y Robina Courtin — 2016-07-30

Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. Ven Robina Courtin reframes what Buddhist death preparation actually means: not readiness for death as an event, but preparation for the next life. In this 110-minute teaching, drawing from her work editing Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s practical manual on helping people die, she establishes three foundational points—death is certain, its timing is unknowable, and only virtuous karmic seeds ripened at the moment of death determine rebirth. The hours immediately before breathing stops are the critical window: this is when the seed triggering your next life activates. She covers preparing the environment, becoming a steady presence, using mantra to anchor virtue, and understanding how attachment intensifies at death. Real examples include Steve Jobs’ deathbed, death-row inmates, and hospice workers. She closes by exploring Amitābha’s Pure Land as an intentional rebirth destination.

File metadata (for organising)

File: 10 E 2016 07 30.mp3

UUID: 4fc26b75-9662-4788-8039-4e0405036b42

Teacher: Ven Robina Courtin

Collection: y Robina Courtin (Ven Robina Courtin)

Date: 2016-07-30

Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide

Duration: 110.4 minutes

Words: ~21,805

So we’re going to talk about life and death and the Buddha’s view of it and why it’s important. How we come into this life and how we go out of it and what’s the point basically, what’s the action points about this? So that we can be ready for death and the next life so we can help others. So why, in the long term, so that we can develop our marvellous potential, our natural potential for perfection. So then we’re really qualified to help others just naturally.

So I think this is why we’re here. So I was really happy to be able to put this book of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s together. It started in two thousand and three when Rinpoche was teaching in France on another topic altogether, and one of his older students came to him and said her old daddy had just died suddenly and I didn’t know what to do, she said. So I think Rinpoche was probably shocked, doesn’t say it like that, because you know she was one of the older students, like all of us, and we know about this. I mean if we’re halfway, halfway Buddhist even, you kind of know that death is part of the deal, you know?

Buddha’s not afraid to talk about death, there’s very detailed descriptions of death, you know, blah blah blah, we know about this. But somehow we don’t really know about it because we don’t want to know about it. So we say the words, but to really engage in it like education, that’s different, you know. And then that’s why she didn’t know what to do, she had a panic attack basically and didn’t know what to do, you know. So basically Rinpoche then changed tack and proceeded to teach about how to help at the time of death.

So Rinpoche’s given these teachings many, many times the last forty years in different ways, you know, variations of it. And actually if you put them all together, it’s probably only twenty pages and it’s all just so then the biggest job for me as an editor, you know, if anyone does editing, it’s like not as though it’s teachings, but he doesn’t kind of, when he teaches, he doesn’t give headings and structure and chapters and parts and sort of, you know, he just talks spontaneously from the heart all about the things we need to do. And basically it’s overwhelming instruction, because Rinpoche’s got more practices I mean, he finds practices and mantras in secret places that no one else has ever heard of. He favours for this, you know? So in the end, it seemed to me the only way, and it took time, the only way to do the book was to do it chronologically.

And then secondly, he gives the teachings to everybody who’s in front of him, the only way to frame the book was to how to help your loved ones. In other words, it’s all addressed to you, but when you’re saying what to do at the time you stop breathing, it’s a bit hard for you to it when you stop breathing. So then the book had to be addressed to somebody so it makes sense to be addressed to us as a helper, you know. And then of course it’s for ourselves as well, and so it’s about how to help your loved ones, you know. I mean help your enemies as well, if you’re brave enough.

Help them to die nicely, not force their death. So the thing is, so that’s the framing of the book, the framework. And so then the only other one had to think, you know, you can put all the teachings in ten, twenty, thirty pages, but what good is that? So then the only way to do it seems to be was to do it chronologically. What to do when, basically.

So it’s a handbook. It’s a handbook. So the wisdom version’s out there, and I know I keep saying this and I’m going to say it and I hope wisdom doesn’t find out but you know also you can get it for free. If you just look on your book, look on your little book. You can also download the PDF if you want it on your e reader, you know?

It’s a different version, it’s a different structure, the one I first did and then when they published it they kind of did a different way of doing it. It’s okay, all the information is there. So as you can see on page four, a version of it called how to help your loved ones enjoy death and go happy till their next rebirth can be downloaded free from fpmt dot org. So that’s in case you want one on your e reader as well as have the hardback. And they’re slightly different, you will see they’re different, you know.

Like for example Rinpoche uses sometimes Tibetan words, sometimes Tibetan names, sometimes Sanskrit names for the different deities, whereas they always use the Sanskrit in wisdom because that’s kind of the more scholarly thing to do. So there’s going be differences but essentially it’s all the same teachings, you know? You’ll see. So the chronologically is the point. The chronology is the point.

So okay, the obvious question is why would we want to help somebody at the time of death? What’s the point? Well there’s a big difference, I mean it’s really typical in the West these days, many people now choosing to work in hospice or to work as nurses and doctors in that whole area. Know, selecting it. Remember doing a conference a few years ago in Melbourne I think, or Bendigo or somewhere in Victoria.

And people, these young people, choosing to be doctors and nurses in this area. I’m so moved by it, know, it’s wonderful. There’s so much more talk about it. Was in a conference in Sydney in a hospital, a children’s hospital, and this wonderful doctor trying to get past all the fears and the dramas and helping people confront death and deal with death, he dealt with the death and the sickness and death of children. So the morgue he had at the hospital, he decorated it like a nursery.

And all the sisters and brothers would walk in and out of the not sort of hidden dark scary place called a morgue. And he had it decorated like a nursery, all the kids would walk in and out and they’d say Come and meet my dead brother! Bringing death right into the front. Which is fantastic. But still the Buddhist point, and indeed you can say the Christian one too, anybody who posits something after you die, which is not the job of the materialist world, you know, that they call that individual, they call that religious, But clearly the Buddhist one, certainly, there’s a fundamental different point.

So for us in the West, and the materialist view is it’s fantastic, prepare for death, stop being afraid of death, talk about it with your kids, confront the fact you’re going to die, and then you’re going indeed help your loved ones and around the time of death when your mummy dies, your daddy dies, everyone’s made peace, which is fantastic. But once your mummy’s dead, as far as the West is concerned, that is all about us, isn’t it? I mean somebody who saw this manuscript said where’s all the stuff about grieving? Well that’s about us, this is about the dead person, this is their gig, okay? And everything in this book is about how to help the person who’s dying and dead.

And then half of the practices for Rinpoche are after they’re dead. Now that doesn’t occur in the West of course. So the crucial point then, to get to the real point, which really struck me properly when I did this book, edited Rinpoche’s book, was we’re not actually preparing for death. We’re not actually preparing for death, we’re preparing for the next life. When we get that clear everything falls into place.

But of course for our materialist world this takes time. I couldn’t have said that so simply when I first became a Buddhist. Just sort of seemed like superstition. We’re so caught up in the bubble of me, now, this world. It’s a very deep addiction in all of us.

And it’s not because of our programming by our parents, it is our culture, it’s because of ego Believing in this is what I’m seeing, this is all there is. That’s a really powerful way that ego grasping, the root delusion functions, but you’re totally caught up in what you see and hear and taste and touch and smell, nothing more. That’s the deepest of the way delusions work, the ego grasping works, you know? That’s our materialist world. That’s very primordial in our mind.

But now, you know, after quite a few years of trying to be a Buddhist, putting my money where my mouth is, I can now say the words that only really came clear when I edited this book, you know? Something dropped for me. It became clear, oh I get it, of course you’re preparing for the next life. So when you say that, everything falls into place. Everything just fits naturally.

To keep thinking about preparing for death, this strange event that no one knows anything about, and as far as the West is concerned, you’re to fall into a black hole. And of course who wants to fall into a black hole? Nobody. So it’s really hard to get our head around it, which is why the Buddhist teachings in particular coming from the vajrayana, the tantra, coming from the Tibetan, are astonishing because they’re so precise, so clear about the actual process of what occurs, which of course has to be coming from the experiences of the yogis, you know, direct experiences of the yogis. So it’s extremely helpful then you really can demystify the process and then practice throughout our life preparing for death, to be like, you know, there’s enough chairs here?

Good morning, little chair there for you? Okay, good. So you know, to be like the yogis, there’s a chapter in the book that says death is what the yogis have been waiting for. I mean this sounds shocking, know, like my god, what kind of person is that? Because we have such a different view.

Death is what the yogis have been waiting for, we’ve got to get ahead around that. And the reason is why, we’ll go into it more deeply, because they’ve been practising all their lives through their meditation, taking themselves through this gradual dissolution of the grosser to the subtler, to the subtlest levels of our physical and mental energy, which is exactly what’s described in the death process in the Vajrayāna. They’ve been training and why? A practical simple reason. Because when you get to the very subtle level of your own consciousness, which is what occurs naturally at death, and they’ve been preparing all their lives through their meditation, that’s like microscope of your mind, that’s the level of your consciousness that’s now utterly unencumbered by all the junk and the delusions and the neuroses and the sensory experiences where you can nakedly now use that for as long as they like, they stay in meditation for days, weeks, months, some of the yogis, cause that’s what they’ve been waiting for, that’s the level of mind that can finally get enlightened.

So it’s like blissful when you understand it, and it’s very helpful in Rinpoche’s teachings, you know. So of course we’re not that advanced, but we can prepare. So at least, and the crucial point is this, at least, and this is the point for Rinpoche, at least at the time of death die with virtue and peace. They’re the two things, and that’s our job to help others. As Rinpoche says, if you want to help anybody during their life, help them at the time of their death.

And more precisely, if you’ve got only a ten minute window of opportunity, well let me know when you’ve to die, mom, and I’ll be there before you stop breathing, okay? Make a date. That’s when they need you most. That is when they need you most. That period.

The hours before death. Of course, the weeks and months again, if you can. So of course obviously the context in this book is a slow gradual death, because you know, sudden death’s going to happen, nothing much you can do at that point. Except, you know, if you die peacefully, not unfortunate. If you die angry or you die upset or jealous or resentful, I’m sorry, not so cool.

And we’ll discuss all this, you know. So it’s best to die gradually. In other words, from the Buddhist point of view you could argue it’s better to be told you’ve got cancer, and I know this sounds so shocking for eight years, you know. It’s better to be told you’ve got some illness. Hopefully not much pain.

So why? Because we’re as thick as posts, we live in denial of death, at least then we can begin to actually confront the fact. Guess what, I’m impermanent. As long as I’ve said we’re all dying, it’s just a question of time, it’s like a joke, know, all we have this view that I’m a living person. I mean it’s very bizarre, the world as far as we’re concerned is divided into living people and dying people, and hey, I am not a dying person.

Until you’re told, and then we get the shock of our lives, cause we don’t believe we’re dying. It shows how stupid we are. That’s how deeply we grasp our permanence, know, one of the main delusions Buddha says is why we suffer so badly. So that dealing with all this in our daily life, and so there’s two things we’re going to be talking about, how to live your life well so that you’re ready for death, and then how to die well. Of course it’s for you, but then you can help others.

It’s education we all need, as Lama Zopa says. So of course to take all this on board, you know, we need to again remind ourselves of Buddha’s view about what it is that who dies, what it is that dies, and what are the components of that person, you know. Well, as we know from all our talks, as you know from all your study and whatever whatever, Buddha would assert that our consciousness, our mind, is what carries on, is what comes into this life from a previous life and what goes on after this life to another life. Until we’ve done the work practiced to the point where we’ve gone beyond all the delusions and beyond all the neuroses and we don’t need to get reborn. And then if we get bodhicitta we will choose to be reborn but now out of choice to help others.

So but normal being in saṃsāra quote unquote has been caught up in this neurotic process of countless born die born die endlessly. So this already takes a time for us you know to get our head around this because we’re so again if we’re either we’re Christian or Muslim or we believe in a creator as if God made us and then we die we know there is a future and it’s called heaven or hell or whatever people talk about these days I don’t know what the teachings are. But if you’re a materialist, which even if we are Christian or Muslim we still have a very strong belief in the materialist you, that this is me, this bag of bones, and when I die there’ll be a black hole and who knows, whatever happens happens, well we tend to assume nobody knows. Say that with absolute conviction, we say that like as if that’s a scientific truth. Oh well nobody knows what happens after death.

