Медитация о смерти и любви (1999, Роли), занятие 1

[Говорящий 1]
OK, we'll start. We're supposed to talk about death, all right? And we're going to talk about a thing in Buddhism we call chiwa mitakpa.

Chiwa mitakpa means death meditation. Chiwa means death, mitakpa means impermanence. And my interest in it is my original interest in Buddhism.

People ask me, why did you become a monk? Why did you change your clothes? What made you do that?

And I say lots of things, but one of the big things was when I was about 20, we had six members in our family. It was my father, my mother, and four brothers. So it's kind of wild.

We used to fight a lot. And in one year, my mother passed away, then my father passed away of cancer, and then my brother passed away. And then there was this, up until then, I think I had never known personally anyone who died.

I think my grandmother died, but I was so young, I didn't know what it was about. And I think that was the first real death that I was close to. And it wasn't one, it was like three.

And there was this very strong subconscious thing. We were a very religious family, not very religious, but we went to church pretty regularly. And I couldn't understand it.

I couldn't understand what happened. And I couldn't understand why people were made to die like that. And it was painful for them, and they died in a bad way.

And I couldn't, it shocked me, and it disturbed me. And so externally, I kept doing my, I was a college student, and I kept doing all the stuff I was supposed to do. But internally, there was some kind of very deep shock, I think.

And I didn't freak out or go to the mental hospital or anything, but I think subconsciously, I wanted more. I wanted more to understand what had happened, and what was going on. And then within a few months, I ended up at a monastery and started studying with some lama.

And it wasn't a conscious thing. It was a subconscious thing. You know, it was like wanting to know why people die and things like that.

So the purpose of a death meditation, there's really two kinds of death meditations in Buddhism. One is where you practice what's going to happen to you when you die. So my mother, when she was very ill, she was dying.

And I was studying in India, and I got this at the Dalai Lama's, where the Dalai Lama lives. And I got this telegram, and it said, doctors told me to forget it. They told me to go home, and there's no more treatment possible.

And they fired me from work, because I keep blacking out, because it reached my brain. She had breast cancer. So then I wrote her a letter, and I said, what have you got to lose?

Come to India. And I went to my teachers, and I said, what can we do? And they said, teach her how to die right.

So she came to India, and it was the first time she'd been out of her little place. And she was dying, and we bundled her into a car, and we drove all the way up to Dharamsala, North India. And she sat there in the class and studied with the Dalai Lama.

We took her first to the Dalai Lama's doctor, Yeshe Dundun. And he spent, I was all nervous, I'm sitting on the chair, and he comes out, and he says, take her to the Lama's, teach her how to die. Which is like, we can't do anything.

It's too late. So we took her to the classes, and she started the classes. And the Lama started to teach her how to die, and what would happen when she died.

Certain things happen as your mind breaks down. As what you would call electricity starts shorting out in the brain, and as it gets more erratic, then you start to have certain standard and very terrible hallucinations. You go through certain standard visions.

As your eyes break down, as your ears break down, and the rest of your senses, as they start to self-destruct, they call it the domino collapse. In the scripture, it's called domino collapse. And each one triggers the next one.

And then you see all kinds of special visions, and you see strange things, and the idea is to try to be calm, and to do the right thing, and to die in a calm way. And because it's much better for you, and it helps you what happens to you after that. That's a meditation that we're not going to do tonight, OK?

That's like, we call it a last resort meditation, OK? There's something called po'an, things like that. These are last resort meditations.

These are what you pull out of your toolbox of meditations if you didn't get your act together before that. You see what I mean? This is like last-ditch things you can do in the last five minutes, or 20 minutes, or something.

And they're not very reliable, because you're very scared. And usually, you can't remember what to do. You know what I mean?

Most people can't remember what to do. So it's better to do the other kind of death meditation. And that's what we're going to talk about tonight.

This is a special meditation that has three steps, OK? And this you can do any time. You can do it at home.

And the idea is to do it over and over again until you get good at it. And I'll tell you what it means to be good at it. But if you get good at it, then when you start to die, everything's fine.

Everything's taken care of. And you can die very well, very happy. And if there is such a thing as rebirth, you'll go very well.

It'll go very smoothly. And there's three parts to meditation. First one is called chiwa ngepa.

I usually ask people to say the word, OK? It puts a seed in your mind. And I'll meet you next life, OK?

Say chiwa. Chiwa. Ngepa.

Ngepa. Chiwa. Chiwa.

Ngepa. Ngepa. Ngepa.

Chiwa ngepa means you have to die, OK? Period. Chiwa ngepa means you must die.

And that's the first part of the meditation. So we would sit down in your room on a comfortable chair. You don't have to do this yoga thing with your legs and all that stuff.

Doesn't matter. Sit in a nice, comfortable chair where you're not going to fall asleep. And get quiet.

And think about, you can debate your own mind. Is it sure that you're going to die or not? And what are the odds that you'll be the first person that didn't die yet?

You know what I mean? And stuff like that. You go through your mind.

And by the way, I remember people asking the Dalai Lama, it's very morbid to talk like this. And in America, we hide death. I was telling some of my students the other night, I didn't see a dead person until I was like 25 or something.

You know what I mean? People are dying around us all day long. And our society is so good at quietly covering it up.

And you don't have to encounter a dead body until you're 25. I mean, unless there's an accident or something. But I didn't personally see a dead body until I was in my 20s.

Our society is that good. When I was in the hospital, and I was with a lama who was dying. And then he died.

And I said, well, we have to do this ritual for two or three hours. And they said, no, no. There's a state law.

They have to go in the refrigerator within 10 minutes or something. And I'm like, you know. And I had to negotiate to keep the body there.

And within 10 minutes, the mess is cleaned up. And no one sees it. And you're not supposed to talk about it.

And it's impolite. If someone's spouse has died, you don't go up to them and say, hey, tell me about it, or something like that. You're supposed to avoid talking about it, because they'll be sad, or something like that.

In Buddhism, I remember the Master Dalai Lama. Isn't it morbid or pessimistic to think about your death all the time? He said, no, it's quite liberating.

It's going to happen. It's definite. So you might as well face it and do something about it, rather than just avoiding talking about it.

So I'm not trying to be morbid, OK? I'm a monk because three people in my family died in a short time. And it's a great meditation.

You should meditate on it. And it's a good kind of prayer to do. It's a good way to spend your spiritual time.

So first meditation, first part of meditation is to think about how certain it is that you're going to die. And you go through all the people you know and see, did they die? And it seems like a silly thing to meditate about, because intellectually, you'll say, of course I'm going to die.

But in your heart, you say, not me, somehow not me. And you really don't dwell on it much. You don't think much about it.

You don't want to think about it. It's not fun to think about it. And people who have relatives who are dying of cancer or AIDS or something like that, it's very uncomfortable to be near them.

It gets very stressful. My father died slowly. And it took like six, eight months.

And we had to serve him. We had to be around him. I had to sit and watch football games with him and get him orange juice day after day.

