Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 118-minute session, Venerable Thubten Dondrub guides practitioners through the nine-round death meditation, a classical Tibetan Buddhist practice designed to transform how we approach both life and mortality. Rather than encouraging morbid preoccupation, Dondrub frames death reflection as the foundation for meaningful practice: he begins by establishing three progressive insights—that death is certain, that it can come at any moment, and that only genuine spiritual qualities of mind will help us at the time of death. He works methodically through concrete arguments (examining how all humans, even the Buddha, have died; reflecting on the body’s fragility and impermanence; considering the countless causes of death from disease to accident), then addresses the cultural resistance to thinking about mortality and explains why such reflection naturally redirects energy away from meaningless pursuits toward authentic Dharma practice. Dondrub weaves in practical implications throughout: the importance of not postponing practice, the danger of attachment to possessions and people as obstacles at death, and the cultivation of genuine spiritual qualities like compassion, patience, and faith as the only real preparation. The talk concludes with discussion of consciousness during the dying process and practical homework for the week. Suited for serious practitioners with some Buddhist background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 07 16 DB Death&Rebirth Dondrub Week2 160713.mp3
UUID: 7111e170-19e5-4c65-8027-6ec8def8b3c5
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Death & Rebirth (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-07-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 118.0 minutes
Words: ~12,566
So welcome So welcome, everyone, to our second class on death and rebirth. So if you would like to join the traditional prayers that I do, these are on page one to page ten. So the purpose, context of teaching impermanence, death and rebirth in the context of the Buddhist teachings is that we have a mind which is beginningless and endless, and we are definitely going to die and rebirth definitely occurs. There’s no effort required in being reborn that will definitely take place. But what kind of rebirth we have very much depends on what we do with our mind, what imprints we put into our mind.
And so when death occurs, as I said last week, there’s only two possibilities of either having a good rebirth or a bad rebirth. So this topic is taught to encourage us to avoid having a negative rebirth, suffering rebirth and encouraging us to create the causes to have a good rebirth. So that’s the context and is the purpose. So within that context I’ve mixed the two things up within that context the purpose of teaching about death and rebirth is to encourage us to practice the Dharma, the Buddha’s teachings more and more, accepted, come to the understanding that the Buddha’s teachings, the methods contained in the Buddha’s teachings are what we can really rely on to work with our mind to ensure that we don’t experience or we experience less and less suffering in this life, don’t have a bad rebirth but have a good rebirth. So the whole emphasis on impermanence and death is to encourage us to take care of our mind.
So we can take There’s three basic motivations for taking care of our mind. The first obvious one is for our own sake so that we have less suffering in this life and a good rebirth at the end of this life. A greater reason for taking care of our mind, a greater motivation is to work with our mind in such a way that we can eliminate all the negative aspects of our mind, the superficial disturbing thoughts, so that we can become completely free of suffering altogether. Or in a Buddhist terminology, to get out of saṃsāra to achieve liberation or nirvana. But the highest motivation for taking care of our mind is to go beyond thinking about ourselves and to think about others and realizing that actually all other sentient beings are in the same boat as myself.
We’re all in saṃsāra. We’re all suffering and we don’t want to experience it. And it comes from realizing that all these beings who are in saṃsāra like myself are intimately connected with ourselves, that we totally depend on them in every possible way, and especially because our mind is beginningless, we’ve had infinite rebirths, every sentient being has been our mother, so we’ve received this incredible mother’s kindness from every sentient being many, many times. And yet these beings are suffering tremendously with far more than ourselves at the moment, with far less ability to understand their suffering, to deal with it wisely so that they can reduce it, transform it, eliminate it. So by thinking about these things, the motivation can arise to take care of one’s mind so that one eliminates all the negative potentials, so one will never cause harm to others, and to awaken all the positive qualities so that one will only be of perfect, lasting, continuous benefit to all sentient beings without exception.
So specifically in the Mahāyāna tradition, especially in the Tibetan Mahāyāna tradition, the reason for teaching death at the beginning is to encourage us not just to have a good rebirth, not just to achieve nirvana, but especially to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. So that’s the motivation we can try to generate now, some effortful form of it by thinking of the Buddha in front of us as the embodiment of all perfect qualities and at the same time trying to have a sense of all sentient beings surrounding us, starting with our mother on the left, father on our right, family, friends, and helpers behind us, enemies in front, and then as much as we can, trying to open our hearts and minds to an awareness and concern for all the other beings trapped in cyclic existence. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By the merit I have accrued by practicing the Dharma, by my merit going to full blown in order to benefit all sentient beings. So if you find it helpful, imagine the Buddha in front of you, very pleased with your motivation and showing this by now coming to the crown of one’s head, and when directly above one’s crown, imagining the Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light so that that light can pour down into you, blessing your mind.
So that we can enhance that positive state of mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise just for a short time. So just the breath is coming through both nostrils but we start the more around breathing by focusing on as the breath comes in both nostrils we focus, we concentrate particularly on being aware of the breath coming in the left nostril and out the right nostril. And we do that for the first three breaths. For the second three breaths, we change the focus from the breath focusing on the breath coming in the right nostril and focusing on the breath going out the left nostril. And then for the final three breaths of the cycle we focus on the breath coming in both nostrils and going out both.
Okay. Thank you. Okay. Last night, we talked a little bit about the context of this topic and then something about impermanence because this is a really vital subject aspect of existence that is so important to understand how because what again why we’re encouraged to think about death is this will make us put everything that we experience in life in perspective so that we don’t waste time on meaningless things. And also as much as possible we avoid engaging in negative actions that are going to ripen and bring the result of great suffering in the future.
And so that we can turn our mind to doing what is really meaningful and virtuous and beneficial for ourselves and others. Understanding our own mortality is incredibly important in that process and especially understanding how we can die at any time. But also quite important, always this important, in helping to turn our mind away from meaningless things to what is meaningful is to realize that we waste so much of our time on things which are impermanent and are not going to last. And all the things that upset us which lead us to engage in negative actions as well, all of these things are impermanent and not going to last. So if we could really understand that not just to have an intellectual understanding but live our life with a mindfulness of the truth of things being impermanent, changing all the time, then we wouldn’t be attached to things so much.
Without attachment we wouldn’t have so much anger and aversion and so on. And then our mind would be free or freer to take interest in what is really meaningful and of course from a Buddhist point of view the most meaningful thing is the Dharma and the practice of the Dharma really protecting and taking care of our mind. So it’s really important to understand impermanence. If we understand how everything is impermanent simply because it depends on causes and conditions. Actually this is the best argument to show that we are going to die.
