Серия ежедневной практики, курс 05 — Медитация о смерти и о конце смерти (1999, Роли), занятие 1

[Speaker 2]
The Asian Classics Institute presents Death Meditation with Geshe Michael Roach Recorded live in North Carolina Session One Satsang with Geshe Michael Roach Satsang with Geshe Michael Roach First touch it on your hand, like this. Satsang with Geshe Michael Roach Okay, so let's start.

[Speaker 1]
This is how I do, personally, death meditation. I was on a plane. When I was in high school, I had a chance to fly from Phoenix to Washington, D.C., and we were flying into Chicago. And it was kind of exciting for me because I'd never been to the East Coast. And then the flight was coming to Chicago, and instead of landing, they started to circle, you know. And we were all, like, wondering what was going on, and it was sort of a wide circle, but we didn't notice much.

And then they started to go up really sharp, and then down like that. And then they would go into a dive, and then they'd come out like that, and come out, you know, and go up again. And we're like, you know, what's going on, you know?

And they did this for a while. They would go up, and then down, and then they'd go up, and then down. And then they...

And the stewardess was obviously cracking up. You know, the stewardess knew something, and she was shaking, and it was really weird. And all the excitement went out of the trip, and we're like, what?

And then they announced that they had trouble with the landing gear, and they had been trying to shake the doors open, and that we'd probably have a crash landing, you know. And so then they said, we're going to circle until we're almost out of fuel, so that we don't blow up as much, you know. And they said it very professionally, but the stewardess was cracking up, and starting to cry, and it didn't make us feel very good.

So we had 45 minutes to meditate, you know. And we went in this wide circle, and we were just sitting there, and it was very cloudy, and they said that the ground couldn't see us. So they buzzed the runway a few times, so that, you know, and they tried to track us and see if we had our landing gear down.

And it was really scary. And then they said... They started talking to us about 20 minutes before landing, and they said, okay, now everybody, this is how it works.

Women have to take off... Anybody that has shoes on that you can't run in, you have to take them off now. So everyone's taking off their shoes.

And then they said, anybody with rings, you have to take them off because they'll melt through your hand on impact, you know. And so, this is getting really weird, you know, and they're taking off jewelry. And then they said, so we're going to practice going into a crash-landing position, and you take your shoes off and your jewelry off, and then you get your head down like this.

And we practiced once or twice, and it was very lonely. When you put your head down, you couldn't see anybody else, and all you could hear was a few people crying, or things like that, and it was getting really scary, you know. And then I remember the stewardess completely broke down, and it was about 10 minutes away.

And the weird thing happened in the airplane. Up to then, it had been a normal airplane ride, and people were... I remember people were complaining about how stupid the movie was, and people were complaining about the food, or people were jostling for the overhead compartments, and people were being sort of cold to each other, and it was a normal American flight, you know.

And then suddenly, over the course of the 45 minutes, everybody changed, and a few very strong people started to walk around and talk to people, and people started to write their loved ones, and write notes, hoping that something would survive. And the sweetest thing happened, and everybody started to be really sweet to each other. It's really weird.

People started to talk to each other, and people started to hug each other, like strangers, you know. And nobody was talking about the movie or anything, and people were hugging each other, and people were going around and helping the older people, and people were just harassing each other, and it was really weird. People were comforting each other, and it was really, really strange.

A few people just rose out of the thing, and they helped the stewardess to her seat, and got her seat. And everybody, there's this intense feeling of love in the airplane. It's really weird.

I never felt anything like that. Like when His Holiness gave the first Kalachakra, and I don't know if you were there in Wisconsin, and it was the same feeling. He talked about bodhichitta, and Jeffrey Hopkins was translating, and he started to cry, and everybody else started to cry, and we couldn't go on, and His Holiness started to cry.

And it was the weirdest, it was very similar to that, and everyone was just so, this feeling of humanity, you know. And it was wonderful. And then we went down, and the thing, the wheels worked, and we looked outside, and they had ambulances and hearses.

A lot of hearses were waiting. And they had the runway, they had foam on the runway, the whole way, and it was kind of weird to look outside and see all these, you know, the ambulances were okay, but the hearses were a little disturbing. And that was, that's how a good death meditation should go, you know.

And then everyone started jostling each other again, you know. You know, it lasted like 10 more minutes or something, and then it was all gone, in like a space of time like that. But that's actually, the steps of a good death meditation, is exactly that.

And the goal of a good death meditation is exactly that, okay? So, you'll see a section in your reading, it'll say what a death meditation is supposed to be like and what it's not supposed to be like. And, you know, we talked last night about, a little bit about what this is not going to be, okay?

This meditation is not going to be something where you try to learn. There's a tantric meditation that you do where you visualize what's going to happen to you as you die, and you get, as your body dies, you have certain hallucinations that go through your mind, and they're standard, they happen to everyone the same who's not ready. You go through the same hallucinations.

So, like being carried away on a flood or things like that, the same chaotic, like an acid trip or something, you know, just crazy things happening to you and crazy beings coming and horrible things. And as your mind breaks down, the body breaks down, then you go through certain standard hallucinations and you see standard visions, and we're not going to go through that. I mean, that's a meditation to get used to the last moments of your death so that when you're really afraid, you can try to think of a good virtue, a good virtuous object while you're dying because it's very important as you die.

So that's sort of like, my Lama used to call it the lottery system, meaning you try to practice until your odds are like one in a hundred or a thousand that you're going to pick the right karma as you die. And he said the odds are about the same as winning the New Jersey lottery, you know. It's not a very, it's a last-ditch desperate thing you can try while you're dying if you die very well.

And it's like Poha or something like that. And I think, first of all, there are a lot of books that the Lamas of our lineage say are, how do you say, wrong about the death process, like the book of the dead, Tibetan book of the dead is, in our lineage, described as being mistaken on some points. Then there are books about, there are different advertisements that, I mean, courses I've seen advertised, if you do this Poha thing just before you die, then you don't have to worry about anything, and anybody can learn it in two days with so-and-so.

And if that were the case, then there wouldn't be so many people crowding samsara, you know. If it were that easy, seriously, I mean, if it were that easy to, if you could live like a mediocre spiritual life, and then at the very end do something in an hour, and get reborn on a higher plane, or be enlightened, then we wouldn't be here. I mean, the Buddhas would have taught it to us many zillions of lifetimes ago, and we wouldn't be, it's not that easy, and we are proof that it's not that easy.

So, it's just, it doesn't work that way. It's like you collect karma, you know, 65 karmas per finger snap, times 60, times 60, times 24, times 365, times the number of years you've been alive, and that many karmas working against the 10 or 20 that you're going to be dealing with at the moment of your death, the odds are too bad, you know. You have to take care of it before you die, okay?

That's the idea. The idea is to take care of it now, and then you can die in a very leisurely fashion, okay? So, this is not going to be, I think the first thing to say is this death meditation will not be some kind of poet practice or something like that.

I'm not saying they're dumb or something like that. They're wonderful practices, and they're very powerful, very secret. Under the training of an authoritative lama for a long time, and with the guidance of a lama like that, then they can be very powerful, and especially the poets described in the Lojong text, in the text on compassion.

And actually, the poet done at that moment is a lot like what Christ did on the cross, okay? Very, very similar. That at the last moment of your death, you train to consciously try to accept the suffering of other beings as you die.

So, as you die, you feel some special... ney chökyi dungyel means some special pain comes in your body, and when that pain comes, you're supposed to think that that pain represents the pain of the entire world, and you do a special tonglen at that moment. And that's considered a really great poet to do.

And I think you'd have to be a little naive to think that Christ wasn't doing something similar. You know what I mean? I think you'd have to be really spiritually myopic to think that there's not some connection there, you know, that he wasn't doing something similar or doing exactly that.

And if you read those Lojong texts, it's quite striking that the wording is even the same of what goes on and what happens. So, to take the pain of the entire world into your pain at that moment, and as you die, try to wipe out other people's pain. And as you know, a good tonglen doesn't mean that suddenly there's no more root canals in the world or something like that.

But it's a very powerful act. It must have been powerful to people two and a half, two thousand years later still practicing this person's teachings. So, it must have been something going on there, okay?

