So, tonight's talk, I thought to talk about death.
The reason is simply that this is the sort of thing I think
about myself quite a bit in my monastic life.
It's the sort of thing I like to talk about because I reflect on
these things myself. And one of the things to
understand when we talk about death is that, from a Buddhist
point of view, it's not a sad or a negative thing to think about.
But actually the purpose of talking about this and thinking
about death is actually quite the opposite.
It's to make you feel more at ease, more comfortable, more at
peace, and even more happy inside of yourself.
So it's a beautiful thing which comes from thinking about death
in the right way, of course, not in the wrong way.
It gives us all these beautiful spiritual qualities if we do
this in the right way. This is the first thing you
should then take. The second thing you should take
into account is that you should always, if you think about
death, you should look inside of yourself and see how you feel.
If it makes you feel negative or anxious or upset or has some
kind of negative consequence for you, then of course you're going
to have to be careful with thinking about this.
I remember a few years ago there was a lady who came up to me at
the monastery and she said to me that, you know, sometimes I wake
up in the middle of the night and I feel terrible.
I'm terrified, terrified about dying.
While I'm sleeping, suddenly I have this thought and I wake up
and I'm terrified of dying. And of course, if you, some
people, I don't think many people are like that, but some
people are like that. And if that is the case, you
have to be very careful how you go about this sort of
contemplation. Otherwise, you will cause
enormous amount of suffering for yourself.
So always the way we decide whether a particular practice is
good for us or bad for us is always the way we decide.
And the way we decide is whether it gives rise to good states of
mind, to peace, joy, calm, all these beautiful things that we
are trying to move towards in this practice we know as a
Buddhist practice. So that is how you should decide
for yourself whether it is working or not.
And I always like to take my cue from the suttas, from what the
Buddha taught. And the interesting thing is
that the Buddha talked about death a lot in the suttas.
And he said that we should contemplate something that he
mentions again and again and again.
Something that he said we should contemplate, and we should also
use in our meditation practice to help us advance on the
Buddhist path. And very interestingly, he said
there's one particular place, he said that there are five
contemplations that both a monastic and a layperson, if you
like, or a householder, whatever you want to call, call the
opposite of monastics. There are five things that we
should contemplate. Contemplate frequently because
it gives rise to great growth in good states.
And one of those five is the thought of dying.
To remind ourselves that we are also subject to dying, at least
eventually. We don't know when, but
eventually we're going to have to die as well.
The other four things in that particular sutta are also to
remind ourselves that we get sick, we get ill, to remind
ourselves of old age. We're going to have to go in
that direction. To remind ourselves that we will
eventually get departed from all the things that are pleasing and
delightful to us. And finally, that we are the
heirs to our kamma. In other words, the actions that
we do, whether they're good or bad, we are going to have to
reap the result of those actions in the future.
These are the five things. And of those five things, I
think the most central one, possibly, is death.
Because death is something that the Buddha said in many, many
places. And that's the first thing we
should contemplate. So because it is such an
important part of the Buddhist path, I like to both talk about
this and obviously practice this sort of thing myself in my own
life. So the first thing to remember,
one of the beautiful things, one of the wonderful consequences of
contemplating death, one of the first things that happen, is
that it sets our priorities in life very straight.
When you remind yourself that you are not the only one who is
suffering death, you are going to die.
Because if you know that you are going to die, you don't want to
invest so much in the things that are around you, whether
it's material things or whatever it is that you are trying to
accumulate in life and build up in your life.
Why invest so much in things that you know with absolute
certainty you are going to have to give up?
So this idea of death changes our priorities around.
It makes us look at things in a new way, see things in a new
light. And that is one of the powerful
things that it does to us. It clarifies what is actually
important in life. It doesn't delude us anymore
into thinking that some of these superficial things that we are
going to have to give up anyway, that these are really important.
And it reminds us that what actually is important are the
spiritual qualities in the mind. And it's almost like a natural
instinct. Once you think of death, it
changes your view of things almost straight away.
If you do it with a clear mind. It's an instinct.
Suddenly you know what is right, what you should be doing.
