Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching on death and dying, Ven Pende Hawter guides practitioners through the nine-round breathing meditation used to purify subtle energy channels and prepare the mind. He covers the physical and psychological dissolution stages that occur at death, the intermediate state, and rebirth into one of six realms. The core teaching is that death is certain but its timing is unknown, and the only thing that can protect us at death is our mental state and spiritual development. Hawter also addresses practical compassion practice, explaining the balance needed between an open heart and a quiet mind to avoid burnout, and the four opponent powers method for purifying negative actions. The talk includes detailed discussion of taking refuge, generating compassion, performing antidote actions, and making meaningful promises or vows—with flexibility built in so practitioners can start where they are. Pitched at serious practitioners interested in death meditation and helping the dying.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 D and D 1994 11 13.mp3
UUID: 62d642f6-5681-4513-be43-56471c2df2be
Teacher: Ven Pende Hawter
Collection: Death and Dying (Ven Pende Hawter)
Date: 1994-11-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.0 minutes
Words: ~5,568
There are loops from the side channels winding around the central channel and constricting it, and that’s what blocks the flow of energy through the central channel. But for this exercise, we don’t visualize those loops, those constrictions, we just simply visualize those two side channels running down alongside the central channel. But importantly, about four finger widths below the navel, those two side channels wind inwards and upwards and join into the central channel, so if you look at that point it looks a little bit like the letter W as the two side channels wind up into the central channel. So with this nine round breathing we’re going to visualize the impure energy is being dispelled from these channels. And so it helps firstly to concentrate on the breath, to concentrate our mind, but it’s also a very good preliminary exercise to help to remove the blockages from those channels.
So in the first of these nine rounds, we visualize the the breath entering the right nostril, traveling down the right channel, crossing over to the left channel. At that point, four finger widths below the navel where it joins in, crosses over up the left channel and out the left nostril. And we visualize as we do this that all of the impure energy in the left channel, which is described as the disturbing attachment desire energy in the body. All of the disturbing attachment type energy leaves the left nostril in the form of black smoke. So we breathe in through the right, out through the left, and then visualize breathing out all of the impure attachment energy.
As we do the exercise, it can help to block the opposite nostril with the tip of your index finger. So for instance, as you breathe in, you can block the as you breathe in through the right, can block the left nostril with the tip of your index finger. As you breathe out the left, you can block the right nostril, and so on as we do the exercise, if if that helps with the visualization. Otherwise, you can just visualize, imagine things. So for the first three rounds, we breathe in through the right, out through the left, and then in the second three rounds we breathe in through the left nostril, down the left channel, up the right channel, and out the right nostril.
This time visualizing that we breathe out all of the impure anger, hatred energy in the body, which is said to abide in that right channel, the right side of the body. So we breathe, and again, visualizing that we expel that energy, that disturbing energy, again in the form of black smoke, which disappears into space. And so that’s for the, second three rounds. And then for the third three rounds of the breathing, we visualize breathing in through both side channels, the air comes down the both side channels, crosses into the central channel, comes up the central channel, and then out through the nostrils, or or you could visualize coming out between the eyebrows, but easier to visualize it coming out from the nostrils. And this time, we visualize breathing out all of the ignorant energy, all the energy of ignorance in the form of black smoke that leaves the nostrils.
And so, again so that’s the nine rounds, and we just repeat this several times. So, again, in through starting with in through the right, out through the left, breathing out the attachment energy, then in through the left, out through the right, breathing out the anger energy, in through both, out through the central, breathing out ignorance energy. So now just repeating that those nine rounds, just going through that several times and concentrating on those nine rounds. If you wish you can revert to just visualizing the breath coming in and out through both nostrils just in a simple form, or you can continue with the nine round breathing. So with our mind in a more calm, settled state, we can now set our motivation for doing today’s workshop.