So, those are powerful paths. And sometimes you should learn to do them, and you can do them. But that's not the goal of this death meditation.

This death meditation is more, in a sense, practical. It's something you can start doing right now. And if you do it well, you won't need that other stuff.

You know? Like, you can read the book later and appreciate them, but you won't need them. You see what I mean?

If you do a proper death meditation, you won't come to the point of paura. You know, you won't ever reach the moment of that kind of pain. It will never come to you.

It will never happen to you. So, personally, I prefer to take things ahead of time. Take care of things ahead of time?

It's not like my taxes, okay? Which are still not done from last year. Okay?

Better to concentrate on this meditation, I think. Because out of the two, death and taxes, it's only the death one. I proved it, okay?

So, anyway, this is the goal. We'll be doing a death meditation that you can do all day. And then it prepares you for dying properly.

And then in the Lam Rim Chim-mo, which is what you'll be studying, the reading that you've got is from... It's called The Great Book of the Steps of Liberation, The Steps of the Path to Liberation. And it's probably the greatest book ever written in Tibet, although that's a difficult call.

There's 200,000 spiritual books there, and who knows? But it's generally considered the greatest book. It's also the best written book.

I mean, he's like the Shakespeare of Tibet, and he's the Aristotle of Tibet at the same time or something. I mean, it's both together. And it's one of the greatest books ever.

It's probably, I don't know, one of the greatest books ever written. So we're going to be studying death meditation from that. That's his presentation.

And you'll be getting a translation of that whole section, okay? So that'll be what we'll be working with. And in there he goes into...

He has a quotation about what death meditation shouldn't be. And that's some kind of anxiety about your death, okay? So the goal of this meditation is not that...

to be morbid or pessimistic or have some kind of bad feeling about your death. Like, you know, there's a meditation in the Avidharmakosha called the Khengru Dhingin Dzin, where you... and the Dukpa Gompa, which means you open up a piece of gangrene on your forehead.

Like, you can see the skull among this green rot. And then you start to expand it bigger. And then you make it...

And your whole skull is like green and rotting and the skin's rotting off. And then you spread down your body. And then you go out to the edge of the two oceans, Pacific and Atlantic.

And you destroy everything on the way. So even, like, this building is 200 years from now and the roof is falling down and everything's dusty and rotting. And then you make the trees rot.

And then you make all the people dead and rotting. And it's like the day after, you know? Like, it's like that, you know?

And then you do it all the way out to the ocean and then you bring it back, you know, to this dot. And then you stop there. And so this meditation is not like that, okay?

All right? No, I mean, this is not a... I'm trying to tell you what it's not, okay?

It's not a... It's not a blue-green-lights-through-while-you're-dying meditation. And it's not a...

It's not like some kind of disturbing meditation or it's going to make you more disturbed than we are already, okay? I don't mean it, all right? This is actually some kind of empowering meditation.

Like, by the time you finish with this meditation, if you do it right, then you should feel stronger and empowered and very... We were talking about last night that if you do this meditation well, you feel some kind of vibrancy about your life. Your life is like...

I say popcorn. It's like James Brown popcorn, you know, if you heard the... You know, and it feels like some kind of energy and some kind of excitement to your life.

If you do this meditation properly, then you're just... It's like a dharma party all the time. And your life is like going really booming and things are happening, and beautiful things are happening all around you, and you're like that.

So, I mean, a real good death meditation should get you into a state of mind like that. I'm going to go now through Je Tsongkapa's outline, how he goes through it. And the first part of the death meditation...

There's four parts, okay? The first part is what's the problems of not doing death meditation, okay? All right.

Actually, I'll give... I have to write it on the board, okay? Yeah.

That's my cheat sheet that I didn't get before. Are you still working on that? Okay.

I'm going to do it a little... We're going to have a theoretical part of the class, then we're going to have a meditation part of the class, okay? So I'll do the theoretical part first, then we'll take a break.

You'll load up on cookies and stuff, and then when you get back, you'll be able to concentrate, all right? So... And then you'll crash right after class.

That's what usually happens to me. And we're going to go through... That's how we're going to structure the class, okay?

And there'll be homework, and do it, okay? I don't know how tough we're going to be. Robbie, what do you guys say?

Where is he? In New York this year, we kicked butt and said nobody gets into class without a homework. And instead of 15 people graduating the course, it was like 85 or 90.

And we lost 20, or something like that. But it was okay. The rest really got it.

So... I don't know how tough you want to be. Let's do it.

You can miss one homework, okay? Otherwise you have to have a homework to get in, all right? So which means you have to pay...

That's the trick. You have to pay attention to what I'm doing up here, okay? And it's not for me.

You know, it's a lot of trouble for me. Because then I have to chase all the graders and try to get them to do it. And somebody always loses 14 papers, and I get 14 letters in the mail.

And... So... I had a letter from a prisoner recently that said, I'm so mad about the mismanagement of these courses that I'm not taking anymore.

You know, we sent them out for free, which is very expensive. And we're like, great! Okay.

[Speaker 2]
All right.

[Speaker 1]
You don't have to put the Tibetan on your homework, unless you do it in Tibetan tract. And I encourage anyone who's studied any Tibetan to try to do it in Tibetan tract, okay? Yeah, I'll read out loud.

It says, chi den, chi den, C-H-I-D-R-E-N, ma gombe, M-A-G-O-M-P-A-Y, nye mik, N-Y-E-M-I-K, M-A-G-O-M-P-A-Y. Say, chi den. Chi den.

By the way, try to repeat it. It's good for you, okay? It puts a seed in your mind, and then we meet again.

Chi den. Chi den. Ma gombe.

Ma gombe. Nye mik.

[Speaker 2]
Nye mik.

[Speaker 1]
Chi den. Chi den. Ma gombe.

Ma gombe. Nye mik. Nye mik.

Good. Chi den stands for chiwa jenpa. Chiwa jenpa means death awareness.

Awareness of your death. And we're going to talk about that, okay? Awareness of your death.

Chiwa jenpa. Chiwa means death. Jenpa means to recall, or to be aware of something, okay?

Gompa means to meditate on death awareness. Remember that in Tibetan, meditation means to get used to it by thinking about it over and over again. Ma gombe means not meditating on death awareness, okay?

And then nye mik means the problems that come from not meditating on death awareness. So if you don't meditate on death awareness, then the problems that can come to you, okay? And that's the very first section that we're going to talk about.

This is a very... I mean, the way Je Tsongkhapa presents it, it starts out sounding very much like the airplane trip, okay? It's very much like the airplane before we knew there was a problem, okay?

So you're on a typical airplane flight. You're... I was on one yesterday, you know, and we had a guy in front of us trying to turn this computer...

The stewardess comes and says, turn off the computers. And we're like, come on, you know? And then one of us didn't do it very fast, and the guy sitting in front of us turns around and says, you know, the stewardess said to turn off the computers.

There's a danger for the airplane. You know, and then they give us these cheap pretzels, really cheap, and then it turns out to be two sizes smaller plane than they told us. It's like a 20-seater, and we're going through these storm clouds like this, and, you know, the whole thing is just a normal flight.

We're sitting, and just through the whole thing you're sort of whiny and complaining, and you're not appreciating anybody, and everybody in the plane looks like kind of grumpy, and that's life without death meditation, okay? No, seriously, okay? Yeah, that's your life without death meditation.

You're just kind of semi-selfish all the time, you know, not too concerned about the other people around you, complaining about, you couldn't get the things you wanted, and that's exactly how Jetsun Kappa describes it. He says, but your whole life is like that. You go through life complaining about the movie, complaining about the pretzels, you know, not appreciating anybody or anything around you, and just trying to get happy yourself, you know, like, you land, you want, you're in a group, but you want the kind of smoothie that you want, and you don't want to stop at the bookstore, and other things like that, like you're just sort of graspy, you know, and not in a major way, but in a half-assed way, you know, like you're just sort of in a half sincere, you know, you're not even got the effort to really go after the things you want, just sort of, I want more orange juice, or I want, you know what I mean? And it's this, it's a non-vibrant, it's a bored, how do you say, it's sort of like a dull-minded, slow, half-hearted attempt to get the things you want in your life, you know, and you're like going around and complaining about this and whining about that, and not really taking any action, like you don't get up and go back to the stewardess and demand, you know, some real ice cream or something, you know what I mean? Like you're just sitting there, and no, that's the life of a person who's not doing death meditation.