Definitely we’re going to die because we ourselves have come into existence depending on causes and conditions. And just like the sound of a bell which comes into existence depending on causes and conditions and which fades away as soon as it’s created we are no different than that sound of a bell. So to encourage us to think about this difficult topic of death, more and more we need to think about the disadvantages of not thinking about it. The main disadvantage really, one can subdivide it into all these six different disadvantages, but it really comes down to the fact that we won’t take care of our mind. We engage in meaningless and negative actions, we will spend less time on meaningful virtuous actions, we won’t really develop and cultivate our mind and so when death comes it will be a complete shock because we’ve never thought about it, haven’t wanted to think about it, it will come as a complete shock, we will be completely unprepared, our mind will probably have a lot of negative imprints in it and this means that it won’t be easy to die and it can bring a really nasty rebirth.
Whereas the advantages of thinking about death is that basically it will encourage us to practice to practice properly and never to give up. Even if we experience problems and difficulties in life or with our practice we realise that while dying and having a horrible rebirth is far worse than any problem in this life so I just need to get on with it and stop messing around. So thinking about death is very helpful. And of course the more we really think about it and let it touch our heart, our mind properly then when it actually comes, it won’t be a shock. We will be prepared for it and we will be in the best position to be able to have a good death and therefore a good rebirth.
Right? Okay. So I knew it. Just just a minute. Okay.
So any questions, comments from anything I’ve said now last week that you read in the homework? Okay, right. So this leads you to the main topic of tonight which is what is called the ‘nine-round death meditation’. So there are three sections of this meditation that we need to reflect on. The first section, the basic section, is helping us to gain some insight that we are definitely going to die.
To really bring that home to us, that we are definitely going to die. The second part, second section of the meditation is the most important part, which is to help us realize that not only are we going to die, but we could die simply, literally, at any moment. And the third section of the meditation is to help us realize that when we die, the only thing that is really going to help us as we are dying and therefore help us have a good rebirth is our genuine Dharma experience. A genuine experience of working with our mind, cultivating our mind. Nothing else is actually really going to help as we’re dying.
So this is a really really very important topic meditation to study and actually reflect on, to meditate on over and over again. It’s many ways a very simple meditation. It doesn’t require lots of intelligence. It’s not complicated. The other problem is we don’t like to think about this topic but it itself is really quite straightforward.
So there are three sections and each section has some arguments and leading to a conviction or conclusion. So the first point in helping us to try to realize more and more that we’re definitely going to die is that we simply have no power to remain in this body. We just simply there’s no power that we can avail ourselves of that will help us stay alive in this body and on this earth. And one way to gain that conviction is to reflect how up until this point everyone human, sentient beings we can see other human beings and beings in the animal realm. But if one looks, if one reflects, checks up, every being who has been reborn as a human or in some kind of animal form, they have all died.
Right? They’ve all died. So why not me? Why do you why do I think I won’t die? Alright.
What is special about me that means I won’t die or I can somehow cheat? I will escape. Everyone else who’s around might die, but I won’t. Alright? Because part of this, you know, something with a very superficial intellectual aspect knows we’re going to die.
Right? But some a stronger emotional aspect, I don’t if that’s the right word, but that’s the word I use, doesn’t believe that. Otherwise, wouldn’t waste our life so much. Even if we had believed in this life, we wouldn’t waste our life on so many, you know, silly things that we do if we really believed we were going to die. So something inside tells us, oh, yes.
People die in general, but I won’t. Why? So why? What reason valid reason can we give ourselves that I, when everyone else who’s taken a body has died? Yeah.
And the point is, of course, that you can’t we can’t find any valid reason. There isn’t one. Right? What’s special about my body? There are all these things special about my body that means I won’t die.
People are much bigger than me with much bigger muscles than me, you know, taller this way, that way, stronger, they all died. And I’m not talking just about me, I’m talking about you, you know, me, you know, the me, I. We all have this sense of I. All those physically powerful people in the world died. Elephants die, hippopotamuses die, crocodiles die, they’re much stronger bodies than me.
So why is my body not going to decay and die? And especially if we think that we live in a world where our environment and the food we eat is far more polluted than at any time in history. People ate healthy food in the past, real stuff. We eat preserved chemical junk. Mostly breathe in polluted air and stuff.
So what makes us think we’re going to live longer and not die? There’s no valid reason. And especially if you think that all the great beings, you know, the most powerful people in the world died. Yeah? The richest people in the world died.
The most intelligent people in the world, they all died. Einstein died. Mozart died. Everyone, they all died. They they didn’t find a way not to die.
All the emperors and rulers of the world died. And not only that, and some of them were were very rich and powerful and emperors and things. You have bodyguards. But sometimes the bodyguards kill you like with Indra Gandhi. Right?
But then especially beyond that, the most special people on the earth who have ever appeared on the earth, all the great religious leaders of the world, they’ve also died. Every one of them, including the Buddha. The Buddha passed away. Of course, we believe that the Buddha doesn’t have to die, but the Buddha manifested dying to show us that we we will die. This was his last teaching.
So if the boy dies, if and Christ died, Muhammad died, All our holy wonderful being, Saint Francis died. Mother Teresa died. They all died. So why won’t I? Right?
We just can’t find a single reason. If you go to art museums sometimes and we look at the artifacts from another civilization and that’s all that’s left of that civilization, a few bits of stuff, a few bits of pottery and this isn’t that. And all the thousands and millions of people who made up that civilization that may have lasted, you know, thousands of years, all those people are gone, completely gone, including their bones, just, you know, a few bones of a few of them left somewhere. And of course, while those people were alive in those cities producing those things, they never thought they would die or certainly they never thought that their whole civilization would go. But same for us.
One day this amazing civilization we have will be completely gone just like every other one that’s arisen on this earth. It’ll be gone. There might be some futuristic sorry I’m saying the same story. Some people have heard some of the things that they know all the things I’m going to say. But in some futuristic museum, you know, there might be some sort of plastic buckets and television sets, you know, in display cases with little cards saying, you know, human artifacts you know twentieth cent twenty first century.
That’s all that will be left. An old mobile phone somewhere And I’ll think how quaint, how quaint, you know, all of us will have begun. Yeah. Because we’re we’re no different than any every other being who died. Right?
No. We’re nothing more special. We don’t have some superpower extra. Nothing. We’re not spiritually better, intellectually better, physically better.
So definitely, we’re going to die. I am going to die. This is what we should not other people, me. You know, this applies to me, me. This is what we’re thinking.
