Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 7.7-minute talk, Kathleen McDonald (Ven Sangye Khadro) reframes death as a natural part of life, not punishment. She explains Buddhism’s two aspects of impermanence: subtle impermanence (moment-by-moment change) and gross impermanence (eventual passing away)—teachings echoed in modern physics. The centerpiece is the Kisagotami story: a woman grieving her child seeks the Buddha’s help and is asked to find mustard seeds from a house untouched by death. Her discovery that loss is universal becomes her path to peace and liberation. McDonald concludes that accepting impermanence actually improves our lives, helping us prioritize what matters and die without fear.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1.03 The Buddhist View of Death.mp3
UUID: e8c0dd49-f343-49d7-8736-80e82c4d16d0
Teacher: Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald
Collection: Heart advice (Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 7.7 minutes
Words: ~1,164
So now let’s look at what Buddhism has to say about death. This can help us to get a new perspective on our own attitudes and feelings. So one thing Buddhism says about death is that it’s a natural and inevitable aspect of life. People sometimes think of death as a punishment for bad things that they’ve done or as a failure or a mistake. But it’s actually none of these.
It’s a natural part of life. Just as we see in nature, the sun rises and sets, the seasons come and go, beautiful flowers grow and then become withered and brown, And people and other living beings are born and live for some time and die. So the changing nature of things and the passing away of things is is simply part of life, part of nature, a natural truth or reality. Buddha talked a lot about impermanence. And there are two aspects of impermanence.
One is subtle impermanence, which refers to the changes that take place in things all the time. And the other aspect of impermanence is gross impermanence, and that refers to the fact that things pass away, pass out of existence. People and living beings die. Trees, mountains, lakes, and so on go through changes and eventually pass away. And man made things like buildings and cars and so forth, they also have a lifespan and they eventually disappear.
So all things that are produced, which means they come into existence in dependence on other things, causes and conditions. So all things that are produced inevitably pass away. And even before they pass away, they change moment by moment. They don’t remain the same from one moment to the next. That’s the meaning of subtle impermanence.
So Buddha pointed this out in many of his teachings. For example, he said, What is born will die. What has been gathered will be dispersed. What has been accumulated will be exhausted. What has been built up will collapse.
And what has been high will be brought low. And another quotation: This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky rushing by like a torrent pouring down a steep mountain. So all things like beings, living beings, human beings and other living beings and things in nature, and things we produce, human made things.
All of these things pass away eventually. And that’s the meaning of gross impermanence. And then subtle impermanence refers to the changes that are taking place each moment in all of these things. Things don’t stay the same from one moment to the next. They’re constantly changing.
So the Buddha spoke about this two thousand five hundred years ago and this is confirmed by science, in particular physics, modern physics as Gary Zukav points out in the Dancing Wu Li Masters where he says: Every subatomic interaction consists of the annihilation of the original particles and the creation of new subatomic particles. The subatomic world is a continual dance of creation and annihilation, of mass changing into energy and energy changing to mass. Transient forms sparkle in and out of existence, creating a never ending, forever newly created reality. So the Buddhist said it was very important for us to acknowledge and understand and accept the impermanent nature of things. Not doing so can lead to a lot of distress and other kinds of problems.
And the Buddha was very skillful in his way of teaching impermanence. There’s one story of a woman whose name was Kisagotami. She was married and she had a child, one child, who was extremely precious to her. She loved her child very, very much. But when the child was about one year old, he became ill and died.
And she was totally overcome with grief, sadness, and just couldn’t accept the death of her child. So she took her baby in her arms and went around. And whoever she met, she begged him, please, can you bring my child back to life? Please do something for my child. Please help me.
So the people were very sorry for her. And eventually, someone pointed out the Buddha suggested that she go and see the Buddha. So she approached the Buddha and again begged the Buddha to help her. And the Buddha agreed. He said, yes, I’ll help you.
But first, you must bring me four or five mustard seeds, but they have to come from a house where no one has ever died. So Kisagotami was very happy and went from house to house in her village asking if people had mustard seeds. And of course, everyone had mustard seeds. They’re used in Indian cooking. But when she asked, has anyone ever died in this house?
She was unable to find a single house where no one had ever died. Every house said, oh, yes, our grandfather died or our child died or our father died or our mother died. So finally, it struck her that death is something that happens everywhere to everyone. And she was able to accept the loss of her child. She returned to the Buddha and asked him to be her teacher.
So she became a disciple of the Buddha. She studied, practiced, meditated. And within that very lifetime, was able to attain a state of nirvana. Just a state of complete peace and liberation. Freedom from the whole cycle of death and rebirth.
Freedom from all suffering. So people sometimes think that if we accept death and think about death, that will make us morbid or will spoil the enjoyment of this life, life’s pleasures. But actually, the opposite is true. If we fail to accept and acknowledge the changing nature of things and the reality of death, that can make us tense and frightened, can make our mind and our world very narrow, and can lead to lots of other problems. On the other hand, if we can come to accept the truth, the reality of death and impermanence, it brings peace to our mind.
And it helps us to become aware of what is really important in life. For example, being kind and loving to others, being honest and unselfish, doing good things, avoiding bad things. And if we live our life in that way, then the quality of our life will actually be much better. We’ll be a much happier, peaceful person, able to get along better with other people. And then when we do come to the end of our life, we’ll be able to die with a peaceful state of mind without fear and regret.
So coming to an acceptance of death and living our life in accordance with that actually improves the quality of our life and helps us to have a peaceful, positive state of mind at the time of death.