It's not so, it's not like a tragedy yet, but it's just this half-boring thing, and half-hearted thing of lazily trying to get what you want and avoid the things you don't like. And it's like a bad flight. On United Airlines it was, okay?

And the second day, and the stewardess is grumpy, and it was like that, and the whole flight was like that. And it's, the point that Jetsun Kappa makes is that this half-hearted, wimpy attempt to get the things you want, it's not even a wholehearted, vibrant attempt to get what you want. It's like a dull, dull-witted, dull-spirited thing when you're trying to get what you want and avoid the things you don't like.

And he says, even if you get the orange juice, or even if you get something better to eat than the pretzels, you know what I mean? Then what is involved in acquiring those things is bad deeds. You see what I mean?

So the whole attitude on the flight, even if you get what you want, you know, even if you can, and you've been on flights like that where somebody just hassled the stewardess until finally they gave them the first-class food or something like that, and just to get them to stay quiet. We had a flight from India like two weeks, three weeks ago, and there was one guy just like that, fighting the whole time. Finally they just served him, you know.

Okay, anything you want, you know. But you see, what Jetsun Kappa is saying is that to get those things, to get the first-class food, necessarily requires some bad deeds. You see what I mean?

To be the one passenger in the economy that gets the first-class food comes because you've complained so bitterly, and been such a pain in the butt that they just give up. They brought down the assistant from the cockpit to serve this guy, and they're just trying to get him to sit down and be quiet. And they actually told him to sit down and be quiet.

And what Jetsun Kappa is saying, and this is the point, is that even if with that kind of life you're able to acquire things that you might want, the bad karma you've collected, the additional debt that you've collected karmically is very negative. It's very negative. So that's the bad about not doing death meditation.

It's not just that you're dissatisfied the whole flight. It's that you're A, dissatisfied, and then B, the attempts to get what you want are violent. They hurt other people.

You don't care about other people. You're just trying to struggle to get what you want. So it hurts you in two parts.

You see what I mean? It hurts you now because it makes you an unhappy person who's trying to get more. You see what I mean?

It makes you a person who's trying to get more in this life. And then it makes you demand it. You see what I mean?

And then the bad karma of demanding will hurt you later, after the flight. You see what I mean? And that's the point.

That's the whole point. It's that if you don't do death meditation you'll end up being like that. You will spend your life concentrating on petty wants and dislikes, likes and dislikes, and you'll miss the whole point of a good human life.

You see what I mean? You'll just be concerned with stupid things. The difference between a person doing death meditation and not doing death meditation is the flight to Chicago, and then they announced that people might die, and the whole atmosphere changed.

Definitely no one was worried about the pretzels. You see what I mean? And I'm not kidding.

It was very marked, the difference. You know, people were not talking about pretzels. No one was worried about what movie was going to be.

You know what I mean? Or how the movie had been. And nobody was like complaining that they didn't have enough leg room or arm room or anything like that.

Did they still not have enough leg room and arm room? Yes. Were they still handing out or had just handed out lousy pretzels?

Yes. Was the movie stupid for half the people? Yes.

But were they thinking about it? You see what I mean? Was it important to them knowing that they might die?

No. You see what I mean? And a person who's done a good death meditation, it just cuts the junk.

You see, it cuts the crap. You know, that's not... It's not that you have to struggle not to want ice cream or you have to struggle not to read the New York Times on Sunday morning.

It's no struggle. A person who's done a good death meditation, it's not like you have to go to the airplane after the announcement is going to crash and say, now don't worry about the pretzels. You know?

They don't have to do that. Seriously. You don't have to do it for people who know they're going to die.

They just already are doing it. You see? It'll make your life much easier.

Like Americans are struggling to live a good Buddhist life. Like not to want stupid things or petty things. But if you do a good meditation on death, a good death meditation, then it's automatic.

You see? It's just automatic. You won't have to go and try to concentrate on not wanting stupid things.

You just won't want them automatically. It won't seem attractive to you. And if you don't do that, then you're caught up in petty, petty things.

If you haven't done a good death meditation, you're just concerned with dumb things, petty things, acquiring things that if you thought for five minutes, you know you're not going to be able to keep them. So what's the point? You know what I mean?

You could die at any minute and you're struggling for a better car, a slightly better car. You're spending the precious lifetime moments, moments of your life on getting a better car that you could lose in ten minutes. I mean, it's actually insane.

I always think of it as the reading, people who smoke after reading the warning on the box. It's like, it's insane. It's a little crazy to know that you're going to die and then still spend those precious hours of your life trying to get something that you know you have to lose.

You see, I mean, it's like smoking after you've read a very clear warning about, you know, they should have a lung, like a cut lung. They made us in high school, they made us pass around this lung of a guy who smoked his whole life. And it was just gross.

It was all like asphalt. And it was cold and heavy, I remember. And it was stinky of that formaldehyde.

But it was obviously gross. And they should just put a picture of that on the front of the cigarette box, you know. But how many people would still smoke, you see?

So you know you're going to die. You know you can't take that thing with you, but you're still going after these things. You know, you're still spending precious lifetime on that.

So if you don't meditate on death regularly, if you don't become a master of this meditation, on the whole negative side, you see, Jetsun Kapha covers the negative side first. You will just become one of these people who's interested in petty things their whole life. You know, I was with a very wealthy lady, my boss's, I won't say who, anyway, in Thailand.

And we were at the Oriental Hotel because it's rated number one in the world. And she's having an oatmeal or something out on the terrace next to the Bongbong River or something, I don't remember. And these guys in white jackets, and it's like 120 out, you know, and they're in these white jackets.

And she demands maple syrup, you know. And there's this big consternation because they're the best in the world and they don't want to displease anyone because then they'll drop the number two or something, you know. And there's this big meeting over in the corner and everybody's like, Hey, what's up?

Hey, what's up? And then they bring out, they say, oh, it's something sweet. They say, bring out honey.

No, no, I need maple syrup, you know. And you're in Thailand, you're like 12,000 miles from the nearest maple store. And there's this big scene and she was smashing plates on, you know, and people were upset.

And we're doing the same thing all the time, you see. We're at the same level. We're at the same level.

We're concerned with things that are meaningless, given that we're going to die. You see, I mean, half the things you're worried about are maple syrup in Thailand. And she didn't get it.

I don't know what happened to their rating. But you will become like that. Or maybe we are like that.

Maybe we're just demanding things out of life that are crazy, given that we're only going to be here a short time. You see what I mean? So that's the first part of the meditation.

I'll read it for people who can't see. But you have to repeat it first. Say, Chiden, Gombe, Penyun.

Chiden, Gombe, Penyun. Chiden is C-H-I-D-R-E-N. C-H-I-D-R-E-N.

Gombe is G-O-M-P-A-Y. G-O-M-P-A-Y. And then Penyun is P-E-N-Y-U-N.

P-E-N-Y-U-N. Chiden is death awareness. Gombe means to meditate.

And Penyun means the advantages. The advantages of thinking like that. By the way, at this point, Je Tsongkhapa also says we all have a little Chiden already.

Everybody has a little bit of awareness of death already. If I come up to you and say, Pilar, are you going to die someday? You know, you say, Yeah, I understand that.

I know I have to die someday. And I say, well, do you know that... Are you aware that you can't choose the time?

You know what I mean? That it's going to be chosen for you. That you don't have any control over the timing of it.

You say, yeah, yeah, I understand. You know, people can't just go to the hospital and say, I'd like to die on Friday at four o'clock. You know, stuff like that.

You can't do that. That's not the way it works. Like, it just comes for you.

And when it comes, that's it. And it comes normally unexpected. So, yeah, I'm aware of that.

You know, are you aware that everyone dies like that? You say, yeah, yeah, I'm aware of that. Are you aware that most people suffer greatly at that moment?