Everybody says that, everyone says that. Well, Buddha and the Buddha’s views, especially the Vajrayāna, do not say that. They got a very detailed view of what happens. So that’s up to us to take that on board as our hypothesis. You’re going to blindly believe it.

This gets us to be intellectually lazy, you know. So we have to take on the view that our consciousness is a beginningless continuity of mental moments and an endless one. Now this is a bit cosmic to us, but it’s very fascinating why it should be strange to us. Why, you know, one of the biggest questions everybody has, every single person I’ve ever known in the world since I’ve been doing this job, we all ask the same question: When did it begin? When did I begin?

When did karma begin? When did anger begin? When did suffering begin? When did something begin? It’s the deepest, most primordial, instinctive, seemingly natural question we all have.

Well for Buddha it’s a meaningless question. It’s a bizarre question. What do want a beginning for? But it’s so shocking even to say it. We’ve got to look at our assumption.

In other words, this is the key thing that when we start to study Buddhism in more depth, we’ve got to look at our assumptions and there’s an assumption here that of course there’s a beginning. We never question what do you mean there’s a beginning? We call it course is a beginning. It’s shocking to us to think. So how do we get our head around that?

It’s very simple but it takes time even intellectually because we’re so shocked because the assumption in our mind is so convinced. Well, the Buddha says the universe is everything existing in the universe, like things and people and consciousness and minds and toilets and pictures and whatever, they’re all impermanent. One of the simple characteristics of an impermanent phenomenon is that it changes from moment to moment. Another characteristic of an impermanent phenomenon is is the product of a series of causes. Cause and effect.

Cause and effect. We say that, it’s called science. You know you get a seed, a rose seed, a bit of soil, bit of water, bit of time, know, and boom you get a rose tree every time you get you know that, once you get that law down you know you can replicate it every time, it’s not a surprise, it’s called cause and effect. But we’re all looking for the first moment, know, we want that, the first big bang, there’s a song in a set one time and it’s paraphrasing, yeah big bang, no problem, just not the first big bang, that’s all. Wonderful, you know.

But we have this deep belief in that first moment, and this is very interesting, but if you take the Christian view or the Muslim view, that’s answered by saying that God is God does not have a God never began. So we see beginninglessness as something holy, because we could say that God is beginningless. The concept of God is above and beyond everything, that didn’t have a cause, that is permanent, has always existed, and is superior, all these words, know, this is the view. Well the Buddha would argue that’s view, a philosophical view that our minds have created. Not the view of a superior being, not the view of no, he uses the term superior being, he uses the word Buddha instead.

Well, more than before that, even before you begin to become a Buddha, once you’ve got your first realization of emptiness, your first non conceptual realization of emptiness, become what’s called a superior being. So he uses that term. But in terms of a Buddha, same characteristics as God, except he doesn’t call him a creator, and the Buddha would say we’ve all got that potential. That’s the major difference. So Buddha doesn’t posit a higher definitely higher, yes, but permanent, beginningless phenomenon that’s the source of everything else, which means everything else has a beginning.

No, not for Buddha. He says everything is beginningless. Matter, the universe consists of matter and minds, that’s it. And matter, according to this model, which is how we used to talk in our time in the medieval days in the Geshe-la and that mob, elements is the characteristic of the physical world, the elements earth, air, fire, water. Now we have millions of other elements, but that’s still the model they use in Buddhism, the physical world is made of the four elements.

So that stuff is also beginningless. Consciousness, this non physical continuity of mental moments, like a river of mental moments, think of it like in a linear sense. And with cause and effect it’s very obvious. So how do we get our head around this? It’s not complicated.

Just that experientially we can’t get it, you know? Is that if you think of the very concept of cause and effect. So at moment we point to anything a vase, a flower, a person, a doctor, a frame, a building we know that thing is the product of a highly complex series of putting a bunch of things together and then at this moment in time there’s the result of it. So at this moment in time that is an effect, is it not? Of previous causes.

Whatever you refer to is an effect of previous causes. A book is the effect of previous causes. Well then you start looking at the previous causes, you know, paper. Well paper is the effect of previous causes. Then you look at the components of paper, water and sand or something, it’s not glass, I don’t know what is no that’s glass, what’s paper made of?

Trees. Trees, okay good. So tree, you go back before, then tree is what? An effect of many previous causes. Then you keep going back and where will you end up?

You’re going end back at the first moment of the universe as we know it and then you’ve got to go well that’s an effect of the previous causes because you can’t come out of nothing. If you have cause and effect, how could you possibly have an effect that didn’t have a cause? There’s the proof of beginninglessness. So intellectually first, be rigorous and logical. Don’t just see it as cosmic, you know.

But necessarily, you can’t possibly, if we posit cause and effect, then you cannot have an effect that didn’t have a previous cause. Big bang, no problem, just not the first big bang, that’s all. Well that’s what Buddha’s observation is. That’s it, that’s the beginning of it. As mad as it sounds, even though they say the word, instinctively we don’t like it.

It seems like we want to go kill ourselves and we think we’re beginningless, know? The problems are beginningless, ego is beginningless, suffering is beginningless. Well our potential for good is beginningless as well, so it’s just as well, isn’t it? There’s a fundamental point for the Buddha, just intellectually to understand, to comprehend it, you know? Mean, intellectually, forget experientially, that means clairvoyance.

When you’re a Buddha, finally you’ll see it all, Buddha would say. So we take this view that our consciousness, our thoughts and feelings and emotions, unconscious, subconscious, instinct, intuition, this entire spectrum of our inner being, our consciousness, is this non physical energy that has got its own momentum, its own continuum, its own entity. It goes back and back and back and back and back, and crucially whatever goes on in it every millisecond is this process of cause and effect or the law of karma when it comes to sentient beings. The way that we think and do and say just naturally are the causes that will bring future effects. Guess what?

Arguably rocket science and working intimately closely with the physical world. There are detailed descriptions of this intimate relationship, Lama Zopa says, between the internal, which is mind, and the external, which is the elements in the various Kālacakra teachings in vajrayana, you know, of this process of the intimate relationship between internal and external, between the physical and the mental worlds. It’s highly dealt with an immense depth in vajrayana, and indeed that’s the model for the Tibetan medical system, and that’s what we’re going to discuss when we talk about the death process. So this whole view that’s discussed in this book and in the Buddha’s teachings is based upon this assumption that the consciousness is not physical, not a product of a creator, and is not the handiwork of mommy and daddy. That’s a fact for the Buddha.

Takes time to see this even hear what he’s saying, know, that we are in charge of these effects, we are the effect of previous causes, and the main causes are the ones that happened in our mind before we were Robina and Fred and Mary, or dog or cat or rat. The law of karma in other words. And this consciousness comes based upon many causes and conditions coming together, in particular at the time of death, that’s the point, before you stop breathing, those hours, there’s a crucial time. Before you stop breathing, the death process which is described in the Vajrayāna, which we’re going go into, which is described in terms of eight stages and this gradual deconstruction of the various components of the person. So the first four of these eight occur before you stop breathing.

So it’s about the second maybe it’s hard to deduce, know they all have slightly different views of it but it would seem it’s about the second or the third of these stages when you start to see or lose the plot that that’s when the karmic seeds that we’re lugging around in our bank vault and we’ve got trillions of karmic seeds in our bank vaults since beginningless time because there’s nothing that we think or do or say that goes astray. Everything we think or do or say since beginningless time, as mad as it sounds, leaves little drops, little seeds into our bank vaults. Buddha clearly doesn’t talk about bank vaults but I like that view, whatever’s my word, thought. Well, luck are these bank vaults around of trillions of karmic seeds, of impressions, of programming, programming. So before we stop breathing is the crucial period when the seeds that will determine your next life are triggered.

So therefore, and this is the fundamental point which we’re now going to unpack, that’s when we’re needed most to help a person, to help them through this extremely fearful process. So from another point of view, another model that’s taught in the Sūtra teachings about the twelve links of dependent arising, lovers open there’s a small chapter section in the book as well about this that at the time of death the twelve links some of these components have a very powerful role at the time of death. And in particular there’s two, the eighth and ninth of these twelve links which is sort of like there’s two extra strong, extra powerful, intensely extra powerful levels of attachment, of craving. They’re called usually craving and grasping and these kick in intensely powerfully, intensely more powerfully than during the rest of life, naturally at the time of death. So then death naturally for most people, most sentient beings is deeply fearful and it’s this attachment and grasping that makes it fearful.

And even more precisely this grasping, this ninth link is finally the trigger that is the thing, the component that triggers the karmic seed in your bank vault that will be the one that throws you onto the into the next life. So in our case as Lama Zopa says, at our past life we could have been a kangaroo or a dog or a bug or whatever or a human that at the time of death this particular grasping which was so powerful, which is a delusion, but we I’m going to talk about this too, how we can use it, it’s very skillful. We had to have had not only all the other conditions that give us a human life, but we must have had very strong grasping at a human life. One of the main causes to help trigger that virtuous harming seed that was triggered before we even stopped breathing. And this is weeks before even maybe our mother and deity had even met.

So it’s like a joke to say that they made us, Buddha says they’ve got nothing to do with it. They’re lying, they’re having fun, we butt our noses in, know, we come along. We’ve the karma to be born to them but they do not give you love, anger, hate, psychosis, music or anything else. We bring that stuff with us, that’s all triggered before we ever stop breathing in the past life. This Buddha is you, we’re the boss you know, we’ve made ourselves.

So what I’m getting at here, and just general, we’re going go into these parts, The period before you stop breathing, when there’s actual eight stages of the death process, seem to start and they’re very vague about how long it takes, would indicate from Rinpoche’s teachings that it’s maybe a couple of hours, but some people say it could be longer. But it’s that period before you lose the plot when you need to be two things: peaceful and virtuous. Why? Because that state of mind will allow the grasping to trigger a virtuous karmic seed from your virtuous bank vault that’ll throw you into, in our case, a human mummy’s womb. And if the mind is not peaceful and not virtuous, which is natural if it’s not peaceful, then you know your negative bank vaults will be triggered, the door will open up or come you know, at the ATM, you put it in and out comes the card or the money.

Anyway I’m getting carried away here. Are we communicating so far? Oh yes. Oh yes. Good.

So obviously the best way to prepare for death is to live life well. It’s a bit like saying you know how we think about death or when it happens I’ll be okay, you know, because we just don’t want to know about it. But it’s a bit like saying, oh you’ve a driving test in a couple of months, I’ll be okay on the day. I’ll work it out on the day. I don’t think so!

I’m sorry, you just won’t, it’s practical you know. We know you’ve got to prepare, and that’s when you’ll be feelers at the time. If you’re going to not be ready for your driving test, of course you’ll have a complete panic attack at the time, you’ll be a disaster. So the more you practice every day now, then the driving test will just be completely natural. You’ll be so familiar, you’ll do everything you have to do.

It’s obvious. So we all know that. We call it preparing for something. We know that, we that, we know that. We do that in our lives very well.

But because death is this seemingly mysterious event that everyone thinks no one knows anything about, know, so we tend to live in denial of it, can’t stand the thought of it. And of course you can’t stand the thought of it because we’re so attached to me, isn’t it? This concept of me and this and the body, me and mine, me, me especially, me, me and the body, totally, primordially, frantically, vampirishly attached. So the thought of not being me really is beyond terror. And we can’t articulate it, we can’t explain it, we don’t know what happens, so we live in denial.