And it's some kind of stress. It's some kind of stress on your mind. And there's always this tension in a family where someone is dying.

People start fighting. Their arguments break out. It's not just the logistics of how are we going to bury them and what kind of will do they have and stuff like that.

There's a stress of knowing that you're watching what's going to happen to you. Subconsciously, you know. And it's very uncomfortable.

And you wish it would just end sometimes. And the whole family starts to get tense. So think of all the people you know who died.

And it doesn't matter, rich people, poor people. It doesn't really matter at all. You see what I mean?

It doesn't matter how famous they were. It seems very weird, like rock and roll stars who are really handsome or beautiful or actresses who are really foxy and all sorts of brilliant people who are at the top of their careers. And then just suddenly, they just die.

And it doesn't seem to matter who you are. It doesn't seem to matter. I remember reading Howard Hughes' death thing.

He rented the top three stories of a hospital. He had 18 doctors taking care of him. And it didn't matter.

You see, you have to die. You have to go. And in the meditation in the scriptures, and these meditations are 2,500 years old, you meditate on the fact that it doesn't matter where you go, either.

You see what I mean? It doesn't matter where you're going to decide to live, you know, Colorado, where the air is fresh, or New York, where the air is not. Or it doesn't really matter.

You can't go anywhere that's safe, you see? You can, I have this vision on Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street. There's a chemical bank or something, and there's this big vault.

And through the glass, you can see this huge, it's like an eight-foot round door. And sometimes they open it for you to see and stuff like that behind the glass. And it's just weird, because it's right in the middle of this really bad section in New York.

But somehow, the safe is always open there. And I always get this vision of, you know, you could go in there, close the door, feed the person, you know, really good, healthy, vegetarian food, and lots of vitamins and stuff, and never let them go outside, you see? Keep them in that safe.

And the word safe, right? And keep them safe in there, and see what happens to them. Because they'll never get hit by a car, you know?

They'll never get AIDS or anything like that. They'll never get anything from external sources. But Buddhism says that if you don't get killed from the outside, your body will kill itself from the inside, you see what I mean?

And I used to translate for the Dalai Lama's doctor. And he was giving some lectures about health, Tibetan medicine. And at one point, he says, health is where all the elements of the body are in balance.

We say there's a sachu me lung. There's a water element. There's a earth element, fire element, air element.

And then there's a bioflam, and something else I forget. Wind, bioflam and wind. And these are the three things that if they're in balance, you're healthy.

And if they're out of whack, then you're unhealthy, you know what I mean? And then we went on to say this really weird thing. He said, and health is an accident.

He says, the condition of a human is to be unhealthy. The normal condition is to be sick. And the normal condition is for the elements to be out of whack, you know?

So children are sick a lot. Older people are sick a lot. And then for a brief period in the middle of your life, the elements are roughly in balance.

And you feel you're not getting sick all the time. But the natural condition of the human body is to be sick. And health is an accident.

Health is a lucky circumstance where all the elements are just in balance. But the basic nature of the lungs, for example, is to cool the body. The basic nature of the liver and other organs is to purify the body of impure things.

And then the hearts, in Tibetan medicine, function is to heat the body and to warm the body. And they're always fighting each other. You see, I mean, modern Western medicine or, you know, when I was growing up, it was the wonder of the human body, the miracle of the human body.

And in Tibetan medicine, it's like the self-destructing time bomb, you know? And it's just a miracle if it's working, you know? Because the function of the lungs is to make you cool.

The function of the heart is to heat you up. And they're always fighting each other. And they depend on each other.

So sooner or later, one of them gets the upper hand. And you get pneumonia if the lungs get too strong. And you get other diseases if the heart gets too strong, and things like that.

So they're actually in a very delicate balance. And they are the internal organs themselves. Even if you never could get hit by a car, you see what I mean?

They are working against each other. And sooner or later, like a wrestling match, one of them gets on top and pins the other guy. And you die from the inside.

So you could be in the vault there. And you could be protected. And your body will kill itself, you see what I mean?

So you don't have to debate whether you're going to die or not. But these are part of the meditation, you see? Because you have spiritual blinders, like a horse's blinders.

And they're like, I'm not going to die today. I got time. I still have time.

I just heard that the average life expectancy went up to 73. And I'm only 40-something, you know? So no problem.

I have time, you see what I mean? And anyway, you don't really believe you're going to die. You don't really believe it, you see what I mean?

You don't think about it. Your society is careful to make sure you don't think about it. And you really don't believe that it's going to happen to you, OK?

The last part of this meditation is to meditate how the things around you that you use to keep yourself alive are probably what's going to kill you. You see what I mean? The things that you use for life are the things that kill you.

A car that you use for convenience and to get you around could very likely be the thing that kills you. Your own sweet car that you picked out so carefully and that you're still paying off, you know? And this deal thing that you paid for and that you coaxed into your garage, you know, is going to kill you.

And if it doesn't, then the food that you eat, some chemicals in the food you eat, or... The Tibetan doctor I translated for, the Dalai Lama's doctor, he went through all the kinds of foods that can kill you, you know? Like, all the kinds of foods that had chemicals in them that would give you cancer.

And he made this long list, you know? And then somebody at the end was like, but what are we supposed to eat then, you know? And he says, I don't know, all your food is not that, you know?

And the food that you eat to stay alive has parts of it that are going to kill you. So, and the house that you live in, just the effort of trying to buy it, the effort of trying to build it, and then eventually in many areas of the world, it falls on you or you slip down the stairs. And, you know, the stairs that you spent so much time designing and so much effort to buy, and then they go and kill you, you see what I mean?

And something around you will kill you, you see what I mean? Some part of your world, and very likely a part of your world that's keeping you alive right now, is going to turn on you and kill you. And, I mean, this could get really paranoid, right?

You can't walk through your own house, right? You're going to be watching the stairs and all the dishes and stuff, you know? Which one of you is it going to be, you know?

And, okay, but don't get like that, okay? That's not the purpose of adjustment. By the way, the scriptures all say, we're not trying to get you scared, okay?

The point is not to be, like, somehow depressed. I mean, life is depressing enough. A lot of us have enough low self-esteem already, and now you're telling me my body's going to kill me?

You know, don't think like that. That's not the point of a death meditation. A death meditation, if you do it right, is very liberating, okay?

It ends up making you very happy. The person in the world who's doing the best death meditation is maybe His Holiness. And he's always giggling, you see?

So there must be some connection there, you see? So you don't have to think that a death meditation is, like, some depressing thing. But decide, the first part of the meditation, Chila Ngepa, you must die.

You will die. And it will probably be something around you right now that you own, that you've worked for, that will kill you. Or something that you're eating, or something that you're drinking.

Or just anything, you see what I mean? All the things around you can kill you. And they will.

Something will kill you. The body inside will kill itself. Or something around you that you own, and that you work to get, will kill you.

Usually a car, something like that, okay? But that's, or cancer, the food that you're eating. And there is no food, doesn't matter what you eat, you see what I mean?