What you should be doing, of course, is the practice we know
as a Buddhist practice. And it's very beautifully
summarized on that statue, Buddha statue outside here.
There's a verse on that Buddha statue on the column known as
the Ovada Patimokkha. Ovada means like an exhortation.
Patimokkha is like, well, the Patimokkha for monks is like a
sequence of rules and training rules we have to follow.
And this Ovada Patimokkha is one of the maybe more succinct but
still beautiful ways of capturing what Buddhism is all
about. And it says that we should avoid
doing that which is bad or evil. We should do what is good.
And we should purify the mind. This is the teaching of the
Buddhas. That is what it says.
And that is Buddhism in a nutshell.
So when I say that it clarifies the mind, it moves the mind
towards those things which are part there of that Ovada
Patimokkha verse. And there's one beautiful story
which Ajahn Brahm tells, and I'm sure many of you may have heard
this story before, but I think it's very pertinent when we talk
about death. And this is the story of a
businessman who lived in Sydney. I don't know when this was,
probably many years ago. And he told this story to Ajahn
Brahm at some stage. And he said that one day when he
was at home, suddenly the phone rang.
At the other end of the phone was his doctor.
And the doctor says, I've got some very serious news for you.
Are you prepared? Are you ready to hear this very
serious news? After you had your, the doctor
says to this businessman, after you had your visit to me a week
ago or something, we did all the tests, we have found out that in
fact those tests have revealed that you have a terminal
disease. You have cancer.
This is the sort of thing many people get to hear in their
lives. There's thousands and thousands
and millions and millions of people out there who are in that
sort of situation. So the businessman, of course,
like most people are straight away, he was quite upset.
Cancer, you know, I don't really want cancer.
I still thought I had many, many years ahead of me.
But after a while he realized that there's no point in going
on complaining about this. Now was his chance to do all
those things that he had put off, because he had been so busy
with his life. He was so busy making money,
climbing the career ladder, trying to do all those worldly
things that most people get caught up in.
So he then sold his business and the first thing he did was to
book some airline tickets at a nice destination overseas to
take all his family with him and spend some quality time with his
family, a family that he had neglected over many years
because he was too busy doing other things which seemed
important for him at the time. Just as the family was about to
set off traveling overseas, he gets another call from his
doctor. And the doctor says, well, this
time I've got even more serious news for you.
This is even worse than last time.
And the man thinks, well, what on earth could that be?
Surely terminal cancer is bad enough.
And the doctor says there has been a very serious mix-up at
the hospital. In fact, the test that we
thought was yours was a test of somebody else's.
And the doctor says, well, this time I've got even more serious
news for you. This is even worse than last
time. In fact, the test that we
thought was yours was a test of somebody else's.
In fact, the test that we thought was yours was a test of
somebody else's. Somebody else got the cancer.
You're actually 100% all right. And of course, at that point,
some people might get very upset and very angry because they feel
that they have, you know, now they have sold their business,
they've made all these preparations, done all these
things, and now the doctor says to him, he's actually okay.
He could have carried on as before.
But this man, he was too wise to get upset.
He just said, okay, fine, thank you for informing me.
Then he went overseas. He had his holiday with his
family. And then after that, he settled
down into a very simple and easy life afterwards.
Never went back on that career path, earning much money, but he
had a very simple life. And he says, and he said to
Ajahn Brahm, I'm eternally grateful for that false alarm
because it reminded me that there are other things in life
which are much more important than just thinking about money,
thinking about career, but not actually really living in the
present moment, not really living in the present moment.
But really doing those things which actually ultimately are
important to me. So this is a classical case of
somebody who understands through having to face death right in
front of you, right in your face, understands that he needs
to change his life because there are more important things.
And sometimes we have to have this kind of threat almost right
in front of us before we change the way we live, before we
actually think of the other aspects of life which are more
important to us, in particular the spiritual part of life.
And this is why we try to avoid that.
We try to do that now by reflecting on death, thinking
about death now, so we don't have to wait until we're sort of
face to face with it. And then it becomes an enormous
shock for us, which is very hard to deal with.
The other day I had another man coming to the monastery.