So if that doesn’t work then we proceed to the next point which is to think about these things again and again to make them really go in deep down and get beyond all the the the resistance that our mind can throw up. And that resistance can just not be something necessarily some something active, but like the mind just kind of shutting down and going by like a log that just doesn’t really register that that point. But we have to keep, you know, telling ourselves these points again and again until they really do register, Do we really get it? So another point to think of is that there’s in this life that we have now, there’s literally nothing that we can do, generally speaking. Anyway, there’s nothing that we can do to add to our life.
Every every day as it passes by, we are going moving towards death. Right? And so every day that goes by we’ve lost a day of our life and there’s no way we can make that up. We can’t add to that. Right?
So no matter how much exercise we do, and aerobics, and healthy life, and good food, etcetera, etcetera, none of those things will add to our life. They help us experience the lifespan that we’ve created the cause for, but they won’t add to our life. Okay? This point makes a lot of sense if one has some understanding and faith in the view of the continuity of mind and the law of cause and effect because what the Buddha is teaching is that this life is the karmic effect of things we have done in the past. Are you okay, Steve?
You’re very serious. Sorry. Sorry if I’m upsetting people or not too much by what I’m saying. Anyway, so the best understanding is this life is the karmic result of actions we created in past lives. So in past lives, we created the cause or the causes to have a human life with a particular kind of body and a particular lifespan.
So that’s we’ve created the cause and now the result is coming. So there’s no way that we can because the causes come before the results. Alright? That’s obvious. And now this life is the result of past causes.
So during this life we can’t create the causes for this life, just go longer, to increase. And I’ll just give the example. It’s a little bit like watching actually now the example has got old fashioned because they don’t make movies with film anymore. It’s all digital and stuff. But when I made movies with film, plastic film, then the film was made.
It went into this, you know, roll of plastic stuff, and then it’s projected. So while you’re watching it, you know, you watch the movie. And if you’re enjoying the movie, you may think, I wish this movie went on and on. You know, it didn’t stop now, but, you know, there was some more to it or something. But that’s impossible.
It’s just impossible because, you know, the movie well, anyway, I’ll put it another way. What you’re watching was the causes of it were made a long time before. Even the movies we watch were made probably a year ago or something or even longer. We’re not watching something that is actually happening now. Those actors, you know, did that quite some time ago, and they’ve all packed up and gone home.
Right? So no matter how much you’d like this the movie to continue or to go in a different direction, it’s impossible. All causes have you know, they’re finished. And now the movie’s playing. And then at some point, the movie stops because the people who made the movie made it to last this long.
The script, you know, only went for an hour and a half. Finished. So we created the cause for this particular movie to go for a particular period of time. Trouble is we don’t know how long the script lasts for. But it’s still a point.
It’s the last frame finished. That’s it. Nothing we can do about it. So one of the traditional analogies that give is like a pond of water which has got a leak in it, a hole in it, and so the pond is full at the beginning but because there was some hole in it, then water is leaking out of that pond, you know, moment by moment. So eventually it will dry up, nothing to do about it if there’s a leak in it.
So our life is like that, that our life energy, our lifespan is leaking away moment by moment. So death will come. It has to come. I I I don’t know if this makes sense, but, you know, I I think sometimes we have this way of thinking that people who live to be well, especially the people who, are living to be very old, it’s like you can fool yourself into thinking you know I was twenty, now I’m thirty, forty, fifty. You’re adding these years to your life But actually, the older you get, the closer you are to death, not the further away, the closer you are to death.
I think why everyone rejoices when someone’s really, really old and has a birthday is because we think, yes, they’ve cheated death. Terrific. But, of course, they have up until a point, but sooner or later death wins. One way which is quite powerful but maybe a little scary if you really get into it, to meditate on this point is just to reflect that you can even do it by watching a clock is that you can just watch the second hands go round. So after sixty seconds, a minute of your life is finished.
And then with sixty minutes, a whole hour of your life is finished, will never come back just like I never have these things, the sound of a bell. It doesn’t matter. It’s okay. It’s okay. No.
Yeah. Six was sixty what was it? Sixty minute no. Wow. Sixty minutes and hours gone.
Twenty four hours a day has gone. Seven days a week has gone. Four weeks, a month has gone. Never to come back, no way to get it back. Then with, you know, twelve months, a year’s gone.
A whole year of one’s life is finished. That’s it gone. And then with the passing of the years, life comes to an end. That’s it. And we just don’t know how many years there are.
So those are the two arguments that are given. Actually the best argument is the argument of impermanence, that things are impermanent simply because they exist depending on causes and conditions like the sound of a bell. And my body depends on causes and conditions so it’s impermanent therefore I’m going to die. What is a proof that you know have you ever lost a hair from your head? That’s proof you’re going to die.
It shows you’re impermanent. Have you ever had a toothache? That’s proof that you’re going to die because it shows that your teeth are impermanent. They’re decaying like the rest of your body. Have you ever had some skin flake off your skin?
It’s proof that you’re going to die. Do you have dandruff? That’s proof that you’re going to die. Not a joke, it’s proof you’re going to die. So the third point in this section of sort of showing that death is certain is not really an argument that death is certain, but it’s it’s a valid point that we should reflect is that in this very short life that we have that is definitely going to come to an end, is so little time to practice Dharma even when we want to because within a human life we’re very young, we’re not capable of practicing and we don’t have the intellectual basis to understand why we should practice.
Then when we get really old, again it becomes very difficult to practice the Dharma, to work with the mind. So really those are the middle years of our life when we’ve got the opportunity to practice. But then if you think of all the things that take up time, the lot of things we do, some of which we have to do, like go to work and just taking care of our body, washing, eating, going to the toilet. You know, those things, we know to do them, but they do take up a lot of time. You know, you could work out how many how many how many hours, days, weeks, possible years we’ve spent brushing our teeth, coloring our hair, just scratching ourselves, you know, Years washing dishes.
Years. Probably several years standing under a shower. If we’re lucky to live ninety years, and of course, I know you’ve heard this point, is that if we have to be ninety years old, then we sleep, say, eight hours a day. Some people sleep less, some people sleep even more, but say you sleep eight hours a day, that’s a third of a day. That means a third of one’s life, thirty years is spent sleeping, doing nothing.
So that’s really kind of scary. Such an incredible waste of time. I mean, we don’t have to sleep, but maybe we don’t have to sleep as much as we think we do. We’ve already slept a lot, so we’ve lost that. We’ve lost all that.
Yeah. So it really it it becomes really scary to think just how little time there is to really engage in Dharma practice which is the real preparation for death. And the most meaningful beneficial wonderful thing to do. So the purpose of reflecting on those things as often as possible, as strongly as possible, is to come to the conclusion, the conviction that yes, definitely I’m going to die, therefore I have to practice the Dharma. That is I have to take care of my mind.