Yes. Are you aware that none of your possessions will have any meaning to you on your deathbed? None of them will have any importance to you at all.

You say, yeah, I understand that. Generally everyone will say, yeah, yeah, I understand. That's Chiden.

So you have some death awareness already. But it's not developed enough to make you do anything. You see what I mean?

It's like a stillborn death awareness. You know, it's not working. It's not functioning.

It's not helping you in your life. It's an immature death awareness. It's not strong enough to work.

Okay? So, this death awareness is a little bit stronger. Okay?

There's something stronger about it. And the advantages are this. And it's exactly like the plane.

Okay? It's very, very much like the plane. If you're in an airplane and you know it's going to go down, you don't worry about the small things, the petty things.

Like, petty things are petty to you. You recognize them. This is just not important.

Okay? This guy said something to me last night. My boss is trying to screw me.

You know, I'm not happy with some people in my family, or blah, blah, blah. But it becomes all petty in light of having to die that night or something. You know, if you know you're going to die tonight, then what's the use of struggling over whether the steak is done right at the restaurant, or whether someone said something mean to you yesterday, or anything like that.

What's it matter? It doesn't matter anything. You see what I mean?

It's just irrelevant. It's petty. So, the benefit, the first benefit, is you cut out all the petty concerns of your life.

Somebody will criticize you about something. You're just like, it just rolls off you like water off a duck. You know?

It's just like, okay, so, that's alright. You know, you don't stop and calculate how bad it is, and how much you're going to hurt them back, or something like that. It's just irrelevant.

Somebody on the plane, complaining about the pretzels when the plane is going to crash. You know, you just, you don't even listen to them. You don't even hear them.

You see what I mean? So, you eliminate a lot of the pettiness of your life. Secondly, you'd eliminate a lot of the useless things that you do.

You know what I mean? Like, if you knew you were going to die tonight, would you do a lot of the things that you do? You see what I mean?

And I'm talking especially about, I divide them into obvious stupid things, and then gray area stupid things. Like, obvious stupid things to me are like, fighting with other people, arguing with other people, stuff like that. But, and then, and then sort of entertainment, sort of things that you don't need.

Okay? Buddhism recognizes the value of entertainment that you do need. Okay?

So, like, if you're really stressed out, and you've had a hard week, and you want to watch a comedy on TV or something, Buddhism says that's good. I mean, bodhisattva vows require you at a certain point to rest when you need to rest. And you're supposed to think while you're watching this stupid show, I'm watching a stupid show so I can chill out a little bit and help other people as soon as I get out of here.

You know what I mean? You know what I mean? And that's a very accepted Buddhist method, and don't ever think it is.

You can't, like, go crazy 24 hours a day because it creates more mental afflictions, and then you're a worse Buddhist. So, you have to take care of your health, you have to take care of your rest, and you have to have entertainment sometimes. But I'm talking about the fourth comedy show in a row that night.

[Speaker 2]
You know what I mean?

[Speaker 1]
You know, like, you are well-rested already. And that book by Lama Tsopa is over there on the desk, you know, and you're just like, no, I'll do it later, you know. And, or, you know, everyone tells me they can't meditate at night because it's too late.

And I say, well, what did you do between 7 and 9 that it got to be 11 already? And they say, oh, you know what I mean? So, yeah, we're talking about the 7 to 9, you know what I mean?

And then, yeah, take care of, I mean, just eliminate some things. If you knew you were going to die tonight, would you do that thing? That's the test, okay?

That's the litmus test, that's the barometer. If you knew you were going to die tonight, would you spend time on that thing? Okay?

And if you do a good death meditation, you'll stop doing stupid things. Just automatically you'll eliminate them. It's very good for those Buddhists among us who have guilt all the time about our practice, you know?

You know, like you're always saying, I should have been doing blah, blah, blah, but I was attracted to blah, blah, blah. Tomorrow I'll do better. And then tomorrow you do the same thing.

And it goes on year after year, this very Christian guilt about it. You know what I mean? And you feel, you feel like you're not a good person, or you're not an honest person, or you have to go to the lamas and tell them every once in a while, you know, I waste most of my time, or something like that.

And you're struggling against your inability to practice. Like, intellectually you know you have to practice, but then you can't do it when the time really comes. And if you do a good death meditation, then it takes care of it automatically.

You see what I mean? Just automatically you won't be interested in doing dumb things. You see what I mean?

And that also eliminates a lot of bad deeds. You see, if you're not interested anymore, for example, in collecting extraneous possessions, extra possessions, then you'll just be happier. You know, people in America, when they see monks and nuns, they think of two things, celibacy and the haircut, you know, and the red robe, okay?

Like, that's what makes a monk a nun. But really the essence of the Vinaya, most of the vows is, and even the ones about celibacy, is not possessing extraneous things. You see what I mean?

Not having, not owning things that you don't really need. And like, we're not allowed to have more than two sets of robes, for example. You know, in ancient India, you had this robe and a change of robes, so you wouldn't be, you know, in a buff when you washed your clothes.

So, that's all. And the whole point of Vinaya is to simplify your life down to what you really need. And every time you pick up a new possession, you have to not only find space to put it, you have to ensure its protection against other forces and people.

And all of that takes mind power and time power. You have so many kilobytes of memory in your mind, it won't hold more than that. And then every time you pick up a new possession, you have to remember where it is.

And what's the status on the payments of that possession? And did I do it this month? And actually, for a real good Buddhist, each new possession represents a, what do you call, what's the opposite of an asset?

A liability. It's a new liability. You see what I mean?

It's one more thing that you're going to have to sell a certain amount of your mind time. If I ask you, where's your car right now? You can remember.

And that proves that it's taking up a certain amount of your mind. If you don't have a car, you know, you're like, you know what I mean? And I'm not talking you have to get rid of your car, okay?

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying extraneous things, like the things you really, go through the things you own and evaluate them in terms of whether you really need it or not, given that you might die tonight. And then your whole room, your whole house would become very simple and quiet, peaceful.

And your mind would become correspondingly more peaceful because you don't have to take up all those megabytes of space where the database is for tracking those things. You see what I mean? You don't have to remember where your car is or where the keys are or where's the insurance or when's the next payment due or anything like that.

You're freed from a whole list of things like that. And when you become celibate, it's the same thing in a different mode. You see what I mean?

You just don't have to think about all that stuff. Your mind is, a certain percent of your mind is just totally freed. And the longer you live that way, then the more free you are.

And so it's, that's much preferable to telling people, you can't own things, you shouldn't like things. You know what I mean? Just think of things as liabilities.

The more things you own, each one is a liability. It just clutters your mind and your house and your life and your future. You know what I mean?

So, if you're doing a good death meditation, you'll automatically reduce the amount of things you own. And I'm talking, in New York it's very cool, you just put them out on the sidewalk in five minutes. No, it's very convenient for us.

You know, you just set them there, or you put a big sign, you put them in the back of your car and put a big sign saying, nothing to steal in here. And then they break your window and they keep your window down, okay? And then, and they go in and they steal it.

And then they're liabilities on somebody else, okay? And, it's like that. So really, the advantage is, extraneous activities, extraneous things, and then by extension, extraneous relationships.

And I'm not talking holy relationships. I mean, the more lamas you have, the better it is. That's fine.

I'm not talking like that. But I'm talking, you won't want to have friendships of the type where you just go out and waste time together or something like that. And I'm not talking about good friendships where you go out and talk about Dharma, or see a good movie, or relax together.

You should have some friends like that. And you should recognize the value of relaxing as Buddhist practice. But I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about like 16 friends that you never really had much of a relationship, and it's just a way to spend time. You know, like, you clutter up your whole next few weeks with lunch dates, with people with whom you're going to blab about the latest politics or something, and then not, not, then die. You see, New York City is a very sad place in one sense, because there are so many sophisticated people who, you know, who live a very vibrant social life.

Social life in New York is very sophisticated and vibrant. There are a thousand things to do every night. And you see well-dressed people of every class, you know, and every age, you know, enjoying themselves on the street, in the movies.