Something will kill you, like that. One gene has to get broken to get cancer, you know what I mean? People go and eat health food and stuff like that.

It seems almost like a hopeless, you see? What, we studied radiation. I was in this diamond business, and we did some radiation of stones.

And so we studied it. And it takes one particle to hit one gene in one cell of your body for cancer to start. And you can get that from this brick wall.

You can get it from the sun. You can get it from any food that you can eat. And it doesn't matter if you, I mean, it's helpful to eat healthy, right?

But if your body doesn't kill you, the food's gonna kill you. You see what I mean? There's something there.

We'll start, and it's not like you're exempt from that. You're just as liable to die that way as anybody else. And I always say there was a lama where I was studying in a monastery.

He was this great, brilliant lama. He was blind. And I remember one day he was eating a roll.

And I lived in the same house, you know? And he was eating a roll, and his hand stopped there. His hand went to the table and picked up the roll and got it this far, and he died just like that.

And he never made it to his mouth. You see what I mean? And it'll be like that sometime.

You see, you must die. You will die. Death doesn't respect whether the roll got to your mouth or not.

You see what I mean? Death just comes. Death just takes you, you know?

And you could be right in the middle of some normal, everyday thing with your family, and it'll take you, you know? And you have to think like that, okay? That's the first part of the meditation.

Second part of the meditation is nam chi ma ngepa. Say nam. Nam.

Chi. Chi. Ma ngepa.

Ma ngepa. Nam means when. Chi means die.

Ma ngepa means it's not certain. You don't know when you're gonna die. You see, there's this natural bias to think that younger people will last longer and older people will die quicker.

And old people are, you know, really old people are always going around and apologizing. You know, like, oh, I don't have much time to go. You know, sorry if I don't make it to your dinner or something, you know?

And no, they talk like that. And then young people don't even talk like that. They're like, oh, I got time, you know, don't talk to me about death.

And it's very rare to get in a real death meditation class young people to come. Like, people under 30, forget it. You know, Buddhist temple, Jewish temple, Christian church, doesn't matter.

The average age of the people who are really coming often is about 60. And it's the same in our Buddhist temple, okay? It's the same thing.

The average age is like 60, because the people under 50 don't really think they're going to die. They think they have time. So there's this natural idea that young people will last longer and old people will die sooner.

And again, where I studied in the monastery, we had one old monk from Bok Sa refugee camp. This is 1,500 monks from Hassa who survived the Chinese invasion, who didn't get killed in the bombing, who made it over the Himalayan mountains out of about 40,000 monks. So you've got, you know, 1,000 who made it, say, and they're all put into this refugee camp.

It's a prison where Gandhi used to stay, where the British built it to keep Gandhi and Nehru out of... You know, I saw the movie again the other day that there's a three-year gap in there. That's when he was in Bok Sa, okay?

And Bok Sa is a prison and they open the doors and they put all the Tibetan monks in there. And a third of them died from tuberculosis. Just, there was no food.

They're out in the middle of the jungle and they died. So this Lama, he had a lung cut out in Bok Sa refugee camp and then he came to the United States and he used to teach me. He was Mongolian and he was always bent over like that because he was in pain all the time.

And then he was always like, sounded like a train. You could hear him coming, you know? It was like, he was wheezing, you know?

And he would like take half steps and he would come down. And he was one of our 15 monks. When I got to this monastery, about 10 years after that, there was only one monk left, okay?

The rest all died, okay? Which one do you get? You know?

You know, it was this old... And he kept saying, no, no, I'm next for sure. I'm next for sure.

You know, like, I'm all sick and I can hardly walk straight. I can't, he couldn't talk. He would say, how are you?

And so he ended up dying last, okay? But he did die. And that's the way it goes.

Forget thinking that you're going to live longer than someone who's very old and very sick right now. Or someone, people say, oh, you have HIV, you have AIDS. It's full blown now.

You have only a few months to live. Forget it. You don't know you're going to live longer than this person or not.

You have to get in that mood, you know? When you meet these people, you have to say, you have to look at people who are very ill, look at people who are very old. And the second part of the meditation is to reflect that I could well be dead before this person.

I could get in the car tonight on the way home from this wonderful death meditation talk and die in the car. You know, and you have to think like that. Again, it's not to make you scared, okay?

That's not the point. It's not that you get paralyzed and you think, oh, then I don't know what to do with my life. You know, if I'm going to die, you know, it's not like that, okay?

So the second part of the meditation is just to realize that, face it, count all the people you know who died. Talk to their relatives. Ask them if they expected to die.

You see what I mean? Except for a few people with very terminal illnesses who are very honest with themselves. But my father, for example, to the last few days was refusing that he would die.

He kept saying, no, no. He's gone from 250 pounds to about 120. And he's like still saying, oh no, not me, I'm going to beat this thing, you know?

You see in the newspaper, courageous fight with cancer. What's that mean? You know, how do you have a courageous fight with something that's going to kill you for sure?

You know what I mean? And what does it mean to, how do you fight it courageously, you know? You just insist that you're not going to die and then you die?

You see, it's funny, you know? It's like, I'm going to, you read it in the newspaper, I'm going to beat this thing. What do you mean you're going to beat this thing?

You know, what choice do you have? And what treatment is there? I mean, after all this money and all these years, there's no treatment for cancer at all.

You know, you can radiate somebody and make them sicker for a while, I don't know. But I haven't personally been convinced that it does anything, you know? And I've had many friends who had it done and I'm not personally convinced that it, I mean, I also have Buddhist friends, Tibetans who refuse to do any kind of those treatments and I'm not suggesting either way, okay?

But all I know is that some of them are still around and some of the people who did get treated are still around and some of the people who didn't get treated are dead and some of the people who did get treated are dead and it doesn't seem to matter. I mean, in the end, it doesn't seem to matter very much what you do and you can't control the timing of it, okay? You cannot and the timing will come of its own accord and you don't know that you'll be alive tonight, okay?

You don't, you see people getting possessive about things and not knowing if they'll have them tomorrow. You know what I mean? In Tibet, they have a joke.

They say, all the possessions you've worked to collect will go to find a new owner. You know, those poor lonely things will have to go find somebody who will go to the Salvation Army and be willing to wear a dead person's clothes, you know what I mean? All the stuff you own will go and seek a new owner because you'll be departed.

And that's the meditation on we don't know when, okay? Forget the idea that you have any certainty at all, that you, forget that you have any certainty at all, okay? All these people with HIV may last longer than you, okay?

You don't know. You could die tonight and get used to that and think about it, okay? The third part of the meditation is chi-ma-to-ma-pen.

Say chi. Chi. Ma-to.

Ma-to. Ma-pen. Chi.

Chi. Ma-to. Ma-pen.

And chi means spiritual life that you've had, dharma, okay? Ma-to means, except for that, ma-pen means nothing else helps you, okay? When you die, at the moment of death, then what will help you, you know?

What can you take with you? And it sounds like there's a joke, this American cliche, you can't take it with you. And if you ask somebody, you know, why are you working so hard?