Just trying to generate the highest level of motivation in our minds. We wish to develop our minds to the highest extent to gain a realization of all of the teachings on the graduated path. In particular, today, we’re concentrating on on the teachings on death and dying and impermanence, but also looking at all the teachings on the graduated path so that we can quickly develop in our mind streams, in particular, the qualities of love, kindness, compassion, wisdom, in order that we may be able to lead each and every living being out of their suffering and confusion to a state of peace and happiness. Recognizing that in the same way that that I want happiness and don’t want even the slightest discomfort, pain, upset. So every other living being in the world down to the smallest insect wants happiness and doesn’t want suffering exactly the same as me.
And I’m they’re all exactly the same as me, but I’m only one one person, one living being, and, others are countless. Even amongst humans, there’s billions. Over five billion humans alone, not to mention all of the other living beings. And also reflecting that all of all of my happiness comes from others, from the kindness of others. If there were no other living beings, there’d be no there’d be no objects of practicing compassion, patience, kindness, tolerance, love.
So I’d be unable to develop those qualities within my mind. Therefore, to to reach this higher state of development, I need, we need other living beings. So for that reason, others other living beings are infinitely kind. We can’t develop without them. Also, just reminding ourselves that today could be the last day of my life.
And therefore, trying to make the most meaning, the most purpose from this day, to gain the essence from this day, not to waste it on meaningless things. So, also, one of the main spiritual qualities that’s talked about in Buddhism is rejoicing, is actually to rejoice in the positive things that we do and the positive things that other people do. So actually being thankful and rejoicing at the the fact that we’ve been able to get here today to hear these teachings, to to explore these things together, the fact that we’ve been been able to create this opportunity for ourselves. And then again, following on from the meditations yesterday, just reminding ourselves again that the fact that death is definite. The time of death is indefinite, so it can happen at any time.
We don’t know when. We don’t know which will come first, tomorrow or the next life. Again, rejoicing of the fact that we’ve been given another day in which to practice and prepare. And then finally, just reflecting that the ultimately the only thing that can happen, help us at the time of death is the state of our mind, our spiritual development, our practice. Everything else gets left behind.
We are constantly reflecting on those points, keeping that constant recollection of the shortness and preciousness of life. It gives our practice a great deal of energy, inspiration, direction. It stops us from wandering off into side alleys, diversions that ultimately aren’t so beneficial and so helpful. So now just when you’re ready, just opening your eyes, coming back into awareness from the room, and we’ll finish the meditation there. I gonna know.
Oh. Wrong bill. Perhaps just while I’m checking with people about yesterday, someone might like to erect the screen and we might because I’ll be using the overheads again in a moment. So at the end of yesterday, we did the death meditation, and I’m interested in any feedback, anything that people experienced during that meditation, or anything that might have come up for you. And also any questions that might have that you might have from yesterday, what we talked about talked about yesterday.
So anybody got anything to they’d like to say about the meditation or questions from yesterday? Yes, Natalie. Praise and blame. Praise and blame. It’s a very, very powerful meditation.
I remember, I think, being quite shocked when I when I did my first meditation course and I first did that meditation and realizing that most of my life had been spent in the eight worldly dharmas. What was the eight worldly? The eight worldly dharmas or the eight worldly it had another Concerns. Concerns. I should mention here that Dharma is used in two ways in in Buddhism.
Dharma usually with a capital d is the Buddhist philosophy. Dharma with a little d literally means phenomena. So when people something like the eight worldly dharmas is like the eight worldly phenomena or eight worldly concerns. And so when I thought about my life and, you know, so much energy had gone into sports, trying to to win at sport and being really upset when I lost and and relationships, trying to get happiness from relationships and all those things and university studies and so so much of my life and which ultimately doesn’t bring any lasting satisfaction. It only brings brings pain in a sense.
Because the more we gain, the more material possessions we have, the more we have to lose, the the more and you see this all the time actually with reputation and disgrace. The higher someone gets in society, then the the harder they can fall. You think of the president Nixon’s and anybody’s in a higher position that they can just, you know, fall so far. Happiness and pain, I mean, all understand about that very well, how we put so much energy into pursuing happiness in so many different ways and trying to avoid anything that’s uncomfortable or painful. And praise and blame was the other one, how so much we’d like to hear nice things said about ourselves and our friends and relatives, and how much we dislike hearing unpleasant things said about ourselves and our friends and relatives.