Of course what else can you do with something terrifying? Know? So this is why first of all the obvious way to prepare for death is live a decent life, live a proper life, live with knowledge and awareness and understanding of this process and even better than just living a good life, but actually go through the process, meditate on this process which is one of the very many practices that Rinpoche recommends, this process that does occur at the time of death. The greatest yogis, like I said, they really are on the case, they really actually can do it, you know, but we can at least imagine doing it, imagine attempting to recognise the stages as they occur, you know. So the first obvious approach which is taught as we know in the Tibetan teachings and the path to enlightenment and the course, you know, to Buddhahood, the Lamrim, the very first entry level into Buddhism is to think about impermanence.

One of Buddha’s extensive teachings, actually. Extensive. So all of Buddha’s teachings, one way of saying what they are is from his experiential point of view how things are. And what he’s saying is, and why he would suggest to us we think about impermanence, the obvious reason is because we obviously think the opposite, which is meaning we’re permanent. We have one of the many misconceptions in our mind that grasps, as Rinpoche calls it, grasping a permanent me.

This is intense and utterly primordial and natural in every being. So natural we don’t question it in our culture. So one of the first ways to counteract this is taking these three points that Lama Atisha, the eleventh century great master who was an Indian who was invited to Tibet by the king at the time and then spent the rest of his life there teaching, and his text Lamp for the Path is the basis of the text at Tsongkhapa, our lineage Lama. Is he there? I can’t turn around, is he there?

No there? No Lama Tsongkhapa? Where is he? Where is he? Oh, is.

That’s Lama Yeshe as Lama Tsongkhapa. Oh, he’s not here. How interesting. We do have one. We do have some Lama Tsongkhapa statues?

Judy, where are they? Small. My god. It’s about an inch big. Yeah.

I think we have to we have to grow them up, think. And then And we have all the photos At the back. At the back. Where? Yeah.

Tibetan say he’s supposed to point like that. It’s Rude to do that, you should point with our hand like this thing. That’s version, what is that, variations of Lama Tsongkhapa. Okay there he is, he’s like you have to put him under a microscope. You.

So anyway here’s our Lineage Lama, he’s like our patron saint isn’t he? Lama Tsongkhapa. And that one is Lama Yeshe, but in the aspect of Lama Tsongkhapa, can see with his yellow pointy hat, you know? So he was in the fourteenth century and he was the one who put together this packaging, this course to Buddhahood called the Lamrim. And in there, entry level junior school is think about impermanence, about death and impermanence.

So Lord Buddha’s teachings of impermanence are extensive. And in fact the Theravadan meditators, their main object of meditation is what’s called subtle impermanence, which is counteracting the very first view that the Hindus had, which is where Buddha diverts of a permanent, partless self. That’s actually subtle impermanence counteracts that, but sometimes it can be considered misunderstood for emptiness. Already it’s profound, the teachings on subtle impermanence. But a teacher doesn’t bother with subtle impermanence, because we get very carried away and very lyrical about it all, it’s all very marvellous.

He gets us to get out right in the face, eyeball to eyeball, gross impermanence. Not just impermanence of cups and toilets and relationships, but guess what, impermanence of me. And what do we call that? Death. His agenda there is twofold.

One, to think about impermanence, but his real agenda is to give us a wake up call, because when we think about death, we realise my life could be short, I will end at some point. So he wants us to be energized by that, to not want to waste his precious life. So his agenda is that. But meanwhile we get the business about impermanence, but the wake up call is the main one, I mustn’t waste this precious life, you know? So there are three main points he talks about, pretty obvious.

The first one is that death is definite. Death is definite, you know? I mean you definitely will die. So we go, Yeah, I know that. Tell us something more intellectual, please.

No, we don’t get it. We’re as thick as posts because we’re living in denial. So we know the words easily, we all know we’d be embarrassed to say we won’t die. But we live in every atom of our being, we don’t live our life like that. And that’s why we have to look at the assumptions inside us.

All the assumptions, everything we say and do, the assumption is of a permanent me. That’s why we get surprised if someone does die. Oh, but I just spoke to her yesterday. As if someone has proof that you shouldn’t die today. But we say it like that.

We say it like that. We say it like that. You know? Even you could argue the fact that we’re even surprised or shocked when a person dies is the proof, is the proof that we grasp at permanent. Because if you expect something to happen, you know it will happen, you’re not surprised when it happens, is it?

It’s obvious. So we’re so shocked when we think about death. We don’t think of it the right way. So the way to apply this little tool, death is definite. You know, Buddha says, Tsongkhapa says, Atisha says, Meditate on it.

So of course we’ve got the confusing meaning about the word meditate. Like I said last week, the actual Tibetan word for to meditate, the verb is the verb to familiarise. That’s a bit shocking. To meditate, they hear the word to familiarise. So when someone says go meditate on death, we go oh, what’s that mean?

Say go and familiarise your mind with death. Oh, that makes sense, think about it, use your noggin Not surprising, not complicated So how do you think about death as definite? Well it’s not complicated, it isn’t complicated because you just use your experience of daily life you know Every day you wake up you’re gonna see dead ants, dead rats, you’re gonna hear about it, you’re gonna read them in newspapers and the iPad and everywhere else, never stopping about people dying every day, every kind of death, natural death, abortions, you know, war death, terrorism death, husbands beating, you know all the time, never stopping. But what happens is we don’t think about it properly, we think about it from the point of view of gossip, we think about our point of view of anger, how dare that person kill that person, or that poor person will have compassion, we’re not getting the main point. So applying all these tools, the way they talk in the Lamrim, is very simple, we don’t quite get it.

It just means, oh my god, when you see the ant, see the person, read the news, if you’re applying this particular tool in your toolkit, how it would sound would be like this: My god, you know that person, you think of that person, that ant, they thought they were permanent like everybody else. And they are dead. Death is definite, they died, know, they didn’t expect to die. The person who died, you think of the person who suddenly got, you know, died in the war, they were sitting there, you know, leaving their permanent, they died. Definite, death is definite.

You think about it, that’s how you think about it, not the gossip, not the anger, not the fear, not the jealousy, not the resentment, not the order, all that. But think about it, wow, death is definite, it’ll prove it every time. You’ll get a realisation of death is definite pretty quickly if you apply that view. Death is definite, there it is, the proof. Buddha’s been telling me death is definite, there it is.

And then you think of the person, they didn’t think they were going to die, why? Because they believe they’re permanent, big shock. Many points to discuss there. The next one: getting closer to home should scare the life out of us. The time of death is not definite.

This is really scary and this we cannot bear to think about. Because we have such intense grasping at being permanent, we do intelligently know we’re going to die and we’ll say it and we joke about it, we prepare for it by getting our coffin ready and writing our wills. But we don’t believe it for one second. And we do know if we are going to say I’m going to die, definitely for all of us even if we’re old, death is a long way off. So the very helpful way I like this view, I try to apply it, to get the feeling about death, about we’re heading to death.

They often say we’re one day closer to death, one day closer to death. And as soon as we hear it we can’t stand it, you know, but it’s a fact. So you know if say even for me, know, the last few days I’ve been walking from the house, my flat, twelve minutes away according to Google, you know, my map says twelve minutes. So I’m already familiar with the route, right? So when I leave the flat and as I’m walking we all know this, don’t we?

Whether the journey is a twelve hour journey on a flight to London or whatever it is, thirty six hours or twenty four whatever it is, or a ten minute walk, we all have this view think of what I’m saying it’s very vivid, we have a conceptual sense of how long that will take, and we prepare for it. So as I walk out of the flat, and then I gradually get to the end of the street, and as I’m doing it I’m mentally having a sense of moving away from the flat and moving towards Buddha House. You get that point, don’t you? If you’re driving here it’s the same, and you see all the local signposts, you know, oh there’s that McDonald’s, I’m only ten minutes away, I’m five minutes away. It’s a very vivid experience isn’t it?

As we keep moving, we’re moving towards Buddha House. Do you agree with that? Well that’s how we should think about death. But we don’t. We wake up in the morning feeling just like we felt when we were ten, eleven, twelve, two, sixty four, however old we are, oh brand new day, here I am alive and permanent you know, I’m so fit and well you know, do you understand?

We don’t feel we’re moving towards death, we don’t ever think I’m further away from birth and getting closer to death, which is a fact. We can’t stand to hear it because of this grasping at permanent me. A lie in our mind, a lie deeply instinctive because we can’t stand the thought of the truth, the fact that I’m impermanent, you know? So thinking about this every day. Now as long as I’ve always said the best way to think is I could die today.

Well that’s hilarious to us. The fact is even as I say it, I could die today. As I say it, believe me, I don’t believe it. Check yourself. I don’t believe it.

Why? Because this grasping at permanent is so ingrained. And when we understand how deeply ingrained these misconceptions are, we won’t beat ourselves up, we’ll just have to keep repeating the truth until eventually the penny drops, you know? This is really intense. And even if we’re told we’re going to die, think that’s permanent.

A friend of mine was divorced from husband, male Buddhist, and he got this virulent cancer and he’s going to be dead in two months so she went back to help him die. She’d his practices every day with him helping him die And then two months, three months, four months, five months, he didn’t die! He became a living person again, so they started fighting again, they had to split up again. Because even the certainty of death is not certain! It was so stupid, you know?

A friend of mine in Los Angeles, I always quote these two stories, a friend of mine, he went there to help his daddy die of cancer. Well, daddy got better. They literally were having a party to celebrate. And next day he died of a heart attack. So I mean, are ridiculous, right?

Because of attachment, because we can’t and then grasping at permanence, they’re so linked, you know? Very fascinating. So to really get the realisation of death from these simple two points, and there’s various other points in them, they seem so simple and worrying, but it is beyond profound. So the third point is the action point, the third point is the point, and the third point is this: given and this is the crucial point given that my consciousness is a beginningless continuity of mental moments, given that it’s also endless and will go somewhere else after this death, given that every millisecond of what I think and do and say will necessarily leave seeds in my mind, program my mind, given that every single virtuous seed will ripen as happiness in the future, happy rebirth, happy tendencies, happy experiences, happy environment, given that every negative seed will ripen as suffering, suffering rebirth, suffering tendencies, suffering experiences, suffering environment, and let’s face it, given, no brainer, I don’t want suffering and do want happiness, honey, then it follows logically, does it not? That at the time of death, at that time when my mind leaves my body, The only thing, this is a practical issue, do not think of it as religion, it’s practical for the Buddha.

The only thing that is of any use to me whatsoever at that point is the virtuous seeds. That’s it. So simple, so logical. Not my body, not my husband, not my pension plan, not the children, not my reputation, not in other words, and this is too scary and it sounds fundamentalist but it’s logical, it’s a practical issue. Not all the things we spend our lives thinking about.

What do we spend our lives thinking about? The body, first of all, the food we put in the body, you know, all these things. It always sounds so fundamental when we hear the Lamas talk like it’s like they’re being sort of a bit sort of like fundamentalist, yeah, sounds so shocking to us. But it’s quite logical. In other words, a really simple example for me is this, if you know, like preparing for death, I remember actually, what’s his name?

Know old age you do forget names. My grandma told me when I was eleven I’d forget names and I told her no I won’t. Well I do you know. What’s his name? The Applefellow, he’s my favourite person.

Steve God Almighty, I’m embarrassed. Anyway Steve Jobs, I loved that man, I read his biography and then I read about it from his sister how he died. He’d had cancer for many years and you could tell from his writings he really was in touch with impermanence, was great. So his sister, they’d been do you call it when you’re given away when you’re a baby? Orphaned?

No, the other one? Adopted. Adopted, given away, right. So then they met later in life and she’s a writer, so she wrote about the day he died. She said she got there in time, they said you better come and hurry, he’s going to be dead soon.

So he’s as skinny as a ray, yeah there’s liver cancer or something, can’t remember. Panic. Thank you very much, pancreatic cancer. So he’s lying on the bed his wife and his daughters are there, something like this. And the way she told the story was very sweet.

