Серия ежедневной практики, курс 05 — Медитация о смерти и о конце смерти (1999, Роли), занятие 5

[Speaker 2]
And then when you're ready, watch your breath and take refuge.

[Speaker 1]
There are many, many kinds of refuge. Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, Lama. We'll take refuge in death meditation.

So think about how it can protect you.

[Speaker 2]
How it can save you from a wasted life. And think about bodhicitta.

[Speaker 1]
The real essence of it is to become yourself perfectly happy so you can teach other people how to do it. So I think in this case, we'll think about how happy are you and could you make yourself happier then you'd be able to teach better other people how to be happy.

[Speaker 2]
That's the real essence of bodhicitta. Not so much giving people things. Now invite your Lama or some other holy being to meditate before you.

A little bit higher than you. And think about some good qualities they have that you admire.

[Speaker 1]
And it's not wrong here to imagine that they're perfect in that quality. Maybe you don't see them that way. Maybe they're not that way.

But it's good for you to imagine some kind of perfect quality in another person. So take a quality that you admire and that you think is pretty good in them and then imagine that they are perfect in that and then admire that in your mind.

[Speaker 2]
Now make them some offering.

[Speaker 1]
Either visualize something very beautiful like a beautiful song or birds or something beautiful to see like a tree or the sun or a child's face. And then if you feel like it, sometimes make the offering of your practice something you're doing well or something you're trying hard if you're not doing it too well or something small you can do later today that you'll offer to them.

[Speaker 2]
And that's the sweetest offering. And then next think of something negative you've done or said or thought about someone else in the last few hours.

[Speaker 1]
And make it very specific and try to play it back like a video recorder. Exactly where were you? Exactly what did you say?

Exactly what did you think?

[Speaker 2]
I think usually that's enough to regret it.

[Speaker 1]
And then equally for something good you did today so far, something good you thought, be very, very specific, even if it's a small thing. But it's not much use if you're not specific.

[Speaker 2]
Play the tape back and be happy. And ask for teachings, formal teachings.

[Speaker 1]
Ask that you understand the teachings and that you're able to put them into real practice.

[Speaker 2]
And then ask for all the little teachings that people give around you.

[Speaker 1]
It's very possible that the person who hurt you the most in the last six months is an enlightened being trying to make you understand karma or try to get you to be serious about your renunciation or teach you something about your pride or your ego.

[Speaker 2]
Imagine that.

[Speaker 1]
Now make a prayer that all the holy lamas and other beings stay in our world. His Holiness, Thay Lama, Lama Tsogpa, Lama Uso, all the other great lamas. Pray for their long life, that they stay near us.

And then for the health and long life of all your Dharma brothers and sisters in this place. You may not love them all the time, but if you didn't have this place and you didn't have them, you would be a much worse person.

[Speaker 2]
That completes the preliminaries. Now you can scratch that itch and stretch your leg out. Then we'll start the real meditation.

When you're ready, go back to your breath. Then we'll start death meditation.

[Speaker 1]
Go through the nine steps, three main divisions in the preliminaries, which have three in them also. Really, so far we have 12 different meditations. You can walk through and stop at whichever one you want when you do it by yourself.

First we're coming out of the forest, loaded down, dirty, tired, bent under all sorts of junk on your back. Clothes are dirty, heavy. I see like fatigue.

And then you're coming to this table. People are milling around and fighting for things, drinks and food on the table. Some of them are grasping at the things on your back.

You're pushing them away from the table and trying to get what you want and hurting people. This represents your life as you will lead it if you don't meditate on death. Then making your way out of the crowd and breaking away from the crowd and walking across the drawbridge.

There's a water below and you're throwing things off, getting lighter and lighter as you're going. Don't just throw things down in the water. Make sure you equate them to something that you do.

Try to pick at least one thing in your life that you would like to divest. One possession or one relationship which is not very holy, spiritual. And then maybe some activity that you do that's not really necessary for your happiness.

You're just divesting things that take up your time, fill up your time, fill up your money, fill up your thoughts unnecessarily, divesting as you cross the bridge.

[Speaker 2]
This represents the benefits of meditating on death, that automatically you'll want to give up some things like that.

[Speaker 1]
Then you see at the end of the bridge these terrible soldiers with swords and knives. And you break through them. This is a wrong death meditation.

This is being afraid of death, regretting death when it comes, feeling bad about thinking about dying. You break through that kind of conception about your death. You break out into the meadow and you're dancing across the meadow.

