ACI 8 «Смерть и сферы существования», занятие 9

Class Nine. Tape one.

Transcribed by Karen Becker
Proofread by Summer Moore

Say {chiwa} [repeat] {mitakpa} [repeat] Boy you guys are sleepy tonight.
[laughter]    {Chiwa} [repeat] {mitakpa} [repeat] {chiwa} [repeat] {mitakpa}
[repeat].    Okay.    {Chiwa} means "death", okay, death, {mitakpa} means
"impermanence" and this is a special subject in the lam rim text and it's basically a
meditation on your death. Okay. Remembering the fact that you are ... you can
say mortal or impermanent, and then death, so that's the impermanence that
that death is. Another way you could say it would be, say {chiwa} [repeat]
{gompa} [repeat] {chiwa} [repeat] {gompa} [repeat]. {Chiwa} means "death"
again, and {gompa} means "meditation". Meditation. You could call it death
meditation. But Tsongkapa which is who we're using tonight, his text {b:Lam
Rim Chenmo}, the Great Lam Rim, greatest book ever written in the Tibetan
language probably ... your reading is from that. He puts another word here. He
says, say {chiwa} [repeat] {drenpa} [repeat] {gompa} [repeat]. {Chiwa} [repeat]
{drenpa} [repeat] {gompa} [repeat]. He's put this extra word inside called
{drenpa}. Do you know {dren, drenpa}? Do you remember? It means "to
remember". [laughs] Okay [laughter] {Drenpa} means "to remember" or to
recall something. So I mean if you don't know Tibetan very well you would say
"meditating on remembering death". But you could you could translate {drenpa}
here as an awareness of death, okay, death awareness, and then meditation
remember in Tibetan doesn't have to be meditation. {Gompa} can mean "to get
used to something". To get used to something. To habituate yourself. Okay. So
maybe if you knew Tibetan a little better you could say, "habituating yourself to
death awareness; getting used to death awareness". Because the point is that if
you don't do if you don't do {chiwa gompa} in meditation, you don't have to be
sitting down with you legs crossed and your hands like that and you're doing
some kind of a meditation, that's not death meditation. Death meditation for
Tsongkapa is {chiwa drenpa}. {Chiwa drenpa} means like an awareness of your
death, the awareness of your death. And it doesn't have to be done in
meditation, and in fact it should be done all day long. And and the root meaning
of that is very very important, and if you don't get it you'll never ... then this
then this talk and this whole course won't do any good for you. You have to get
this point. {Chiwa drenpa} means thinking you're going to die today. Okay.
Keeping in mind all day ... how would I act if I knew I was going to die today,
you know, what would I do if I knew I was going to die today. Would I act any
different ... I mean ... my eighth grade teacher, no, senior in high school teacher
asked me that, you know. She said "would you act the same if you were going
to die today"? You know. If you knew you were going to die today, wha how
would you act? You know. Think about it. Think about it for yourself. Wha ... if
you knew you were going to die tonight would you would you be here? What
would you be doing? If you knew you were going to die tonight. And that the
thought that just went through your brain is the most important thing about this
whole eight week class or whatever, I mean, that's it ... that's the whole point of
the class. You know, and and that has some effect on you on your behavior.
You know, your behavior would change. If you could keep that feeling all the
time, of what would I do be doing right now if I was going to die tonight. Then
you've perfected the death meditation and I don't have anything more to teach
you [laughs] you know, I mean I'm going through the whole outline and
everything, but that's it, that's all, you know, and that's the point that Je
Tsongkapa's saying, you know. at any given point in your life, you have to
always be thinking, would I be doing this if I was going to die tonight. You
know, how would I act if I was going to die tonight. Because that is the situation.
I mean, that is the truth. And you shouldn't act any time any different than that.
Everything you decide to do in your life, every time you do anything you should
be thinking, is this what I would be doing if I knew I was going to die tonight.
And that's ... it's a very simple ... that's death meditation. [laughs] We'll go
through the whole outline, okay, 'cause you won't have gotten your money's
worth if I don't do [laughs] something else tonight, right? [laughter]. So I’ll give
you some words and stuff…but that's all, that's it. And he he he does this death
meditation in four parts, okay. It's very classic. Say {chiwa} [repeat] {magompy}
[repeat] {nye mik} [repeat]. {Chiwa} {repeat, {magompy} [repeat] {nye mik}
[repeat]. {Chiwa} means what? [students: death] Death, okay. {magompa}
means "not meditating", okay, not meditating on death. Again it does not mean
in meditation posture. It means throughout the day. {Magompay} {nye mik,
nye mik} means "problem, disadvantages" Okay, so there're gonna be ... I mean
Je Tsongkapa has a list and Pabonka Rinpoche follows them, of the problems
that will come to you if you don't meditate on death. He has six of them and he
gives examples to prove ... so that the first problem if if you don't meditate on
death, if you don't know how to do death meditation, you'll start to concentrate
on the small pleasures of this life, like food, clothes, things like that ... you will,
that'll be the focus of your life. You'll start to concentrate on having a nice place
to stay, and and I don't mean going out and trying to buy a Cadillac, there's
nobody in this room I don't think even could [laughs] [laughter] me included,
but I I don't mean that, I and I don't mean trying to go get the biggest house that
you can get, it doesn't mean that, it means that you're you're concentrating
mainly, the main focus of your day, is on what you're going to eat, what you're
going to wear, what kind of place you have this day, what kind of position you
have at work, you know, wha how do people think of you, things like that, I
mean, that'll be the main focus of your day and you and your day will not be
focused around Dharma. It won't be the focus of your day. If you don't think
about death, if you shut it out of your mind ... that kind of awareness ... then this
will be the natural, the natural way your mind will go, and that's the way your
mind goes. And I don't mean that you're trying to get rich, or you're trying to
become President of City Corp or something like that, but it's not that. But but
you know, subtly your whole life is is is focused around things, small things.