He's staying at the retreat center we have over there.
And he also was another cancer sufferer.
And he came up to me and he said, this cancer is the most
wonderful thing that's ever happened to me.
Of course, initially he said he was upset and angry and he felt
it was terrible. And of course most people do
that. But afterwards, because he said
I've been a Buddhist for a long time, I realized that this
actually, after the initial shock was over, I started to
change. And I could see myself changing.
Because I knew I was going to die in a few months, I stopped
getting so angry with people around me.
How can you get angry in the face of death?
It doesn't make any sense. You're going to depart from
these people soon anyway. How can you get angry with them?
You have to forgive them. It's like a natural response in
us. We don't have to think, I'm
going to die, therefore I shouldn't get angry anymore.
It's like it happens almost automatically inside of you.
It's like some kind of mechanism which says, OK, put aside the
anger. Because it doesn't make any
sense to be angry when you're faced with dying.
And he also said he stopped having so many desires anymore.
Now he felt much more like practicing the Dhamma, coming to
the monastery, even ordaining, he said, even becoming an
Agarika, because he couldn't see the point of anything else in
life. This is a beautiful thing that
happens when people are faced with death, if they have a
spiritual inclination. If you haven't got a spiritual
inclination, this sort of death is not going to happen.
The threat of death can be very, very challenging indeed.
And you may not know exactly how to deal with it.
And I've also seen, as a monk going to hospital sometimes,
visiting people with cancers and all kinds of diseases, some
people are very wise and they become very, very peaceful on
their deathbed. They become very relaxed.
And you can see that because they have sort of accepted their
destiny, it's like they have let go of something.
They have let go of the striving that we all have in life, to
move forward, to move somewhere, to do something, to go in a
different place. That they have given up, because
they know there is nowhere for them to go anymore.
Where is there to go when you know you're going to die maybe
in 48 hours, 36 hours, you're on the verge of death?
There's nothing to do. And if you realize that in a
deep sense, that there's nothing to do, there's nowhere to go,
you let go. You abandon all those desires,
all that clinging, all that attachment, you let it go.
And then you feel at ease, you feel relaxed, maybe for the
first time in your life. So this is the kind of thing
that we can actually do right now.
We don't have to wait till we are about to die.
We can do it now by reflecting on death right here and now,
reminding ourselves that not only are we definitely going to
die, we don't even know when we're going to die.
It could be in a month's time, it could be next year, it could
be in a year's time. It could be next week.
We just don't know. One of the most beautiful
stories for me in the suttas is the Buddha's going forth when he
decides that he wants to become a monk.
What does the Buddha reflect on? What is the thing that makes him
actually go forth? And of course, the powerful
thing that changes the Buddha around from being a householder
to being a monk is first and foremost the reflection of
death, of dying. The Buddha reflects to himself,
well, here I am, subject to death.
I know I'm going to die, and yet I'm just indulging myself in
sensual pleasures, having a good time because I come from a good
family. How can I just keep going on
indulging myself, attaching to all kinds of things, when I know
that one day I'm going to die? If I don't deal with this death
now, I'm going to have to pay the price for that in the
future. So this was the main thing, that
made the Buddha himself seek a spiritual solution to the
problem of suffering. Because of course death is one
of those big sufferings in life that we're all faced with.
And why? What is happening here?
Why is it that the Buddha, when he reflects on death, suddenly
he changes around, and he wants to leave the household life, and
he wants to become a monk instead?
What is actually going on here? What is actually the effect on
the mind of thinking like this? And it's useful, I think, to
understand that. What is happening here is that
the Buddha, and he says this in another discourse, which is also
found, which you can read for yourself if you like, he says
that when I reflected on death in this way, I gave up that
intoxication with life, intoxication with youth,
intoxication with health. The intoxication of life is like
when you run around, you say the world is my oyster, I'm just
going to have a good time. You feel particularly maybe when
you're really young and you have lots of energy, and you feel
like you're the master of the universe, as one famous book
many years ago had of these Wall Street people.
And you feel like you're in charge of your life and you can
do whatever you like, whatever you want.