So these are like the eight opposites of spiritual practice. These are the things that take us away from our spiritual practice. And as I I remember doing that meditation in my first course and being quite shocked what I’d spent most of my life doing. I don’t know that it’s changed a lot since then, but I’m just more aware of it now. Brings me more pain when I think about how much time I spend on the Eight Worldly Dharmas.
So anything else from yesterday or from the meditation? Yes? I think if someone can pass it down. Again, if people get into the habit today of of getting it before they speak. There’s a little button on the top that you push that turns the green light on and then you speak into the little mic.
Thank you. Can you hear me now? Just put the mic up near your mouth. Is that okay? Is it okay?
Yeah, that’s fine. The experience I had with my meditation yesterday before we left for the day, I followed you very well throughout meditation. Felt like I was perhaps travelling a bit faster than your words, but I was comfortable with that. As you were bringing us out of the meditation, I was aware of travelling back very quickly to the white area and hovering there for a long time and feeling the most excruciating pain in my chest. When I focused on that pain I recognised that it was towards my back, towards my spine, towards the left side of my spine.
And I’ve realized that I’ve had this experience many times before in my meditations, not in an overtly travel towards the death experience, but it just happens in meditations for me. And I contemplated a lot about this last night, and I understand my archetype is one of responsibility. I take great responsibility for the actions and behaviour of others. And I work very hard trying to prevent others from making mistakes. So that’s my experiences in my life this time have been to share others’ pain, if you like, without taking on the problem myself.
Now, to move along a little bit, was going to say to you, or perhaps keep contemplating myself how I could clear that pain. And as you were talking in your meditation today, so I strongly believe we’re always in the right place at the right time to learn what we need to know. That as you talked about the nostril breathing, which I am adept at doing, I could feel that pain and I could not necessarily feel a release in that pain. But the question that I was going to contemplate on how to remove the block has now been answered, and I’d like to thank you very much for that. Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Anybody else got any questions? I’d like to you’re talking about the pain and getting taking on responsibility. Reminds me of of something I read written by Ram Dass, where he was talking about our work with when we work with other people in therapy or medicine or nursing. And he said in order in order to avoid burnout, which is something that we all are subject to to experiencing, he said we need to develop a balance between the open heart and the quiet mind.
I’ve actually got got the quote here. I won’t read the full thing, but we need to develop the balance between the open heart and the quiet mind. As we said, what tends to happen is that in our work we often get we open our heart too much and we get caught too much into the melodramas and the pain and the suffering and we get sort of dragged into that and then we lose if you like we lose the quiet mind we get caught up in all of the stuff that’s going on. So then we need to withdraw more into the quiet mind. But when we do that, we can withdraw too far and become a bit closed off, become a bit cold if you like, and separated from the suffering and and of others.
And and that reminds me of a story the Dalai Lama told, which I’ve heard several times now, that he visited a group of meditators in China who were doing a lot of, I guess, like Samādhi meditation or meditating on the different types of absorptions. And they they were regarded as very very powerful meditators and were quite respected in their communities. But he said his observation was they were a bit cold and a bit lacking compassion. So if the meditations on developing single point of concentration aren’t conjoined with meditations on compassion, then a person then the risk is that we can come become a little bit shut off, little bit lacking in compassion, a little bit cold. And and so the in Buddhism, it talks about the need to to combine wisdom and compassion.
And if you have too much of it’s a little bit like, I guess, the wisdom we can relate to the quiet mind and the compassion of the open heart. So that’s virtually what Ram Dass is saying. We need both of these, and it says, have a balanced practice, you need both just as a bird needs two wings to fly. So anyway, if we withdraw too much, we can come become a bit shut off, a bit cold, and then we need to come back out and open the heart more. And he said at first, you tend to move a little bit into one and then you withdraw.