This world's things, you know. I it doesn't matter what it is but you your life is
focused on that. Your life is not focused on what'll happen to you if you die.
This is this is the kind of death meditation which I ma ... if somebody talks to you
about death and you think about death, it's always something later, in the back ...
even when I said that you may die tonight, there was an immediate reaction in
your own mind that said, he's saying that for effect, you know. I I'm really fairly
young or middle aged and I'm not going to die tonight. Nobody in our class has
died yet, you know [laughter] this doesn't really apply to me, what he said really
doesn't apply to me, and you really do think that. Your heart believes that. So
you, you know, if somebody says what about death, are you going to die, it's
always something later. It's always something in the far future. It's always
something very far away from us. There was a guy at Vajrapani ... I mean, you
know all these stories, I don't ... I'll tell one, you know more. Vajrapani ...
where’s Ashley? this healthy guy a strong healthy guy, good Dharma student,
very very good Dharma student, devoted, you know, devoted to his center and
helped build his center, so he's up on the roof, he falls off, hits his jugular vein on
a nail and he's bleeding to death, and his wife is just, all she can do is sit and with
him, and they do some mantras together and he died, you know, and there's
nothing you can do. And and it was weird you know, we were just there, we
were just having a class and and he's dead, you know, and you know your own,
you can tell me, you you know, have your own stories like that, but in the back
of your mind you always think it'll happen later so you think it's okay to delay,
and it's very common you know, like all your tantric retreats are in the future,
right? [laughter] and that's four retreats you have to do, those are all in the
future, right, and learning Tibetan is some time in the future, and you know
everything is future, everything is, it'll be okay I can learn it next course, next
course I really will concentrate on it and you know, stuff like that. You have all
these programs that you're thinking of that you will do, you know, sooner or
later you will stop all your bad habits that you know that you have to confess
every day. Eventually you will, you know. You have a plan, right? And I'm
speaking [laughs] from experience [laughter] you know, I still do it, and and
that's that's because you're not meditating on death.                 If you really were
meditating on death you could remove those bad habits quickly. Shantideva
says if somebody gave you a pot of water and said "walk across the room with it
and don't spill any" you know, it's totally filled up to the brim, you would walk
across the room and spill some, but he says if somebody stood behind you with
a sword, behind your neck, you know, and said "walk across the room and if
you spill any I'm going to cut your head off", anyone could walk across the room
and not spill a drop, you know. So it's this kind of awareness that you ... if death
is involved you can do a lot that you didn't think you could do. You know. If if
you have a good threat you can do a lot, that you didn't think you could do
before.     Number three is where you do practice but you do it for your
reputation. And this is not like where you're obsessed by fame or something
like that, but if you ever achieve the path of seeing, if you ever see emptiness
directly, hence when you come down out of that and you see the four noble
truths, one of them involves an understanding of ego which is not the self
okay ... ego is not the self ... the self that doesn't exist is a is a nature that you
have. That that would be a you know, being ... having ... that this is red by from
it's own side ... it's not red from it's own side ... it is cloth from it's own side at that
moment that you perceive it as as red, perhaps. but it's being red depends on
your projection. So this this does not have what they call a "self". But there is a
perception of ego that we have that's it's not the perception of self ... that's a
different thing, but it but we al but we have it and it's related to our perception of
self. Of a of a self that doesn't exist. What I mean to say is there is no action
basically that you and I ever undertake which is not motivated by selfishness.
Some kind of self gratification. There is none, you know. Even when you sit in a
in a {tsechu}, if you sit in a very holy prayer, and you're doing your prayers, I
mean, mainly your mind is distracted by ... how do I sound to other people
tonight, how do I look, did they notice that I memorized the whole thing, you
know, I don't think that person's doing it very well ... it's always infected with self
interest, every single action we do, is infected with self interest. Everything, you
know, there's nothing, I me standing up here teaching this class is infected by self
interest and self gratification, it's just our nature ... we have that nature. If you
don't do death meditation, it's even worse, I mean, that that pollution of your
motivation is is exaggerated when you're not doing death meditation, we all
have it, we all have it all the time. It's worse if you're not doing death
meditation. The fourth problem that they point out at this meditation is that if
you're not thinking that you're going to die tonight, then you go through the
you go through the motions of practicing ... we all do it ... you know, either we
don't practice, which is normal, or we break it all the time, but even when we do
do it, it's like rote, you know it's like we we sit up in the morning and we do a
{sangye chudang tsokyi choknam la} [laughs] you know, you do your whole
thing, you go through the whole thing, and then about twenty minutes before
you finish you're already thinking about what you're going to do at work, and
all the things you have to ... and what you're going to have for breakfast, and
stuff like that ... I mean I'm talking from ex from personal experience, you know,
[laughs] every morning, and then sooner or later you give it up. You dropped it.
I I have to interview students for each of these classes, and many of them have
{tantric} initiations, most of them who have initiations dropped their practice
after a while, I mean, eventually they got tired of it and they dropped it.
Something some problem there. And if you were meditating on death you
would you would do a very sweet {tantric} meditation today, you know, if you
knew you were going to die tonight you would really put a lot of enthusiasm
into your practice, you know, and that's the difference. It's not artificial. It's not
just pretending you're gonna to die tonight. You are going to die tonight. I
mean that's that's a big leap to make. I'm not saying to pretend you're going to
die tonight. I mean, know that you are going to die tonight. And act like that.