They say, well, I wanted to buy a new car, you know? And you say, well, but when you die, can you take it with you? And they say, no, I'm not stupid, you know?

And it's not like I think I'm gonna live forever. I'm not an idiot, you know? I know I'm gonna die.

I know I'm not gonna live forever. But in the meantime, I would like to have a nice car, okay? And, you know, only one life to live.

I might as well do something happy, you know? And so I worked very hard for the car, or anything. But then you die and there's nothing, I mean, it's weird to think that you can't take a single bit of it with you.

And although it's an American cliche, and of course you know that's true, you have to meditate on it. You have to go through your room, you know? Go through your house, pause at each object, you know, look at it, think about it, and say, can I take this?

You know, I'm gonna do a three-year retreat next March if I live that long, okay? And the people who are going, we got this kind of cool mood. We went and we're completing the arrangements for the place to stay, for the three-year retreat, and suddenly it dawned on us that we're really gonna do it.

Because we went out and started working on the place, you know, and so, you know, I got an Arizona driver's license already. So I thought, when I got it, I said, gee, I'm really gonna do it. You know, if I live that long, this is a sign.

I have an Arizona driver's license. This is a sign I'm gonna go out to Arizona and do this three-year retreat. And then all the people who are going, we had the same experience at the same time.

In about the same month, like about two months ago, we started to look at the stuff in our rooms and say, I don't need that. You see what I mean? I can't take that on three-year retreat, you see?

And we started throwing things out. So it was a really weird experience, and we were all going to our rooms and looking at each thing and saying, do I really want this thing cluttering up my meditation room for three years? You know, do I really want, you know, six science fiction novels cluttering up my room for three years?

And you're just taking them, you're just throwing them out. You know, and you don't have, it's weird. If you do a good death meditation, and you go through the objects in your house, and you go around and you say, is this gonna be any help to me at all when I die?

You know, does this have any importance at all in light of the fact that I'm going to die? You know, and you'll just find yourself, your house will look like a Zen temple very shortly, you see? And you just start throwing stuff out.

And it's a very good feeling, I have to say. You know, we call it divesting. And you just go through and you just take something and you say, I'm not gonna use that.

I'm not gonna need that. And you just start throwing stuff out, okay? So a good death meditation, you're starting to realize that you don't need this stuff and it can't help you.

And it's just junking up your house, okay? If you don't throw it out, then the person who cleans out your house after you die is gonna have to throw it out. The older you get, the more houses you cleaned out, you know?

Like the more you survive, the other people around you, you all know, I mean, everyone's had to clean out aunt so-and-so's house of all this junk that was her most precious mementos of her life, you know what I mean? And for you, it's just junk. I mean, you might spend a little time and look at it and say, I happen to know that she got this in Venice in 1958 when she was there and she fell in love with this guy and it's just junk, you know?

And, you know, and everything becomes that. In light of your death, then all those things become just junk, okay? And then you start to go around to all the other things, the activities that you do, you see?

And you say, will this help me when I die? You know, like you've been reading this major novel or something and then you just one day, if you start looking at it in a new way, if you do a good death meditation, you see, it'll become natural to you, it'll get natural to you and you'll catch yourself reading the newspaper, Sunday New York Times, you know? And people in my immediate neighborhood on Sunday in New York City, they literally don't come out until about two o'clock.

They come out at nine or 10 to pick it up and then they go back to their apartments or they go to some restaurant and they're really crowded. Sunday morning, they're all crowded and everyone's reading this thing, you know? And it's like a three, four hour thing.

But if you do a good death meditation, you look at it and you say, what am I doing, you know? I'm not gonna remember three things from this next week. You know, it's just some kind of like relaxation or it's like eating more food than you need because it's relaxing to eat, you know what I mean?

And it's just some kind of relaxation. You don't need that information. You're not gonna use that information.

You will not remember that information next week. You know, you can't tell me more than three facts from the newspaper you read two weeks ago, you can't. It's useless, okay?

It's just a waste of time. And if you're gonna think about death meditation, then you'll start to weed out those things and say, that's not gonna help me, you know? That's no use.

That doesn't help you when you die, okay? And your whole life will be like that. All kinds of activities, like going to marginally important things, you know?

Like certain movies that are not too good. Clint Eastwood, forget it, okay? Really bad.

Okay, I mean, eliminate all the gray area movies, you know? And what I'm talking about is gray area activities, things you don't need to do, things you really don't need to do. Just forget it and stop it and do something that's gonna help you when you die, okay?

And really, a good death meditation, the goal of a good, and by the way, we'll go over what will help you when you die after we have refreshments, okay? But the goal, don't die doing refreshments, okay? The goal of a good death meditation, I wanna state it very clearly, okay?

The goal, where you wanna be, is very clear. And I'll say it again and again tonight and you'll get used to it, okay? Is it that you're like, shaking in anticipation of death?

No. Is it that you don't care about anything or anyone? No, it's not like that.

Is it that you go around like, with less self-esteem than you had before, okay? I thought I had a pretty good body, now you say you're gonna kill me, you know? Not like that, okay?

The point of a good death meditation is that, and then you get into it, okay? If you do this for like, a couple weeks and you get good at it, then your whole state of mind changes and you get into the state of mind that says, if I was gonna die tonight, am I doing what I wanna be doing, you see? Even if you don't care about future lives, okay?

Even if you don't care about spiritual stuff. I mean, it's liberating, okay? I'm not saying, I mean, second half of the talk, I'll try to talk you into doing something good, okay?

But forget that for now, all right? If you're gonna die tonight, would you wanna be doing what you did today? You see what I mean?

And that's a very liberating thing, you see? Like, think about what you did earlier today. I hope this talk wouldn't be there, okay?

And think, was that what I would have done if I knew I was gonna die tonight? If I knew for sure I was gonna die tonight, would I have done what I did this morning? And that's the last part of the meditation, okay?

The last part of the meditation, you sit there and you say, what did I do today? Or what did I do yesterday? If you're meditating in the morning, which is usually a good time, because your mind is fresh and other people are kind of quiet if you get up early, and you think about what you did yesterday, and you say, if I was gonna die today, would I have done that yesterday?

You know, if I knew I was gonna die. Think about the main activities in your life, your job, the kind of other social activities you do, your hobbies, your interests, the people you hang around with, even your family. And think, if I was gonna die tonight, then where would I spend that time?

You know, what would I do with that time, you see? And if you get to do a really good death meditation, if you get really good at death meditation, then that becomes second nature. And you're always evaluating all day long.

As you start to do something, you say, wait a minute, wait a minute. If I died tonight, would I wanna be doing that? Would I want that to be the last thing that Michael Roach did?

You know, like, is that what I wanna be doing in my life? And forget Buddhism and religion and all that. I'm just saying, liberate yourself this way first, you see?

Later I'll try talking to doing something, good karma, right? But just think about, don't waste your life, you know? Go for the things you wanna go for.

