Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 27-minute session, Venerable Thubten Dondrub guides practitioners through a meditation on what truly helps at the moment of death—the final part of a nine-round reflection on dying and the intermediate state. He begins by establishing the fundamental experience of death: losing everything we depend on and are attached to, encountering unfamiliar experiences we have no memory of. He then walks through a searching examination of how we spend our precious human life—work, money, possessions, time with family and friends, care of the body—asking directly: will any of this help when I die? Through this honest assessment, he guides practitioners to see that worldly activities and attachments become obstacles at death, while only the state of our mind matters. The core teaching is that a calm, virtuous, concentrated mind cannot arise spontaneously at death; it must be trained throughout life through sincere practice, refuge, compassion, and wisdom. He concludes with a determination to practice the Dharma authentically now, without postponement, understanding that only this genuine inner development will be our true protection. For practitioners with some meditation experience.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 08 11 DB-Death&RebirthRetreat 11082013Med6.mp3
UUID: ee0e1f74-7093-4030-a9d8-0fbd09f02d05
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Death & Rebirth (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-08-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 27.5 minutes
Words: ~1,087
To the last part of the nine round meditation which is to think about what helps at the time of death. Since we’ve just experienced the Bardo, the death process and the Bardo, then it’s kind of useful to think what is going to help at that time and when all that starts. What will help and what doesn’t? So, again, we can begin by sitting comfortably in the correct posture and just briefly checking our posture. Then visualizing the Buddha in front of us, all sentient beings surrounding us, and as we do that trying to generate the best motivation we possibly can, particularly the bodhicitta thought.
Actually we can visualize the Buddha on the crown of our head creating that protective environment as we do this last session. So then we can begin by reflecting firstly what does it mean to experience death? It means that everything that we are familiar with, dependent on attached to. All of this, we lose complete contact with. It’s all lost in a moment, never to return.
It happens without any control. We have to let go of absolutely everything, including our body and our sense of personality, our identity. All of this goes. We lose it all. And as everything that we’re familiar with is lost, a whole series of experiences unfolds that although have happened countless times to us in beginningless saṃsāra, we have no memory of.
So we’re completely unfamiliar with these experiences. Everything that we’re familiar with stops, and all of these things that we have no familiarity with begin. So what is going to help me when this definitely happens? It’s definitely going to happen to me, and it could happen at any time. It might be after having grown very old.
It could happen tomorrow. So think as honestly as you can about the things that one is doing in this life. All the things that take up time, that use up this this precious human rebirth. What am I doing that will help me at that time? To die well, peacefully and have a good rebirth so that I can continue to move away from suffering and its causes causes instead of moving into even greater suffering.
Much of our life is spent working, so we can think about the work we’re doing, why we’re doing it. Is this going to help in any way? We tend to be concerned with money and possessions. Is this going to help at the time of death? So try to see as deeply and feel as deeply as one can that, in fact, so many of these activities have no benefit at the time of death.
And one’s attachment to them, attachment to possessions, money, estate, and the status that goes with it will be real obstacles at the time of death. Fear of losing things and so on will arise. And then it’s difficult to have a peaceful mind. So why am I spending so much time? Do I have to work so much?
Do I need so many things? Do I need so much money? And reflect how much time is spent with family and friends. Of course, we all depend on others in various ways. But try to see how not our affection, but our attachment to family and friends, again, becomes a great obstacle at the time of death.
The fear of separating from family and friends. And then consider how even our precious body is no help at the time of death. No matter how much time we’ve spent taking care of it, it doesn’t help at the time of death. Whereas our attachment to our body, that becomes an obstacle. So consider how at the time of death, at crucial time, No worldly activity, no worldly knowledge is of any benefit.
What is going to help us is the state of our mind. One can’t create a positive, virtuous state of mind just out of nothing at the time of death. It comes through training throughout our life. If we haven’t trained to have a calm, concentrated, stable mind during our life, if we haven’t trained in kindness, compassion, generosity, patience throughout our life, how can we expect those states of mind to arise at the time of death? An experience unlike anything we’ve ever had.
Reflect how it’s possible that our refuge and faith in the Buddha, in Buddha’s teachings, in the Sangha of realized beings. That faith is our greatest protection at the time of death, our greatest help. And consider that how our refuge in the Guru, in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, this leads us to practice, train in non attachment, developing a good heart, wisdom, and so on. And these are going to be the greatest help, the greatest protection at the time of death. These qualities that we build up in our mind will be there in our mind in the journey from this life into the Bardo, into the next rebirth state.
Consider that a kind of superficial, half hearted or false practice of the Dharma isn’t going to generate genuine, positive, strong qualities in the mind. Especially at this really crucial time of death. So bring this con this meditation to a conclusion by making a strong determination to be more and more mindful in daily life, to not only use this precious human rebirth to practice the Dharma, and more than that, practice it now, stop postponing, but most especially to practice sincerely because that sincere practice is going to help me, and only that will help me or the results of that sincere practice. That is what will help at the time of death. Recall the Buddha on one’s crown, imagining the Buddha very pleased with your practice, not just of this session, but the whole retreat and the whole course.
So as a result, the Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light which pours down into oneself, blessing one’s mind to be able to gain a complete realization of impermanence and death that helps develop renunciation and a mind concerned with genuine, sincere Dharma practice. We can dedicate the merit of the session, the retreat, the whole course. Through the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a 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.
Okay, thank you very much.