See that that's there a resistance among all of us when I say "don't pretend you're
going to die tonight; know that you're going to die tonight" And you your mind
reaction is this, no he he should have said, think as though you were going to die
tonight, or believe that you could die tonight. That's not the point. Know that
you are going to die tonight and act like that. [student: Do you mean, have a
feeling that you're going to die tonight, is that what you mean, like feel it in your
heart] Just decide that you're going to die tonight. And then act like that, and
and it's very simple, I do not mean act as though you are going to die tonight, or
pretend you're going to die tonight ... just decide you're going to die tonight, and
then decide what you want to do now. Maybe some people want to leave the
class [laughs] I don't know [laughter] ... then I'll know somebody that really
thought about it. [student: I mean, this may sound weird but if I really knew I
was going to die tonight I would probably go on meditating until the very
morning, and then the next morning [laughs]] [unclear] [student: well, I mean
it's like your whole life is going to crumble completely.] Yeah. I mean that's the
wa how you're supposed to practice. I mean that is ... I I don't even want to say
supposed, I mean, that's how you must practice, and I don't really believe
anyone's going to do it tonight, but I I think if you hear this enough times it will
dawn on you, I mean I've I've heard it many times, I've gone for a month of
meditating on it, and and it it sinks in after a while, after a while you do start to
act on it. There's a process of Buddhist education where it starts with just a lot of
classroom time, and and you can't get around it. You understand what I'm
saying, especially if I say it in English and not in Tibetan, but it does not sink in ...
it doesn't become reality for a long time. If you don't hear it said, and you don't
come to class, it never dawns on you [laughs] okay. So it'll dawn on you
eventually. I can't say it'll dawn on you tonight, but it is it is what you must do.
And I think if you try it just a little bit, there's this clarity of your life that
immediately happens, you get this totally clear awareness and you get some
kind of a good feeling inside that okay, now I'm doing the right thing. Because
whenever you're delaying and crapping around, you know it. And you feel bad.
And you you know you're wasting your life. And then when you have this real
clarity of knowing that you've you're going to die tonight, and just acting exactly
in response to that knowledge, you act totally correctly, and it happens very
rarely in a human life ... we have to try to make it happen.          [student: Is that
what you mean by the "death awareness habituation" that you just have that
feeling?] Yeah, habituation, and it comes, I mean I don't say it will come for an
hour or something like that ... just five minute periods during the day when you
say ... you get totally clear, I mean it physically feels like glass, you know, the
whole world feels like glass, and you're saying, I know exactly what I have to do
right now. You know. I'm I'm going to die tonight. I know exactly ... now it's
very clear what I have to do, you know, and it's very comforting ... it feels really
good ... you know you're doing the right thing ... you know, that's a very good
feeling. [student: And what it is that you have to do when you get that feeling?]
[laughs] [laughter] Pabongka used to hit people that asked him. [laughter]
There's this famous story, some guy wrote to him and said, [unclear] he's been
lecturing for two weeks on lam rim and the guy on the ... this is at the end of the
mandala offering and he says, "you've convinced me. What should I do?" you
know. I just spent two weeks telling you. [laughter] I don't know if I told you.
There's a guy who used to be in this class who came to me two weekends ago
and said my my grandmother died on Friday, my father died on Sunday. What
should I do? What what should I do, you know, and I felt like strangling him,
you know, like we sent you a postcard, you know, it's about death, you know,
like what to do about death, you know, and and you didn't have time to come to
class and now you want me to go through the whole class because your two
relatives died this weekend, you know ... the guy still didn't come to class. So,
[laughs] he just do one class. Okay. Number five is gets deeper into this life,
which means, you know,if you go out on St. Mark's place where I walk home
and you see all the twenty year old people, the sixteen year old people they're
less attached to life than we are. It's very interesting. You know, they could care
less about a car and food and planning for the future and an IRA and everything
else. And they're even more ... they're much more free of life than we are, and
what it means is, if you don't meditate on death ... and as you get older ... you
get more entrenched, and and you get more invested in this life, you know, the
older you get, if you're not doing death meditation and you're not keeping your
practice pure, the more you start to need all those things that you're collecting.
Okay. Whether it's the salary level that you're at or or the possessions you have
or the friends you have or the lifestyle you lead or the kind of food you have to
have every day, but it starts to becomes a real web, you know, as you get older,
it it becomes tighter and tighter and you get more and more invested in in this
life and in and in concentrating on this life and things that when you were
twenty didn't seem important at all now seem like absolute necessities. And and
to get those things you do worse and worse things. I mean ... not I none of us
killing people or stuff like that, but you do begin to have a certain kinds of lying
and things like that to get the things you need or or protecting them from other
people at the expense of other people and and those sorts those kinds of
behavior that as a young person you didn't need so much you need more and
more as you get older, and and then you start getting sucked in deeper. The the
last problem of not meditating on death and not having death awareness is that
as you die you experience intense regret and there's ... the scriptures are full of
stories who as they die, you know, they start getting this intense feeling of
terror, or this intense ... I think you see it a lot in older people, or people who are
going through their mid life crisis, where they start to regret their whole life, and
I've seen it in Dharma students also, I mean, now in America, after twenty five
years we have people who have been trying to do Dharma for twenty five years
and you meet some of the older ones, I met them say recently, and and there's
they're starting to regret their life, they're starting to regret what they did, how
they spent their time, what they concentrated on ... I mean that's a terrible
feeling, I think, to get to a certain age and then regret everything before, you
know, to get to forty or fifty and say I'm sorry for the way I spent my life. I
think that's ... it's something to think about, you know. There are people ... even
Dharma students ... who who will tell you, you know, I I didn't do this I didn't do
that, I had plans to do that and I didn't really get any of it done and I and
spiritually I'm not ... I haven't changed much since I was twenty, you know, I'm
not much improved if anything from where I was before. I've just wasted my
time. You know some of them became scholars of Tibetan, some of them didn't,
some of them can dos ... know all of these practices and some of them don't, but
you thing you hear is, I didn't change my life, and I didn't change my my
character, you know, I didn't change my my heart in all those years, and they
start to feel bad. They start to feel some kind of regret. And at death that's and
that's intensified. You really do review those events of your life [laughs], and
and start to feel really bad about them ... the worst of them. That's ... and regret
about having wasted your life. And like I think you get to the point where you
can't meditate anymore. Your bones are hurting too much, you know when you
get there, I tell you [laughs] I'm close, okay [laughter], and you feel and you feel
bad and you feel stupid, you know, you feel I should have done it while I could
because some bone hurts or some back hurts and you know it's not going to get
better. You get to a point where you can't do what you used to do and then you
regret it, you know. You regret that you wasted that time. If you're doing death
meditation it doesn't happen. That's the bad news. [laughs] I hate these.
