs have become loose. Your body has become weak and powerless.
And you have the sense that the bed clothes are pressing down heavily on your body like a lead weight or that your body is sinking under the earth. Your sight has become unclear and dark. You can no longer open or close your eyes, and the lustre of your body has diminished, has dulled, that all of your strength is consumed, is used up. And as that first stage of the dying process occurs, you have the inner vision or the appearance of like a silver blue mirage, a shimmering silver blue mirage. Just trying to get a clear inner mental image of the silver blue mirage.
Just letting go into that into that process into that dying process. As we enter the second stage as the dying process continues, the various fluids of the body start to dry up. The saliva, sweat, urine, blood, etc. They all start to dry up. Our mouth starts to become dry.
And our body consciousness can no longer experience the three types of feelings that accompany the sense consciousnesses. In other words, we can no longer discriminate between feelings of pleasure, pain, and neutral. We lose our ability to perceive pain. We can no longer hear internal or external sounds, and that inner whirring sound in the ears stops. And we have the inner appearance or vision of of like hazy or smoke filled room.
Again, as we go deeper into that process, the mind gradually becoming more clear, more calm, more still, more subtle. We can no longer digest food and drink. The body starts to lose its heat from the peripheries towards the heart. We can no longer, be aware of the affairs or activities of those close to us. And at this stage of the dying process, we even lose awareness of the names of our loved ones.
We don’t recognize them. We don’t remember their names. Our in breath has become weak and our out breath has become stronger and longer. So the breathing has become much weaker now and we’ve lost our sense of smell. We can no longer smell.
And at this stage, have the inner appearance like fireflies or sparks rising up within in smoke from a fire. The mind becoming more and more subtle, turning inwards, having now lost awareness of the external environment. As we come close now to the time when the breathing stops, we completely lose our ability to perform any physical actions so we can no longer move any part of our body, not an eyelash, not a muscle. We completely lose our awareness, our mindfulness of what’s going on around us in the world. The tongue becomes thick and short and the root of the tongue turns blue.
We can no longer taste anything and we can no longer discriminate rough and smooth objects. At this stage the breath stops completely. And we have the inner vision, the inner appearance like a flickering candle that’s about to be extinguished to go out. The doctors come in, the doctors are called, they pronounce us dead, death certificate is made out, arrangements are made for the funeral director to come. This is what in the usual sense is labeled as death, but still at this stage there is still a very important subtle inner psychological process occurring, a vital psychological process that can take many more hours or even a day or two or three to finish.
And as the various energies start to move towards the heart, at first, we have the vision of whiteness, which can be described as a a clear vacuity filled with white light, like a sky pervaded by moonlight. Open expanse of still. And that changes to a vision like a clear vacuity filled with red light or like an autumn sky at dawn, a sky pervaded by redness, a vast expanse of sky pervaded by redness, the mind becoming more and more clear, more and more still, calm, blissful. And then for a short moment as all of those energies come together, we have the vision of total blackness, darkness. And then that gives way to this final stage of the dying process, the clear light of death, like a completely clear, spacious sky, empty of the white or red appearance, just an open spacious expanse of sky.
And it’s like our mind floats free into that space completely free of all thoughts, concerns, peaceful, spacious, blissful, open, a state of totally expanded awareness. And so just in this state just allowing your mind to float free into that space, into that blissful peaceful awareness, totally unobstructed by all concepts and thoughts. A state of peace, bliss, emptiness like we’ve never experienced before. Just allow ourselves to let go into that clear space. No thoughts, no feelings, no concerns, just clear blissful space.
And normally at this point when this clear light vision has finished or the clear light stage has finished normally then the consciousness would leave our bodies, move on to the intermediate state, and on to another life. But because it’s not yet ready time for us to for that to occur, because it’s not time yet for us to leave this life, So we start to come back through those various stages back to life. So first that blissful clear light vision changes to the dark vision, the black vision, the unconscious vision, which changes into the to the red vision, the sky filled with redness. Then to the white vision, the clear moonlit sky. And as the first sign of life starts to come back into the body, as the first breath, weak breath happens, we have the vision of the flickering candle.
As some of the heat energy starts to come back into the body, as the breath becomes a little stronger, we then have the vision of the sparks or fireflies. Now there’s more energy, more strength coming back into the body, the first sign of awareness of the people around us and we have the vision of the smoke filled room, the hazy vision, and gradually as the strength, the energy, the life comes back into the body, we are able to gain control again over our senses, able to open our eyes, able to move our limbs, we have the vision of the silvery blue, the shimmering silvery blue mirage. So now the full life, the full energy has, come back into the body. And our relatives are very relieved that we haven’t passed away. They’re very happy to see us alive again.