She said something like this, and this is my point now, he was packed ready to go. So if you think you might have a magnificent house in the best suburbs, I look at Adelaide House, I can’t believe how nice these suburbs are with your tiled, tiled footpaths. I mean tiled footpaths, I’ve never seen that anywhere on earth. Tiled footpaths. I mean I can see the concrete, you know, other black stuff taken over, but tiled footpaths.

I don’t think I’ve seen a suburb on earth with tiled footpaths, even Beverly Hills doesn’t have tiled footpaths. You have these magnificent trees you know. Mean Adelaide is so blessed with the bits I’ve seen anyway, I can’t believe it you know. Okay you can live in your beautiful suburb, everybody’s got their houses, their gardens, the architecture, beautiful, some places are beautiful, you own all that okay, you have all that. Now even if just want to go on a you’ve got to pack a few things right?

You can’t take your old bloody house can you? You know that, isn’t it? Isn’t You pack a few things in your suitcase. This is the other point now this sounds hilarious but it’s the point. You know also let’s say you live in your lovely house and your possessions and your everyday and your husband your kids and your wife and your that and your two and a half something you understand my point?

Not being cynical the things we think about all day. And then you want holiday So you and it’s going to be a holiday is always in the future. So naturally you decide first of all you have to decide you want a holiday, right? Then you have to decide where you’re going to go, don’t you? I’ll to France.

Then you just don’t go, Oh I really must go on a holiday to France, Oh I really must go and then you wait for the day to come and you’re not ready. You’d be in trouble wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t be packed ready to go, you’d have a panic attack and you haven’t even got a flight. You’ve got in your calendar the twelfth of January but you forgot to buy the flight, you forgot to pack your bags, you’ll be in trouble right? You’ll be having a panic attack.

Do you agree? Yes. You’ve lost the plot. Well you’re going to prepare aren’t you? And I mean this so sincerely.

What would you do? You’d plan to know where you want to go. Well here, and I’m going to talk about this too, you’ve got to plan where you want to go after you die. This sounds so hilarious I tell you. And for both of us two options, and this came clear for me during this book as well.

One is a perfect human a human rebirth, a decent human rebirth, and the other is Amitābha’s Pure Land, and I’ll go into this in a minute. I’m giving you a summary of the whole book here, think we’ll have to have a tea break soon or something. So you got to decide where you want to go don’t you? I want go to France please. No one says what an idiot, France is making a plan.

You know that plan so then you decide you want to go to France and then you have to pack ready to go and you’ve to do other things like buy the air ticket, know the route how to get to the airport and put your few things in your little suitcase and leave your stuff behind. We know that. Of course we think we’re going to come back so we don’t mind, isn’t it? So that’s how you prepare for death. So what do you need when you go to the next life?

Well you can’t bring your house, you can’t bring your hubby, you can’t bring your tour guide and something in your tile footpath and this and that, your electricity, your height, your internet and your things, you can’t lug all that with you on a ship to go all the way to France behind you lugging it can you? You can’t do that, you’ll be kind of mentally ill. Well you can’t take anything else with you when you die, okay, to the next life. You can’t. I mean I know it’s me think it but we don’t think it like religion we’re not used to thinking it you know.

Do you understand? We’ve got to get used to these thoughts if we like Buddhist teachings. If you don’t it’s okay just think it’s funny and leave it there yeah it’s okay. So the only thing you do need is your virtuous seeds, that’s it. You don’t want your certainly don’t want your negative ones, they are like the worst.

And not to mention you can’t bring your body and everything else, you have to leave it behind. So why not start practicing now giving up attachment to those things. You know you can have your cake and eat it too. You can have your beautiful husband, your gorgeous house in two rack gardens and your nice paved, you know, your tile pathways and everything else, you can have all enjoy it for what it is, but knowing it’s impermanent. The thing is, you know, and that’s what I find interesting, when we tend to think of that we get a bit depressed, well if it’s all impermanent, why bother in the first place?

But when you go on a holiday, that’s impermanent isn’t it? You know you’re going to go for two weeks. You don’t go, well what’s the point of going for two weeks? I’ve got it will end, why bother? Do you understand?

But we know it’s impermanent and guess what? When it’s impermanent and you know it’s only two weeks you’ll enjoy it even more. You won’t want to waste the two weeks. You won’t want to. And this is the problem because we think life is forever we take it all for granted, we become lazy, we get angry, we get caught up in misery because we forget it’s impermanent, we forget it’s like a holiday, we forget that we have to leave it and go to the next one.

Of course we do, this is the problem. I remember one time I used this example years ago, I did an editing retreat, I do what I call editing retreats sometimes. And it was in America, and I went to Puerto Rico. Of course, it’s a island in the middle of the ocean that America bought to be strategic, you know, a couple hundred years ago, I forget. They talk about that Puerto Ricans are like some of the happiest people I know, they are really very happy people, they’re very interesting people.

There’s only about four million of them, a little island, you know. And it was in December, which is winter there of course in America, so it was so nice to be in this lovely place and someone gave me a little spot on the southern part in this nice pink resort, know, with all these pink apartments near the beach with the ocean or blah blah blah. Was very gorgeous. I had eight weeks, nine weeks, I remember nine weeks. And I had a vivid sense of this nine weeks, was so delicious.

And at the end of the nine weeks I had to go to Boston where it was like twenty below, know? Degrees below, and I thought no way, this nine weeks is very delicious. And I did some editing, but also enjoyed. So I bought this pink what’s that cloth you use for bathers? Stretchy stuff.

Thank you. Well I bought this couple of yards of pink, nice pink Lycra and I wore it like a sarong, I thought no one knows I’m a Buddhist nun because they had a bald cancer or something. But they all knew I was a Buddhist nun, and somebody would go like this, you know. So anyway, I lived in my pink sarong and I swam in my pink sarong and I laid on the grass and sun baked in my pink sarong and I, you know, and I went to the restaurants in my pink sarong and I edited my pink sarong and I slept in my pink sarong for nine weeks, really enjoying myself. So but I realised it was impermanent and every so because of that every day I look at the calendar eight weeks, seven weeks, you get nervous, it’s ending isn’t it?

So then you don’t want to waste it. So imagine if I forgot it was impermanent, or forgot. You know I start getting angry the next door guy because he played loud music and suing the fellow down the road because he looked me the wrong way and getting all possessed for the cushions and the gas stove and my garden as my apartment. How ridiculous when Rita the real estate lady would have been dragging me out kicking and screaming at the end of nine weeks right because I forgot it was impermanent. This is what we do, we forget it’s impermanent, we believe it’s permanent.

So practical, it’s like being on a holiday, we’re on a holiday basically. It’s the way to think about it, these tricks, you’ve got to use tricks for your mind, that’s all. To face facts, know, to face the fact that we’re impermanent. And then not just impermanent, but at the time of death, The only thing you want to have packed ready to go is your virtuous seeds. So when do you start packing them?

Not then baby, too late. Now you start. Now, giving up attachment to the hubby and the pension this and that and the children in the house, meanwhile enjoying them. You don’t have to chuck them out and be miserable and sad and lonely and homeless. You can have your cake and eat it too, that’s a fact.

You’ve got to practice that. When you know it’s impermanent, you’ll still enjoy it all the more and you’ll let go more easily when things go wrong. It’s just practical, it’s an attitude, like all this stuff it’s an attitude, you know, so skilful. But not only prepare for death but then lets us organise our next life, you know. And I mean this is something that really only became crystal clear for me, or began to become clear when I edited this book.

The last chapter that I got for the book I felt the book wasn’t ready, and there was one piece that was missing, didn’t know what it was, and then I got this from Holly, one of his attendants, before the book got finished. She sent me this brief transcription of Rinpoche’s commentary on Amitābha’s Pure Land. Amitābha and Amitābha’s Pure Land, when he gave initiation in San Jose a few years ago. And I’d never thought of Amityabas. I never thought of Pure Lands, period.

I thought I’m a Lama Tsongkhapa girl, I’m talking about perihuman rebirth, I’m to get bored as a human being blah blah blah blah, you know. But now I’m a complete fan for Amitābha’s Pure Land and I put it on the end of my itinerary. I figured like even from here I go to Sydney, I figured I might go to Amitābha’s Pure Land first. So it’s on my itinerary everywhere, it’s implied, you know. I’ve got to get used to that idea, I’ve decided, you know, so I’m going go to Amitābha’s Pure Land.

And the last prayer I do at the end of the night, the day before I go to sleep, all of the practices in the book. There’s about eighty practices in the book. One of them is this beautiful, beautiful prayer, aspirations, by Tsongkhapa praying to go to Amitābha’s Pure Land. Just beautiful aspirations, know. It’s the last thing I think of when I die, when I die asleep, knowing I could wake up in Amitābha’s Pure Land, hopefully.

Or I could when I die, I’ll go to Amitābha’s Pure Land. I could go to Melbourne first, I could get to Amitābha’s Pure Land, whichever one. Because I’ve decided. Then I figure if I miss the plane to Amitābha’s Pure Land, I’ll get to a human one, so it’s So you aim for the best, you know. I mean it, but it’s just taken me forty years to be able to say it, okay, so it does take time.

I’m a bit slow on the uptake. Are we communicating here? Yes. It’s taken me forty years, I met the Lamas forty years ago in June, just saying that to show how long it takes, our minds are so stupid, it’s my mind. So now I can say okay, ready for the next life.

So if you want to go on a holiday you just don’t go Oh may I go on a holiday? Where do you want to go? Oh I don’t mind, whatever’s best. That’s what we say when we think about rebirth, Oh whatever’s best. Excuse me, make a decision, you’re the boss here.

There’s no creator who’s going to organise it for you. And most of us I think even still, I can see this inside us, we have this feeling like you know my teacher’s Lama Zopa, I kind of have this feeling well Lama Zopa can see I’m going to be a good girl, he’ll take care of me. No, you can take care of yourself okay? You’ve to decide where you want to go, Not just oh lump sum will get me a ticket to France, I’ll be okay, I’ll be okay on the day. No, I’ve got to know what I want packed ready to go, I want to know what seeds I need in my mind, I want to know what type of rebirth I want and I can plan for it.

And the more likely we know that you plan for something, we’re very good at it, you’ll get that exact result. That’s how karma works. Lama Zopa says everything exists on the tip of the wish. This is a meaning of karma. And this too takes time for us, for the penny to drop.

Because we really don’t believe we’re in charge. We think that someone out there is in charge, know. We don’t believe it, it takes time. So prepare what type of rebirth you want. When you map it all out like this, so there’s a Christian, the same as a Christian who’s got real faith in God.

They will die blissfully happy, they know they’re going to go to heaven. Well given that we all create every bit of reality we’ve got, they’re absolutely right, they will. Because we create our reality, you know. Buddha says, there’s no heaven out there from its own side, it’s the creation of our own mind. No, Avitapha is Buddha land from its own side, it’s the creation of our mind, our virtue.

When we understand emptiness and karma, this all makes sense, you know. Okay, so that’s a summary of the book really, but then all the details. We’ll go into the details. It’s knowing how to live your life and to prepare for death. Then to know how to the different practices to do at different stages.

The reason behind all of it is so that when the time of death starts, the hours before you stop breathing, the mind is ready, completely programmed, and virtuous karmic seeds will be triggered, and you’ll be programmed to go to another decent human body or Amitābha’s Pure Land. That’s it. That’s the point of the entire book. And everything in the book is to help you do that. Everything in the book is to help you help others do that.

That’s the essence of it, actually. That’s the essence of it. Some of it might not be the material of you, some of you might not be Buddhists and maybe think I’m talking absolute nonsense, that’s okay, but whatever. But there’s some practical stuff in here too if you’re a Christian. There’s a lot of practical advice as well.

Before we go into more detail and different things, how about some questions? Is there anything more to the story of Steve Jobs’ sister talking? Oh yes there is, I forgot, there is, the lovely part of the story. I like this. She said she was there and let’s say, what’s your name?