I have to protect my mind from the disturbing thoughts because these bring harm to myself and others now and in the future. Right? So I need to protect my mind from the disturbing thoughts and negative actions. I need to cultivate the positive potentials of my mind because those are the real source, the actual source of of peace and contentment and well-being and happiness now and in the future for myself and and others. So that’s the purpose, the basic purpose of thinking about how one’s own death is definite.
That I am mortal. I am definitely going to die. Since I’m dying my mind is definitely going to leave this body and is gonna continue on. This is the point. It’s gonna continue to experience all sorts of things.
Our experience will never stop. Feelings will never stop. And there’s only two kind, you know, well, there’s pleasant, unpleasant, neutral feelings. We don’t have to have to worry about the neutral feelings. We don’t have to worry about the pleasant feelings.
We do have to worry about or be concerned about the unpleasant ones. Especially if we develop some understanding, some faith that the suffering of human beings is not the only suffering that can be experienced. But even if we look in in a human world, there is just appalling suffering that human beings have to endure in this world. You know, if if you just heard the news, you know, today about these kids in in detention camps in Australia who are their life is so horrible that they try to commit suicide. They do self harm, they cut themselves, some of them try to commit suicide.
To commit suicide, to want to commit suicide is, you know, the mind is in a really desperate state to do that, where there’s no hope, no sense of hope. Yeah. So people get to that stage. But until they get to that stage, some people endure incredible suffering and horrors, physical and mental. They see they’ve they experience them themselves.
They see other people experience these horrors, which is just as horrible, sometimes worse than experiencing themselves if the people you see experiencing, you know, great torment are people very close to you. But the Buddha says that there’s more suffering than the human realm. There’s the suffering of the animal realm. There’s the suffering of the hungry ghosts. There’s the suffering of the beings in the hell realms.
And there’s all sorts of subtle suffering that, you know, even people having pleasure, even that isn’t real happiness because it’s impermanent. It doesn’t last. So by thinking about this point really clearly, logically, clinically, we can come to this understanding that rather than generally what happens when people think about death, it just produces a lot of fear because what can I do? What you know, there’s nothing to do. There’s no belief system.
So the purpose here is not to panic and go berserk. The purpose of making ourselves think about death more and more is to to encourage us to practice the Dharma. If we’ve met it and have faith in it, and, you know, this is what the context it’s taught. The one has met the Buddhist teachings, has faith in them, has also recognized that one is not just a human being but one has found a precious human rebirth, the optimum perfect human or near perfect human rebirth, meaning the best opportunity to practice the Dharma. Such a human rebirth is very very rare.
Of the what almost several billion people on the planet now, very very few human beings have a perfect optimum human rebirth. But if once got one, it is an incredible tragedy to waste it and and and not prepare for death and our future existence because this life is so short. All our future life is new. It’s it’s infinite. There’s no comparison with that pleasure of this life is less than a finger snap in time compared to the possible pleasures that we can create the cause for in the future.
The suffering of this life is a finger snap compared to the suffering that we could experience in the future. So we we need to make ourselves in in that context of wisdom and compassion to think about death. Not other people’s death, not death in general, one’s own mortality. Okay. So the basis of getting an authentic feeling that one is definitely going to die, then it’s really important to come to some understanding that because even if we have this belief that I’m definitely going to die, the illusion of permanence sets in and thinks, yes, definitely I’m gonna die, but it will be a long time in the future.
This is very natural that young people think like this, but old people still think death is a long way away. Alright. Yeah. But what we need to realize is that death can quite literally come at any time. And there are three main reasons for thinking this, validly thinking this.
The first one is the simple fact that the human lifespan isn’t fixed. You know some insects and so on have a I don’t know I should find out some proper examples but you know have a lifespan of just some sometimes just even a few days or a few weeks or a few months and it’s fairly fixed and but we’re human beings our lifespan isn’t isn’t fixed at all. So people human beings die at any age. Some people can live to be very old like the well, the oldest what was the oldest person on the earth just died very recently. Think he was a Japanese man who was a hundred and six I think.
Yeah. So people can live to be that old but not everyone lives to be that old. It isn’t fixed. It’s not I think we all tend to have the idea that it’s old people who die. It’s mostly though we all know that young people die, young people die in accidents and so on, or have strange diseases or whatever.
But this is the point. We die at any age. One can die in womb even before one is actually, what’s the word, technically born. In a womb, we can die. As we’ve been born, sentient being or, you know, human beings die.
Just after birth human beings can die. And do die. You know, they can die when they’re a week old, two, one year, two years old, as teenagers, maybe in twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, human beings die at any time. Have died, do die, will in the future. And that the logic means that that means I could die at any time.
If a few adults can die when they’re in the womb when they’re one, two, etcetera etcetera, that means that I could die at any time. That’s what it means when we read about all these people dying at different ages. It means I could die now. If that person could die at that time, it means I could die at any time. This may be at one point silly because I’ve I’ve you know, it’s it’s just something I thought of in relation to this.
But you can think of your own particular age, how many years, months, days old you are and ask yourself what are the people in the past who reached the exact age I am and they never died? They entered a time warp when you’re so many years, months, and days old that you don’t die on that day. Am I making sense? Yeah. So and also of course of course people died on that day when they’re how you know twenty years and six months and three days old or forty years and six, you know, eight months old or whatever or seventy blah blah blah.
People died at that age. The age I am today, that means I could die today. I am not in a magical time where you never die on that date. There is no such date. Right?
Not, you know, little time warp that you can go into and stay at least for that day and be sure I’m not going to die today because no one has ever died when they’re that age. Right. Of course, it doesn’t seem like we could die at any moment. That’s true. It doesn’t seem like it and it doesn’t feel like it and it sounds kind of ridiculous and suddenly it becomes a joke and all kind of depressing or negative to try to emphasize that one could die at any moment.
But that is the reality Because just because it doesn’t seem like you’re going to die, just because it doesn’t feel like I’m going to die today, that doesn’t mean anything. Most people, probably most people, when they died, they don’t wake up that morning thinking, oh, I’m gonna die today. It feels like I’m gonna die today. They just died. Big surprise.
I mean, of course, some people do know when they’re going to die, and they they don’t have to be, you know, advanced practitioners. Some people because of the life they’ve lead led. Life they’ve led. Life they’ve lead. They they they know that, you know, well, at least that death is very, very, very close.
But most of us, we don’t know. We can feel fine. We can feel horrible, but we still don’t think, oh, I’m dying or I could die. But that so that doesn’t mean anything. There’s no power, no logic to sustain the belief, I’m not going to die because I don’t feel like I’m going to die.