And so just to to, we just now can stretch to start to move our hands, our feet, and perhaps stretch our limbs, and, then in your own time you can slowly, open your eyes, come back in for awareness of the room, sitting up if you’re lying down, and, just finishing the, the meditation there. And as I said we will finish the day’s proceedings there so as not to add more talk to the end of the meditation so that you can just stay with that feeling and whatever’s come up and we can talk about that tomorrow morning or you can see me individually. So in conclusion now let’s just dedicate the positive energy from today’s session. That by having through these teachings, discussions, meditations that we’ve had today about death and dying, May that help us through this positive energy that we’ve generated today, through these activities, may we quickly be able to gain the realizations of all of the teachings related to death and dying and in fact all of the other teachings related to the graduated path so that we can completely eradicate all negative traits from our mind, completely develop all of the positive, in particular the qualities of love, compassion, wisdom, the state of ultimate healing, ultimate peace, ultimate happiness, in order that we can then lead all other suffering living beings out of their confusion, pain, suffering to this state of ultimate happiness and peace.
So may we quickly be able to do that. And seeing we’ve been talking a little about reincarnation and death and dying, we can also make the prayer that in all of our future lifetimes may we never be separated from perfect spiritual teachers, perfect guides, until we reach that state of full enlightenment, so that we always come under the compassionate guidance of teachers like Khensur Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, so that we may quickly become like them and be of ultimate benefit to others. So let’s finish the day there and those who are not coming back tomorrow thank you for coming today. Hope it’s been of some use and to everybody else we look forward to seeing you at nine thirty tomorrow morning. And just reminding people that the Guru Puja tonight is at six and everybody’s welcome.
Everybody, welcome back. Is anybody who wasn’t here yesterday? There’s just one person down there, so welcome. Oh, someone else. So welcome.
We’ll we’ll be covering somewhat different things today than yesterday, but it it sort of follows on, and we’ll do a little bit of recapping. So each day is is a bit independent, so it doesn’t matter so much that we weren’t here yesterday. Is there anybody who nobody died last night? Good. So let’s start with some meditation this morning, again, just to bring us back to this morning’s session.
So just sitting comfortably. Just letting go of the the busyness, the activity, the effort of getting here this morning. And just allow mind and body to become relaxed. Just bring the mind into awareness of the body, scanning through the body from head to toe, Just identifying any areas of tension or tightness or discomfort. As you become aware of those feelings, let them soften, loosen, relax.
Just allow any feelings of tension or tightness or discomfort to dissolve away, drop away from the body. Just allow the whole body and mind to feel comfortable, relaxed. Just allow that feeling of relaxation to pervade the whole body and mind to surround you, protect you, nourish you. Just becoming aware of that feeling of stillness within you and around you. Then with body and mind relaxed, we can bring our mind to the breath.
And here we can do the the nine round breathing where we visualize the some of the subtle channels inside the body. This technique, if you like, is taken from the tantric teachings and also has a relationship to the Powa visualizations that Khensur Rinpoche will be elaborating on in the course in two weeks time. So it’s a very useful type of meditation because it’s like a precursor or a preliminary to some of the tantric meditations. So with this visualization we imagine the inside of the body as being hollow like a hollow tube surrounded by the skin and then from the crown of the head running down in front of the spine down through to the pelvis we visualize a thin tube of light often described as the thickness of an arrow or a pencil, but you can actually visualize this any size that’s comfortable for your mind. Seeing this tube of light as being in the nature of light supple, flexible, radiating.
From the crown it winds up under the skull and exits at the point between the eyebrows. So really the tube starts at that point in the forehead and then winds up under the skull and then in a continuous tube runs down in front of the spine down through to the pelvis. And this tube would normally call the central channel this tube this central channel is extremely important because the pure energies in the body, the pure undiluted, unobstructed, unobscured energies in the body run through this central channel. But normally because the central channel is blocked during life we don’t experience these pure energies and usually the winds, the energies in the body only enter this central channel at the time of death. And as I was saying yesterday the meditator will try through the power of his meditation to bring the energies into the central channel during life and similar and thereby being able to experience that blissful clear light state of mind during his life.
And he does that by practicing these various yogas over a number of years. And alongside that central channel running up from the nostrils up alongside that central channel and then winding down alongside it, there are two side channels the left and right side channels usually described as being slightly smaller in diameter but right next to the central channel. Classically, it’s described that at the various chakras, the various centers along the