I mean, you see people just constantly milling around the city. But then you run into these older people who are so sad, you know, like, they used to have a vibrant social life, and now it's dawning on them that that was a big waste. And they're still trying to do it, but they can't do it very well because they don't look very nice, and no one invites them anymore, and their income is not what it used to be.

There's this whole class of people getting old in New York who are very miserable and sad, people who were very sophisticated in 1970, and now they look a little out of date and sort of sad. And you see that it's dawned on them that that was a waste of time. You see what I mean?

That it wasn't something important. But they don't know any other way. They don't know anything else to do.

So they're still trying to at least go to some reception somewhere tonight. You see what I mean? And like that, okay?

So you eliminate all those. Those are the advantages of a death meditation, is that you eliminate all those useless things. Third one.

I said, Chidin, lo, chitabu, shik, kyepa. One more time. Chidin, lo, chitabu, shik, kyepa.

Okay. Chidin means that awareness of death. Okay?

Awareness of death. Lo means that state of mind. Okay?

Chitabu means what kind of. Okay? What kind of.

Okay? Chitabu. What kind of.

Okay? Shik means a. Okay?

Like what, what, which one. How's that? Okay.

Shik means which one. Kyepa is the same as in bodhicitta. Okay?

This kyepa means to develop or to gain or to, to be able to, to grow in your own mind. Okay? The point of number three is, and we'll get to it, and this will be tomorrow in the evening.

What, what is a good death awareness? You see? What kind of death awareness do you want to get?

You see, I mean, which, I'm sorry, we're going to do that tonight actually. Let's do it right now. And that's just the point.

The point of good death meditation is not to be afraid. That's not the point. Okay?

It's not like to terrorize you. It's not to get into some kind of maudlin or depressing thing where you imagine yourself with your eye falling out or something like that. Okay?

I mean, it will, but that's a different thing. It's, it's not meant to make you nervous or, you know, we already have a problem with our own self-esteem. And, you know, I did the same bad deed this morning that I admitted last night.

And, you know, it's depressing. And on top of that, you tell me I'm just a hunk of rotting meat, you know. It's not for that.

And it's not to make you nervous or afraid or depressed or anything like that. A person who's doing a good death meditation is excited, you see what I mean? And you're vibrant.

And that's the point of, Je Tsongkapa makes a big deal about saying good death meditation is not some depressing thing. It's like, it's exactly this, okay? It's exactly this.

I'm going to die tonight. Okay? If you reach that level of of thinking all the time, I'm going to die tonight, now what's important to do?

Okay? And that's a good death meditation. So, you know, if you get good at this, and by the way, this can be the subject of a daily practice.

This can be the subject of a three-day weekend retreat at Kadampa Center led by Don Brown in a couple months or something like that. This could be the subject of a one-month retreat. And I've tried that.

It's interesting. But the goal is this, that you are truly thinking each time you undertake an activity and each time you start to acquire a new possession, do I need to do this if I'm going to die tonight? You know, is this meaningful if I'm going to die tonight?

Okay? And am I really doing what I really wanted to do if I'm going to die tonight? And personally, I divide that state of mind into two.

One is, you know, did I do all the worldly things I wanted to do before I died? You know what I mean? And I think you've got to get over that.

I think if you've got this thing about skydiving, then go and do it. You know what I mean? Get it over with.

You know, like, get rid of all the things you thought you might want to do. You know, go through those things. You see what I mean?

Like, eliminate them one by one. Like, this is where they say, you know, if you knew... This is what they say in the movies, you know, you got...

I saw a movie about this guy who's blind and then he got his sight back and then he knew he was going to lose it in a few weeks. So what did he do? He went to his favorite hockey team that he wanted to see his whole life and saw, you know, because he knows his eyes are going to go bad again.

And that ethos, that feeling of a person who knows they're going to lose their eyesight again in six weeks or something, you know, then how do they go? They're like, they're not like wasting their time watching TV, you know what I mean? They're like, they're going to go out and see all the things like the Eiffel Tower, you know, like you can't feel the Eiffel Tower, you know, you got to go see it, you know, and you got to be like that state of mind, like, I want to do all the things I ever dreamed to do that I was putting off because I didn't have time to do them or something like that.

Like, do your wildest dreams, you know, and even a world of dreams is okay, but a good death meditation state of mind is, I'm going to die tonight, what do I want to do right now? What's the most exciting, you know, what are the great things I really dreamed of my whole life? And that would probably lead to some kind of adjustment in your career, okay?

And I'm not talking that you should quit your job tomorrow and then be bumming off your fellow Kadampa Center students within six weeks or something, because that happens and I don't mean, I don't mean it like that, okay? I'm not, you know, that's not the goal of a death meditation, okay? But you might start to adjust your career, like figure out a way to work a few days less per week or something like that, or maybe branch off and do what you really wanted to do.

You see what I mean? So, so many people are working in a job which they don't really want to do, and somehow they don't have the real, something has to trigger you to move, you know, to change, and usually it's only a disaster or something, like they lay off everybody or the company closes and then finally you have a chance to do what you really wanted to do. Most people don't have the strength, I was in corporate life for 15 years, most people don't have the courage to leave when they really want to leave.

So they normally start acting up so they can get fired, you know what I mean? Subconsciously they start acting up, you see what I mean? And what I'm saying is that if you do a good death meditation then there should be a change in your lifestyle, in your career, in your dreams, and you should be doing all the things you dreamed of, okay?

Because you're aware that you might die tonight. So you're not like putting it off to I'll try that thing later, I'll go to that country later or something like that. Do it now, okay?

I mean, a good death meditation should lead to this kind of vibrancy. Now imagine, I was talking about it last night, imagine if you were living like that every single day. You see what I mean?

What would your life be like? You know, it would be a constant, I call it like a cutting edge or something, dharma cutting edge. Like you'd always be doing the most vibrant, the most powerful meditations.

You would be faced with the idea that you're going to die tonight. You know, what would your tantric practice be like? You know, what would you do?

You know, would you just sit there and half-heartedly recite some long thing or what would you do differently? You know, you're supposed to be having a certain worldview in tantric practice. Well, maybe then you'd say, oh, let me try that.

You know, something like that. You know what I mean? Like, actually go out in the street today and try to have that worldview and see what happens.

You see what I mean? I mean, your life would become very exciting and you would become a very, very, I don't know how to say, it's like a dharma party. Your whole life would turn out like a dharma party and you'd be like doing immediately the most vibrant, exciting, you'd be going for it.

What have you got to lose? You got like 8 hours to live. You know, so go for it.

You see what I mean? And that's not some morbid state of mind and that's not some dull state of mind and that's not like some guilt trip that you didn't do your practice today. It's like, it's like going for it, you know, it's like an excited thing.

I don't know how to describe it, but it's very exciting. Your life becomes very exciting and you're not wasting a moment and you got all this stuff happening and you're excited about it, you know, and things are cool and you're, you're doing it and you're not, you're automatically disregarding the petty things. You know, you don't care if the food is cooked right.

You know, you don't care if the bed is soft or not soft. You just don't care about stupid things. You don't care if somebody said something bad about you.

It's like, okay, that's fine and then you go on because it's just like complaining about the pretzels when the plane's going down. You see what I mean? And your whole viewpoint changes and that's a real death meditation.

That's what I want you to get the feeling tonight, okay? If you get going on a good death meditation, your practice will take off, your personal life will take off, your career might get adjusted, you see what I mean? And everything for the better, everything more exciting and you won't regret a thing.

You see, we talked about last night, the big deal about not doing death meditation is that you die with regret. You see what I mean? On your deathbed, you're thinking, I wish I would have done that.

You know, you meet old people, constantly tell you that. Almost every old person you meet is saying, you say, what's the worst thing about being old? And they say, you know, I was back in 1940, I met this guy and he was really cute and I wanted to say something but I didn't say it and I still think about that, you know?

And I should have gotten for it, you know? And they say, like old people, a lot of old people say that the most depressing memory or the most depressing thing about getting old is contemplating all the opportunities you had to go for it and you're a little scared or you wasted the time. You let the opportunity go by and you didn't go for it.

They say that the worst state of mind when you die is gyupa. Say gyupa. Gyupa.