So it’s a bit hard to find the balance between the two, but with practice you can stay on that sort of fine line between the open heart and the quiet mind. So I found that very helpful for myself and perhaps for anybody else working in the helping professions that we have to try and find this balance between the open heart and the quiet mind. And it’s very easy when when it’s very easy perhaps when you adopt spiritual path that you tend to, in a sense, give too much. And you feel some sort of obligation that you, you know, you want to become a bodhisattva by the end of next week. And so you try and do too much, and then you get burnt out and you sort of perhaps then even sometimes will give up even your spiritual practice.
So and what I’ve observed actually, for instance, with the with the with my colleagues, Western monks and nuns, is that those who’ve remained ordained after fifteen or twenty years are those who’ve developed a bit more of a balanced or relaxed practice. They’re the ones who perhaps might go off to a movie occasionally or go to the beach for a swim or something. And and those who give up tend to be the ones who push too hard, and they’re very strict they’re very strict with themselves, and they push too hard, and in a sense they find it too hard and they give up. Now and that comes back to a basic teaching of the Buddha, which is actually those of you who saw Little Buddha would would remember this, where the Buddha taught that our practice should be like a well tuned lute string. I used to say guitar string, of course they didn’t have guitars in the time of the Buddha, did they?
So the well tuned lute string, not too tight and not too loose. So we need to find that balance to practice in a continuous and concentrated way, but not to push too hard, to take time out and to look after ourselves. And another thing that perhaps is not realized so much was a particular teaching on the Bodhisattva path called the six perfections, six paramitas, the six perfections, which is patience sorry, generosity, morality, patience, effort or enthusiastic perseverance, concentration and wisdom. With the fourth one, effort or enthusiastic perseverance, concentration and wisdom.
With the fourth one, enthusiastic perseverance or effort, one of the four attributes of enthusiastic perseverance is rest. So it’s recognizing when we need to take time out and rest. That’s right, Joy, isn’t it? Yes, it is. And so for many of us, we push too hard until we get to the point of it being burnt out and then we fall in a heap.
One of my colleagues who was running our center in Bodh Gaya in India coined the lovely phrase compassion fatigue. Yeah. So there’s a danger that we get compassion fatigue, and we all know that feeling, I think, when one more person rings you up or wants help and you think, oh, no. I wish they’d just go away. You know?
Why don’t I just go off and die peacefully and not bother me? And so that’s that’s a sign of compassion fatigue. And I’m sure we’ve all experienced that in our work and in our lives. And that’s why there’s another point actually I’ll mention. In the early years, used to ask the lamas quite often, what’s the best way to develop compassion?
Is it by it by working with people who are suffering or or by doing meditation? And the sort of general answer I I got I don’t have to answer the ask the question anymore because I I got the the answers. But sort of question the answers they would give was that if you have very strong compassion, then it’s good to work with people who are suffering, and you have a lot of energy to keep doing that for a long period of time. So somebody like Lama Zopa, for can work virtually twenty four hours a day helping other people. Although I must say each year still he would do a little bit of retreat and actually spends most of his mornings in prayer as well.
And it’s like mother Teresa who when I read about her life story, her life, you know, each each morning, she starts each day getting up early and doing two hours of of solid prayer. So even people who lead those very compassionate, active lives still find time in their daily routine for quite a lot of meditation or prayer. So he said, if you have very strong compassion, then you can work with people who are suffering. But if your compassion is not so strong, then you can that can sort of diminish, sort of wear out, if you like, and then you need to do retreat and meditate on compassion, and if you like, restore your energy, restore the batteries. So probably for most of us we need a combination of ideally if we’re trying to develop compassion and working to help others, but taking time out occasionally to do retreat.
And so personally, I I was very happy several years ago when Lama Zopa told me that I should do two to three months retreat each year. That’s probably the best news I’ve ever heard in my own life. I don’t think I’ve done it yet, but I’ve done some of it, but not that much. So it was a recognition that because I do a lot of work in society, and probably also because my compassion is weak, I needed to take time out each year to do some solid meditation. Any other other versus developing compassion for other people.