Everybody in class looks grim. We'll go to [laughter] ... don't be one of those
dharma you know, oh it's so sick, I mean not sick, it's just sad. And I start to
meet some of these mid-life crisis Dharma students that say, I wasted my life.
You know I think ... lamas kept telling me what to do and I didn't do it, and now
I feel bad, I feel stupid, you know. We we're starting to produce these in
America. Say {chiwa} [repeat] {gompay} [repeat] {pen yun} [repeat] {Chiwa}
[repeat] {gompay} [repeat] {pen yun} [repeat]. {Chiwa}'s what? [students: death]
death {Gompa} [student: meditating] Meditate. {Gompa} {Pen yun} means
"benefit, good results". [student: In all cases tonight when you're talking about
doing death meditation you're just talk ... you're not talking about sitting, you're
just talking about] Right. I'm not. No I'm not. And that's important. I've
shortened it. It's it's "meditation on the awareness of death and I wouldn't even
say meditation, I'd say habituation, you know, 'cause it's just to get in the habit of
of living that way all day, and it ... try it, it's really cool, I mean you get this real
clarity, you know, like I've been trying it for the last few days because I had to
talk about it so [laughter] [laughs]like yeah, well I may I just well do that, that
that's not in the program, if I'm going to die today that not my program today.
Your practice is pure. First one. It won't be infected by reputation or fame or
other people's approval or anything like that ... it's really liberating. You know,
and you might lose a few friends, but you'll gain something [laughs] more
precious. You know, I mean, you you'll you'll alienate some people, if you really
are acting as if you're going to die tonight. You know, like your boss will be
upset that you didn't finish that paper that I was supposed to do today, but but in
your heart you know you did the right thing. Your practice is really pure. You
know. I'm doing it for the right right reason. And then in in the most common
reaction is that you actually start to practice better, you actually spend more time
practicing because you're not embarrassed to practice. 'Cause you don't you you
don't mind if people think you're stupid that you didn't show up for such and
such a ... like that, you say I was meditating, you know, you know. My boss
asked me to come in early tomorrow and I'm not going to go 'cause I'm me ...
I'm going to be meditating. [laughs] [laughter] But I I when when I get yelled at,
which I will be yelled at, at 9:00 am, I'll still feel right, you know, I'll feel like I did
the right thing. That's purity of your practice. That's okay. I mean it gives you
some kind of liberation. The second one is your practice gains power. And that's
just it's it's very similar to the first one to me, you know, you get..if you believe
in that you would only have one meditation session to get it all ready to die, it
would be very powerful. It'd be extremely intense. And and I think in a pure
way, you know, I think for example if you've been trying to medit ... visualize
your root lama for a month or years, you know, and then if somebody said
you're going to die tonight and you you better well have your root lama in your
mind as your die, I mean I think the the clarity of the picture would become very
good. You know, you would really ... I mean I can imagine you'd start crying,
you'd start you'd start ... it's like when you're a kid and they say, I remember I
was on a plane and they said the plane might crash, and and and you start
thinking ... I was Christian, right, so you start thinking, oh Jesus, and you start
visu ... for the first time you start visualizing this thing pretty clearly [laughs],
you know, you start wondering, what is this thing, you know, and it's a reaction
when you're when you're about to die. I mean, there's some gut thing that
happens when you're about to die where something comes up in your mind,
some kind of religious thought maybe, and and that and that's the the power I
mean, that you if you knew you were about to die then the visualization of your
root lama or tantric deity or whatever would become extremely clear, and it
would be almost like you were willing them to be to be with you at that
moment. And that's a good reaction ... that's a natural reaction, and and you
should be able to get to that point now if you're meditating on death. [student:
Michael. Are these death meditations where you actually sit down in meditation
and meditate on something or no?] [laughs] You can do you can do a {shargom}
on this, yeah, and then there are death meditations where you meditate on what
happens during death ... we're going to talk about that. How you should get
started is this. I mean, obviously, if you've been one of those lazys like me, or
you know, if you have trouble ... you know that you're supposed to meditate
every day but you just have trouble doing it, if you if you believe ... if you if you
know you're going to die tonight then you you don't have trouble starting. You
you can give up something else. Like the movie you were going to go see
[laughs] you know. It's not a problem to give of what you were going to do and
I think for Dharma people especially, and I'm talking from experience, Dharma
work is gets to be a worse temptation than the world, you know, like useful
Dharma work, you know, like like raising money for Dharma or or teaching
Dharma [laughs] or you know, stuff like that can be almost a more of a
distraction that non-Dharma. You know, it's more dangerous for us I think. You
must do your personal practice first. And your personal meditations must be
done every day and that takes priority. You must do it. So I think I think if
you're aware of death you ... the other things are good but this is essential, you
must do that. Number four is keeps you going strong. This is in the interim and
everyone's practice ... it doesn't matter who you are, I mean,, it can be St.
Thomas or whatever, and it goes like this ... you know, your practice goes like
this, you know, you have good days and bad days, you have weeks when you
can meditate well and you have months when you can't meditate well, you have
days when you you you're feeling real joy at having achieved something and
then you and then you get angry at work for two days and it destroys
everything, and you know, you go like this ... your practice your practice always
goes like that, there's no there's nobody whose practice is just always sweet and
intense and regular and always progressing, you know, there's no such thing.