Gyupa. Those of you who know the Four Powers, Nambar Simjin Paitok, number two, is gyupa, means regret. So regretting a bad deed is a good deed, okay?

It's the only kind of negative state of mind that's a good deed actually in the Abhidharma, alright? I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the gyupa of getting at the end of your life on your deathbed or being, you know, the cancer that's killing you and you're sitting there and you're thinking about all the things you should have done, could have done, might have done and you can honestly say that your whole life was this static thing, you know, thinking about doing something exciting and something you really wanted to do and thinking about maybe one day getting into tantric practice or something, you know what I mean? And not going for it, you know? And then to die like that is very bad karma, okay?

To die with that kind of state of mind is the opposite of po'a. It's a downward po'a, okay? That to die with that is called sisay.

It's a kind of attachment to your present life and your body and your mind and a regret about what you wasted your time on could take you to the lower realms. So there's a very practical reason to do death meditation is to keep your rear end out of the lower realms, okay? A very practical thing is that you don't get this real ugly regret.

To die in that negative state of mind is very dangerous. You see, you go to a very bad rebirth. So, if you do a death, good death meditation your whole life, if every day you're like waking up and saying, you know, what's the most exciting thing I could do today about my dharma practice, you know, what could I do to really rip it up today?

This is my last day on earth, you know? Then you would, if you did that day after day for a month or two months, imagine what a person's like who's been doing that for a year. You know, imagine what, how life looks to them and the kind of opportunities they're running after and stuff like that.

Okay, so they don't all work out, you're going to die tonight anyway. Who cares? You know, it's not like if they talk about you tomorrow you won't be there to be embarrassed about it.

You know what I mean? It's, you know, it's, go for it, you know what I mean? I mean, that's, then you won't have this guilt as you die.

That's the most important thing. so we're not trying to get into some kind of frightened attitude about your death. Imagine how a person dies who's spent their whole life doing the most, you know, exciting, the most powerful practices they could do at every given day.

And as they die they can honestly say they gave it their best shot. You know, they don't have regret. They're like, they're, when they're very honest they can say very, very, totally, honestly that they spent every day well.

And every moment of the day well. And they didn't waste a minute. You see?

Then, Je Tsongkhapa says those kind of people die in a much different way. The karma of having lived that way is that you don't have the kind of regret and suffering that other people automatically have who have wasted this precious life. You see what I mean?

So you just die happy. You know, you're like, because you can honestly say you tried your best. You know, you can honestly, from the depths of your heart say, you know, I went for it and I didn't always succeed and I had a lot of problems and a lot of people thought I was crazy.

But I can say I tried my best. You know what I mean? And I didn't waste my time.

Not a moment. You know, and die with nothing. You know, die, I met this lady, I won't tell her name, okay?

We were out in Arizona looking for a sponsor for this retreat center and I said, and her mother had just passed away, which we didn't know, but she suddenly had much more money than she used to have and she's like, we were asking her for a small donation and she's like, I can give you a big donation, you know, and we're like, great! And then she says, and then we find out that it came from her mother and we get this lawyer and we get Winston who's a financial guy and he says, we got this way that if you donate the money this way you can save all this tax money. He says, what tax money?

And we said, the inheritance tax, you know, and she says, we are melons. We know how to die. You know, we don't die with things.

We give them away before to our family so we die with nothing. You know? And the government doesn't get a penny from us and hasn't for six generations.

You know? And she says, you know, we know how to die and they're not going to get that stupid 55%. It's the 55% that bothers me.

It's the extra 5%. The 50-50's okay. But the extra 5% is an insult.

So we have to We have a tradition in our family. When you get old, you give it all away to the children and then you rent your apartment from the children. You see?

And then legally you die with nothing. And she said, it feels so good.

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
You just set up life to die with nothing. No regrets. No stuff.

Everything's taken care of. And actually in this family they actually plan it that way. And they're just free at the end.

You know? And that's a very good state of mind. So if you've really done a good death meditation, you've divested all the junk in your house.

You've divested of activities you don't need. You've divested of relationships that weren't really going anywhere and you're just doing them because you didn't have anything else to do. You're just trying to fill your appointment schedule.

And so many New York lunches. I like that. And, do you have a lunch on Friday?

No. I don't know what to do. You know?

And like that, you know, divested everything and you can die just free. You see? And then by extension you can live free.

You see? You're living free your whole life because you don't own anything that you don't need. Okay?

Like that. Then last one then we'll take a break. And then we'll do a meditation.

Say, qi den, gong be, tsu. qi den, gong be, tsu. qi den is C-H-I-D-R-E-N.

Gong be is G-O-M-P-A-Y. And tsu is T-S-U-L. Qi den means that awareness of death.

Gong be means to meditate on it. And then tsu means how, how to meditate on it. Okay?

And that's the actual meditation. Okay? And that's what we'll be starting on tomorrow.

Okay? Last thing to say about tonight. Oh, to give you a rough idea, you have a syllabus that, if you don't have it yet, it's going to be given to you on the way out or something.

Can I see that one? I just wanted to go over it with you. The first class is, What is death meditation and why do we need it?

And you know all that now. Class two is called Death is Certain. And that's a meditation on the certainty of death.

That's the first of the three steps of death meditation. Okay? If you did an A-B-C under four.

Okay? A-B-C under four. Number A would be, death is certain.

Death is positive. You have to die. Okay?

It's on your homework, okay? Four A. Death is certain.

Forget the Tibetan, okay, graders? I'm not going to give it. The second part, four B, is when you're going to die is absolutely not certain.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Not certain. Don't die right now. Okay?

We need you in the class, Alex. Okay? All right.

Third one, is to realize that when you die, it's only your spiritual life that has any meaning at all. The rest is all meaningless. Okay?

The third one is when you die, it's only your spiritual life that can be of any meaning at all. Okay? It's only that that's going to affect you at all.

You know? That's going to be tomorrow evening's class. We're going to cover the uncertainty of the time of death, and what to do when you die.

And then my Lama, you know, so many people asked him what to do when friends of theirs were dying, that he actually made like a three or four page thing about, you know, very practical advice of what to do when somebody you know is dying. Like, if you're in a hospital and somebody's dying, what can you do to help them? And so we're going to cover that tomorrow evening also.

That's a... we wrote it up, and it's going to be a reading. Okay?

It's very brief, but it's very to the point, and it's very useful if someone's dying. You know, it's very important to know what to do when someone's dying. Because you hear all these Dharma rumors, I call them, that I should do this, or I should do that, and this is very authoritative.

This is from the former abbot of Seremey, and he's very good.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Class four is going to be about... that'll be Sunday's early class. What to do...

If you know you're going to die tonight, and you've tried all the drugs you wanted to try, and, you know, you've parachuted and all that, then what would be a very meaningful thing to do? You see, I mean, what happens when you do a good death meditation is that you get in the mood to try all the things you wanted to try, and then you quickly burn through all the meaningless ones. You see what I mean?

Within a few months, you know, if you knew you were going to die, you would quickly do all the dumb things you wanted to do. You see what I mean? The things that are exciting, but just you want to try them because you were afraid to try them, or you never had time to try them, or...

I'm thinking of skydiving, stuff like that. You know, get that out of the way, and then quickly you would become sort of hungry for something ultimate to do with your time. You see what I mean?

Something very important to do with your time. So many people who win the lottery go crazy after six months. You see what I mean?

Because they can do anything, and then it dawns on them that they... that nothing's worth anything. You see what I mean?

Because they get to try everything, and they feel very depressed at that point. You see what I mean? So, I heard that many of them go back to their jobs as janitors, because at least it had some meaning.

You see what I mean? Even though they don't have to anymore. So, number...

So, what to do if you're going to die tonight? What's the most important thing? And that's dak chen yam je.

We talked about it last night. It's a very holy practice of putting yourself in other people's minds. And we'll talk about it early on Sunday.

Okay? Number five. I was teaching death meditation in New York.

We talked about it for a while. And I started to feel not quite honest trying to convince people that it's positive they're going to die when it's not. All right?

Now, I think we have to have a class in... The last class should be how not to die. You see, I...

I like Sogyal Rinpoche's book, and it's helped many people, called The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, right? It's one step up from The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Okay, so there's this...

