Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 6.5-minute talk, Ven Sangye Khadro presents the Tibetan Buddhist understanding of the eight-stage dying process — a practical framework for preparing for one’s own death and for helping others who are dying. She explains how the body and mind dissolve from gross to subtle, beginning with the dissolution of the four elements (the solid parts, fluids, warmth, and winds that comprise the body), followed by the cessation of the five senses. For each of the first four stages, she describes the observable signs and symptoms others might notice, as well as the inner visions experienced only by the dying person. Practical preparation for anyone facing mortality or supporting others at the end of life.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 4.06 The Process of Death.mp3
UUID: 2716bb35-1d62-4618-a58a-cd264bb6cc42
Teacher: Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald
Collection: Heart advice (Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 6.5 minutes
Words: ~790
So one more thing that is helpful for us in preparing for our own death and can also be helpful if we are helping others to die. And this is making ourselves familiar with the actual process of dying. In other words, what actually happens when a person dies, yourself or someone else. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there is an explanation of this process. I’ll give a brief explanation of it and then we’ll do a meditation on it.
This explanation is actually found in the vajrayana or Tantric tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. This tradition contains special practices that utilise subtler aspects of our body and mind such as energy winds within the body, psychic channels, the psychic nervous system and also chakras energy centres at certain points in the body. Utilizing these aspects of our body within our spiritual practice in order to attain enlightenment more quickly than by using other methods. So the whole goal of Tantric practice is the attainment of enlightenment to be able to benefit all living beings. And the practices of Tantra are done with that motivation and also with the motivation of wanting to reach enlightenment as quickly as possible to be able to relieve others of their suffering as quickly as possible and help them achieve happiness and enlightenment as quickly as possible.
So that’s the reason for wanting to reach enlightenment more quickly. It is not to make it more convenient for ourselves, but to be able to be of benefit to others more quickly. So within this explanation found in the Tantric or vajrayana tradition, it is said that when we are conceived after conception, there is a process of development of our body and mind from subtler aspects to more gross aspects. And then at the end of our life, at the time of death, there is a kind of reverse process, a dissolution of the aspects of our body and mind from more gross to more subtle. And this process of dying takes place in eight stages.
So there are eight stages of this death process, this dissolution going from more gross to more subtle aspects of our body and mind. Over the first four stages there is a dissolution of the four elements. It is said that our body is made up of four elements. These are the Earth element. The Earth element doesn’t mean like the planet Earth or dirt on the ground, but rather the solid parts of our body.
The hardness of our body. For example our bones. So that’s what is included in the Earth element. The second element is the water element. And that includes all the fluids in our body.
The liquids like the blood and so on. And also the element of cohesion. The element that allows things to stick together. Then there is the fire element. And that includes the heat, the warmth in the body.
And the fourth is the air element. The air element includes the energies or winds that flow throughout the body. And also movement. The air element allows the movement of things within the body. The changing that takes place within the body.
So these are the four elements. And during the first four stages of the death process, these four elements dissolve one by one. And also during the first four stages, there is the dissolution of our five senses. So these are aspects of our mind. There are many different aspects of our mind, many different kinds of experiences that take place within our mind.
One type of experience is what we could call perception, sense perception. And we have five kinds of sense perceptions: Seeing, Hearing, Smell, Taste and Touch. Whenever we have one of these experiences, if we see a visual object, we hear a sound, we smell an odour, taste something sweet or salty, or feel a sensation in our body such as pain, or heat, or cold, or pressure, or comfort. These experiences are actually not bodily experiences. Are mental experiences.
They are aspects of our mind. It is our mind that is having these experiences. So, gradually over the first four stages of the death process, these five senses dissolve in the sense that they cease to function one by one. On each of these first four stages of the death process, there are certain signs or symptoms that could be observed by other people. People who are around the dying person, as well as by the dying person him or herself.
There is also an inner sign or vision would be experienced only by the dying person. So let’s look at the experiences that take place during the first four stages of the death process.