You're dressed in very, very light silk, not even like clothes but just like cloths. And then you're dancing across the field and you feel light and happy and vibrant, excited. And this is the real death meditation.

This is where you want what you want your death meditation to be, to lead you. So this has two parts. You break through the wrong death meditation and the wrong way of looking at your death and into this excitement that you are always acting as if you are going to die tonight.

And you've stripped your life down to the most holy, most exciting practices you can do.

[Speaker 2]
And you're not tied down with a lot of other things. You come to a large door in this building.

[Speaker 1]
It has a courtyard in the middle that you're trying to reach. A sunny, beautiful courtyard, warm, blue sky. But you're on the outside and you have to go through the building.

You come to a large yellow door and you stand and look at it for a minute. And this represents the first of the great three divisions of death meditation, which is meditating how certain it is that you're going to die. And you go in the door and immediately on your right is a huge, violent animal, chained, and would like nothing better than to rip out your throat and kill you.

And if it got away it would. And this is your own karma, your own death, and it's unstoppable.

[Speaker 2]
If you can't practice then it will kill you. Next to the center of the room, I see there's a circular room.

[Speaker 1]
And there's a pedestal, a stand, and on top of the stand is an hourglass. And you look at it and you remember this means that your life is continually leaking away. I think as you get older it seems to accelerate, or the more busy it seems to accelerate.

There's never any pause. It's always leaking away. No time to rest.

You can't take a rest. You can't take a break. Whether you're active or whether you're sleeping, the life you had is leaking out, nothing coming in to replace it.

[Speaker 2]
And sooner or later it will be empty.

[Speaker 1]
Then walking quickly, running down a corridor, it's a little bit dark. There are pictures of your great lamas, great teachers, the things they've taught you, like portraits with lights over them. And you're running by and you don't have time to remember what they taught you.

You don't have time to practice it. You just don't have enough time in your life. So even while you live you have not enough time to practice the things you'd want to and should.

We think of that as you run down the corridor. Think of some of the specific teachings you had that you didn't have. They were wonderful, they were great, they were life-saving, and you didn't have time to do them and you rushed on to the next thing.

[Speaker 2]
Then you come to a green door at the end of that hall and it represents the fact that it's not sure when you'll die.

[Speaker 1]
Even though death is sure, the timing is not sure.

[Speaker 2]
And look at the door and remember.

[Speaker 1]
And you come in and you look down to your right, there's a garbage can and in the garbage can is a piece of paper with a big 72 printed on it. And then you remember this represents the lie that there's an average lifespan. They call it life expectancy, which is, the word expectancy is a lie.

You can't expect anything. You don't know. You may die tonight, this afternoon.

[Speaker 2]
And look at it and remember.

[Speaker 1]
Then on through the room with some of your familiar objects in your life, your car, your bed, chair, stairway in your house, glass door and your patio door, which have all killed people and kill people every day. And you're walking through and you're looking at them. Each one is like a bomb.

You're wondering which one it will be that will kill you. And somewhere in the mess there's a little piece of pizza or a little sandwich. Very few things keep you alive.

Many things can kill you.

[Speaker 2]
Even the sandwich is 50-50.

[Speaker 1]
Towards the end of the room, which is like a triangle, an elongated triangle. And then just before you reach the red door, you step on a small thorn or a splinter and you stoop down and take it out of your foot. And a little droplet of blood comes out.

You think about how fragile your body is. And those two true stories, especially the one of the young man at Saron that I saw, who died from that. Just a small poke on his leg and then got infected and then he died while I was there.

[Speaker 2]
Our bodies are like that. Very fragile. Remember the thing about AIDS.

[Speaker 1]
One small virus entering your body. Remember the thing about cancer. One random ray of sunlight, the radiation from the sun or of a wall just breaking one little tiny cell in your body.

A small part of oneself.

[Speaker 2]
And then you have cancer.

[Speaker 1]
And you go through the red door and you open it and there's this long corridor with an arched ceiling and it's made of glass. And then there are objects in the room and then there's a glass outside. I see a frosted glass on the outside and sunlight coming in.

And then between the glass of the hallway and the glass of the outside wall what is the first thing? Friends and relatives on each side. And they're talking to each other and laughing and touching each other's arms.

And they're not thinking about you. First you're like ticking on the glass and then you're knocking on the glass and then you're banging on the glass. And they can't hear you, they can't see you.

[Speaker 2]
You can't take them with you. You will be alone.

[Speaker 1]
Then as you walk halfway down this rectangular room then there's on each side are all your favorite possessions. For me, like some favorite photos or books or discs. And I'm looking out and they're all disheveled and it's as if I haven't been there for a while and I'm trying to reach them and I can't reach them.