Practice is like ... it it's going like this, it may be going up but it's always dips until
you get up, you know. And death meditation is very good for the valleys, you
know. When you're like when you're not you don't feel like practicing or you're
depressed about your practice, or you don't think you're doing much and you
can't get yourself to do much or you're kind of letting off on your practice ... you
can't keep up the intensity, then death meditation is very good, you know. I'm
going to die tonight. Like if you have a mild headache or something, or you're a
little bit busy, or or you didn't eat a good lunch and you feel like eating, I think if
you do death meditation it can get you over these ... you you will go ahead and
practice. You will go ahead and do your practice even though you don't quite
feel like it. And that's the use of death meditation at that point. And the fifth one
that gets you to the end, I mean,, to those of us, if you've had any good
practice ... like you've done some practice well, you know, some ... one of your
practices has succeeded, like you're trying to remove your anger or your desire
and you worked on it and you worked on it and you worked on it ... there's a
point where sometimes you get like sixty percent of the way through ... if you've
ever done a {le rung}, I don't know about Stilwell, I don't know about you,
Becky, there's a point about seventy five percent of the way through when you
feel like stopping, you know, you've been you've been at it for three weeks or
something, you've got one more week to go and it seems like the hardest time.
It's it's the last quarter, and ... or or you're just about got rid of a bad habit in
your heart, you know, you're like ninety percent finished and then there's this
tendency to slack off. Death meditation gets you to the end, the last ten percent.
The last twenty five percent. It it keeps you going from that hard point about
three quarters of the way through ... you're almost through overcoming some
bad habit you have, and then it's pretty common to get a little bit tired and slack
off and you go back to zero again, [laughs] you know. You go right back to the
habit you had before. Within a week or within a few days, you know, like
you're working on it for months, and then and then right close to the end you
slack off, and then ... I think death meditation takes you to the end and locks it in.
And and makes sure that you've actually polished it off ... finished it, you know.
It's like taking ... continuing to take antibiotics after the cold is gone. You know.
They say like you have to keep going for another day or two. It's like that. It's
like those medicines where you have to keep going even after the peak of the
thing is finished, and death meditation has that effect. Death awareness. The
sixth benefit is you die with satisfaction. And ah I mean, I I mean, if you've made
some hard decisions in your life based on Dharma, you know, like you decided
not to have such and such a position, I mean,, you've made a basic decision, or
you've had a chance to to be such and such a professor and you decided not to,
that you'd rather just practice, something like that, or you had a chance to have a
great career and you turned it down 'cause you wanted to have time to
practice ... or something like that. Then it's a little hard at the time ... and you
kind of doubt ... you have doubts along the way, but as you die it's like it's like,
oh man, I really did do the right thing. There's some kind of satisfa ... intense
satisfaction at the last moment that you really did spend you life doing doing the
right thing. And I think as you get older, if you choose a Dharma life you'll see
that among the people you work with or your friends, like I have friends from
college who who who are getting old ... we're all getting old now ... and they
come to me and they say, "oh you were so smart, you know, you did ... you
were so smart to give up all that stuff and do the Dharma thing". You know.
And as you get older, more and more people will will come to you and say oh
that..you know ... you could have had this such and such career but you chose to
do that instead, you were ... how did you think of that, you know, you're so
smart. I mean, every year that you gain in your life that choice will look more
and more intelligent. And and you'll feel more and more satisfaction. You don't
have to die to feel the satisfaction. As you get older people will ... just the
experiences of your friends who did not choose that way of life, gives you ... it's a
kind of weird satisfaction ... but you you get some kind of justific ... I don't
know ... what do they call that? [student: Fulfilment] It's like a confirmation that
you [laughs] did the right thing, you know, and at the time it was a little hard,
but to decide to do Dharma with your life, you won't ever regret it. You you'll
the older you get the sweeter it gets and the smarter you look to everybody.
You know [laughs] [laughter] it it's a ... what is that? There's a word for it ...
anyway. [student: Vindication?] It's like a vindication, you know. It's like a
choice you make ... the earlier you make it the harder it is. To to do to spend
your life on Dharma, but then every year that passes you you start to look
more brilliant, you know, and it really it really does, and then the Dharma
[unclear] is death, I mean, as you die I mean, death itself confirms that Dharma is
the best way to spend a life, and you you just have a very sweet satisfaction,
especially if you really tried hard, you know, if you really gave it your best, and
that's the also applies for things that screw up in this life, I mean, if your
motivation ... Tibetans call it {kum ro} ... you know if every activity you ever
went into was motivated by a pure motivation you'd feel some intense
satisfaction even if it fails, you know, at least you ... you have the satisfaction of
knowing that you did the right thing, and that that's the best way you could
have spent your life, and I don't mean it has to succeed. You know, 'cause it
never succeeds. You always die. It's a screw up. [laughs] Death itself is a ... you
feel like a failure as you die because you're dying, but there is this satisfaction
that you did the best thing you could, you know, and and you only get it if you
spend your life in Dharma. So meditating on death helps you get there. You
know, if you believe that you're going to die tonight, you'll get there. And just
check it out, you know, there's a guy coming tomorrow night ... very nice guy,
he's named Don Brown, he has a Dharma center in North Carolina, and he gives
he does this meditation and he hands out the wills [laughter] and people have to
make out their wills. [laughter] They actually have to go to a lawyer and make
out their wills. Just concentrate on this. And then they have to write their
obituary and they actually submit it to the newspaper, you know [laughter], I
mean, this is going to be this guy's obituary when he dies, so they actually ... I
don't know, I think it's pretty cool, I think it's a pretty smart idea. He's a he's a a
professional, you know, he's a doctor and he sees a lot of death, and he
encourages his students to to actually write out their wills ... to actually go to a
lawyer and as part of the course, and write out your will, because it just gets you
in the mood of ... that's a death awareness, you know, you're thinking about
your death. [student: I think it makes it real.] It makes it real. And it's cool. I
think it's a good idea. We should do that. But I have no time. [laughs] Those
are the first two broad categories of death meditation. See ... meditating or
contemplating on the problems of not meditating about death and then
meditating on the benefits of meditating on death. Or being aware of your
death. Number three is ... say {chi lo} [repeat] {jitar} [repeat] {kyewa} [repeat].