In a sense you're forgetting the reality, you're forgetting what
life actually is all about. And you're living in this sphere
where you think that this is like the eternal truth, this is
going to be like this forever and ever after.
It's like you're drunk on life, you are intoxicated, drunk on
life, just like an alcoholic doesn't see straight, you don't
see straight because of this intoxication.
And it is this particular intoxication that is abandoned
when we reflect on death in the right way.
Suddenly, you know what it's like when intoxication is
abandoned, your mind becomes clear, you see things straight,
you understand what is actually happening, what is actually
going on. You're no longer deluded, you're
no longer seeing things which are not real, but you see things
as they actually are. And this is the main purpose of
this kind of death reflection. Suddenly things clear up for
you. Instead of running around like
some sort of person which doesn't really reflect on life
properly, you stop, you reflect and you think, wow, I should be
doing this instead. This is much more important.
This is where I should be putting my energy.
I should live a more spiritual life.
It doesn't matter what you do, but it's how you live your life
that is important. Leaning towards the spiritual
qualities rather than just running after all the material
things which most people do in this world of ours.
So this is the power, this is what the Buddha saw when he was
about to go forth and he became a monk.
This is what he himself did. So of course if the Buddha did
that and he recommended that we should do the same, then we can
be absolutely sure that this is a very powerful way of acting.
So that is how by reflecting on death we can actually get our
priorities straightened out. And this is how I sometimes
reflect on death. What I do when I am by myself in
my little kuti in the forest in a monastery in Serpentine, I
remind myself that I have no idea how long I might live.
I feel okay, I don't have any great physical problems, but
still there are lots of people out there who feel perfectly
alright, but at this very moment they might have a cancer growing
inside of them. And I remind myself perhaps I
have a cancer growing inside of me.
Perhaps I have a potential heart attack inside of me right now,
which I just don't know about. And when I think like that I
think, well what does that mean? When could I die?
Could I die next week? Next month?
And all of these things are
possibilities. When I walk from my little hut
in the forest back maybe to the main hall in the monastery, I
could fall over. It's extremely slippery in that
monastery. I have this Australian gravel,
which is a bit like marbles, and I slide on this almost every
day. I don't usually fall over it,
but I slide on these things all the time.
And you never know what might happen if you fall in the dark
on those things. You might hurt yourself.
You could even die. This happens to people all the
time. They fall over and they die.
This could happen to me. I could be bitten by a snake.
I've seen lots and lots of snakes in the forest over there.
It could happen easily if you're by yourself.
Maybe you don't get to medical support in time.
Maybe you might even die of that snake bite.
And there's always surprises around the corner.
There's a car coming there. There's always things which can
happen to you. So I remind myself of these
things. And then I think and then I try
to bring death as close. As close as I possibly can and
make it real. I could die this evening.
I could die in an hour's time. I could maybe die even right
here now before I reach the end of this talk.
That's powerful thinking, powerful thought.
And bring it as close as you possibly can.
And the closer you bring it, the more powerful that thought of
death is going to be. And the more at ease and the
more relaxed you will feel if you do it right, if it works.
Because it forces you to let go. It forces you to abandon things
that you might otherwise be attached to.
I also tell myself that I'm now, I'm already well into my 40s.
And I tell myself, well, I might still be not exactly ancient
yet. But one day is going to be my
death day. And one day could be just like
today. And because one day, could be
just like today, might be my death day.
If I'm not ready now, I might never be ready.
It's either now or it's never. And again, that forces me to
bring myself back into the present moment.
This is all I've got. There's no point in desiring all
kind of stuff out there which I might never actually even have a
chance to get to, even remotely. So these are some of the ways,
some of the tricks to use to remind yourself of the life's
dangers and the possibility that we might all pass away.
Again, make sure you don't do this in a bad way, so that you
feel bad, you feel negative, you feel kind of vulnerable or
whatever. Or a bit vulnerable is okay, but
at least not negative states of mind coming up.
Make sure that you do it in such a way that it leads to something
positive. That is when you're doing it
right. Then you can also use this
contemplation of death as a meditation tool.