And then I realize I can't. I'm good. I'm already in the bar though.

[Speaker 2]
And frustrated, angry. And can't reach them. No power over them anymore.

[Speaker 1]
And then at the very end of the hallway behind the glass to the right your own body, naked, on its back and a face like featureless which represents you. You'll lose even the body that you took so much care to work for and keep healthy and keep dressed and keep fed and keep sleep. And now it's worthless there lying.

[Speaker 2]
And you can't really remember who you were very clearly. Then you have in front of you a white door, same size as the other, big, set in like a solid wall.

[Speaker 1]
And this represents the decision that you'll have to make after this meditation. Three decisions to be made. Look at the door and remember it.

It means three decisions you will make. And you open the door and you're in a very small round room that's a turret and there's like a tower going up and there's like slits for windows and there's sunlight coming down into the room, into the center but you're not in the sunlight yet. And then to your left, this time to your left, leaning against the wall is a long staff of wood, very strong wood.

[Speaker 2]
The staff is even a little higher than your body but it fits your hand well and it looks familiar.

[Speaker 1]
And you take it with your left hand and taking it represents the first decision, which is, if it's sure that I'm going to die, then I'm deciding to start my practice. My decision is to start my practice.

[Speaker 2]
That's taking up the staff in your left hand.

[Speaker 1]
And then you take one step forward towards the circle of sunlight but you're not in it yet. And you slam the bottom of the staff down on the ground and you hear this sharp noise and that represents the second decision, which is to do it now. Start your practice now, today.

[Speaker 2]
Start the process of thinking and acting as if you were going to die tonight.

[Speaker 1]
And that's a response to the second room, the second division, which is that you don't know when you're going to die so you have to start now. When you hear the sharp rap of the stick on the floor, then remember that you have to start now. And that's a response to not knowing when you will die.

Each time, by the way, you're stepping forward with your left foot. Then you step forward again with your left foot and you're in the sunlight. And you take the stick up, the staff, and hold it in front of you up high, like with some kind of power.

And that represents that, given the fact that nothing else can help you when you die, this is what you will do, this one practice. Decide to concentrate on one thing and that's your spiritual life. And holding the staff up high and looking up to the sun represents, this is the one thing I will do now with my life.

I'll practice. I will do the holiest practices I can find. And I'll cut down, I'll cut away all the useless things I do.

And I'll even start to cut away the practices I do which are not as powerful and not as likely to get me enlightened quickly. Even those people who decided to do Dharma have to continually move up the ladder of practices and try to go ahead as strong and as quickly as you can because of your responsibility to others. So you hold it up high and decide to concentrate on your practice.

Only your practice.

[Speaker 2]
And only the practices that are the most powerful you can do at that time.

[Speaker 1]
Then you look to the right and there's a door, a navy blue, I'm sorry, sort of a royal blue. Not too dark, not too light, but a strong blue color. And you turn your head towards the right, but not your body.

And then you bring the staff down in your right arm and point towards the door. And that'll be the door of our practice. And that's the practice that we're going to do.

[Speaker 2]
And we'll be doing that next. So come back now to visualizing the Lama in front of you and the being in front of you. And you ask them to stay in your heart.

[Speaker 1]
You always have to remember they're thrilled by the request. They get tingles up their spine. Very happy that you asked.

Very happy that you had the brains to ask. And they rise up in the air and they turn to face the same direction as you and float down onto your head. And now they're very small, three inches high.

[Speaker 2]
Then you picture that little chamber in your heart, meaning behind your heart, more towards your backbone, like a little chapel with a beautiful huge flower, like made of velvet and on it a cushion of sun, beautiful golden sun, warm. And you bring them straight down like in an elevator. By this time they're really small.

[Speaker 1]
I always think of the princess and the pea and the thing in your heart is like a pea. The size is like a pea from the outside. When you get inside it's like a very beautiful roomy chapel.

Then they come down and the light from their bodies filling that chapel. And it's warm in your body and you can feel like a small globe of warmth in that spot in your body.

[Speaker 2]
And then the light comes out from there, seeps through your blood, throughout your body.

[Speaker 1]
Then you're like one of the very few people in the United States who knows how to do a good death meditation and you dedicate it to others. That's the good karma of having done this last meditation. The light bursts out of the pores of your body in needles, yellow golden needles, and touches people around this city.

[Speaker 2]
And then suddenly they feel happy and they don't know really why. And then relax.