Gordana. Gordana. Pretend Gordana is Steve Jobs, and I’m the sister, and I’m looking at him. And between us are his two daughters, and she’s looking at him they’re looking at him, and she can see Steve’s face. And I forget the words, something like he looked really completely blissful, looking into the eyes of his daughters begging them to forgive him for having to leave them.

Not oh I don’t want to leave you cry cry grasp grasp, no blissful. And then he looked over their shoulder into the distance she said, and went, Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow, and then he died. Well, there’s another aspect of what happens. As you go through the death process, what it is is this gradual deconstruction of the grosser elements and the grosser parts of your consciousness which means you’re getting closer to your subtle consciousness which just naturally is clairvoyant. So he’s literally seeing a blissful future life.

I was very happy for him. That’s why some people die with panic and hysteria seeing demons and being attacked because they’re seeing their suffering in future life. Which is why it’s so important to help a person before they stop breathing because that’s when the karmic seed is triggered and what it’s determined by is whether the mind is peaceful and therefore virtuous or not peaceful and therefore non virtuous because peaceful has a natural relationship with virtue. Check the you’re loving, compassionate, your mind’s peaceful. Check the last time you’re angry, jealous, freaked out, freaked out.

So the mind needs to be peaceful. That’s your job as the helper. Help them be peaceful. And the other one to help is have imprints in the mind of the Buddha’s name. Or if they’re Christian, talk about Christian, we’ll go to all those things.

But that’s the nice end of the story. I like that part. Questions? Take the mic, darling. Yes.

Doesn’t seem to be on, Matthew. Go on. I’ve heard you talk about your friends in prison, and I’m thinking about we don’t know the definite time of death. Right. Some of them may well do.

They may well know their definite time of death. Mhmm. If they’ve had enough time and take on Buddhist beliefs Yeah. Have you seen or do you know? Do they die with this peace and Well I can’t say because I wasn’t there at this time.

The most recent example I’ve had is a fellow in March in Georgia and he was given permission by the prison to receive phone calls from anybody. So I, you know, he was I met him he had another other teachers as well who were helping him, but I had contact with him and so I spoke to him a couple days before they killed him. And he was completely ready, he was as ready as he could possibly be. Said he was practising Vajrasattva and he had Lama Zopa in his heart. And So he was clear, he had friends around him and he was just preparing day and night for exactly that.

Day and night. Now still though, still it doesn’t mean that he mightn’t freak out because sometimes they kill them in a monstrous way and they suffer terribly. But he said in his case, what they do in Georgia is they knock them out completely, they sedate them, knock them out. But that doesn’t mean he’s unconscious, the West thinks he’s unconscious, but that’s his subtle mind. So if his mind isn’t peaceful, then his mind won’t be happy even when he’s unconscious, because his subtle mind will be there.

But still, that’s one point. So yes, the one person I’ve spoken to most recent, close to his death, but the other point is this: just because they know the time of their death doesn’t mean they still won’t die sooner. A friend of mine on death row in Kentucky, preparing for his death date, and he got leukemia and died weeks before, months before, so they’re still talking by surprise. It’s not certain. Maybe a minute before you can say, okay, death really is coming now, midnight, but then still even.

Then at least the ones on death row, like my friend Mitch in Kentucky, who’s become a Buddhist since he’s been there thirty years, he’s a marvelous person, know. And he says, Robina, I’m ready for that electric jolt. And he meditates every day on compassion for the person who’s going to kill him. He’s really readying his mind to have compassion and to be all his practices to be ready when he dies. So the best he can do, how amazing.

And the fact is we’re all going to die at some point, whether someone kills you or not it’s not the difference. What’s the difference, you know, in the end? It sounds shocking, but you’re going to die. He’s really preparing, how fantastic. Know, wake up call.

Then on from that too, those who may suffer, they might not die instantly. You’re talking about going through the stages of death and going when you’re separating. If they have prepared enough, do you think in your mind that they’re then okay to go through say that fifteen minutes of No, you’ve to be a really advanced yogi to actually even if you’re dying peacefully you’ve got to be a yogi to really actually go through the actual experience of being okay, we all go to sleep right? We all have dreams? So if you can imagine deciding to go to sleep and super conscious at every stage all the way, never losing consciousness at an ever subtle, ever subtle, ever subtle level and then consciously waking up again, I don’t think so.

You’ve got to be really a greatest yogi to have done that all your life and even then it gets to be fearful. But then they’re literally in charge of the process. So that’s if they die so then for many of us who will also die peacefully, at least we practice it a bit. And we can have faith and people around us and thinking about Guru and doing our mantras, and that’ll help us stay steady. But still it’s fearful until you realize emptiness it’s fearful.

And then not to mention if you die of a lot of fear then it’s a nightmare, a nightmare, a disaster. It’s not easy, it’s actually quite powerful. This is why, you know, like in the West there’s a lot of talk about people, you know, euthanasia and having the right to kill themselves, isn’t it? But I think the thing that’s really clear, it sounds intellectually and politically really perfect, you can’t argue with the person’s you can’t argue with a person’s human rights, it’s true. But there’s no I would suggest, of course in the West, taking the Buddha’s view, there’s no comprehension of the level of grasping that naturally occurs when you start the death process that we of course don’t know anything about in the West.

No one ever factors that in. So you can have all this rational idea of killing yourself and then completely have a panic attack at the time of death and go straight to the lower realms. Of course you don’t, you know. So you can’t argue with our rights, but you know rights come with responsibility and knowledge, you know. So it’s an interesting point.

This fear is the one which is why all the more reason why the greatest gift you could possibly give to anybody is to be with them in the weeks and months before they die and then actually the time like literally and we’re going to go into more detail about that that’s the most precious gift you could give. For your dog, the mouse, the ant, the same. You know, don’t just kill your animal, call it putting it down acting like you’re so holy at the vet. Help your little mouse, help the little ant, help the kangaroo, help your dog, you know, with holding on to it, it listen to dharma, we’ll discuss all this so it can die peacefully and virtuously and even trigger a virtuous seed before it stops breathing and send it off to human rebirth. Where’s the mic please?

When my mother was dying she went into a coma and I got on a plane, she was in Arizona, my brothers in Israel got on planes, she died when we were all on the plane. And I hear this over and over again that the person dying waits for the person to leave the room and then they die. I hear that too. So I’m just wondering what is that, that a person wants to be alone? Well I don’t know if I can even posit that, I wouldn’t know about that aspect, but all I can talk about is this, what I can say we’re to go into some more detail we have to learn to understand the depth of the craving and grasping and fear based attachment at the time of death.

What time is our lunch? Twelve thirty. Okay good, we can start doing that now. I think we can start doing now. Can we do this?

I think we’ll do this now. Okay. Attachment, as we’ve been talking often enough, is multifaceted. It’s So one of the basic and it’s such a simple word, we don’t really get it. Lama Yeshe always proposes, Lama Yeshe says I can tell you about attachment for one whole year.

And even it’s so subtle that even if you’ve gone to the stages of realizing your own liberation, which is the Hīnayāna level of understanding things, you even though you you there’s still levels of attachment according to the Mahāyāna view. It’s in other words, it’s beyond primordial, the subtlety the subtlety of attachment. Don’t underestimate it. So broadly speaking it’s multifaceted. The most basic level is this deep feeling of dissatisfaction like we’ve talked.

A primordial sense of a separate, lonely, bereft, dissatisfied me. On the basis of this is this deep hankering after something that obviously we think we’re missing, such that when we get it it’ll fill up the gaping hole. Then there’s a manipulating to get it, then there’s a possessing of it and the exaggerating of its deliciousness and holding onto it and seeing it as permanent. All this is a part of attachment. Well another way of talking about attachment is you know our minds never stop thinking about things isn’t it?

Chatting away, chatting chatting chatting. And of what’s happening is always anticipating well now I’ll get up in the morning, I’ll go here, I’ll get my breakfast, I’ll go to work, I’ll drive the I’ll turn left, I’ll do here, and I’ll go there, I’ve got my jobs to do. You know, we’re endlessly moving, we’re endlessly doing things aren’t we? Endlessly making plans and now we’ll do this and now we’ll do that. Do you agree with this?

It’s always looking forward, isn’t it? Looking is like a motor propelling us forward, that’s the energy of attachment. And it’s all conceptually based. And look what happens when you’re depressed. That motor kind of dies down and you sink into this hole.

Because why? There’s nothing to look forward to, is there? Could you hear my point? You just fall in despair and hopeless and you want to die you know? So that’s because attachment is deflated and that’s now aversion and depression.

So attachment energy we don’t even recognize, we just think it’s being a normal person. So if we’ve got love and compassion and goodness mixed into it, it’s okay. But it’s actually this motor and the more raw that attachment is, the more nightmarish we are, more control freaks we are, the more evil we are, the more harm we do to others if we can’t access any virtue to mix into our attachment. But the attachment’s motor running the show! Do you understand that?

It’s this massive motor never stopping, never stopping always thinking of something, always anticipating something, always looking forward to something. So now you think when you’re dying. This is primordial fear of knowing, it’s like this deep instinct because we’ve died in countless lives and the fear is there, animals have it too. We know it’s gonna so then of course you’re gonna grasp extra strongly. And what do you grasp at?

Whatever you are now, your body, yourself. And this is when the death process starts, this grasping is stupendously more powerful, stupendously more fearful, clinging frantically to whatever’s there. So this is why one of the main things Lama Zopa Rinpoche says in preparing to help people is to create a beautiful conducive environment for your dying person. The ideal scenario, with respect to hospitals, and this is a very special hospital, I know you’re dying people aren’t you? They’re dying or they’re just sick?

Is the hospital lovely and peaceful? No. That’s the trouble. Know, really nurses are so compassionate and kind, but it’s about the worst place to die, I’m sorry. You need like the ideal scenario is to have the wreck the best room in the best hotel with the best views of the sky, with full you know, I’m joking but I’m not joking.

Make the room in the house beautiful, take out all the clutter, the crap, all the rubbish, anything in other words that will interfere the person’s mind. This is they have to die peacefully. So that means, you see, the Buddha’s view about the mind is so interesting, as I’ve mentioned many times. Whatever any sentient being hears and sees, in particular these two senses, leaves imprints in the mind. It’s like what one lama said every single second we’re taking photos of everything and storing them in our mind.

So their attachment is there like a rampant vampire clinging to something. Don’t give them the dog for God’s sake, don’t give them their pussycat, don’t give them their beloved husband, their children all crying around them, they’re going to cling like vampires! They’re going to hang on for weeks clinging frantically at something. But if the room is free and only images of the Buddha let’s say, if they’re Buddhas, only images of your Guru, only sounds of the Dharma, everything is peaceful, the carers whom you adore, who you know know you, know what practices, It’s like a blissful feeling, a blissful when they look in the window outside there’s a clear sky and lovely flowers. Everything is perfectly done like a movie set.

That’s how to die. So whatever’s there given that the grasping is there, that grasping will grasp onto the Guru, grasp onto and that’s perfect! Then you grasp onto the next life. Perfect! That’s how to die, because I think grasping and attachment is so stupendous.

We don’t get this in the West at all. We think it’s called affection. That’s why we have the dogs and the cats and the aunties and the uncles and moaning and crying and grasping, oh, know, and there’s love and peace and panic attack. It’s like the most nightmarish way, die worse than that. Or having loud hospitals with banging and clashing and other people moaning and crying and machines and noise and doors.

It’s like a nightmare. And as they say when you die, the mind gets unbelievably sensitive. Even the tiniest noise can be distressing. So it’s most precious time, most important time. I remember one woman who came to a cause when discussing this, and she was on a roster helping all the friends help a friend die.