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is down here. And then there's the Book of Living and Dying, you know. I'd like to see a book up here called Death and How Not to Die.

You see what I mean? And we're going to go over the intellectual meditation. You know, intellectually, why it is true that you don't have to die like that.

Okay? I.e., why you can become a tantric deity in this life and forego all this stuff. You see what I mean?

I don't think it's good to have a... a death meditation and describe dying and what to do when you're going to die and all that, and then shortchange people and tell them, by the way, you don't have to die. You see what I mean?

You do have an option. And if you do a good death meditation, then... then you should get more interested in that option.

You see, you do have an option. According to... to Buddhism, you can become a...

a deity. You can become Tara or Manjushri, whichever you prefer. Okay?

And it's not some kind of a mythical thing, and it's not some kind of a... esoteric thing, not like that. It's not some kind of a voodoo thing or...

It's a quite forthright, quite practical method by which you can become a being like that in this lifetime, and not have to go through all this. You know, that you have an option of not going through this. And I think, in my mind, a lot of times in Buddhist classes, you're getting shortchanged.

You know, they're describing to you the suffering of life, and they're describing you how to be a better person, but they don't go higher and say, by the way, you know, don't forget, this is option number three. You see what I mean? You can reach a state like that.

That's the whole point of Buddhism. The point of Buddhism is to... is a serious attempt to get into that kind of being before you die.

Okay? And you can do it. The whole goal of Mahayana Buddhism is to reach that state in this life.

And I think we don't talk about it enough. You see? So we're going to do a very good death meditation, and then we're going to do a tricky death meditation.

Okay? So that will be the last class on Sunday evening. Okay?

So please take a break, and we'll do a short meditation when you get back. Okay? We're going to do about a half hour meditation, first death meditation, and we'll go through a very brief preliminary.

So I'll go through the preliminaries in a very quick way. I encourage you, if you don't know the preliminaries or how to start a good meditation, then bring a tape recorder tomorrow for the early session especially, and I'll go through them again. And then what you can do is follow it when you're doing your own meditation.

You see what I mean? At home. And it's a good thing to do every day.

The Tibetan word for meditation is gom, and it means to get used to something by doing it over and over again. And this meditation will not affect you much unless you do it over and over again. And if you do it over and over again, then you'll get to chi-wa dharma, chi-den.

And it's a very, very sweet state of mind. I can't describe it enough. I can't really give you the sense of it, but it's like being at a festival or something your whole life.

Benjamin Franklin called it a continual Christmas, and it feels like that. It feels like Christmas every morning. And you get up, and your mind is clear, and your life is clear, and no junk.

And you know it. You know it. And you feel good, and you feel right about it.

And there's this joy all day long, exhilaration all day long. So, you know, it's not what you thought when you saw the advertisement for a death meditation, right? So, it's very exciting.

Okay, so here we go. Get into proper meditation posture. If you don't know, then go to Kadampa Center and ask them to teach you.

Basically, right leg on top of left leg, if you do a half lotus, which is all I can do. Get your shoulders straight horizontally. I carry this heavy briefcase, so one shoulder is always like that.

Head should be erect like that, straight, you know, forward like that, as if you were looking at Viviana. And then put your eyes down a little, you see what I mean? Then you get that neat Buddha look, you see.

Okay, so don't put your head down. Don't put your chin down, but just normally, not too high either, but, you know, like a soldier. And then your eyes down like that in contemplation.

If it bothers you to see things, then close them. But if you can keep them like halfway open and just unfocused, that's ideal, because then you won't get so sleepy. Then left hand down first on your lap, and right hand on that, palms, palm on palm.

And first watch your breath. Watching your breath means watching the feel of the breath in the inside of the nose, okay? And try to take rather deep breaths, okay?

Try to breathe rather deeply, and then release it in a very relaxed way. And try to get all the air out, okay? So don't force too much, but take a good deep breath, and then take a good deep breath out.

And then we'll do that for a while. We'll watch. And then stay in there, and I'll be leading you through the preliminaries, and then into your first death meditation.

We've got this jello that you have to eat just before that. No, okay. The first step is to take refuge, and taking refuge, in this case, we can just think of the difference between worldly refuges like money, family, food, and think about the other refuges like being prepared spiritually to die.

So, compare in your mind worldly refuges, and then spiritual refuges that can help you after you die, or as you die. And we spend just a few breaths thinking about that, and then we move on to the next preliminary, and these preliminaries set your mind up for meditation. Next preliminary, think about bodhicitta.

Think about someone who needs something physically, mentally, ill, or sick, or some other kind of problem, and think about being able to help them. Someone specific. Next preliminary, invite a holy being before you to meditate with you.

Anyone you consider especially holy. The Dalai Lama, or Jesus, or Lama Tsopo, or whoever you can imagine that you feel very close to. And bow down to them mentally, which means to think about their holy qualities, something about them that you can recognize even at your current level, and think about how holy they are for that.

And praise them mentally. Make some beautiful gift to them, some beautiful offering, something beautiful that you can see or feel, or like a flower, or the ocean, or the sight of the moon. If you don't have, or if you like, then the holiest offering you can make is something about your practice that you're working hard on, and that's the one that pleases them the most.

Sometimes I make it in the future because I haven't done it yet. Think about something negative you've done, or said, or thought about someone in the last 24 hours or so, and admit it, and see how wrong it was. Now something positive.

Rejoice in something right you've done, something good you've done in the last 24 hours, even if it was small. Make it specific. Some specific word you said to someone, specific thought you had.

And ask for teachings, some kind of good teachings. Can be formal teachings, or something someone teaches you, someone in your family, or someone at work that teaches you about patience, or teaches you about compassion. But ask to stumble across these teachings.

And last, preliminary practice is to think about your Dharma teachers and other kind teachers throughout your life, and also your Dharma friends, the ones who influence you in a good way, and to pray for their long lives, and pray that they stay near you. A lot of what we are is determined by who we stay near. That concludes the preliminaries.

Usually, if you need to scratch something, or move your leg or something, it's a good place to do it right now. Then we'll start the actual meditation. When you're by yourself, this is where you can shift a bit.

The preliminaries make your mind clean and ready to meditate. Okay, now we'll start the real meditation. So go back to your breath.

And we'll be doing what's called a Sargam. And Sargam is a kind of meditation where you review a certain series of steps, a series of thoughts, over and over again, until they become second nature for you. And it's very good to connect it to what they call a mnemonic device, or some kind of picture that you can follow and remember where you are.

Like if you're memorizing a text in Tibetan and you have trouble, you can connect each chapter to a different part of your hometown, and you go from house to house, and it's easier to memorize a long text. And they use that in the monasteries. So we're going to connect the death meditation to a picture, and we're going to be moving from place to place.

And then each time you come to a new place, you'll remember that, oh, that's where I'm supposed to think about that. Those of you who did the Lamrim Mandala, we entered from the west side of that place, and now go to the east side. The place we're going is the same.

And so imagine that you're in a place where there's a large building, almost like a castle, and it's made of earth, earthen brick, and it stands on a, almost like a small island, and in the center is an open courtyard. And around the place is a moat, like water. And then on the far side of the moat, on that bank, is empty clearing, and then forest begins.

And this will make it much easier for you to do the meditation. It's a lot more fun, and you can remember it easily. Imagine that you are struggling to the forest, it's thick forest, very like wild forest, very hard to get through.

And you're carrying all these things, like a heavy backpack, and a lot of, like those soldiers in Private Ryan, you know, all this junk on them. And imagine like a big canteen, and a sleeping wall, and all these things hanging off you, and heavy. And you're trying to get through the woods, and then you break out into the clearing in front of the moat.

So you're standing there in a clearing, and you're tired, and you're hot, and sweating, and you're dirty, and have all these things hanging from you, and it's heavy, and you're tired. And then there's a bridge crossing the moat into the building, and you're on this side of the bridge, the far side, and just in front of the bridge at the opening is like a table covered, tables covered with food and drink, and there's a big mass of people are milling around, and you're thirsty, and you're hungry, and you're hot, and you're tired, and you have all this junk on you, and you're trying to reach some of the food and the drink, but there's many people, and it's hot, and it's crowded, and you're having to push people out of the way to get to the drink, and you do, and you're pushing people out of the way, old people, young people, and you're trying to reach these things.