You see what I mean? Decide the things you really wanna do, and do them in the light of the fact that you're gonna die tonight. And by the way, those of you who get pretty good at it, there's a distinction, okay?

Between two things. One is, act as if you're going to die tonight, okay? We call that baby death meditation, okay?

And the second one is, do what you're gonna do because you are going to die tonight, okay? See the difference? One is to act as if you're gonna die tonight.

Now that's a kind of ignorance in itself. Do you know you're not gonna die tonight, okay? See, you're gonna act as if you're gonna die tonight.

Do you know you're not gonna die tonight, you see what I mean? So that's what we call a beginner's death meditation, state of mind. But when you get advanced, it should always be, I am gonna die tonight.

And I refuse to do these stupid things, you see what I mean? I refuse not to do what I dream of, you see what I mean? And even if it's practical or impractical or if it's what other people think I should do or it's not what other people think I should do or I have all these other commitments to people that are not very important really, but I'm used to them.

Look at your life in the light. I mean, the best death meditation, the peak of death meditation is where you get up out of your seat and you say, I'm dying tonight and I'm not gonna do anything worthless anymore, with my life. I'm gonna do something, what I dreamed of, you see what I mean?

And I'm assuming it's not illegal or immoral, okay? We're talking something great, your dream, the thing you always dreamed of doing, the thing you always dreamed to do, that the good death meditation is where you get up and you say, I am gonna die tonight and then one day you'll be right. Okay?

Okay? No, I'm not kidding. See, that's a pure death meditation.

It's not like, oh, what if I died tonight? It's when you get up and say, oh my God, I am gonna die tonight. So what do I have to do now?

And then imagine what your life would be like if you lived every day like that, you see? Imagine how different your life would be. You know, like you'd be concentrating only on the most important things and on your biggest dreams, you see what I mean?

And if you keep that up for a year, you know what it's like? You see what I mean? If you keep that up every day for a year, that you only do the things that are the most incredible things you can imagine, because you're gonna die tonight, imagine how it would be if you acted that way for a year.

Okay? And try to imagine what you'd be doing. And it's very exciting.

It's very liberating, see? It's not like some morbid thing where you think about how cold it will be and stuff like that. Or you're thinking what kind of colored lights are gonna come in your head or something like that.

It's not like that. It's like every single day it's vibrant and happy and alive and totally guiltless. You see what I mean?

Because you know you're doing the most important thing. And if your car takes you that night, you're like, no problem. Because you've done it for like a month or two months or a year.

Every single day, you did only what was most important to a person who's gonna die that night. And you already got in the habit of doing that. And then when death comes for you, they say it's quite a pleasant experience only for those kinds of people.

You see what I mean? And that other people experience this overwhelming sense of having missed out on something or not done what they wish they could have done or missed opportunity or they look back on their life with regret. We say that to die with regret is very dangerous.

Karmically, it can lead you to a very bad rebirth. To die with some kind of regret in your mind that oh, I wish I would have done that or I wish I could have done that or I wish I hadn't done that to that person is a very dangerous state of mind. It's called sisay.

And it's a specific state of mind for dying. And it can lead to a very bad rebirth, you see? Whereas if you've been doing this death meditation every single day for a year, if I died tonight, what should I be doing right now?

What would I like to be doing right now? Then when the death comes, even if it's a sudden accident, you're like totally free. Your mind is used to it already.

And you just go happily. And then if you die happily, the next rebirth is quite good, usually. There's a big difference.

And this kind of death meditation is what can help you to die that way. Okay, it's very, it makes you very happy and your life becomes very vibrant and very exciting because there's no holds barred. I'm gonna die tonight.

What have I got to lose? Might as well try to be the most famous blah blah or might as well try to write the best thing or might as well go and try to get that girl to go out with me that I never was afraid to talk to or something like that. What have you got to lose?

Tell everybody what you really think. Apologize to the people that you really should apologize to. You see what I mean?

Change your job to what you really want to do even if you don't make much money. You see what I mean? Because you're gonna die tonight.

So what do you got to lose? Okay, like that. As long as it's wholesome and moral and all that, okay?

I'm assuming that, right? Okay. We'll take a break.

And then after that, I'll try to talk you into doing something good with that time, all right? Okay. So take a five, 10 minute break, okay?

Have some refreshments, I think. So we had three steps in the meditation so far and you can feel that it's not morbid at all or depressing at all. It's actually, you know, to be doing on any given day exactly what you want to do, what you really always wanted to do is very, very exciting.

And if you keep it up for a long time, then your whole life takes off because you're not afraid to take risks or you're not afraid to try things because you're thinking, I'm gonna die tonight. So what do I got to lose, you know? And then you're much more creative and you take more meaning out of life.

In Tibetan, they call nyumba lempa means you get the most meaning out of your life. Like you don't end your life. Again, the worst karma to die with is, the worst thought to die with is some kind of dull regret, you know, like, oh, I never tried this.

I never tried that. I didn't really want to do that my whole life. I wanted to do something else, but I was afraid because it didn't have financial security or something like that.

You know what I mean? And it liberates you if you think this way. And then you find out you can make a living anyway.

You see what I mean? And you're doing what you really wanted to do. And then you can die with some kind of joy and some kind of peace of mind because you're not thinking about all the things you could have done.

You see what I mean? All the things you should have done or something like that. So actually, a person who's doing a good death meditation, it's very, the feeling that I, that to describe it is vibrant.

You see, your whole life is very vibrant. Like, it's exciting because you're right on the cutting edge of what you always wanted to do. And you have no regrets about it.

And it doesn't mean, by the way, that you're irresponsible or something like that. It doesn't have to mean that. It just means that you are doing, you are taking the chance to do what you really wanted to do.

And that's a sign of a successful death meditation. A person who's doing good death meditation is actually much happier than a person who's pretending they're not gonna die or who's not thinking about it. You see what I mean?

It's not like we go around actively pretending we're not gonna die. We just don't think about it. We don't wanna think about it.

Subconsciously, you don't wanna think about it. But if you do the death meditation this way, then you've got this healthy attitude about death and you're admitting the real fact of life, which is the only thing that your life can lead you to is death. You see what I mean?

The only end of all your efforts to collect things, to raise a family, to build a house, to train yourself, to learn something, to develop yourself, the end of it all is death. The end of it all is to lose yourself. I had a lady come up during the break.

She says, you're right on. I used to sell cemetery plots. I'm not kidding.

I said, she should come up and talk to you. But she said, used to be kids, used to be young people. You never know.

I used to have to go convince them of that. It was half price if you buy it before. And they'd say, oh, but the kids don't need it.

And she said, no, the kids do need it, you see, because they don't die in order. People die out of order. And then she said, I asked, well, how much does it really cost to die?

Because I'm curious. She says, well, mausoleum is 8,000. 6,000, what'd you say?

Eight. In the ground is six. And I said, what about people who don't have any money at all?

She says, oh, the city will burn you for free. But then they put you in this place with no marker, and you've got to have a marker. Come on.