It doesn’t feel like a disaster is going to happen to me. But most of the people who had disasters happen to them, who are murdered, you know, when they have a launch to this or that or whatever, it didn’t feel like that’s what was going to happen to them that day. They got up. It was an ordinary day. They were planning to do this, that, the other, and then death happened.
So the second reason I think these are little examples and analogies you can give to illustrate that point that death can come because the lifespan is not fixed. The traditional one is you know, candles in the wind. You you know, how many kettles are the same height, same thickness, made of the same substance, they’re in the same place, you know, at them at the same time. And they buy out the guard at different times, and you’ll never know which one’s got to go out first. Just don’t know.
Just like us. You know? You know, what what age, you know, what type of diet we were born, there are people who, you know, who who have were born before us, who have died, but there have been people people born after us who have died. Yeah. We’re still alive, but it says people have died before us who were born at the same time.
People who were born after us have died. That means we could really die at any time. There’s just no, you know, no knowing. To make that straight, can try to understand that there are so many causes of death. human beings can die in so many, many ways.
There are very ordinary ways, common ways, such as disease, know, vast sicknesses, and you can think of all the diseases that exist in the world. There are terrible ones that definitely kill you. There are other diseases that aren’t supposed to be terminal but still people can die of them. I always remember when I was a little repeat this story a billion times. When I was a little kid I was told how the lady crossed the road she had a mole on her face and she picked it and it got infected and she died.
You don’t expect to die from you know picking you know, a mark on your face, but she did. Alright? So that’s not a very extraordinary thing, but it’s not all that common. But we have very common ways of dying. But but I I missed my point.
So there’s all those many diseases that we can die from, and one of them mean to any of them. And the cures of various diseases that have been found, sometimes these cures don’t work anymore. Some things that were more or less eradicated from the world are coming back because new strains have developed because they have built up resistance and so on. And of course new diseases are appearing in the world. How lucky!
As predicted in the Buddhist teachings that more and more new diseases would appear that don’t even have names yet. So there are accidents. People die of accidents all the time. And it’s very interesting to try and think about what is an accident. It’s just something we don’t expect.
We don’t expect accidents and there are little things that can happen to us that normally don’t harm us, and like one day they kill us. Probably all of us I don’t know all of us. Some of us have fallen down some stairs at some point in our life, tripped down one, two, or three, but sometimes, yeah, one day you trip down and you kill yourself. We’ve probably you’ve had car accidents. We’ve survived, but there are car accidents you don’t survive.
We’ve all possibly sliced our fingers with a knife or something. One day you do it, and you don’t we don’t, you know, cut ourselves in the wrong place. Finished. And it happened so quickly. An accident.
So easily. So simply. Are you aware to those accidents? Do you have immunity from any kind of accident? It’s impossible for you to fall down the stair, trap, get run over by a car?
Oh, I’ve got insurance. That doesn’t stop you getting running over. We don’t have any inordinately protection from anything. And what else is there? Common things, wars, murders becoming much more popular, other natural disasters, all sorts of natural disasters, poisonous animals.
What else? Yes. Yes. And, of course, if all of these things kill us, we cannot survive ourselves. Or if none of these things kill us, then we die of old age.
I won’t go into it, there are also I’ve mentioned mostly all the common ways of dying. There are very, very weird, uncommon ways of dying, freakish ways of dying. Some of them, if you tell the stories, they sound funny, which is not so very good because, of course, people died this way, so I won’t tell some of these bizarre ways people have died. But anyway Well, just recently, the person didn’t die but probably did you read about the all the people who swam on? Where was it?
Somewhere in Sydney at the beach, and this whale was there, and they’re all playing out the whale. It sounded like it was having a and then it’s flipped its its tail and hit this guy, knocked him unconscious. But, of course, he could have died, but he was lucky. Yeah. Many bizarre things happen.
Yeah. And on the other hand, there are so few theories that actually support our life. Even the things that we commonly think of as protecting our life such as food and medicine and clothing and houses and so on. Even in these things can become a cause of our death. You know, houses fall on you.
We can be we we can eat too much. We can be allergic to food. We can be allergic to medicine. Take the wrong medicine. Alright?
So I need to think about these things and realize that death really could come at any time because there are so many causes of death. Okay. I’ve I’ve gotta finish this section because it I’ve if you don’t mind. And then if that gets you that way, I’d say, to reflect on is we could die at any time because this body itself is so fragile. Even the strongest body is very, very susceptible to danger, to disease.
You know, no matter how big in the muscular or whatever you are and healthy you are and fit and healthy you are, how much you eat, you know, whatever. Just one little mosquito can come along, stick its little proboscis or whatever it’s called in and inject something and you die of something or other. Or how strong you are, you know, healthy, young, you know, accidents happen, wars happen and so on. So to have good health is in a sense like a miracle to be healthy. When everything is balanced in the body, just that.
All of our body is so complex and so for all the bits and pieces to be working together is like a miracle. And when one part is wrong it can set off this chain of events that leads to something really serious and then death comes. So there is a point to reflect on those things again and again until we really get this sense of how my death could really happen at any moment is to come to the conclusion that The first conclusion was I’ve got to practice Dharma. Now, a stronger realization is not only do I have to start not only do I have to practice the Dharma, not only do I have to take care of my mind, I have to do it now. Not tomorrow, next year, but right now.
Because death might come before Dharma practice starts. We have to stop postponing things and get on with it now. Especially sorry if I say because quite a lot of us here are in our, what, Mature averages. Not everyone here, and I’m not mentioning anyone in particular. I’m not looking at any I’m not looking at anything else saying this, but so yeah, please, if we assume still because death can happen at any time, why should come to this conclusion that really I I have to start seriously taking care of my mind now, not postponing it, thinking other things are more important.
But this is the most important thing to do is to take care of the mind. For the worldly mind, the worldly attitude is that practically everything else is more important than taking care of our mind. We have a natural instinct to take care of our body, to take care of our possessions, to take care of our reputation and so on, but we neglect the mind. But from a Dharma point of view, in any situation, what should be the prime thing is the most important thing to take care of in any situation is not our body, not our possessions, not our reputation. It should be our mind.
And especially if we could die at any moment, the most important thing to take care of when we’re dying is not our body, not our possessions, not our reputation. It’s our mind. So let me just very quickly, the third part of this meditation, which is the concluding part really, is to reflect what is really going to help me at the time of death. Especially, it’s it’s useful to think, honestly, reflect of all the things I’m doing with my life, in my life now, all the things that take up my time and energy, what of these things, which among these things is going to be of any real benefit as I’m dying? So a lot of time I spend accumulating trying to accumulate money and possessions.
Is all of that going to help really help me at the time of death? I mean, seriously. You know? And the answer is, of course, no, it won’t. It won’t help at all.