So you know she said she came back the next day and said well you know my friend died last night but what happened is I walked into the room, moved out the pets, turned off the Patsy Cline music, I took out all the troublemakers, I made the room clean and nice and then the woman had nothing else to cling on to her so she died peacefully. So when is all the family as long as they’re there you’re going to hold on of course you’ll hold on like a vampire and you can hold on for weeks sometimes it can be and so then as soon as they’re not there there’s nothing to cling to any longer I’d say it’s more like that because it’s just exhausting to hold on, know, that’s attachment. I remember when Frank Sinatra died something like his wife it was like a nightmare screaming at him, hold on Frank, hold on, hold on Frank, hold on! Can you imagine the torture? But he’s climbed like a vampire all his life and now he finally can’t.

I mean the poor man, what a nightmare isn’t it? The grasping is what I really learned when I studied the twelve links, it’s this other aspect of this book. The two last bits to put in the book I knew wasn’t quite finished. One was Amitābha’s Pure Land, and I’m going to talk about it and read Virite’s words. The other one was this business of the twelve links, how this grasping at the time of death is powerful.

I’ve never studied the twelve links, I’ve never had a teaching on the twelve links, so it took me months just to read and study, all the lamas have different views, know. I went to one Geshe and said this Geshe says that, this he says well he’s wrong. They’re all different views, right? So it took a long time study it, but Rinpoche’s particular point is at the time of death, these several links play a very crucial role in the process of dying. So it was so helpful to understand this, and that’s what his point is about craving and grasping.

They kick in, like at the time before you stop breathing, and is what triggers the karmic seeds. That grasping is what triggers the karmic seeds. So you’ve got to be ready, you’ve got to be prepared, you’ve got to be conducive, and that’s where the precious role of a beloved person. You know yourselves even when the slightest thing goes wrong, when you’re slightly sick or miserable, the first thing we do is think of someone to turn to, don’t we? And if you’ve got nobody to turn to like all these poor people in hospitals and old people’s homes treated like veggies and whatever, not being rude, can you imagine the nightmare?

Their minds aren’t prepared, they’ve never controlled their minds in their whole lives because no one’s taught them, they’ve followed every delusion they’ve ever had because no one’s taught them not to, and now finally alone and demented. What you couldn’t wish for the worst way to die than that. So that’s why even being a friendly cleaner in the hospital who looks at you lovingly and makes you feel loved and peaceful. This is like the most miraculous gift you can give somebody to help them be peaceful and virtuous. Unbelievable.

So attachment to the time of death, the worst. And that’s why Rinpoche says, became clear to me in this book, that the grasping as he says for us in our past life before we stopped breathing, not only would we have had very powerful morality karma in our petrol tank ready to be triggered, which is the cause of getting a human body, which is the cause of our mind running like a magnet to our present mother’s human womb, specifically morality caused that. Not only did we have powerful generosity karma, which is how come we’re living in a place like Adelaide as opposed to whether you have to work eighteen hours for a grain of rice, with no money and nothing, that’s the result of generosity, like a miracle, so you can have an appropriate life so you can practice. Not only did we have that, we must have had very strong grasping, the delusion, the grasping for a human birth. Listen me extrapolating now, but you can think of that ant or the mouse, certainly the mouse or the cat or the dog or the baby or your auntie or your senile grandma.

There you are this presence in their life next soothing them, calming them, the mouse as well, calming their fears by being a soothing presence and most perfectly because of the sensory experiences are so powerful and leave imprints in the mind, letting them hear the Buddha’s teachings, hear the mantras. I remember one old lady in one old people’s home out of her brain, paranoid, deluded, we didn’t know what to do so I sat and I sang mantras, she instantaneously calmed down, right there. You have to be genius to help people, but the mantras are so powerful because that invokes the Buddha and the Buddha’s gonna pick them up and help them get a decent life. Seeing it but the sound especially when you’re old you can’t see anything but the sound is such a powerful one, so day and night for your animals you know you should have the CDs on or the teachings. We go to work, think we love our little cat and give them livers and probably have insurance for them, but you leave them in the house for eight hours when you go to work, just turn on the tape please.

And all those eight hours imprints of the dharma in their ear, they’ll have a blissful death, you program them for the future lives, know. It’s an unbelievable way to help people, and your senile grandma, and your baby, and the ants, and the rats, and the animals outside. Unbelievable, we get this, it’s such an easy way to help. So grasping, we must have had grasping. So if you’re there with your cat, your dog, who loves you, who’s totally attached to you, your pussy, your doggy, and they see you, they feel safe in your presence, their mind will calm down.

They’re seeing you, it’s like giving them I wouldn’t be surprised if that triggers the imprint to get a human birth, whilst also they’re hearing the dharma, instead of going to the vet and having them kill them. Poor vets these days, they spend most of their lives killing instead of her healing, it’s terrible. Are we communicating? Any more questions? Yes, yes and yes, come on, where’s the line?

Absolutely gone. Yes. What about helping somebody who has been on serious drugs or alcohol, you know, is very seriously ill with that at the time of death. And what about helping well, in my example, my mother who is very old and she’s had an enormous amount of resentment that she’s carried through this lifetime, but she also has a lot of positive things about it. And she’s not a Buddhist.

I understand. Okay, second part first. Does your mummy love you? Oh yes. Then darling, one of the things, in the book, and particularly the way I’ve done the book, which you can download it, I’ve numbered all the practices, so find them very easy, there’s like eighty seven different practices Rinpoche recommends and many of these, like there’s one section, what to talk about.

So given that your job is to help your mother trigger her virtue, trigger her happy mind, trigger her rejoicing, then darling you just flood her with loving words: What a wonderful mother you’ve been, what a good mother you are, you’re wonderful, I love you mother, you tell her We never tell ourselves good thoughts, we only tell ourselves bad thoughts. So to hear one piece of praise is like nectar on her heart. Just fill her with love, be like a rock, be steady, be kind, be loving, make her feel totally secure and praise her and love her and tell her about her good qualities and she’ll argue with you No, Mummy, you’ve been a wonderful mother, I love you, she’s got to hear this until her little heart opens, you know. This is so precious for her. And then secondly she’s not a Buddhist, but this doesn’t mean you can’t be a bit sneaky.

You know, you can have lovely all these days so many people have made music behind all the mantras, you can just have a quiet in the background. Quiet, so quiet, but subtly going into her mind, you know, the mantras with music. Does she like the sound of quiet music? Because it’s so powerful for the mind. The sound one is such a powerful sense.

And then when she gets older and she’s in her dreams even, sound is unbelievably powerful. Because like, I remember one example a friend of mine was in a deep karma in hospital they said she was going to die, for whatever reason, it doesn’t matter, she’s in Sydney and I remember going to the hospital, the husband rang up the hospital and said but can I come in, I’m her pastor and I was Buddhist nun? First thing, it was the ICU at night. They’re called ICU here? So anyway, I got there at midnight because it was easier to drive at night time because I could drive fast at night, see, so whatever.

It was a long drive from the centre and it was in Sydney Mona Vale Hospital. I remember I’d go in there at midnight and there she was all wired up, and they didn’t think she didn’t come out of it or anything, right? And she’d known many of the Lamas, that she hadn’t stayed at her house, Sukchen and Rinpoche, Rinpoche, she wasn’t really a Buddhist, but there she was. So when he said I was a Buddhist nun, when I came they were a bit nervous, they said Oh please don’t ring any bells, you know? So I promised I wouldn’t ring any bells.

Anyway I just stayed with her for like an hour, half an hour and just said prayers. So then every now and again, I’d go right close to her ear and I’d whisper loudly and occasionally I’d say Judy, His Holiness Serkong Rinpoche is praying for you. Judy, Serkong Rinpoche, remember, is praying for you. Anyway whatever, the point is she came out of a coma weeks later, I don’t remember. And I went to see her and she said the only thing she remembered she said it was this husky voice I said no it was mine she said, it was a blue lady coming through the window, whatever, saying Judy, Rinpoche is praying for you.

Judy, His Holiness Serkong Rinpoche, he’s praying for you. She remembered it hurt exactly the only thing. I remember Jeffrey Hopkins had Lyme’s disease at some point, I interviewed him in ninety five for Mandela and he went to the deepest of coma, they didn’t expect him out of it. The only thing he could remember, he said, was the wisdom mantra Om Ara Patsana Dhi. He said, Ling Rinpoche told him never to forget this mantra.

The only thing he could find in his mind Omurapasana di. So the fact is even when a person is unconscious, when they’re in a coma, and this is something very fascinating which touches on your, maybe on your right, on the first part of your question as well. In West, you give them a drug, they’re peaceful, because the body looks peaceful. Now have you ever had night when you’ve had dreams, you’ve had nightmares? I bet someone seeing you would say Oh isn’t she sleeping so peacefully?

But you know you’re having a on earth experience isn’t it? And your body might not necessarily be tossing about because that’s your subtle consciousness. This is the death process we’re going to go into later. We’ve got gross consciousness, which is the sensory and the conceptual, then when you stop breathing, you now go to your subtle, or when you go to sleep, it’s the same, it’s the same process you’re going to go through. So your subtle consciousness is your dreams.

Well you know dreams could be a nightmare. People in comas they come back and report their experiences. I mean some guy he reported these like hell like experiences, they’re like eons. That was while he was in a coma, looking peaceful. So it’s a joke to think because you’ve drugged them out, that they’re peaceful.

It’s like ridiculous to say that. That’s Buddhist understanding, you know? So one of the things is, as much as you can, forget about whether alcoholic and getting off drugs, I don’t know that one. But too many drugs, you’ve got to have a fine balance between being conscious and trying to also medicate the pain. Because the fact is you cannot medicate mental anguish, you can only medicate physical pain.

And when you know that, it’s a very different approach, know. And then that’s why too when they’re in a coma, the room should be like only peaceful things should happen in that room, only the sound dharma, nobody chatting, no one, only quiet otherwise. Just because they’re in a coma doesn’t mean they can’t be conscious. Did you read about years ago that Italian man whose son was plugged in for twenty five years, she wouldn’t let them pull the plug, He came back out of his coma and he said he was conscious the whole time. Conscious!

I remember having a this is my own experience, one time during a retreat in Dharmasala when I first became nun, did Bodhisattva retreat three months in Dhams in Tuśita, And for a period, a couple of weeks maybe, I can’t remember, we’d all every time after lunch we’d go and have our nap, know? But for some period I had what they call lucid dreams, think. But I was completely conscious of everything going on around me, all my senses were working but I was asleep. So I could hear everything. Now that’s common, not an uncommon experience.

Not an uncommon. So to think because they’re in a coma, they’re peaceful or don’t know what’s going on is like a joke, you know? And people can leave their bodies. There’s so many things and this subtle consciousness and just because it’s subtle doesn’t mean it’s going to be blissful, can be a nightmare, it can be hideous depending on what’s going on in your life you know? So if a person like you said Ben had mentioned about alcoholic you mean withdrawing from the pain of what?

How do you mean? My sister has been an alcoholic and she’s also now has been using ice for three years. Yes. So the average lifespan for an ice user is five So I’m not sure whether I’ll have the opportunity to be with her at time of Absolutely. But if I was able to be with her, I’d want to know what to do.

I think the same. What she can do, I mean God knows if she’s because if she’s going to be dying, is she still able to put the ice into her veins or whatever you do with ice? Or will she not be able to get it? Should have spoken up. No, wouldn’t be able to get it.

Okay, she’d be pretty tortured? So then all you can do is try and I mean, it’s the mind that’s tortured, but the body I suppose, I don’t know, I mean do you have patience like that, Gay? Only cancer ward. Oh cancer ward, okay. Anybody have patience like that?

Ex alcoholic, something? Tell us about it. Give us the mic please. Yeah, I believe it’s very important to be with them and give them a lot of peace to see people with I can’t hear you very well. Sorry.

So what type of drugs do you give someone like that to try and alleviate the pain? Is it much you can do drug Yeah, we can give a lot of drugs, but I don’t think it alleviates the pain as you say. The mental, no what about the body though? The can be peaceful, yes. And we can always guarantee that, well mostly always guarantee, that people will not die in physical pain.

