Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 8.6-minute talk, Ven Sangye Khandro clarifies Buddhist practices for the moment of death. She explains why breathing’s cessation is not death itself—consciousness remains in the body for hours or days through eight stages—and gives three signs of final departure: bodily fluid discharge, loss of heart-area warmth, and odor. The central practice is leaving the body undisturbed so consciousness departs from the crown of the head, indicating fortunate rebirth. She offers practical Western adaptations—negotiating with hospitals and families—and specific techniques if the body must be touched: priority-touch the crown, place holy objects on the head and blessed mantras on the body, use phowa pills, and recite Medicine Buddha and five protective mantras throughout.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 5.10 Practices for the Time of Death.mp3
UUID: 35d48754-e235-4130-8f54-965ed4e2743a
Teacher: Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald
Collection: Heart advice (Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 8.6 minutes
Words: ~1,246
Then at the actual time of death, you can continue to do practices such as meditation, reciting prayers, mantras, the names of Buddhas and so forth, all throughout the time that the person is dying. And you can continue to do these as long as possible even after they have stopped breathing. So remember as explained before that the cessation of breathing is not the actual time of death according to Buddhism. So just because they’ve stopped breathing, stopped moving, they show no signs of life. The mind or the consciousness of the person is still there within their body and could actually be there for a number of hours, possibly even days after the breathing has stopped.
The cessation of breathing is only the fourth out of the eight stages of the death process. The actual point of death, when the consciousness leaves the body, is only after the eighth stage. So then you might wonder, well, how do we know when that has happened? How do we know when the consciousness has actually left the body? According to the Tibetan tradition, there are certain signs that occur which indicate that the consciousness has left the body.
So one sign is that there will be some liquid coming out of either the nostril or out of the sexual organ. So if you see that sign, you know that the consciousness is left. Another sign is that as long as the consciousness is still in the body, there will still be heat around the area of the heart, the heart chakra. And also, until the consciousness has left the body, there will not be any bad smell. So the body will still retain a certain amount of freshness.
So when the body does begin to have this unpleasant odor, that’s probably a sign that the consciousness is left. So if it is possible, it’s best to just leave the body undisturbed until the signs of death have occurred. And, again, that could be a number of hours. It could even be a number of days. Now this is usually difficult in our Western world.
For example, if a person has died in a hospital, a hospital has rules about how long a body can be kept before it’s taken away to the morgue. But you could try speaking with the administration in the hospital, request that the body be placed perhaps in a separate room and just left undisturbed for a number of hours. So sometimes the people are kind and compassionate and will allow that to happen. If the person has died at home, again you have a certain amount of flexibility in how much time you leave the body. But of course other factors are the wishes of other family members, the thoughts and feelings and attitudes of other family members.
So you need to work in accordance with that, be skillful. And according to Tibetan Buddhism, the ideal thing is to not touch the body, to leave the body undisturbed and untouched. And the reason for this is because if the body is touched at certain places, that contact could stimulate the consciousness of the person to exit the body at that point, at the place where it’s been touched. And there’s a whole explanation as to which points of the body the consciousness leaves from according to which kind of rebirth that they will take in the next life. And, if the person is going to be born in a good situation, for example, in a pure land or as a human being or in one of the one of the heavenly realms, then the consciousness exits through the top of the head, through the crown of the head.
So that’s actually the best point for departure of the consciousness when it leaves the body, if it can go out through the top of the head. On the other hand, if the consciousness is going to be born in an unfortunate situation, then it usually exits through somewhere in the lower part of the body. So the recommendation is that we don’t touch the body anywhere as long as possible. But if it is necessary to touch the body, then it is best to first touch the body at the crown of the head. You can rub the crown of the head or if there is hair, you can pull the hair to stimulate the consciousness to exit from that point.
And so this applies as well if the body does need to be moved, if it has to go to the morgue or mortuary, and so it’s going to be moved, disturbed and so forth. Then before that happens, touch the top of the head or pull the hairs on the top of the head to stimulate the consciousness to leave from that point. Also, if you can, it’s recommended to place some holy object, which could be a Dharma text, a sūtra for example, containing the Buddha’s words, or a stupa. A stupa is a reliquary monument that represents the Buddha’s mind. So in India and other Buddhist countries, there are stupas built, sometimes very, very tall monuments.
But we also have small sized stupas, which can just be a few inches high. So if you do happen to have a small stupa or even a a photograph of a stupa, that’s said to be a very precious holy object that you can place on the person’s head or on the pillow above their head. And there’s also special mantras that are helpful for a person who is dying or has died. And if you have a copy of these mantras on a piece of paper, you can place that on their chest. And that page of mantras can actually go with the person to the mortuary, to the crematorium.
There are also special blessed pills. Some of these can be placed inside the person’s mouth. Another pill called a phowa pill, which is made with very special blessed substances, can be placed on the crown of the head. And actually left there. You can stick it there with something sticky like Vaseline or toothpaste.
Just keep it there as the person is dying and for as long as possible after they have died. So that again is helpful to help the consciousness exit from the top of the head and go to a positive rebirth such as a Pure Land. And again the best practices to do as the person is dying and afterwards would be the practice of Medicine Buddha. And there are also, five mantras, five, what I call, great mantras that are particularly powerful to help a person who is dying or who who has died to avoid falling into an unfortunate rebirth and have a fortunate rebirth in the next life. So you can recite these prayers and mantras at the bedside of the person.
Or if that is not possible, for example if the family members are gathered there, then they can be recited in another place such as another room. And so it is important to be considerate of the family members, friends and loved ones of the dying person. So if they come and want to pay their last respects and say goodbye to the person, Give them time to be alone with the body of the loved one. You can continue reciting prayers and doing meditation in another place, another room.