The money, possessions, these won’t help. They have no ability to help at all. No. And more than that, what’s all attachment to those things will be a great obstacle. The more attachment, the greater the obstacle.
And of course, when attachment comes to something not always but a kind of identification. You identify with how much money you have and how many possessions or what kinds of possessions you have. They become part of who you think you are. And then as you’re dying, you realize, I’m losing all that. And that is that is very uncomfortable.
And, yes, a lot of time spent concerned with our body, our appearance. Does that gonna help at the time of death? Looking really nice. I mean, really nice corpse. Not really.
It doesn’t have any influence of what kind of rebirth one has and again one’s attachment to one’s body, one’s appearance can be a great hindrance. And this is maybe very uncomfortable to say but a lot of our time and energy goes into family and friends. Are they going to help at the time of death? And generally the answer is no. They won’t be able to help unless they’re really good dharma practitioners.
But if they’re not, they won’t be of that much help no help. And on the on the outside, one’s attachment to family and friends will be a huge hindrance. Not one’s affection and love for one’s family, but one’s attachment. One’s attachment to family and friends is a huge obstacle, producing a lot of fear and worry. Either fear of being separated from them or worry about what’s going to happen to them when I leave, etcetera, etcetera.
So what is actually going to help? So we should think of all the things, you know, and take up so much time and energy, but actually, they’re not going to help, and one’s attachment to all those things is gonna be an obstacle. What will help? At the time of death. Remember, what is death?
Death is or the death process is where the mind is letting this body and this world and everything that we know is is coming to an end uncontrollably, very quickly. Yeah. Everything is stopping. Our awareness of everything is coming to an end. But as that is coming to an end, some other experience is occurring that we have no familiarity with.
So what is gonna help when that happens? What that the the Buddha says, the only thing will help is a spiritual experience. That is, if we’re able to experience our death, face our death, separation from this body, this life, our family, friends, reputation, power, wealth, whatever we’ve got, what will help us be able to face separating from that and move into whatever is going to happen is having some experience of love, compassion, patience, courage, a sense of generosity, kindness, and so on. Have a peaceful mind, a strong, stable, peaceful mind, a mind that is especially pervaded by faith in the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, in the Guru. Or just put more simply, having virtuous qualities of mind experiencing those at the time of death is the only thing that will benefit.
Once said that whether one is religious or not, from His Holiness’s experience, people who have lived a life with a good heart, whether they have any religious beliefs or not, they have good deaths. Whereas people some people who don’t believe in future lives, have no religious beliefs, don’t believe in future lives at all, believe there’s only this life, but when death comes, if they’ve led a negative life, there’s a lot of fear and pain. What is going to benefit is our spiritual qualities, and it’s not possible to generate genuine spiritual qualities suddenly as one’s dying. The only way they will arise in our mind in such a, you know, unique situation is if we have trained in developing these qualities through our life. And I haven’t just pretended to develop them but actually worked on developing them.
So the third conclusion is well, the first one is, since I’m going to die, I have to practice the Dharma. It says, I could die in any moment, I have to practice now. Third thing is that I have to practice genuinely, not half heartedly, superficially, you know, in a fake way mixed with the eight worldly concerns. I have to practice genuinely because our genuine practice will produce genuine qualities that will enable me to deal with death and rebirth. Okay, so that in a nutshell is the nine-round meditation on death.
One of the most important meditations you can possibly do in your life. To think about that. To do that regularly. Really. Okay thank you very much.
We’ll have some maybe questions afterwards but now it’s a tea break. Students, anything I could clarify or Yes. It depends. If you take precepts, you won’t fall into the lower realms. Yes.
If you’re keeping them while you if you die while while you have the precept, that would help. Yes. Because it would keep you in a virtuous mind. Yeah. Yeah.
I’m really sure. I think sometimes it’s kind of an ego reaction that you some it’s kind of the the dying the dying attempts of the old self to reassert itself in a way. It could be that. To do with what? Dying?
Yes. The memory of that particular rebirth in elderly. Are you saying as you’re dying, will you possibly remember that kind of rebirth and be really freaked out by it? Yes. No.
I don’t think so. No. That wouldn’t happen. So then No. If you don’t remember that period of time in the normal Right.
Or the mind doesn’t. Yeah. Yeah. It’s I I think it might not just be below the hills, but any suffering we have is a karmic result and it lasts a particular time and it’s finished. That’s it.
So from a Buddhist point of view there’s no question of experiencing suffering as how did you put it and that suffering is telling you something or there’s something you can learn from that suffering. I think with all due respect there’s like a New Age idea, It’s not the Buddhist idea that you are born in the hell realm or whatever as a way to teach you something. It’s just a karmic result. If you do something you get the results. If you do certain very negative actions you end up as a suffering human being or an animal or in the hell realms.
It’s not like someone’s arranging for you to go there to learn something from it. But, but all of our suffering experiences can be of course from our side we can make them learning experiences. In most cases we don’t. Most ordinary people, most of us, most of the time, we experience suffering and we don’t learn anything from it. But especially with the help of the dharma we can learn many things from it.
That’s definitely the case but it really depends on our attitude and way of looking things. Most people experience suffering and don’t learn anything and just maybe become bitter and feel a victim and want to lash out and do more harmful things because of their suffering, other people can learn to be more compassionate as a result. But there’s no idea in Buddhism of experiencing, you know, other guy on experience because your motor learns something from it. Because that applies there’s some controlling force, some you know being who’s controlling you in some way so that you can learn things or whatever. So even the Buddha can’t do that.
Anyway the Buddha doesn’t send you to hell to learn things. No. Yeah. Well, to be completely honest, which I should, I don’t really know. I don’t know.
I’ve I’ve never actually heard anyone ask a qualified lama that or if I they have, I don’t remember the answer, and I’ve never heard a lama actually specify that. But my understanding is that how do you put it? It’s like if you do do a certain thing, like even in ordinary life if we eat a lot then it’s highly likely that we’re going to get fatter. Right? And also and it’s also highly likely that we may get some health problems both could happen or one or neither but you know the more you do certain things you increase the likelihood that that’s going to happen.
So I think with cards a little bit like that or a lot like that that our life there’s a lot of stuff that is more or less going to happen because we’ve created the cause and if we don’t do anything that will ripen bingo. But especially when we meet the dharma and start working with our mind and purifying, there we can start modifying these things that yeah. So yeah. And so every time we do something the whole dependent arising changes. It’s a bit like I think I’ve mentioned this before I don’t know what they’re called now but you have these used to have them these two sheets of glass and inside was all this coloured sand and then they’d make patterns so you tilt it and all the sand would move and it would make a new pattern So then you tilt it again and the sand would tumble and rearrange itself.