So often I have a sense of feeling guilty if I’m doing something, which is part of my past of course, doing something for myself. Through my own experience of serious illness I began to realise that it’s so vital that at the same time that I develop compassion for others, that I develop compassion for myself. You can probably answer that better than I could, would think, through your own experience, but it’s very true that in order to develop compassion for others, we have to develop compassion for ourselves. And also that basic sort of idea of any sort of mental or personal growth that we can only help people up to our own level of development. So sometimes when ordinary people in society hear about know, Lamas who go off to the mountains to spend twenty years in a cave meditating, they say, that’s very selfish.
Why aren’t they out there helping other people? But it’s a bit like it’s like if you’re in a boat that’s sort of sinking, then you can’t really help the other people because you’re in the boat with them. So it’s like in order to to really help others, you have to be able to develop your own mind to to to a higher extent so that then you can you can lead others out of their suffering. So the classic example of, you know, the meditator or the saint sort of climbing to the top of the mountain, and then once he reaches the mountain and looks down and sees the suffering of everybody else, and then he has the wish to go back and lead everybody else out of that suffering. So in order to develop our own minds, we do need to take time out to develop our mind, and we do have to care for ourselves.
We do have to have we can’t have compassion for others if we don’t have it for ourselves. And it talks actually about different types of practitioner. So the type of practitioner, for instance, and I forget the actual terms, it’s sort of king like, shepherd like, something else. So the king like practitioner or bodhisattva wants to get enlightened first so that then he can lead everybody else to enlightenment. And the shepherd like bodhisattva wants to like to push everybody else to complete enlightenment or to relieve everybody else’s suffering and leave himself to last.
And then the other one is the one who wants himself and everybody him or herself and everybody else to go at the same time and become enlightened at the same time. I forget the name that’s given to that one. Can you remember? It’s king like, shepherd like, and I forget I forget the third one. So there’s the different types of practitioner and the different attitudes, so we have to think which category we fall into.
Other questions? Yes. You’re getting better today with the machine. Thank you. Yes, just a clarification.
Yesterday you talked about all of our negative actions can be eradicated by spiritual practice and the four opponent powers. And I wasn’t very clear on that. I think it was regret, promising not to do it again, power of the antidote or developing a compassionate mind, and then the power of reliance. I was a bit confused about those I should say here, these are very strong opponents about any negative action. It’s not all we need to eradicate all our past negative karmas.
It’s it’s one very powerful method, but but there’s many other methods. And for a lot of our heavy past karmas, and I we need a lot more than the four opponent powers, but it’s a very powerful method to purify anything. There’s a power of regret. In fact, I was looking this up this morning and the different names. So there’s a power of regret.
The second one is the power, usually described as power of the objects or the power of of reliance. So the one the one text I looked did have the power of the object. And this is to generate or this is to take refuge in in the triple gem in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, Buddha, his teachings and his followers, or to generate bodhicitta, the mind of compassion or the mind of enlightenment. Because all of our negative actions are either against the triple gem or against other living beings. So if we take refuge in the triple gem and if we generate compassion, then that’s like the opposite of that will stop us from creating any more negative actions.
Then there’s the power of the promise, the power of the antidote, and that is engaging in positive actions. And this can be ordinary sort of actions like helping other people, being a nurse, a doctor, or helping other people in different ways. Also, there’s many different sort of spiritual practices like meditating on emptiness or compassion or making holy objects or whatever in the Buddhist sense. So for instance, very often a student would be asked to make, as I said, certain stupas or tsa-tsas or save the lives of animals if they have a life threatening illness or something like that. So many of these different sort of antidotes.
And then finally, there’s the power of the promise. The promise in your own mind, and I think Sue or someone reminded me about the different aspects of it yesterday, not to engage in those actions again. And that can also be for a limited time or for any part of the day. This is a sort of an escape clause, if you like, in the power of the promise. So for instance, if you’re a butcher, you could make the promise not to kill between dusk and dawn, and there’s still a great benefit from that.