Do it in a meditation practice. Sometimes you may find that you
come back, you sit down, you feel restless, you feel
agitated, ill at ease. What do you do?
Try to think about death. Remind yourself that you could
die. Remind yourself that you may not
have that much further to go. And see what happens if you do
that before your meditation practice takes off, before you
start your meditation practice. And if you do that, and if it
works again, because, as I mentioned before, the reflection
of death tends to make you abandon your desires, how can
you have desires when you know that death could be right around
the corner? Because it helps you to abandon
your desires, abandon any negativity, irritation or ill
will you have, how can you have ill will if you're about to die?
Because of that, it can make you peaceful very fast if you do it
correctly. And this is another story which
Ajahn Brahm likes to tell and which many of you have probably
heard before anyway, but it's still a very nice story.
And this is the story of Ashoka, and Ashoka's brother.
And for those of you who don't know, Ashoka was the great
emperor of India about 150 to 200 years after the Buddha
lived. He became the emperor of India.
And that emperor Ashoka, he was ruled over the largest Indian
empire, the largest Indian empire that probably has ever
existed. And part of that empire was what
is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, maybe parts of Central Asia, and
maybe even what is now Bangladesh.
It was a very, very large continent.
And at some stage during his life, he converted to become a
Buddhist. After a very violent campaign
against the neighboring states, he became a Buddhist rather than
being a Hindu, which was the standard in those days.
And of course, as all converts to a new religion, he became
very keen on this Buddhism. And when you're very keen, you
want to help others. You want to convert others and
say, oh, Buddhism is the most wonderful thing in the world.
It was a bit like when I first started off as a monk, I tried
to tell my family that this is the way to go.
Forget about everything else. This is the path to go.
And all converts, I think, we're all a bit like that.
We want to show how wonderful this is.
It's just a natural thing that that's how we are.
It's just the enthusiasm that comes.
And without the experience, understanding how actually
people find the faith in a new religion or new philosophy.
Anyway, Ashoka was in exactly that same situation.
And he looked at his brother and he saw, well, my brother is a
bit of a hedonist. He just likes to enjoy himself.
And he doesn't take life seriously enough.
He doesn't think about the future.
He doesn't think about what's going to happen after he dies.
He doesn't reflect properly about what is much more
important than just enjoying yourself.
So he decided he was going to play a trick on Ashoka, on his
brother. He decided, I'm going to teach
my brother a lesson of the Dhamma to make him wake up to
the realities of life. So he schemed with one of his
ministers. And one day while he was taking
a bath, he had his minister, he made his minister take his
brother out for a walk, walking past the bathhouse.
And as they walked past the bathhouse, of course, there were
all the clothes, all the emperor and all the regalia, all the
kind of the kingly emperor things that emperor wears.
And the minister says to Ashoka's brother, well, here is
all the regalia and all the robes of the king.
You should try it on. And the brother says, no, no, I
can't try it on. It's a capital offense to try it
on. Can't do that.
So the minister says, well, you never know.
Ashoka is older than you are. He might die before you.
It's good to know if the robe fits so that you can just take
it over straight away just in case something happens with your
brother Ashoka. So eventually Ashoka's brother
is persuaded that he should try it on.
And just as he's got the robe on, all the regalia, all the
marks of the king on him, at that point Ashoka comes out of
the bath and says, ha, what are you doing putting on the king's
robe and the king's regalia? You know that it is a capital
offense. How can you act in this way?
And the brother tries to explain, of course, but King
Ashoka says, well, the law says that this is a capital
punishment, so I'm going to have to set an example for the
kingdom. I'm going to have to treat you
just like everybody else. So Ashoka says to his brother,
but because you are the brother of the emperor, you have a
special privilege. You have seven days before I
will execute you. And in those seven days you can
enjoy all the pleasures of the palace.
And of course, a big palace of the greatest emperor who has
ever lived in India, you can imagine the pleasures were
probably enormous. You can enjoy yourself to the
max in those seven days, and then at the end of seven days I
will execute you because you have committed a capital crime,
a capital offense. So, I'm going to explain.