{Chi lo} [repeat] {jitar} [repeat] {kyewa} [repeat]. {Chi} means {chi wa} "death",
okay {lo} means "awareness" okay, it means mind, you can call it awareness,
death awareness {jitar} means "what kind of", {jitar} means "what kind of".
{Kyewa} means " to develop", okay and the and the third point in the death
meditation is well ... sorry [laughs], what is what is death awareness? Okay.
What kind of death awareness are you supposed to develop? And Je Tsongkapa
he divides it into two. He says, first I'll give you the ki the kind of death
awareness it's not. And then I'll tell you the kind of death awareness it is.
[student: Are these the third and fourth categories or are these subsets of this
same category?] This is three. And this is three A. And you're going to get a
three B. So these are sub-categories of number three. And here Je Tsongkapa
say, look, when a person's on their death bed, and they're starting to get that
pain that we talked about, this extraordinary special kind of pain that comes
from dying, and they start to panic. And they start to look around the room ...
they start to realize that they're going to lose everything, they're they are gonna
lose contact with anyone who they ever cared about permanently. I mean,, it it
dawns on them at some point ... and I don't know, I guess some people it's
weeks before they die, some people it's up to the last minute, they don't, it
doesn't dawn on them but they are going to be ripped apart or separated from
everyone they ever cared about and they will not meet them again. You know,
that they just it suddenly dawns on them that that that's going to happen. And
then it ... depending on you know relatively how much you care about the
physical objects you've collected, it dawns on you that you're going to lose every
one of them, and I think there's even some kind of jealousy about who's going to
get them [laughs] you know, and and the fact that you can't control them any
more. It's gonna be someone else calling the shots. All the things you collected,
other people will meet together and divide them up [laughs] within forty-eight
hours of your death, or something. They'll they'll actually start thinking about it
immediately, or even before you die. They'll they'll start deciding between them
how they're gonna divide your possession, and and that dawns on you at a
certain point, as you die or shortly before you die, this feeling that you're going
to lose everything. And then it dawns on you, I think the last part, is that you're
going to lose your body. You know, and this body which has struggled so hard
and you've taken so such good care of to the with great prejudice and you start
to realize that you don't know where you're going, you don't know what's going
to happen next ... you get some kind of terror. You know. On top of that, the
thinking processes are disrupting. As the and the Buddhism describes it ... and
you can say the electricity in your mind, as the synapses start to short out, you
know, as the as as the oxygen starts to lower, as the blood starts to clo clog and
harden, you you lose your memory and you lose your rec normal thinking
processes and and it becomes a hallucination, you begin to hallucinate, by nature,
because the physical basis for the mind is is being disrupted, radically, so it's not
just that you don't feel well, it's that you're you're no longer able to perceive
reality the way you ... in any normal recognizable way. Reality becomes some
terrible hallucination at that point. There are certain typical hallucinations ... and
you can't even think clearly about the hallucinations ... you are part of the
hallucinations. You know, you are in the hallucinations. And you you can't even
remember what it was like before they started, and and that's just that's just
part ... yeah. [student: What are some of the typical hallucinations?] I can't go
into them. But they're in the tantric texts. And you can study them ... and you
must study them. But it's just like terror, mainly ... very terrible hallucinations.
And then and then you have this extreme derangement ... you know, you your
body is par dead by then. Nobody knows you're going through this except you,
you know, and they're all standing around saying "he died", you know. But your
mind is already in this terrible hallucinations and and things like that, before you
enter the bardo. And so Je Tsongkapa says, "is that death meditation? Are we
supposed to meditate on that? No." That's the one ... that terror or that fear, or
that apprehension at the last moment of death ... the panic, okay [laughs] death
panic [laughs] okay, Je Tsongkapa says, "that's not the death awareness I'm
talking about". And he he has sort of a joke at the end, he says, you don't have
to meditate on that, [laughter] you know, you don't have to practice that. That's
natural [laughs] you know. If that was death awareness, then I wouldn't have to
write a book about it. 'Cause everybody has that, you know. And he says, I'm
not I'm not telling you to practice that; that would come by nature. Yeah.
[student: So people I I I sort of vaguely hear about people who do this death
meditation and they sit down and they, you know, try to simulate their death
and go through that feeling of panic ... is that a no no, that's not the point?]
There is a practice like that ... it comes much later. But as we talked about death
meditation here ... I mean, this one is required to do that one. You have to
become a master of this one before you can even think about that one. So it's
not it's not that panic. You're not supposed to sit down and try to simulate the
panic that you're going to feel as you die because [laughs] that will come
naturally. That you don't need to meditate for that. Says Je Tsongkapa. And he
says here, "the death awareness it really is" is people say, you know, I'm a
Buddhist, you know, and you say, "well what's your practice?" And they say,
"well I meditate". And you say "what do you meditate one?" And they say "my
breath", you know, or "I watch my mind". And you say, "well what's your
goal?", you know, and they say, "I would like to be calm at work, you know, and
I would like to not feel so much stress and anxiety, and I'd like to be more
friendly and and more more considerate of other people ... which are all noble,
those are important things ... it does not qualify as a Buddhist practice. It is not
Buddhism.       Minimum attitude for Buddhism, the minimum activity for a
Buddhist is to do something that helps you after you die ... you focusing on your
death. That's the minimum motivation. That's called {ke drup chin wa},
minimum motivation, of a Buddhist. [student: Will you spell that?] {Ke drup
chin wa}. Small capacity person. Small scope person. Minimum scope. I mean,
the scope of your Buddhist practice must extend beyond your current life, in so
far as it's focused on the current life it's not Buddhist practice. It doesn't qualify
as minimum Buddhist practice. It's not described in any Buddhist book as as as
being Buddhism. And that's something people sometimes never grasp. I mean,,
a lot of people never know. Taking refuge, minimum motivation is concern with
your next life. You know, it it's it's if your practice is focused on this life, it's like
New Age something ... I don't know what. You know, but it's not Buddhism.