And think about, while you visualize that, then think about living a life of a person who doesn't remember death, who doesn't recall death, and who has no death awareness, and they're just grappling after small things, petty things, and hurting other people while they're doing it, and collecting bad karma while they waste their life. That represents the first part of this Lam Rim, the first meditation, which is on the problems of not remembering your death, and you're just grasping after small, petty things of this life, and hurting other people to get them. So, next time you do this meditation, you connect that to the table, and the food, and the people milling around.

And the junk on your back is all the unnecessary possessions, and unnecessary relationships, and unnecessary activities that you're engaged in that don't really make you happy. They just fill up time. If you have time, identify the possessions.

The backpack is the house mortgage payments that are weighing you down. The canteen is big and bulky, and that's your car. Connect it to things like that.

Next Lam Rim, the next part of this Lam Rim, is to think about how good it is, how good it would be to have a good death meditation. And here you're breaking out of the crowd, and you're making your way towards the bridge, like a drawbridge that's going over the moat, and you're like tired of that scene. You're tired of living like that, and you're breaking out, and it gets thinner and thinner, and then you finally made it to the bridge, and that whole bridge is going to be the next step in the meditation.

It's very useful for memorizing where you are. And these are the benefits of divesting, the benefits of a good death meditation. And then go across the bridge slowly, take junk off your belt, off your chest, and throw it off into the water.

And it represents getting rid of those unnecessary, those extraneous possessions, extraneous activities, useless things that you work for and spend your time on. Take the New York Times especially and throw it off. And all those things, television, one big albatross around your neck and throw it off, and things like that.

Just start throwing them off and feel lighter and lighter as you cross the bridge. Give each object a meaning in your own life. Then we're coming to the end of the bridge, and you're light, you're very light now, but still pretty dirty and scratched up from the forest, and still tired.

And then you come to the end and imagine some people like a gauntlet, a few violent guards of the place or something. You're going to have to get through them. And there's some kind of big rough guys with knives or swords or some kind of blades.

And you start to pick up speed and you burst through them and you get through them. But that represents the normal fear of death, which is a lousy death meditation. And that represents the third part of the outline, which is, what is a good death meditation?

What would it be to have a good death meditation? So first we get through the wrong one, which is to be afraid of death, to fear it in a normal way, in the way of a person who's suddenly faced with a life-threatening situation and they're reduced to some kind of knee-jerk reactions to save their life, afraid. Or a person who just found out they have cancer.

I went once with a student who was going for an AIDS test and thought they had AIDS and it was very cruel. They made a mistake on the first try and said, we think you have it and then come back in half an hour and we'll try again. And the second one was clean.

But the whole experience of fear and panic, that's not death meditation. And you want to, that's the next step in the Lam Rim, the next meditation is to overcome that fear and drive past that fear and not think of death that way. So we break through that kind of negative death meditation.

You break through these people with a knife and they don't touch you. And then suddenly you're, it's as if you took a bath and you're very clean and you smell good, your body's covered with some kind of scent. I like, personally, an amber scent or a sandalwood scent and your body is totally clean and you feel light and strong and happy and you're covered with these light clothes like silk.

And there's a grassy section in front of the building that we're going to enter a door, but before that door there's this like meadow, beautiful grass, and you're just dancing across, like very light, very happy. And that represents a good death meditation, the kind of death meditation we want to do, which is really just some kind of unencumbered feeling, every moment living as if that was your last moment and feeling free and unencumbered by things you don't need or activities you don't need to be doing and feeling light and happy and lean and dancing across that meadow. Okay, and so that's a, represents the goal of a good death meditation.

And then you're standing in front of a door and that will be the beginning of how to do the death meditation and we'll be starting that tomorrow. Now I'll go one more time quickly through what we've been through. We've been through four steps of death meditation so far.

The first one was coming out of the forest, weighed down, and struggling with the people at the table and hurting some people on the way. And this is what happens to you if you don't think about your death or you don't believe you're going to die tonight. And then crossing the bridge and getting lighter and lighter was the benefits of doing death meditation and divesting yourself and feeling lighter and lighter as you go and being happy that way.

And then the third step was the people with the knives and the meadow together. That's number three. Okay, and that's what is a good death meditation.

And it's not the people with the knives. It's not being afraid of death and worrying about death and being panicked about death. Rather, it's the meadow, feeling...

A person with a good death meditation is feeling free and happy and light and joyful and vibrant, feeling that you have, that you're doing the right thing and you're not wasting your time. And every day is like a big Dharma party. And feeling like that, okay, that's the third part of the death meditation.

The knives and the meadow are the third step, which is the right way and the wrong way to do a death meditation. Or what the goal is, the state of mind. The state of mind that we're not trying to get and the state of mind we are trying to get.

Now and tomorrow morning we'll enter the... or in the afternoon we'll enter the building, which is the actual meditation. And it will have nine different steps there inside the building.

Okay? Now the traditional way to end a meditation is to think of that holy being who was in front of you that you're meditating with and you beg them to come into your heart. And they...

The idea is that they rub off on you if you carry them around in your chest all day.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So they get... The scriptures all say the same thing. They get very excited.

They say, Oh, you want me in your heart. Thank you. And they get smaller and smaller.

And they start to rise up in the air. And then they come down on your head. You feel a little light landing like a helicopter.

Okay? And they turn around the same direction that you're sitting in. And they're very small by now.

They're like three inches high. And then you ask them to come into your heart and they come straight down like an elevator shaft in front of your backbone. And they get smaller and smaller.

And they're coming down a small tube. Until they reach the level of your heart. Right?

It's not in your heart. It's behind your heart towards your backbone. Maybe half an inch in front of your backbone.

And make for them a little beautiful place there like a little cathedral. Like a little capsule. And very beautiful, quiet place with...

They're sitting on a huge flower, like a huge rose. And in the middle of that is a beautiful mattress made of pure, warm, golden light. And they're sitting there and there's a fragrant smell.

Your favorite smell. Like McDonald's french fries. No.

Amber or something. And then they're sitting there very happy and they're like radiating strength into your bloodstream. And the whole effect of their body, their holy mind is going through your body like your blood.

And they stay there all day long. Anytime you need them, you just stop what you're doing and think about them and they're there. And the last step of this meditation is to dedicate the virtue and think of the light coming out of the blood and bursting out of the pores of your skin.

Like a flash of light, brilliant rays of light going out and all the good karma of talking about death. All the good karma of all the sweet people who made this center from Lama Yeshe to Lama Sopa and all the people, dedicated people who built this place and keep it going. And thinking about all the good karma of having all the classes that have been held here and all that energy going out to touch other people.

Like a big ripple effect through other people. Imagine all that karmic energy centered in this place, holy place here. And going out and touching other people and helping them.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, then we'll do a short prayer. Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, thank you. And there will be a quiz. The way the quiz works is that we take half the homework questions.

Okay, so your homework is very wimpy, okay? It's not like New York homework. It's like two or three questions.

So one of those questions or two of those questions will be on the quiz. And you have to buy into the deal, okay? That's the deal.

Like, I never charge, but you have to turn in your homework, you got to do the quiz. It's not for me, it's for you. And you'll thank me by Sunday night.

You'll say, finally I learned something. Now I remember all the steps of this meditation. And I know what they are and I remember why they're there.

And then you can really do it. So just buy into it. Don't resist it.

Just do it. You'll have a quiz tomorrow. And you have a small meditation assignment for tomorrow morning.

And that's on your homework. Okay? And I ask you not to miss more than one class.

Okay? That's the deal I have. I don't charge anything but that.

You got to come to four of the five classes. You got to do homework. You got to do the quiz.

Alright? Deal? In the diamond business we say mazal.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Mazal is my holy word of honor. And once you get mazal you're going to pay for sure. No one ever breaks mazal.

We don't have written contracts in the diamond business. It's very interesting. No lawyers, no nothing.

It's all trust. So you got mazal here? Okay.

[Speaker 2]
This is the end of session one.