So after seven days, Ashoka asks his brother to be sent for, and
the brother gets taken in front of Ashoka, and Ashoka says to
him, well, your day has come. Today is your execution.
Have you at least enjoyed yourself over the last seven
days? And of course, Ashoka's brother
says, how can I enjoy myself? How can I indulge myself in
sensual pleasures when I know that death is just around the
corner? All I was, I was worried about
death. I couldn't think straight.
I certainly couldn't enjoy myself.
And of course then Ashoka says, well, what difference does it
make if it's seven days, seven weeks, seven months, seven
years, or even seventy years? Life is a very short thing.
Life passes just like that. How can we just waste our time
just enjoying ourselves, just indulging in life without
thinking further into it? And that was the beautiful
lesson that Ashoka taught his brother.
I'm not sure what happened after that, but that was essentially
the story. And this is how we should also
think. We should think, well, life is
indeed short. Ask anybody who is much older
than you are, ask them if life is long or life is short, and
everybody will say, I can almost absolutely guarantee it, life
has gone so much faster than they ever had in their lives.
And so whatever we should always invested in, should we believe
that we have to get bought into it or we should take it to the
ground, or we should take the job, andstad coexist with it or,
let me finish my sharing about all this. dumplings, all the
things that meaning took a place in.
So learn to accept them. So, I think that's very
difficult moment. It's not easy to live with that
state of mind because it's totally different from your
life. And see what happens when you
meditate, when you remind yourself of death.
And see if you can abandon the desires, the anger, the
negativity, all these things that make us restless, make us
tired, make us tense, make us agitated.
And see if then you can find the peace and sit down peacefully
and actually enjoy the meditation.
See if that works for you. It's a beautiful way of starting
a meditation practice if you can do it.
Like with all meditation, you have to keep practicing this for
a while. It's not going to work straight
away. These things, like everything
else, it takes a while to get used to this kind of thinking.
It takes a while to get it going, to make it work for you.
But if you can do it, it is very, very worthwhile.
And it can be a very powerful technique to make yourself
peaceful. So that is a little bit about
how to use the idea of death in your daily life.
In your meditation practice. To help you to practice the
spiritual path. To make you go faster.
To make it be a more powerful path that you're practicing.
But before I stop, I also want to talk a little bit about the
reality of death itself. Because so far it's been more
the theory or more the idea of death.
How to use that idea in a skillful way.
But what about actual death? What is the right way of dealing
with death? What is the right way of dealing
with death itself? And it has always occurred to
me, and I think this is obviously the case for most
people, death is one of those very difficult times in life.
Most people find it very hard. And most people, nobody really
looks forward to the moment of dying.
And because it is so hard, because it can be so difficult,
it's important to be well prepared for the time of death.
How can we be well prepared for death?
And there's three things. One is to be well prepared for
death. And the other thing is that I
think are maybe the most difficult things about dying.
And maybe more things as well. But the first thing which is
difficult, of course, that if you get very old, the body
starts to fall apart in a very bad way as you're approaching
death. That is the first thing.
The second thing about death which is difficult is that we
have to give up pretty much everything around us, everything
we own, all our friends, our family, even our own body we're
going to have to give up at the point of death.
This is the second thing which is so difficult about it.
The fact that we have to leave pretty much everything behind.
It challenges our attachments when that happens.
And the last thing about death which is difficult is the fact
that we are going into the unknown.
We don't know what's going to happen next.
Is life just going to come to an end?
Is it going to just be we die and there's nothing happening
after that? Is there going to be a rebirth?
Are we going to meet our Creator and stay with our Creator until
eternity? We just don't know what's going
to happen. It's all this very uncertain,
basically. We have no idea.
And that is a little bit, of course, not a little bit, it's
quite frightening that we don't know these things.
So these are the three things. And the first one of these, this
with the body falling apart, I remember reading a book a few
years ago. It was called How We Die by an
American doctor called Sherwin Newman.
Sherwin? Sherwin Newland, I think.
Something like that. And this book was a bestseller
in the US for many, many years. Maybe not many years, but it
certainly was a bestseller anyway.