The minimum Buddhism is is concern with with what matters after you die ...
focused on that. And it's selfish. And it's focused on your own death. And and
that's a necessary foundation for all other Buddhist practice, including
bodhisattva activities and things like that, you you have to have this first. This is
the very lowest ... this is the first mediation of the lam rim. Yeah. [student: Wha
what do you mean to focus on what matters after you die?] I mean, focus on the
the things in this life that are going to affect your experiences after the moment
of your death. You know. Don't engage in anything in this life which is focused
on anything less than the moment of your death and the moment beyond that.
You know. Don't don't waste your time on things that are related to this life. I
mean, it doesn't mean that you can't have a job, no it doesn't mean that. What
should the job be? I mean, it doesn't matter. Find something that feeds you,
something that doesn't leave you exhausted by the end of the day, and and
something where you can turn it into a Buddhist practice, where there's lot of
offensive people [laughter], you know, you know, find you you should have the
practice ... you need it, you need that practice, you really do need that. But but
that's all, you don't need more than that. And more than that is dangerous. You
know, something that leaves you exhausted, something that leaves you with no
time for retreat, you know, something which is dishonest, or or could create
desire or you know something like beyond what you can handle. Don't do it. It
doesn't, it's not going to help you when you die. And it's just dangerous for a
person to engage in a thing like that, you know. It's more dangerous than
walking through traffic, you know, to live the normal life is more dangerous
[laughs] than a lot of things that are called dangerous for a Buddhist, you know,
because you have to die. And you have to die when? [student: Today. Tonight.]
Tonight [laughs]. Today, right. Take a break. Don't die during the break
[laughs] okay [laughter]. Promise me, promise me. [laughter]. The death
meditation is act ... everything ... how to do it, okay, so the first step is what?
[students: Thinking of the disadvantages.] This was thinking thinking of the
disadvantages of not meditating on death. The second one? [students: The
benefits.] The benefits of thinking you're going to die tonight. Third one?
[students: What is death meditation and what it's not.] You know, what is it?
What is a death meditation and what it's not and then number four is how to
actually do a death death meditation. How to get death awareness. I don't a like
too much to call it death meditation, it's more like death awareness, it's more like
something you have all the time. [student: {Mi tok shi wa}] We're con we're
getting there. So there're gonna be three principles in the death meditation. This
is how to actually do it. You have to know the three principles. Three principle
steps. Say {ngepar chiwa} [repeat] {ngepar chiwa} [repeat] The whole structure
of death meditation rests on the three principles. We're going to cover the first
one briefly tonight and then the other two in the next class, okay, but but but the
fact that you must die is the first one. Say {nam chi} [repeat] {ma-nge} [repeat]
{Nam chi} [repeat] {ma nge} [repeat]. {Nam chi} means "when you're going to
die", {nam} means "when" or "the time", {chi} means "death", the time of death,
{ma nge, ma nge} means" not certain; totally uncertain". Okay. The third
principle is when you die, when you die nothing helps but Dharma. [student:
Which one is this?] {Chu} means "dharma". {ma tok} means "except for". {Mi
pen} means "doesn't help". So what it means is, nothing except the Dharma
helps. Basically the only thing you carry with you beyond death is your mind
and whatever's planted in it. And what's planted in it is determined by what you
do. So I mean, you don't have to worry about what you're going to wear in the
bardo, [laughs] you don't have to worry about what you're going to look like ... I
mean, are you going to be handsome or not, you know, 'cause your body's not
going with you, your money's not going with you, your friends can't go with
you, your job, you career, you name, your fame, your reputation, how other
people think of you, nothing goes with you. The only thing that's carried over is
whatever karmic seeds you put in your mind by the ... what you did or what
you said or what you thought in this life. That's the onl ... those you must take,
you have no choice. So only if ... the Dharma's really the only thing that's can
affect you at that point. Nothing else can affect you past that point. It's
whatever whatever Dharma you did can have a can help you and and that's the
only thing that can help you past that point. We're only going to try to cover the
first one tonight ... I'll do it pretty quick ... it's getting late. Each one of
these...yeah. [student: I have a question. Is the way you die, how you die the
way you die what is that dependent on?] Sorry, I lost ... what did you say?
[students: [unclear]] There's there's nine reasons for the three principles. And
three each. The first one is, nothing can stop it. Okay. And here they get into
this thing where if the time comes to die, when the time comes to die, nothing
can stop it. There's no power on the planet that could stop it. And you can hide
anywhere you want, you know, I think of ... what was his name? The airplane
guy? Howard Hughes. [student: Hughes] You know, he's in the..he rents a
whole floor of a hospital, he has twenty doctors working on him, he's spending
millions of dollars and there there's nothing to do, you just die, they say your
family can be hanging on to your legs and hang holding your hands and nothing
can stop, you just die, you just go. And the Shah, I mean, the Shah of Iran if you
were in to those times, I mean, I was in the I'm in the diamond business, when he
came to New York and was tried to buy his life, these diamonds flooded onto
the market and he was selling diamonds by the pocketful and it flooded the
market, and he was trying to raise cash, and and he had the best specialists and
the best doctors and just died, there's nothing that can stop it. And they they go
into this long thing, there's actually nowhere you can go, you know, there is no
corner on the planet that you can go to save yourself. There's no place you can
go. It doesn't matter whether you lie on the sidewalk or lie in some expensive
hospital bed, you've still got to go ... there's no place to hide. And no way to stop
it. That's the first one. The second one is ... this is just, you know ... I had a big
fight with somebody about this ... my boss said you can add time [laughs] you
know. You know, you can eat well, and you can do what you have to do, but
every time you take a breath you've lost one more breath of your life, and
breaths are fixed ... the number is not infinite. Everytime you listen to a song,
everytime you eat, a kind of meal, every time you drink a certain kind of juice, I
mean, every action you take you are that much closer to death. I mean, it's one
less than you can ever have again. And you tend to think that you could listen to
a certain song as many times as you want and you tend to think that you can go
to a certain restaurant as many times as you want or that you could meet people
who you love as many times as you want, but it's finite, I mean,, there's so many
times you're gonna meet them, maybe it's five left, maybe it's four left, maybe
it's twenty left, but there will be a last time you meet them, and and every time
you meet them it's one more time closer to the last time, and it's always like that.