So karma is like that, now life is like that practicing whether we practice or not. Because the sand box is tilted one way the sand just naturally rolls in a particular pattern but you tilt it a little bit and then it starts to make another pattern and you tilt it again and it starts another pattern. Data is helping us follow down a path, tilting the glass box so we keep making the best pattern. You can’t say it’s set in stone because it’s arising independently. So things there’s certain things.
If nothing is done, this will definitely happen. But there’s more possibilities within the situation for things to change. And like like you take the the life of Milarepa, he killed thirty six people. So currently, means he was doomed to be born in hell, you know, straight away, you know, when he died. But before he died, he became a Buddha.
So he shifted the sand quite a lot. But if he had not done that, you know, all these other things would have happened. What? Should read that. What page is that?
I should read these articles more. Oh, this is by his heart. This re this means that though oh, wait. Wait. Wait.
Wait. Those beings who, even after a year after dying, report that they have not found a birthplace. Yeah. That’s quite unusual. I’m not quite sure what that means.
It’s a spirit. Sorry. I don’t know. That’s interesting. Next paragraph about the.
Oh, yes. That’s very common. Yes. Wow. You haven’t heard everything, have you?
Definitely not. Yes. Actually, it’s more detailed than that, what actually happens. Yes, this is our sutras. When you learn Tibetan or Chinese then you can read it in the sutras.
These sutras aren’t translated the totality of them. But there are various sutras talking about the consciousness takes rebirth. Yeah, All the details there. Yeah. Including, I am you know, when I was first a monk at Institute, then there was Geshe Loden, was the resident teacher there.
I remember one afternoon telling him about because I was sort of used to be he’s a bit of attendant or something. Used to cook for him. And I was used to make tea oh, this is getting long story as usual. Afternoon tea. Anyway, I was telling him that there had been reported in the newspapers the first I think it was the first time in history where and I think it has occurred in Australia where a fertilised embryo had been taken from the womb of one woman and implanted in the womb of another woman.
So I think this had happened for the first time in Australia, It was the very first time it had happened. So this would have been in about nineteen seventy eight or nineteen nine. And Keshi Lodin said, That’s nothing. This is all written about in the sutras. And they say in the sutras this will end up causing lots of legal problems.
Yes but don’t take that concretely because we’ve jumped ahead one whole class or several classes and we’re now in a state which we’re not going to do until the end of the course go into the Bardo but when it says you see your father and mother you don’t know it doesn’t like you see your father and mother. As you look at the person and think this is my father and this is my mother, you say a being who is going to be your father or mother but you don’t think oh this is my father, this is my mother and I like my mother and hate my father and vice versa. It’s not like that. Yeah. And, actually, you don’t even see their whole body.
You only see one part, the crucial part. I do see that, doesn’t it? Oh, okay. Right. Yeah.
Jung, yes. Yes. But that was Freud who said all that. Not Jung. It was Freud.
Yeah. Yeah. Not quite. Yeah. But then they Well, it’s all very long.
You’ve already read it. That bit you’re talking about. Yes but I can also say that really it’s not I don’t think you should take that too much like Freud and Jung are talking about because it’s like very instinctive. A barter state for the average person you don’t have much sense of yourself as a person. Know it’s like it’s at a really you know of course you know there are more developed beings who you know who’ve trained who are in the that’s their experience is different but your average Joe Blow in the Bardo state you know, doesn’t have this sense of self that we have.
I don’t think as a fully developed separate individual and I am looking for mum and dad or something like that or a place where I can be reborn. That’s not happening. It’s much more much more basic and and instinctive. There’s just a sense of well this is my understanding that you know our most fundamental attachment is this body or a body, not even this one, but we are totally addicted and accustomed to being a solid thing or thinking we are a solid thing. This is one of the aspects of our ignorance that we as ordinary human beings, we identify that I am my body.
This is not the deepest level of ignorance, but much of the time we identify as being our body. That’s why death is such a scary thing because we lose our body, we lose ourselves. At a deeper level, it’s just we have this kind of intense grasping at being something solid and then we die and all of that’s gone and they’re in the Bardo and all you want to do is be solid. You know? You want, you know, where am I?
Something. And then you’re attracted to something that you’re you’re not, you know, analyzing this in any way whatsoever. There’s just that something there that, oh. And you go to it and that’s attractive and there’s something next to it that I don’t like at all. I hate that, I like that.
You don’t have any sense of what it is but it’s something that attracts you and then that’s it. You’re there. Yep. Samsāra. Yeah.
I didn’t know if I have a question, a group. I even have discussion group questions, but now there’s no time to do it because that’s your fault because you’re asking too many questions, but that’s okay. Sorry. Yes. Yeah, that’s right.
It’s basically we’ll talk about this next week actually, that the end of the death process is you have these three levels of consciousness. Firstly, the gross consciousness stops and because of that the subtle consciousness becomes manifest. Mean, it’s always there but it’s not manifest because the gross consciousness is working. So when the gross consciousness stops, the subtle consciousness becomes manifest. And then that stops because its basis comes to an end, and all that’s left is the most important thing is the very subtle mind, the primordial mind of clear light.
And that manifests, it arises in the heart, in the centre of the heart chakra. So you say that whatever death occurs So death is when that mind leaves the body. Since it always no matter what kind of death you have, what happens is the very subtle mind absorbs into the heart chakra. So then it leaves from there and depending on what kind of from there it leaves a particular part of the body. But it always leaves from just like in your house.
Oh. No. That doesn’t work. Well, so you have a house that’s got a a garden and a wall around it. So and that wall around your house has got many gates.
So to get out, you always have to leave the house first, but there are many gates. Once you get out the house, to leave your property. But you always leave the house if you’re in the house. So the subtle consciousness, the end of the death process, the very subtle consciousness is now in the very centre of the heart chakra. And then depending on karma and practice, in the next you know it leaves.
It can go up, down, around, come out your eyes, out your nose, out your mouth apparently and that yeah. So who wants to ask a question who hasn’t? Yes. I don’t think I’m the person to ask because I don’t have children and haven’t been around little kids. Remember the Buddhist teachings are made for adults not children, Right?
I mean especially the way we’re doing it here is meant for adults who are asking to hear this stuff. Right? So I I think I don’t know. Kids can deal with some of these things if it’s if it’s explained properly, but I I don’t think telling kids that you could die at any moment is is probably such a good well, maybe you can, but I mean, it would have to be very skillful. Yeah.