It’s up to the surrounding to make it very peaceful as possible, whether it’s drugs or alcohol. But if you say they won’t die in physical pain does that mean they’re unconscious? Yes they could be drugged or unconscious or sometimes we can get them to a state where they aren’t or they can come out of it for a while and then if they’re in pain we can let them have contact. So the medical side you’ve got to sort that out but I think the mental is the same. What can you do?

What can you do? You can pray that maybe she gets so sick that she just can’t take any drugs at least it could be a period when she can be Dharma for her. When you can just I mean again be skillful, put mantras on so she see the Buddhist point is Are you Buddhist? I think that one we have to think about too because it sounds again like religious and mystical but when I can think of that experience of my friend Judy the only thing she remembered, you know, was these words. That’s kind of powerful.

Having the sound of mantra even though she dies tortured having the sound of mantras quietly, even when she’s asleep, it’s gone deep into her mind it’ll leave incredible imprint and hooks her, it gets the Buddhas to connect. Brings the Buddhas in, it brings the Buddhas. So this is the most precious way to help, more than anything else. Your mother, the mouse, the dog, your sister that’s the most precious thing. Even if they die tormented, if they’re hearing the sound, that can be something that transform.

And then of course the other point is, in many of the practices in the book about what to do after they die. Even Lama Zopa says he’s endlessly optimistic, even if they’re in the lower realms, can do practices that can help them remove from the lower realms. In the Bardo, when they’re heading towards the lower realms, there’s a lot of practice in the book that you can do to help them. So there’s always something you can do, you know? Do you understand?

And the fact is though, we can’t make it perfect, we can’t guarantee, because that’s karma, you know? Isn’t it? But being I think the one that really struck me was being like this rock of Gibraltar for this person, loving like, as I said, we all cling to somebody, we’re desperate when we’re miserable. I always remember this is something for me that really struck me. You know when you’re a little kid, let’s say you have a mother, and you’re little kid and something goes wrong, you cry hysterically right, and you make a beeline for Mummy don’t you?

And you look her in the eyes and screaming and tears coming up, the whole world is collapsing, and this is the point now, look what Mummy does. Mummy says oh darling it’s okay and she gives you a hug and guess what, you believe her. That’s how you help people. Do you hear what I’m saying? Make them feel fine, them feel secure you know.

Do you understand? It’s like a miracle instead of panicking as well What did your brother do to you? Oh my god, it’s a disaster! Call the lawyers, you don’t know! It’s alright darling you understand?

Be like a rock and make them feel safe because if you start panicking as well then the end of it is a disaster Like a rock, optimistic, always, that’s the key, that’s the way to help. Then they will just die to see you even for a few minutes, they’ll be so blissful when you walk in the door, because they’re clinging to you, taking refuge in you. And then you have the mantras as well. That’s the best for everybody the ants, dogs, the mice, the humans, your grandma, babies, everything. Someone else?

Hello, I’m Sheridan. Hello. Hi. Look, a couple of years ago I was out on North Stradbroke Island in a place called Mopi Mopi Pah, and I was briefly working there and the staff were having a bit of a chuckle at me and they said, come with us, come into this room, we haven’t shown it to you yet and when I walked in there it was nearly as big as this room but the enormous windows from top to bottom were closed with curtains so it was a dark room and I walked into the center and suddenly I just the world started moving and I gasped and I fell back against the wall and they laughed and I knew they’d set it up and then the next thing they opened the curtains we were looking onto the water and the sailing ships going up to the Whitsundays and I said whatever is this place it was unbelievably beautiful and they said this is exactly where we bring the because it’s an indigenous place is where we bring people to die. What do you mean you fell against the wall?

I don’t understand that. I literally was just But why? Don’t understand what you’re saying. Well I guess I’m basically saying that the energy at that place was just absolutely profoundly I don’t want to say exquisite but the peace you know that Christian that peace beyond all understanding and I’m just wondering whatever that was and they obviously know these places whatever that was well firstly I’d love to know what it was but secondly how do we bring that experience is there a way we can help by bringing that form of experience? I can hear you but I can’t really understand how to answer that and in a sense it’s all I’m doing here, using the Buddhism I don’t know about what they talk about, who the beings they are that they talk about, I don’t know but then bringing the presence of the holy beings here, that’s what I’m saying, about mantras and things, that’s the what I’m describing.

That’s the Buddhist approach. By invoking them to come and be there by saying their names and having the prayers and that’s what I’m discussing, exactly that. Do you understand? Yeah, I really get it. That really helps.

I was just wondering whether the fear that somebody may feel when they die that’s related to grasping to losing themselves. That’s right. That is that. Mainly that. Yes.

Is that different than the fear somebody might experience with the method of their death? What do you mean by the method of their Well, thinking about some of the people that you may have known that have been electrocuted or somebody who’s died a violent death. Does the if somebody dies with that kind of fear but their mind was peaceful before that with less grasping in their lives, does that make a difference? It could, of course it does, of course it does. It’s like, you know, you know yourselves, could be driving the car beautifully for thirty years and you’re really good and you’re going have an accident, one day you’re have an accident.

So you can’t guarantee because you’ve driven the car for thirty years perfectly that something’s not bad is going happen. In other words, talking spiritually, until we’re highly realised, which means realised emptiness and have gone beyond fear, there’s so many karmic seeds there we have no idea what’s going to happen, you know? It’s very difficult. It could easily be that you’ve lived a good life but if certain karma ripens and you die a terrible death and fear ripens, of course it can. There’s no guarantee.

So it’s still the fear that will determine what karma ripens. We’ve got trillions of seeds in our mind. If you think that every single thing we think and do and say doesn’t go astray, it all goes into our bank vaults, my analogy. So all the virtuous seeds, you know, and there’s one particular bank vault of karmic seeds that will be the ones that produce a type of life, the fully ripened result they call it. That’s the one that’s triggered.

So, in general, what they say is when the mind is grasping and frantic and fear and full of attachment, the karmic seed that is most habitual, that is the strongest habit that’s nourished. Let’s say in your life, you know, let’s say a person in their life has never thought about anything, looked at their mind, just followed their instincts and killed the rats and killed the roaches and cheated on their wife and get angry when they feel like it. They’ve never been conscious, they’ve never been a regular person but never looked at their mind, never thought about impermanence and then they die a terrible death, it’s a brainer, they die a so called quiet death, it’s a no brainer that the negative seeds have been really nourished haven’t they? So they’re going to easily be the ones that will be triggered at the time of death. Of course they will, it’s natural because they never thought, they’re not ready, they’re not prepared.

Whereas another person, you can spend your life being virtuous, you can fairly much if you want to guarantee anything, the karma is reasonable. If you spend a life growing, if you spend a life nourishing your garden every day pulling out the weeds, every day growing the herbs and the flowers, you can pretty much deduce that that’s going to bring the It’s not as if karma is some kind of unnatural law that suddenly you know a monstrous weed that you never saw will ripen overnight and suffocate everything it’s so superstitious. So if you are living a peaceful life then it’s logical that it’s likely that you’ll die well. It’s logical you know but again karma is very subtle. Do you understand?

Yes, I do, but even if someone like that I’m thinking about that priest actually. The priest in France who died recently. I don’t know this man. How was he killed? He had his throat cut by a terrorist.

I see. And there was a long period before he got his throat cut? Was there talking and stuff? No. Just all of a sudden?

Out of the blue? They came into church. And he was doing Mass or something? Yes. Well, know, maybe he had close to God and virtue was in his heart, it be?

If he was sitting there being drunk or something, it might have been a problem? Yeah. Do you understand my point? He could have been at home having a glass of sherry being mad about the next door neighbour, but then maybe he’s doing his job and God is close to God, his heart’s virtuous, what a good way to die. So that makes a difference.

Yes, makes a difference, isn’t it? Yes. Bina, could you say a little bit more about Amitābha’s Pure Land? I will do that. I will.

Is that yeah. If you say that because I was thinking that about to aspire to be reborn a human that it could be of more benefit. That’s right, exactly. Okay, me talk about it. So this means we’ve got to step back a bit here and talk about what a pure land is.

Again this might be abstract depending on how much we’ve taught, how much we’ve heard in the teachings. It’s not here. I didn’t put it in. Okay, never mind. So the word Buddha is actually referring to all knowing, all compassionate, fully developed, omniscient, enlightened consciousness.

So when you’ve accomplished that, you don’t need bodies. Bodies are the fruit of negative karma, they’re like a joke, you know? You don’t need a body by then, that’s actual Buddha, pervades the universe, knows everything, it’s a bit like, as Lama Zopa said, a bit like the Christian idea of God, the difference is everyone can become one. So then, that’s Buddha. Now out of infinite compassion over countless lives of perfecting that Buddhahood, that person because of compassion is only existing to benefit others, just spontaneous.

So then naturally, for peanuts like you and me, who can’t access pure unmanifest consciousness, they will manifest in bodies to help us. That’s their job. That’s their job. Even the lowest level bodies suffer many stages before they get to Buddhahood can manifest their mind in one hundred forms simultaneously to help sentient beings. It’s their job, you know?

So there’s two main types of forms really that you say the bodies the Buddha manifests in. One is a regular kind of body that you and I can see like Śākyamūni Buddha, the human being two and a half thousand years ago, that human you know, manifesting to benefit sentient beings. So the first point here is this, when we look at the statues and go oh yeah there’s Buddha you know, like as if we’re so clever we can recognise, but back then the place was crawling in sadhus, know, there was millions of sadhus, it was how it was in India, and he would have been just like one of the sadhus. Well you couldn’t tell a Buddha from a bar of soap, because he’s a human, a Buddha doesn’t need a body. So the first one is so and then the point about that is their speech is their main gift, the power of speech they talk about.

Because we’re human and we have concepts, so the way the Buddhas can help us is by giving us the words. You can look at Buddha for forty seven years and be very nice, but if he doesn’t open his mouth useless. So the speech of the Buddha, the power of speech they talk about, you know, that’s the way Buddha manifests to benefit sentient beings like you and me. Now there’s a subtler form in which the Buddha manifests to help the Ārya bodhisattvas, those who realised emptiness, who are highly evolved on their path, and this is the form depicted by all these pictures, could say, in tantra especially, the bodhisattva aspect of a subtle light body. Well certainly in tantra, these forms, and these are all depicting subtle light bodies that regular joes like you and me cannot cognize.

Okay, so all sentient beings, all the realms of existence Buddha posits all these different realms of existence as we maybe have learned, you know? And the more we understand how the physical world is made of the four elements, and the more we understand the Vajrayāna point that all consciousness all minds are inextricably linked with their own set of the four elements. It’s a whole elaborate model, and we’re gonna go to the death process and we’ll describe that. But it’s just the way it is, Buddhism says, as the view just says, it’s how the universe is. So then when we create karma, what we do is we think things and then we do things with our body and speech.

Well that karma then creates us to have a certain kind of form and then in turn we all occupy an environment. Ants have bodies and an environment. Dogs, monkeys, lions, humans. We have a body, we have a mind, we have connection with other sentient beings who are embodied, and we live in environments together. This is the fruit of karma, our own actions.

Well the Buddhas manifest also in these subtle light bodies with a subtle environment made of light, blissful, radiant, that only can be cognized when you’re qualified. So in general, all the trillions of Buddhas, and there’s many many many Buddhas manifesting to benefit sentient beings in different ways because it’s all just psychological states that they’re representing. They’re all going have their own little, what they call pure land, their environment. So, in general, you need to be okay, I’ll read Lama’s Open now from the book, okay? In order to achieve enlightenment quickly for sentient beings, not for yourself, for sentient beings, We need to make sure we go to a pure land after we die.

So Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava mentions this, and in many teachings, many of his teachings, Lama Tsongkhapa says we should pray to be born especially in Amitābha’s Pure Land. So if you’ve got Buddha mind, the dharmakaya they call it, then you’ve got underneath it two. Śākyamūni Buddha is a sūtra manifestation of Buddha, then you have vajradhara we mentioned last week, manifestation in Tantra. Then under him you’ve the five Buddha families, and under them you have all the myriad Buddhas, they all belong in different states, they’re all related to different states of mind. So Amitābha is one of those five, and his particular manifestation of particular virtues, okay?

States of mind. Amitābha is pure land, the blissful realm, Dewa Chen in Tibetan or Sukhāvati in Sanskrit, because it is easy for us ordinary people, those with delusions, to be born there. I was surprised by that, Rinpoche said. In his text on the benefits of the blissful realm, is in the book, Lama says, when reciting prayers to be reborn in the pure lands of the Buddhas, one should mainly focus on being reborn in Sukhāvati. In fact, one of the eight prayers to benefit the dead that are traditionally recited in the Gelug Tibetan monasteries is Lama Tsongkhapa’s prayer to be reborn in the blissful realm of Amitābha.

These are all in the book, and that’s the one I recite to myself at the end of the night, or have it in my with my earphones on. And it’s said that if you recite daily another of the eight, the king of prayers, you’ll definitely be born there. Okay. So there are numberless pure lands. As many as there are Buddhas, manifestations of different qualities, there are that many pure lands because these Buddhas are manifesting in subtle light bodies and subtle light environment.

See this is why this just we have to the more we understand emptiness, the more we understand that nothing has an inherent nature, the more we understand karma, and the more we understand that we create our environment. We we don’t think so. We think it’s all out there from its own side and someone kind of maidens and plopped me in the middle of it. No. It’s a karmic result of your past virtue and non virtue.

Nothing else. However things appear to us is the fruit of our past actions, fruit of our past karma. It’s a pretty intense concept, know? Takes a while to get our head around it. This is the Buddha’s view.

We are creators of our own reality, our own body, our own mind, our own tendencies, our own experiences, and our own environment. How manifests, you know? That’s what Buddha says. Pure lands are the same. For a numberless pure lands, we can practice tantra and achieve enlightenment.

There are Vajrayoginī’s and Heruka’s pure lands where you can definitely become enlightened, and Tuśita, Maitreya Buddha’s pure land. And of course you can pray to be born in Shambhala, which is a place related to Kālacakra. However, to be born in many of the pure lands is very difficult. For some, you need to have achieved the eighth level of the Mahāyāna path. To be reborn in the lowest pure lands, need to have cut the ego, the ignorance holding the I as truly existent.

You need to have actualized the happiness, the bliss, the ultimate reality of no self. And to be born in Tuśita, you need to have very pure morality. So it’s very difficult. If you don’t have these realizations, if you still have delusions, even if you pray, and pray just means aspire, want. We don’t say, oh, I pray to go to France.

Pray may I go to France, we might have said that in the medieval days, it just means aspire, oh may I go to France, and then you do the job of getting that, same here. Even if you pray to go to these pure lands, even if you aspire, even if you want, you won’t succeed. So many of the pure lands, in other words, not when where ordinary beings can be reborn. So as I mentioned, ordinary beings, those who have delusions and for whom it is difficult to be born in most pure lands can easily take birth in Amitābha’s pure land. And not only that, according to my root guru, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, you can practice tantra and become enlightened in the blissful realm.

It’s also said that you can get enlightened more quickly there than in other pure lands. And once you’re there, whatever you wish will be achieved, and from there you can go to any other pure land. So it’s much more special than other pure lands. So the point is, the only reason you go there is get some realisations, then you can come back and do what you like. So I just think it’s a no brainer, I’m sick of making a trouble and making a mess, I wanna get some realizations please, then I can come back and really have fun as well as help people.

That’s the reason, the only reason to go. Do you see? I think the way time is, I mean it’s very hard in this concept of time. They say, you know, it can be a very short time because you can get realizations very quickly, because your mind is pure, you’re a subtle light body, you can just imbue yourself with all the Buddha’s teachings pretty quickly then you can bop around and have human bodies as many as you like. Do you see my point?

That’s the reason. So you’ve to aspire whichever one, you know? Aim. karma takes care, loving as she says. Are we communicating here people?

Yes. Anyway I’ve told you now I’m a fan. I used to be so rude, I saw these Chinese paintings there, of Amitābha, a Buddha land, I was so arrogant you know. Now I’m a real fan, I promise. So as I said it’s on my itinerary.

How does it look? Oh there’s long descriptions in here, long texts. I remember she had one of his monks in Sera Je translate it. It just sounds like science fiction because we’re just used to seeing apples and pears and shit and pipi and kakar and all this, isn’t it? We’re not used to seeing things and subtle.

It’s just everything’s radiant and blissful and it’s the manifestation of our pure mind. And how do we manifest there? Light bodies. Light bodies. Everything’s dharma, just here, pure.

No, I mean, when we were born there, so we just manifest. I’ve heard that you manifest inside a lotus. I don’t know, none of it’s in here. I’ve heard all about that stuff. I know about that stuff.

It’s not in here. Bodies. No dramas, no delusions. Know exactly. See the thing is this is where all this again can sound like science fiction but still I’ll say it.

We’ve got to ask the question if minds are beginningless then we all know very well this planet started at some point didn’t we know that so we’ve got to think well where were we before the planet you know isn’t it? So human you see the thing is about these realms Buddhist teachings about realms of existence They’re just states of mind, that’s all. Coming along with a certain level of physicality and a certain environmental. So then in saṃsāra you’ve got these kind of different suburbs. So the top suburbs in saṃsāra, they’re called God realms, and that’s equivalent to heaven or paradise, the way they describe it.

Which is similar to having subtle light bodies, but there’s no virtue, there’s no dharma there. It’s just bliss, utter bliss, utter joy, utter bliss, which is the fruit of virtue. Of being a good person, it manifests as bliss. And it lasts a long time, but you’re so blissed out and you don’t realize you haven’t realized emptiness yet, don’t realize you haven’t cut the ego yet. And eventually that runs out, the karma runs out and you still go back to suffering again.

Then you’ve got the human realm. Now this is, as we know humans, this few thousand million years or whatever we call humans, we’ve got this body isn’t it? A bag of bones. Doesn’t sound like a light body does it? It’s horrible, we can see comparing.

But nevertheless they say a human birth is a better one to have because at least you’ve got enough suffering to remember, I mean you can say that, we’ve got access to our intelligence and to our virtue and we know we can do some changing because we can see that life isn’t so hunky dory after all. But the point is this: before this planet there’s always human state, so the real meaning of human for Buddha is referring to the virtues. Now the next realm down in saṃsāra is the animals. Buddha’s model of the mind refers to all beings, not just humans. So there’s ego grasping, then on the basis of ego grasping we have attachment to get what that I wants, on the basis of attachment not getting what it wants we get angry or whatever, then the jealousy and all the dramas.

But look at the monkeys, look at the dogs, can you not see exactly the same? Jealousy, attachment, anger, resentment, hurting each other, aggression, I mean excuse me, join the universe here. But the difference between human and animals, this is not being rude, is we can access our virtues if we’re lucky. So human qualities are the virtues, the animal qualities are the ones we’ve already got to. So basically eons before this planet, they talk about human birth.

The human realm was like a pure land, subtle light body, our physical energy was subtle light. We’ve got these four elements and depending on the karma we create. Lama Zopa says in the Kālacakra tantra it says, like I mentioned, there are these detailed descriptions of the intimate relationship between the internal and external energies. Internal is mind, external is the four elements. And our minds are conjoined with their own set of the four elements.

And the Tibetan medical system is really deeply into this model. Your Tibetan doctor will feel your pulses and she can feel the imbalance of certain wind energies and then she knows that’s related to your attachment or your anger or your whatever it is. So by adjusting the wind energies you can adjust your mind. It’s a very subtle model, you know. So the interplay between the physical elements and the mind is inextricable.

So as Rinpoche says, when the mind is negative that pollutes the wind energies which in turn karmically produces ill health. And in turn karmically over a longer period and collective karma that produces the external environment. So all the universe is based upon the actions of sentient beings starting with thoughts. So an animal realm is where you’ve got this gross body, look at the dogs, monkeys, the lions, you know, where they can only access their non virtue. The lion can’t access her kindness, she’s got imprints of countless lives of virtue.

She’s got countless lives like I have, like you have. Everything she’s done that’s been good in the past and hasn’t finished is still in her bank box but she can’t access them because the delusions are so rampant. She can only follow her lime nature and when she sees the buffalo she has no choice but to stalk it and get it and rip its guts out and bring her babies and eat the hot entrails while it’s screaming in agony and never see any suffering because the delusions are so rampant. Well look at us humans, we’re a sorry lot, you know, but we at least can access our virtues, the lion can’t. So in a sense, before this planet, human birth, which is just a state of mind, was much higher before this planet.

And our physical energy was subtle light, so therefore we could only access virtue. It lasted a long time, we could get enlightened very easily, but gradually over time we became degenerate and all the delusions like attachment which latent there, grant and manifest that pollutes the wind energy which slowly means karmically like karmic evolution. We were then now born on a planet in this human body looking like a bunch of apes. I mean it’s kind of a sorry type of rebirth. Are we communicating here?

I mean of course it’s like science fiction, it’s not about the West things. So the human qualities are the virtues, that’s it. And if we can access a few of those, how fortunate. Intelligence, the ability to see something from another point of view. Intelligence and virtue, they are the unique of human, but unfortunately the human realm is so degenerate now, know, look at humans, most humans make this terrible mess.

So much suffering, so much suffering, so much suffering. And then further down the spectrum you’ve got the three lower realms as they call it, are the manifestations of the three main delusions. Animals are the predominance of incredible ego grasping, ignorance, which causes them to only be able to manifest their incredible attachment, their anger, their fears, their jealousy, they can’t access their virtues. Some animals have to have karma, like dogs, domestic dogs have some karma to be around humans, you know, and have some be kind and do good things, but just karmic make imprints, no choice about it. I was oversaid one time, and this is shocking to our ears, if just for a few moments we could have the direct experience of the mind of our cute little dog, Their suffering, their mental suffering, will be so nightmarish that we would never stand to waste another single second of this precious human life.

The suffering would be unbearable. The thought of having that type of rebirth would be unbearable, we’d never waste this human life again. Now that’s insane to us, we don’t see suffering when we see dogs, we don’t see suffering unless they’re getting harmed, we don’t see their minds, not even in the slightest, so it’s a very different view. So further down the spectrum you have the spirits who are disembodied, and if it’s true that all minds are conjoined with their own set of the four elements, well it’s pretty evident the mind is conjoined look at this bag of bones, at the elephant, look at the dog, look at the ant even, but spirits, you could argue that their minds are conjoined with air energy, they flick from pillar to post, know, like nightmares suffering, infinite more than animals, predominant intense grasping. And then even further down the spectrum, the hell beings, they’re called hell beings.

You could argue their minds are conjoined with fire on it. And they’re all experiencing the fruits of their past actions, all experiencing the karmic visions of their past actions, everything is made up by each individual being. We are creators of our own suffering and we are the creators of our own happiness Buddha says. Time for lunch I think. Any more questions before lunch?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yesterday, I was driving. I had stopped at a traffic light, and I done. Flinders Park. I was stopped at this traffic light yesterday, and I was looked up, and outside of the Flinders Park Primary School there was a huge big notice to say life does not come with a remote get up and change yourself. Oh very good.

Very nice, I like that. Okay, so then I think after lunch, then I’ll through the stages which I talked about in the book, what to do the weeks and months before, the kind of practices you recommend, the things to do depending on the person, this type of thing, you know. And then we’ll go through the death process as much as we can. So I think you have your lunch and have fun, whatever you do, but I’d really like you to use at least thirty minutes for discussion, if you can, please. If you can.

Whatever. Do your best. We’ll go for ninety minutes I’d say. Yeah? Alright darling.

Thank you.