Every time you experience something you are one experience closer to death,
and there will come a time when you cannot repeat that experience even if you
want to. You know, like you have a favorite song that's two minutes long, you
just want to hear it one more time, and there'll come a time when you can't. You
know, there's a favorite place you like to go. There'll be a time when you can't
get there, you know, you don't you won't be able to walk there and and people
that you love, people someone that you know there's always a last time that you
meet them, and and that they're always closer to death. Every time it's it's a
weird thing that every time you experience something you're that much closer
to death. Every time you meet someone you really care for it's it's one more
meeting closer to death, to the time when you won't meet them again, and that's
just the nature ... it's always leaking out. Every moment it's leaking out, you
have to use it wisely. Yeah. [student: What about the white tara meditations
[laughs] ... for longevity. Would that ... ] It's mainly based on good deeds, you
know, picturing a white … figure in front of you doesn't extend your life. She
cannot do anything to extend your life at all, you know. If she could she would
and you wouldn't have to ask, and she can't. There's other things going on
during that meditation that that's based on your own virtue, you know, if you
have an extraordinary medal of virtue, it that lengthens your life. But not just
picturing a white person, you know, it can't do it and if that white person could
extend your life, if they had any compassion at all they would do so equally to all
sentient beings and not just because you're picturing her, you know, but she
can't. Or she would. [laughs]. There's something else going on and and at a
very very advanced level you wouldn't even have to die but that's something
else we have to [unclear]. [student: So is what you just said contradictory to the
fact that you can't add time? By having a lot of virtue you do add time?] Yeah.
Yeah. That is contradictory. You can add time. I mean, let's say, normally,
ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the time, but you can, and also even
in the Hinayana there are methods in the Abhidharma [student: Shall we say
you can't conventionally]         How about significant ... yeah, conventionally
[student: conventionally add time] Actually you can. I mean you can stop the
whole thing and that's the point of this class, but we won't get to that until later
[laughs]. Hope nobody dies before we get there. Number three is this thing
that know, any any way if you decide to practice now, you don't have time
anyway, I mean, I go on these five six weeks retreat and it amazes me how little
time I have. I have nothing else to do. All I have to do is eat poop sleep and
meditate and I still don't have time, you know. Still still the day goes by and I
wonder what I did, you know, and it's amazing, you know, you basically have
about half an hour to practice every day, even if you decide, you know, most of
us don't practice more than half an hour a day. The day is twenty-four hours
long, you know, we devote two percent of it to our practice. That's about what
most of us do. You know, if you're a special kind of person you spend forty-five
minutes in the morning and maybe an hour in the evening, and that's it, that's all
you do. So there's there's the the time it takes to feed yourself, clothe yourself,
you know, keep yourself healthy, and do all the useless things you have to do,
that you don't really have to do, it just eats up all your time. I mean, Tsongkapa
is saying, and and it's in the scriptures, even if you finally decide, oh I'm just
gonna do Dharma my whole life, you don't have any time anyway, you know.
A normal person has has got almost no time at all. What's two weeks per year
vacation. What is that, you know? What does it mean? What can you do in two
weeks. I mean it takes about ... I can tell you, it takes about eight days to get
over your exhaustion from working to start meditating. And if you decide to go
into retreat for those two weeks you can't do anything for the first seven days
anyway. You don't get into it for seven days, so that leaves you three days, and
you've gotta get back on the third day that leaves you two days you gotta clean
up the retreat house on the second day, so you've got one day [laughter], I'm
serious, and I did it for a long time, I know, I can tell you. And that's just terrible.
That's that's some kind of horrible thing, you can't go like that ... it's too
dangerous. You know, you need more time than that. Even if you decide to
practice you won't have any time ... you don't have time, even if you really want
to, you don't have time. And you gotta cut out the time that you're sick, the time
that you're distracted, the time that you're upset, like I was this afternoon
[laughs] my boss grilled me for three hours, and all I could think about was
getting grilled, you know, and and then the time you have to take out the time
that you don't feel right, and that you're de depressed or and or the time you're
out to dinner with somebody and then there's just no time left. If you really boil
it down I think it's about a half hour a day if you're lucky, under normal
American lifestyle. Circumstances. And that's it. And you probably will die
before you have a chance to do more than a couple of days of retreat, and you
have to, you have to change that. I'm not saying you shouldn't work, and
Rinpoche is is a big proponent of having a ... part of the Buddhist path is is
having the right livelihood, and it's a very important part. But but you have to
take care of your spirit, you know, [laughs] you have to take care of that, and
and I don't know if you can do it with two week vacation [laughs] frankly. I and
I'm and I don't also like to pro promote you know, Dharma students who don't
have any steady sustenance and bother other people, that's that's against the
Dharma practice too, you have to have something that's responsible, and
something that gives you a steady healthy income, and and something that
leaves you not exhausted at the end of the day, and something that gives you
time to do serious practice. So you have to find something like that. And it's not
impossible in this country. Maybe India is hard or something like that, but in this
country you can do it. It takes some it takes some working at it, you have to try
hard to do it. I think most of the time when we say we can't do it it's just that we
didn't try very hard. That's all to death meditation. [prayer: short mandala]
[prayer: dedication]



The Asian Classics Institute

Geshe Michael Roach
Course VIII Death and the Realms of Existence.