You not only have to have a marker, you have to have a marker. She said, the markers tend to sink down to the ground. So you've got to have a marker with some capital, because somebody has to come out every few years and pull it up a little bit, or it just sinks down into the ground, you see.

So she's like, okay, anyway. That's Mormon. So what are you supposed to do with your life?

I mean, your immediate thing is you probably change your career slightly. You see what I mean? And you probably, and I've worked in business 16 years in corporate life.

I know what it is. I know what it is to get up every single morning and commute an hour and a half or two hours. And I've been there.

And what will happen to you is you'll shift your, your priorities will naturally shift in a way that you want them to. Like you've always been dreaming about it, but you couldn't do it, because you had this belief that, I don't know what it is that stops us, but you definitely weren't thinking about your death, okay. But if you look at everything like I'm gonna die tonight, then you will be easily able to get rid of stuff, you see.

And all the unnecessary stuff of life, the cluttered life is what makes many people unhappy. Physically, their houses are cluttered. Time-wise, their life is cluttered.

People-wise, their life is cluttered. You know, half relationships, semi-relationships, almost relationships, you know what I mean? And you never really get into one, because you're like, oh, it's okay, I'll have more time.

I might meet somebody else. It's something like that. If you do death meditation, then everything becomes very intense and very beautiful.

And you're able to get to the depths of things. And this is a sign of a good death meditation. I think what you'll find in the long run, is that you will want some kind of spiritual dimension to your life, you know?

Like, if you do a good death meditation, and you do parachuting, and all that other stuff you always wanted to try, and if it doesn't kill you, then you'll be thinking like, there's this cycle you go through when you do death meditation. First you make the career change, then you throw out a lot of stuff, then you cut off a lot of the worthless activities you're doing. Like, you know, I call it gray movies, gray area movies, or gray area books, or newspapers, magazines, most television, things like that.

You'll just naturally stop doing them, because they're not satisfying for a person who's gonna die tonight. You know, they don't give you any pleasure if you know you're dying tonight, okay? And so naturally, if you do a good death meditation, your life will start to be pure, more and more pristine, less and less junk cluttering it up, and your life will get very streamlined.

But then at some point, you'll start to feel a lack of something, and then you have to start delving into spiritual things, you know? You have to decide, I want to know tonight whether any spiritual thing is meaningful or not, okay? I had a student, came to the class in New York, very handsome guy, you know?

Very well-dressed. And this was in the early years of our classes. We were in Kim Merrick's apartment.

The class went into her hallway. So this guy was like fourth down on the side of the hallway. And I'm looking at him and saying, what's this guy doing in class?

You know, nobody who's very successful financially is interested in a death meditation class, you see? I mean, nobody's coming to class. And he had a really good suit on, and he was really handsome, and I'm like, something's going on here, you know?

And so he comes up to me afterwards, and he says, I got AIDS, you know? They just, I found out I have AIDS. And then he said, could you come out to lunch with me?

I got to talk to you about something, you know? And I went out to lunch with him, and he said, you know, I really like your classes. You've got 15 courses, you've got all this stuff, you've got all the details about Buddhism.

You can take homework, you can learn Tibetan, you've got Tibetan grammar, you've got everything. He says, but I'm dying in six months. You know, just tell me what I need to know.

You know, he's like, I don't have time to learn all that stuff, you know? I don't have time for all this homework stuff. Just tell me what I need to know, because I'm going to die, you know?

And he was very intense, and he wanted something spiritual, you see? And when the time really comes to you that you really believe you're going to die tonight, then you'll get this hunger for something spiritual, you see? You'll go through all the other parachuting, you know, going to the three clubs in town that you haven't been to, and, you know, stuff like that.

And then after that, you'll be done with all that stuff, and it'll just be, all the junk will be gone. All the things you always wanted to try but were afraid to try will be done. You tried them, and then you're stuck, you know?

Then you have to see what has meaning. You see, nyingpo lempa means what has meaning. I always say, I became a monk when I was almost 30, and I think that's a great time to do it, because then you have time to try everything else, you see?

I mean, there's almost nothing I haven't tried. And I'm done with it, you see? And if you go through the good death meditation, and you try all the other stuff you want to try, then you'll come down to something spiritual.

You'll feel like some hunger. Say, okay, I need to do something meaningful. So, I'm going to give you a very holy meditation that you can do after your death meditation, you see?

When you get good at death meditation, then you do a meditation called dakshin-nyamje. Say, dakshin. Dakshin.

Nyamje. Nyamje. Dakshin.

Dakshin. Nyamje. Nyamje.

Okay, and this is like the holiest of Buddhist meditations, really. It was first written down, clearly, by a master, Shantideva, about 13 centuries ago, in a book called The Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life. And it means putting yourself in other people's shoes, okay?

They call it exchanging self and others, okay? So, it's like the golden rule, okay? And we find it very comforting that one religion that starts in the Middle East should come up with the golden rule, and another religion that starts in India, Northeast India, should come up with the golden rule.

Some people say it's weird, or something like that, or it's surprising. I don't think at all. I think if there's a great saint in one country, and there's a holy being in another country, and then they, if they come up with the same idea, I find it very comforting.

I say, it makes sense, you know? If you read the Buddhist descriptions of hell, for example, and you read Dante, they're almost exactly alike. If you read the real old Christian writers' descriptions of the hell realms, and then you read the Buddhist ones, they're almost exactly the same.

So, some people say that's weird, or some guy must have wandered with, you know, what's his name, Alexander, with the Bactrian kings into Kashmir, and it must be cross-pollination cultural. Forget it. Somebody in India saw a hell realm.

Somebody in the Middle East saw a hell realm, and they wrote it down, and they described it, okay? And it's the same with this meditation. Dakshin Yam Je means, you put yourself in another person's shoes, okay?

And the way we do it in Buddhism is, you do it with the people around you, okay? You do it like with somebody that you're, you pick a person in the morning at work that you're gonna do your Dakshin Yam Je on, okay? That you're gonna exchange yourself with them, okay?

And then when you get to work, you like sit down, pick somebody in your room. Like, I used to work in a room with 15 other people because my boss was too cheap to build the walls, you know? And, you know, if you were a big shot at my company, you had 36 inches of desk space.

If you were a little shot, you had 24 inches. Try to work in 24 inches, you know? And it was like that.

We measured that. It was $10,000 a, sorry, no, it was $1,000 an inch, you know? Like, if you made $24,000, you got 24 inches.

And, no, really, it was like that. And this is Manhattan, right? And, so I was like a 20 inch, you know?

And, so anyway, I'm sitting there, and you pick somebody else down the, pick somebody else in the room, and you watch them, and you say, I'm gonna do Dak, in your own mind, you say, I'm gonna exchange myself with them, okay? And then you put your mind in their body. It's very interesting.

And then you start to try to think like them. So, what do they really want, you see what I mean? And it's the science.

This is a Buddhist art. And some people got it really good. Like, there's this little, quiet, shy monk named Jampa in New Jersey.