But but I really this this is the most in one of the most important things to know and be open to, and so much of our culture has been very, very closed. Not just Western culture, but a lot of cultures, you know, are very don’t want to know anything about this. Or our culture was more open to it in earlier times than now, although there’s a change in recent years. So in other ways it’s really helpful for the younger you are to know something about it, but to introduced to it in a wise and compassionate way, not as something in itself scary. As I was trying to say, the Buddhist approach should be that death itself is not bad and scary, but we shouldn’t be scared of death because it is something completely natural whenever it occurs.
It has to occur. It’s a natural part of ordinary existence. Pets. Yeah. Well, actually, kids see lots of death and gore on television anyway, don’t they?
DVDs and PlayStations or whatever they’re called and cartoons. I mean, kids really are aware of it from fairly young, but not not in a very realistic way. That’s the problem. Seems a shame. Like, if they ask me to No.
Yeah. Yeah. If they ask, it’s good to say something. Yeah. Because some kids say some amazing things to about stuff.
Yeah. Shona. Yes. I think so. Well, wonder it’s natural because people want someone like that to live and live and live, and they don’t want us.
You know? But you know? Are you asking, you generally, is life support a good thing or not? Yeah. This is far beyond my capacity to say.
Of the art and science has really made things very complicated in a way for, you know, prolonging life. Because they they have to have debate what is a natural lifespan because it’s also our karma to be in a world where the lifespan can be in a sense prolonged more than what it could be in the past. Sorry. If what? Yes.
Yes. Yes. Well, once the gross mind is there, you’re alive for sure. Yeah. I don’t I see.
I don’t know the science and medical side of that too. I don’t you know? But generally speaking, you I think you would have to say these you know, someone on live support is alive. Yeah. They’re they’re breathing.
If they’re yeah. They’re just breathing. Thing that makes you breathe. Wow. Life got just more so much more difficult.
Wow. Right. Oh, I love that expression harvest your organs. Yeah. Because from a Buddhist point of view or from the Tibetan Buddhist point of view, which is from the tantric point of view, even though your breathing stops, you are not dead.
So even and even I think yeah. So in a normal situation, if your brain dead, can you breathe without machines? No. Right. From a Buddhist point of view, Tibetan tantric point of view, death only occurs when the subtle consciousness leaves, but of course the average person can’t tell that, whether it has or not.
Because after breathing stops, the subtle consciousness can leave immediately or it can stay there, even in an ordinary person, up to three days. I mean that’s very rare but it could stay up to three days. But I won’t have anything to talk about on the fifth week, the signs of the subtle consciousness leaving is you’re a nurse, aren’t you? A nurse? Yes.
Is if someone has died from old age and not with a debilitating sickness that has kind of like ravished the body but just nice fading away. Someone who dies that way, the sign that the the very subtle mind has left the body is that a little bit of blood will come out of the nostrils. That’s one sign. For a man, some semen comes out, not from the nose, from their penis. For all the in the tantras, they never mentioned what would be the equivalent.
But and, of course, when llamas die, is what they check and they see these signs. They wait for those signs to occur before they say the Lama has left, and then they deal with the body. So it would be really hard to say. Only some very highly realized being would be able to know if someone on life who is brain dead, not naturally breathing, is actually whether their consciousness is actually there or not. And your average high lama, I love that average high lama who are pretty unaverage beings, they don’t go around saying these things, you know, you know, saying, oh, yes.
He’s, you know, they don’t sort of indicate these things normally. Yeah. So it it it is really tricky. So that is finished for tonight. Maybe just to save some time for next week, can you write down because for next week, will definitely try and have discussion groups.
So there’s going to be four discussion groups. So I’m not sure if everyone from last week has shown up this week. But, anyway, if you’re here, it doesn’t matter if you’re not here. But Group one is made up of Annette Beltrame. Is she are you here?
Oh, okay, Annette. Shauna, Christina, Steve, Arnold who’s got left tonight, Judy, Michelle and Jan Vaughan. So they’re all you’re all in group one. Okay. Group two is David Boddington.
Who’s that? Is he here? Oh, Danny. Oh, sorry. Danny.
Chris. Chris Eliot. Is there Chris? Oh, Chris. Linden, Richard Margaret Roney Peter and Maggie.
Maggie you’re in group two. Group three is Sharene. Do we know Liz and I’m not sure if they’re coming or not. Anyway Liz, Bill, Jenny MacArthur, Elaine Skinner, India, and Adam. Then group four is Kathy, Rudy, Sasha, Phuntsok, Karen, Bill Gaston, and Pam Jones.
Pam Jones. Did your name get mentioned? Oh, sorry. Who are you? Cheryl.
Cheryl. Cheryl Malone. You’re not on the list. Great. So you could be in Group four as well.
Right. Alright. Just, has everyone taken their homework? Or you you can see a sheet in front of you if you haven’t got it. Just very quickly to explain.
Sorry. Can someone lend, get me a copy? Just quick. India. Sorry.
Yeah. In in this the reading that you’ve given in in the the the book I would encourage people I want to read the bit that is suggested for that week rather than being you know wanting to read the other bits but really focus on that bit if you want to read some more just read the same thing again. But you do have this book if you want to read some more stuff then read that book. The other thing is that in homework the topics are Wednesdays to meditate on the advantages of meditating on death. So that actually is you know I talked about it briefly but it’s all set out here in Geshe Dakpa’s article.
And the meditation that I went through, the nine-round death meditation is actually set out in Geshe Dakpa’s article on page one hundred and ten to top of page one hundred and thirteen. So you can use that in meditation. Where it says meditate, advantages and disadvantages, that’s to think about the advantages of not meditating on death, the disadvantages, no. Sorry. The advantages of meditating on death, the disadvantages of not meditating.
Tuesday is to do the whole meditation on the nine round. In their previous days it’s just to do one section. See death can come as quickly as a tickle in your throat. Okay, I think that’s it. I have questions around breathing meditation.
Is everyone okay with that? And how you can combine it with visualizing the white light, black smoke? I wasn’t there, but I know the man who was translating for a lama. He was giving a teaching on death and dying and as he was giving the teaching he had a heart attack and he kept teaching and the translator noticed that he wasn’t something was going on and the lama said to him don’t worry I’m just having a heart attack just keep just keep teaching. I can’t remember that but I think it’s a little later yeah.
Okay thanks very much so we can finish tonight by, if you’d like to join in, dedicating a positive understanding and the positive energy or karmic imprints we’ve generated, that may these become a cause for us to be able to realize impermanence and death. And through that realization, direct our mind more and more to the practice of Dharma so that we can quickly achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings who suffer because of impermanence and have to suffer death over and over again, being trapped in cyclic existence. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious bodhicitta not yet born arise and grow, May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. K.
Thank you very much. So we finish for those people who feel comfortable to do so with three prostrations.