Or whatever it is, you know, that you’re not going to smoke sort of between four and five in the morning or something if you’re a chain smoker. So you just do whatever you can and this also relates to all the vows like the lay vows as well. The lay vows for Buddhists would be not killing, not stealing, not lying, not engaging in sexual misconduct and intoxicants. So for instance, the last one is one that often people hesitate at, no intoxicants. And so you can make the promise, for instance, you won’t take intoxicants between, you know, nine in the morning and six at night or something like that.
So there’s still a great deal of benefit from actually keeping the vow for at least part of the day. And and it’s one of the nice things I think about Buddhism is its flexibility and its adaptability. And these these little escape clauses that are built into the system. So because it’s like, you know, if you can keep these promises and vows for even part of the day, then there’s still tremendous benefit. So it’s a very realistic sort of philosophy because it recognizes that, you know, you can’t go from being decadent to saintly just in a in a short time, but you have to work up to it.
So any other questions? So just briefly recapping on yesterday, we talked about the importance of reflecting on death and impermanence, how to live life fully and meaningfully. We need to be aware of death and impermanence. We talked about the nine-round breathing meditation. Death is certain, the time of death is uncertain, and the only thing that can help us at the time of death is the state of our mind.
And then we, in the afternoon, we started talking about the dying process, the death process, and we started talking about the intermediate state, and then we did the the death meditation. So if we just finish off saying a little bit about the intermediate state and rebirth, about how that occurs. Then once we finish that, then we can actually get on to perhaps what a lot of you are very interested in, which is how to help someone who’s dying, or how to help yourself and someone else who’s dying at the time of death. If I can just get someone to perhaps if you can put the first one just on again. So just as a a reminder and to check Joy’s eye hand coordination.
Yesterday, we we just we just went through the various stages of the dying process and just as by way of reminder, we talked about the physical the four stages of the physical dissolution and the four stages of the psychological dissolution, the various visions coming to the clear light of death. How this process here can take up to three days. Usually would happen within a number of hours, but can take certainly a day or two, and I mentioned about certain cases where it did take several days or one to two days, and the stories of the coffins being torn to shreds, etcetera. And the need to be careful when we’re dealing with people who’ve died to respect the fact that they’re going through a very crucial, vital spiritual experience and to facilitate that as much as we can. So if I can have the next one again, please, Joy.
And perhaps again, just covering up to here. Just coming. Did you have a late night, Joy? Or Yes. She did have a late night.
That’s fine. Thank you. So I talked about when a person dies, the consciousness leaves the body and goes back through those eight reverse stages. Sorry. Goes goes back through those eight stages in reverse order, and the person is reborn into the intermediate state, having having a subtle body, but otherwise having all of the other attributes of of an ordinary being, being in the form that they’re going to take in the next life.
And, of course, in the for those of you who may not realize, in the Buddhist description, we can be reborn into any one of six different realms. And so different realms described the hell realms, hungry ghost realms, animal realms, or the animal realm, the human realm, the jealous god realm, and the god realm. And people will often ask whether these are real or real or not, and probably the best answer to that question is that they are as real to the people, to the beings in them as this realm is to us. Because in in the truest sense, this realm is also illusory. This human realm is illusory, but it’s completely real to us.
And if you like, you can often with the six realms, can make the analogy to people in different situations on Earth. So a paranoid schizophrenic who believes that people are coming coming towards him to try and kill him, that’s as real to him as our situation is to us. Or someone who’s dying of hunger in Africa, then that’s like a hell realm or people in in a war torn country, it’s like a hell realm. People who are starving to death, it’s like a hungry ghost realm and so on. People who have tremendous wealth and riches is a bit like a god realm.
But the important point is that all of these realms of existence are in the nature of unsatisfactoriness or suffering, and it doesn’t matter where we are in any of those realms of existence. When we die, we can fall back to lower types of rebirth. And I’ll talk a little bit more about that when I the the aim of spiritual practice is to is to transcend that uncontrolled type of rebirth.