If you ever meet him, you know, he's like a bodhisattva, you know? But he's just this little, shy guy who makes tea for my lama, you know, and cleans his house, and stuff like that. So, but he's got this art down to his science.

He's watching you all the time. He's observing where your eyes go, you know? What do you like?

You know, where do your eyes go? When you walk in the room, and there's big donuts on the table, and there's food over there, and there's, you know, magazines over there, or there's, you know, where do your eyes go? And he's watching you.

Like, very suddenly, he's picking up on your eyes. His eyes are the mirror of the, what do they call it? Of the soul.

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah, they really are.

[Говорящий 1]
You know, you watch somebody, and you see, what do they like? What do they enjoy? What do they hope for?

You see what I mean? And this is dakshin-nyamje. So you go into a room, you're at work, and you decide, it's usually good to do with someone you don't like, all right?

And seriously, okay? But you might want to start with somebody neutral, okay? And you watch them, and you see, where do their eyes go?

And what kind of food do they like? Jampa knows everybody's favorite food. Jampa knows whether you take sugar in your tea or not.

Jampa knows whether you like milk in your tea or not. Jampa knows whether you'd rather have coffee. You know, he knows everything.

And he knows after the first time you've been to his house, because he's watching, and he's trying to learn about you, what you like, because he wants to serve you. You see what I mean? He wants to make you happy.

And he's observing you very closely. He's scrutinizing you, and like, what kind of things do you like? What really makes you happy?

What kind of things do you want? And he's doing it for you. You see, it's very cool.

And he does it in what we call a transparent way, meaning I've never heard him take credit for anything. Never. And I've never heard him have any hassle with anybody.

He's like, he knows what you want before you look at it. After the third time that you've been to his house, he knows what you want already. And he's got your favorite food is coming out on the plate, and your favorite tea is coming out there, and he's talking about what you like to talk about.

You see what I mean? And so do this kind of practice. This is a very holy spiritual practice.

If you don't want to waste your life, if you're going to die tonight, this is a holy way to spend the time. You see what I mean? So this is something to do when you finally figured out that you're going to die tonight.

When you get to the point of realizing that you're going to die tonight, and you tried all the weird things that you were afraid to try, got that over with, right? By the way, it's okay, do it. If it's legal or immoral, okay?

And get all those things done. And then when you want to make your life really meaningful, like you say, I only have three hours left to live. What do I want to do with that time?

We say, do this holy practice of dakshin yam je. Put yourself in other people's minds, and watch the room the way they watch it. See what they like, see what they want, okay?

And you start with food, and you start with drink, or you start with conversation. You know, what would they like to talk about? And you start with opening the window or closing the window.

What makes them hot? What makes them cold? What do they want?

You see what I mean? And this is a very holy spiritual practice. Then you move up to their deeper desires.

You see what I mean? You move up to their spiritual desires. You say, is this person afraid of death or not?

You know, does this person have a lack of love in them or not? You know, does this person have anxiety or not? Does this person want to make their life meaningful or not?

Is this person hungry for something? You see what I mean? First you start with their physical desires.

Like, what do they like to eat? What do they like to drink? What do they want when they come in my house?

And then you move up very subtly. You study their personalities, and you study their life. And you say, what does this person need?

You know, does this person need love? Or this person needs attention? Or this person needs some kind of spiritual component in their life?

And then you start to supply that. You see, it's very cool. You watch them and you say, what does this person need?

What's this person thinking of? What are they missing in their life, you see? And you start with, Shantideva said, start with vegetables.

Master Shantideva, you know, start with potatoes, he says. And then he says, move up the level to the other kinds of happiness. You know, supply them the other things they really want.

You know, and watch them, and think about them, and think how they feel. Think what their family is like. Think what their job is like.

Think how spiritual they are or how spiritual they're not. And think about how aware they are of death or not. And then move them up.

You know, supply for them what they want. And make it transparent. Transparent means they don't even know necessarily that they're getting it.

You see what I mean? You just feed it to them when they're ready. There's a trick in Buddhism that you don't feed it prematurely.

You see? Like, we're not even allowed to push religion on people. You see what I mean?

We're not allowed to go and twist your arm and say, oh, look, you know, this is the best thing. You have to buy it, or something like that. In Buddhism, you're supposed to just watch quietly, see what they need, give them money if they need money, in a very subtle way.

We always say that if a Buddhist thief broke into your home, he would be slipping money into your wallet, you see? And then sneaking out, you see? Or, you know, your bank account would go up $300, and you're like, I must have made a mistake in my checkbook or something, you know?

Like, Buddhists are always getting your bank account number and putting money in, you see? And that's very fulfilling. I think the Boy Scout code says do one good thing to somebody every day.

Dear Abby said that. Do something secret. I think it's a very holy thing, she said it, I saw it once.

Do something secretly good for somebody else every day. You know, just don't tell anybody, don't tell them. It's what we call transparent.

And that's dakshin-nyamje. Dakshin-nyamje means give them what they want, when they want it, package it perfectly, deliver it to them, and so in such a fine way that they're not even aware that you did it. You see what I mean?

And they have it, and they're enjoying it, and you've got this feeling, you see? So what I'm trying to say is, if you knew you were going to die tonight, I think you'll find that if you tried this meditation, it's the one thing you'd want to be doing when you died, okay? It's the holiest, it's the most fulfilling way, it's better than money, better than sex, better than fame, you know, it's this feeling of watching out for what other people want all day long, you know, thinking...

And start modestly, okay? Don't start with 20 people. Start with one person at work, you know, maybe someone you don't get along with too well, or someone you don't care about much, or, you know, someone who aggravates you slightly.

Don't start with number one enemy, okay? Start with someone who kind of rubs you the wrong way. And then start doing this exchange, we call it the exchange, you know?

Put your mind in their body, look with their eyes around the room, and observe their eyes. What do they look at? What do they want?

You know, what do they need? And then figure out ways to supply it to them, secretly, okay? Maybe they don't even know about it.

And this is the holiest way to... And this, I think you'll find, okay, this is the great masters of Buddhism say, if you get to a good death meditation, and you're positive that you're going to die tonight, and you're into that mood, and your life is like bursting with energy, because you know you're going to die tonight, and you know you're doing the best thing you could have done, once you get over that, then go on to this meditation on other people, do this very holy meditation called the exchange, and try it. And I think you'll find that if you're going to die tonight, this is the thing that would make you most happy.

This would put your mind in the best place as you go out, very holy. And they say that a person who's done these two meditations, when they die, it's just blissful, it's just incredible. There's this one Lama, he said he was getting old, and he told his students, I'm going to do a special meditation when I die, I'm going to do tonglen, tonglen means, as I die I'm going to take on the pain of the whole world, you know.

At that moment, I'm going to take on the pain of the whole world, and I've been practicing. You know, it sounds like somebody else, right? And he says, you know, I've been practicing.

And so, I forget his name, what was his name, who remembers? No, no, the Tibetan one. What was his name?

