Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 8.7-minute teaching, Ven Sangye Khadro offers practical guidance for supporting a dying Buddhist. She begins by assessing what the person already knows—their existing meditation practice, their connection to particular Buddhas—and tailors support accordingly. She emphasizes Medicine Buddha practice as especially beneficial for purification at death, and explains how to guide the dying person in meditation and prayer, either alongside them or on their behalf. Crucially, she addresses the caregiver’s own mind: the importance of remaining calm and present, of freeing the dying person from worry about loved ones, and of recognizing a hard truth—that no caregiver can force another person’s mind to become positive. All we can do is offer our best help and accept our limitations.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 5.07 Spiritual Help for the Dying_Buddhist.mp3
UUID: 0fa9c222-06d9-4b69-a739-81858ce1d25f
Teacher: Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald
Collection: Heart advice (Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 8.7 minutes
Words: ~1,278
And now I’m going to talk about how to help people depending upon whether or not they have any religious or spiritual affiliation and practices. First of all, if the person is a Buddhist, You can start by talking to them and finding out how much they know and understand and also whether or not they have any experience of certain Buddhist practices or meditations. For example, the person might have learned and had some experience in the practice of mindfulness meditation. So that’s a practice that they know, they’re familiar with, they have experience in. And if that is the case, then you could talk to them in terms of mindfulness.
Remind them to practice mindfulness and do the practice with them. The person who’s dying may feel really terrible and weak and it would be hard for them to meditate on their own. So when you visit them, you could guide them in a meditation, do meditation with them. On the other hand, if the person has some connection with a particular deity, such as the Buddha or Chenrezig or Avalokiteśvara, Tārā or the Medicine Buddha or whoever. If they already have established that connection, they already feel devotion towards that particular Buddha figure, then you can encourage them in that way.
Encourage them to think of that Buddha figure, visualize and pray to that particular Buddha figure. And again, if the person finds it difficult to do these practices on their own, you can do them with the person while they are sitting there, guiding them in a meditation, reciting the prayers and mantras with them to help them do the practice. Lama Zopa Rinpoche has said that around the time of death, the most beneficial practice to do is that of Medicine Buddha. We’ll do meditation on Medicine Buddha later in this session. The Medicine Buddha practice is particularly helpful for people who are sick or dying.
It’s not only for healing sickness, but the practice is also helpful for purification. Purification of negative karma and delusions, negative aspects of the mind. So that’s particularly helpful for someone who’s dying, that they are able to die with a pure state of mind. It’s also good to place images of these figures. The Buddha, the Medicine Buddha, Chenrezig, Tārā, these spiritual teachers that the person has met and has faith in.
To put those where the person can see them and be reminded of their qualities and their teachings. It’s also very beneficial to recite the names of Buddhas to the person Because the Buddhas have promised to help living beings to avoid being born in unfortunate rebirths where they would experience suffering. You could talk to the person or read to the person about teachings such as on impermanence and Buddha nature and other aspects of the teachings that can help the person be in a positive state of mind and inspire the person to keep their mind positive throughout the death process and into the next life. But it is also important to do this in a way that is skillful, not forcing or pushing the person so that their mind becomes disturbed, upset or angry. Again, is important to do what you can to keep the person’s mind peaceful and positive.
If the person who is dying doesn’t know how to meditate or recite any prayers or mantras, then you can do them on behalf of the person. You can do them in their presence, either out loud if they are comfortable with that, or silently to yourself. Can do it in the person’s presence. You can also do it anywhere else and dedicate the positive energy that you’re creating, that the person’s mind will be peaceful and positive throughout the process of dying and into the next life. But if they are open to it, can also teach them how to pray.
How to pray, how to meditate. And again, doing those practices with them. When the dying person is sleeping, then you can sit next to them and do meditation or prayers, mantras, whatever practice you wish. Your energy will be beneficial to the other person, even if they are not awake and conscious. Having a calm and peaceful positive energy definitely does benefit the person who is dying.
It’s also important again for your mind to be calm and peaceful, not caught up in emotions. And to have the ability to just be present with whatever suffering they’re going through or whatever experiences that they’re going through without feeling you you have to fix it, you have to change it, you have to make this person okay. So that’s one thing that’s also very important to keep in mind with regard to someone who’s dying. You can only do the best you can. If you have the expectation that you’ll be able to change their mind, make their mind completely positive and peaceful and happy, that may not be realistic.
Because it’s actually not possible to change somebody else’s mind. We can change our own mind, but we can’t force somebody else’s mind to change. So all we can do is offer our help to keep our own mind as positive as we can, speak to the person in ways that will encourage them to have a positive state of mind, do practices such as meditation, prayers, so forth, and dedicate that it will help the person have a positive mind. But we cannot make the other person’s mind positive. It’s really up to them.
And so if we do all of these things, we we we try the best we can to help the other person have a positive mind, but it doesn’t work. The person’s mind continues to be negative, angry, frightened, attached, and so forth. Then we have to accept that. We have to accept that we’ve done the best that we can, and that is all that we can do. And not blame ourselves.
It’s very important that we don’t blame ourselves, feel bad, feel that we weren’t good enough, we didn’t do enough because we weren’t able to make the other person’s mind positive. So we have to accept our limitations. Even the Buddha, even a fully enlightened being, isn’t able to make another person’s mind positive. And we are not enlightened. So it is just not realistic for us to put that expectation on ourselves.
Also, to help the dying person be free of worry and anxiety, we can encourage them not to worry about their loved ones and their possessions. And instead, assure them that everything will be taken care of, every everything will be okay. And to encourage them not to be afraid of what lies ahead, but to have faith. Again, if they’re Buddhist, encourage them to have faith in the Buddha and the Three Jewels of refuge, all the enlightened beings, Bodhisattvas, so on. If they put their trust and faith in them, then they will be taken care of.
They will be guided. So they don’t need to be afraid. And again, do whatever you can to encourage them to have positive thoughts in their mind. Positive experiences such as faith, devotion, the wish to be positive, to do good things and avoid bad things and overcome their negative thoughts and attitudes, to have loving kindness and compassion for others, and help them as much as you can to free their minds from any negative thoughts such as anger and attachment. But again, it’s important to understand that all you can do is offer help, offer guidance, but you can’t actually fix the other person’s mind for them.