He wrote a great Lojong. Huh? Chikawa.

Yeah, Chikawa. His name is Chikawa, if you want to know. Lived about 1,000 years ago.

So anyway, on his deathbed, he says, OK, here I go, I'm doing it. Take on that pain, take on the pain. Oh God, oh I blew it.

I've seen all these angels, you know? And he told me, he said, wait, wait, give me a little more time. And he's like, OK, I'm going to take on all the pain right now, you know?

And then he goes, oh man, I did it again. There's just angels coming to me, you know? And this is a true story, OK?

He died complaining that just these beautiful beings were coming to take him, you know? And we believe in that. We believe that that happens to people.

That the karma, the spiritual energy of truly wanting to help other people in that way, creates those beings. It attracts them like a magnet, you see? And then as you're dying, they just come to you, and they take you, you see what I mean?

And we believe that. We believe that they will, if you do that meditation, OK? So be like Chikawa, OK?

Geshe Chikawa, all right? I'll take a few questions, and then we're going to do a special ceremony in here afterwards, in about 15 minutes, OK? If you're ordained.

Every two weeks, ordained Buddhist people are supposed to get together and tell each other all the bad stuff they did the last two weeks, OK? And we do a special ceremony called Sojong. So do you think we should let people clean or not?

What do you think? Huh? Let's let them clean.

What do you think? No? What do you think?

We've got to have a plurality here. What would the Buddha say? I think he'd say it's cool.

We'll do it in Tibetan, and you won't understand it. How's that? No, if a few people want to hang around, you can hang around in the back.

How's that? We'll make a deal. Last few rows, OK?

It doesn't take very long. It's not a public ceremony, but it's a very holy ceremony. Anyway, let's do that.

People can listen. It's a good. Your hair will fall out next life, or get short.

OK? All right, but if you have a few questions, if any are sure. Oh, by the way, anything about anything, OK?

I don't care. You know, it doesn't have to be about this meditation. But please remember this meditation and try it, OK?

And especially if you get sick or something, and you know that you might be in trouble, like if you get cancer or something, then remember tonight and try that meditation. OK, that's the best one. And you can do it with people around you.

You do it with one or two other people. You start imagining what they want and watching them, OK? And then supply them better and better things, you know, up until you're supplying them holy things.

OK? Yeah?

[Говорящий 2]
Is this a good meditation to do for someone who's dying?

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, he said, is it a good meditation for someone else who may be ill or dying? Wow. Yeah, it is.

It's one of the best meditations you can do for them. And imagine what they want and what they need and help them that way, OK? My lama said, if there's no questions, everyone understands it perfectly, so.

Yeah? I'm sorry, say again? Is the Dalai Lama close to returning to Tibet?

He asked if the Dalai, I always repeat for the microphone thing, is the Dalai Lama close to returning to Tibet? There's rumors every three years or so, for the last 35 years, that there's a breakthrough, that we're on the edge of a breakthrough or something like that. I don't really know.

I'm not close enough to that scene. And even the people who are close, I think, get frustrated, because there's a big meeting, secret meeting in such and such town in China, and then everyone gets excited and then nothing happens. So I don't know.

Personally, I imagine it'd be very difficult. My own hope for Tibet, and I'm very clear on it personally, but I don't go preaching it, is that the Tibetans and the Chinese all become Buddhists, the way they used to be, when the Tibetan lamas used to go, Changyur Rinpoche, lamas like that, 300, 400 years ago, they used to go to Beijing and teach the emperor. And it was a very beautiful relationship between the Tibetans and the Chinese, that they were both Buddhists.

And they both practiced very well, and they treated each other well, and with respect, as Buddhists. You see what I mean? So my personal hope for Tibet is that, I don't think you're going to kick a million Chinese out of Tibet any easier than you're going to kick all the Americans out of Hawaii or something.

I don't think it's like, I think it's very unlikely. But I do see some very beautiful thing happening in China and Tibet, very strong, very noticeable. And that's that Buddhism is becoming very popular.

And I think that's the most exciting thing. I don't care much where the Tibetan-Chinese border is. If they were all Buddhists, and they were all practicing and being good, then I think everybody would be happy.

I know that's not a very normal way to talk about it, but I think it's more likely to happen. And I think if we're very pure-minded about the Chinese and the Tibetans, that there's no hatred or anything, that that could be the way it goes. And I think it'd be a much better way.

And then His Holiness could go happily, and he'd be touring China constantly and teaching like he does other countries in that area. And I'd like to see that. I'd like to see him giving the next Dharma teaching at the Communist Party Presidium in Beijing.

That's what I'd like to see. And I say it's possible. Yeah?

If you do the meditation for one year where you know you're going to die that night, how do you deal with the fact that for at least 364 times you've been wrong? OK. Let's say every day you say, I'm going to die tonight, and then it doesn't happen.

And then after a year, obviously your mind would be very liberated and free. And then on the other hand, you'd be sort of disappointed or something. It goes like this.

There's a metaphor. There's a story in Tibet that some guy threatens you and says I'm going to come to your house at night and sneak in the window and kill you. I hate you.

And you say, do you mind to tell me what night? And they say, sometime in the next 30 days. I'm going to sneak in the window and kill you.

And then in the Lam Rim they say, well, when would you put the locks on the window? Would you wait till the 15th of the month or the 20th of the month? Or maybe you'd do it on the 1st of the month?

You see what I mean? And they say, lock the window on the 1st. That's the joke in the Lam Rim.

It says, lock the window on the 1st. And then if they don't come on the 1st, they'll come on the 2nd. But at least you're ready already.

But what if they come on the 1st and you don't start locking till the 2nd? You're screwed up. So you're dead, actually.

So that's what they say in the Lam Rim. They say, there's a joke. They say, lock the windows on the 1st.

And then don't wait. Don't wait for the guy. Don't wait till the day after the guy comes.

OK, we'll stop there. And we do usually a short prayer afterwards. This prayer, the meaning of the prayer is, we did a very good karma tonight by talking about a difficult subject to talk about, which is our own death, and something we don't like to talk about, something that mentally we try to avoid talking about.

And we say that's a very good karma. Because if you do this meditation and if you do this exchange with other people, you'll have a very good death, which is rare. And so we say it's a very heavy good karma we did tonight.

And we like to invest that good karma by saying, OK, visualize it as a big ball of golden light that started in the middle of this church. And imagine it going out the windows and bursting out the ceiling and touching other people and giving them some strength or giving them some happiness, especially the people who maybe are sick or close to death or something like that. So this specific karma, we say that the end of such a good karma that we just did, you should give it away to other people.

So imagine it. We'll do the prayer kind of slow. And then imagine this ball of golden light in the middle of the church.

And it's like spreading out the windows. And it's touching other people, especially people who are ill. And that it's helping them, giving them some help.

And that's what we're doing in this weird prayer at the end. All right, here we go.

[Говорящий 2]
OK. OK.

[Говорящий 1]
OK. Thank you very much. And see you next time, OK?

OK.