And this explained in quite graphic detail what actually
happens when we are about to die, particularly when we die of
old age. And it is quite remarkable how
we, what actually happens when we are dying.
Sometimes we think that, oh, I'm going to be one of those people
who just passes away nicely in my sleep.
I will pass away and that will be the end of it.
There won't be any more problems.
But the reality is that the vast majority of people, death is a
very difficult physical process to go through.
Over the last, I think I heard somewhere, a statistic that the
last six months of a person's life is where they incur 90% of
their lifetime medical costs. Something like that.
Because the body starts to fall apart, your eyes fall apart,
your hearing falls apart, your limbs, your legs, your arms fall
apart, your internal organs don't work properly anymore, and
you need enormous amounts of care.
Of course, there is the indignity of having other people
looking after everything, all your bodily functions,
everything. The sense of being dependent on
somebody else 100%. Some people find all these
things very, very difficult. And it's important to realize
this, that death is usually not a very pretty thing.
It's usually something which is traumatic, particularly if we
have a lot of attachment to the physical body.
So what do we do then? How can we get out?
How can we minimize this problem if we know that this is our
future? And the answer is that instead
of taking refuge in the physical body, we have to take refuge
somewhere else. Instead of spending enormous
amounts of time looking after the physical body, and I know
this is a standard thing in modern society, of course, we
look after the physical body, we train it, we look after it, we
want to stay thin, we build up muscles, we go jogging, we go
practicing, we put on makeup, we dress it nicely, we go to the
hairdresser, all these kind of things, just to look nice.
And that's fine. But be careful, because these
things also show the attachment, our identification with this
physical body. So what we have to do is move
that identification instead into the realm of the mind.
Because the mind is something that is not affected by the
death process, it's in the same way as the physical body is, or
at least it doesn't have to be. And the beautiful thing then, of
course, what we then have to do is to make sure that if we
practice a good life here and now, if we do a bit of
meditation practice, if we practice compassion and kindness
to ourselves and the people around us, then we build up
something beautiful inside of us, something nice, something
stable, something which is, when we come to our deathbed,
something we can go back to, and we can find a refuge in.
So when the body falls apart, we have somewhere else we can go
inside of us, and find a sense of peace and detachment, and not
care so much about the indignities and the problems of
the physical body. So that is what we have to do.
And this is just another way of reminding ourselves of the
importance of the spiritual path in this life, because it helps
us deal with a very difficult situation at the end of life.
And of course, it is very similar with the second problem
I was talking about, the second problem being the attachments
that we have, all the attachments that we are forced
to let go of when we face our death, the attachments to our
family, to our friends, to our possessions, to our own physical
body, all these things come up when we die.
Now the stronger those attachments are, the more
difficult it is to go through the dying process, because we
are forced to abandon the attachments, whether we want to
or not. So, we are forced to abandon
them. So, we are forced to abandon
them. And we are very wise, if instead
of waiting till the deathbed, we actually start to abandon some
of those attachments right here, right now.
How do we do that? Well, you don't do it through
willpower, you don't do it by saying, I don't want to be
attached anymore. The way you do it is by
developing the spiritual path. Like I mentioned before, do what
is good, avoid what is bad, and purify the mind.
And by just doing that, there is an automatic detachment that
happens through practicing the spiritual path.
So again, to avoid the sense of clinging and attachment and
desires, which might be there on the deathbed, again, develop the
mind, make the mind beautiful, have a refuge inside of
yourself, a beautiful place you call home, a place you can go,
you can feel at peace, you can feel at ease, and you feel this
is the true me, this is where I can rest, this is where, I think
it was Ajahn Chah, who said that the true home is the peaceful
mind, the mind which is at ease and at peace.
That is our true home, because that is where we can find a real
sense of refuge, until we go even further on the spiritual
path. And lastly, it is the big
unknown of death. Where are we going in the
future? Are we going to a rebirth
somewhere? Is it all going to end?
Well, from a Buddhist point of view, of course, you are going
on to a new rebirth, unless you are fully enlightened.
And even if you think that maybe there isn't any rebirth, I ask
you, please, consider that actually we don't really know
what is happening here. So because we don't know, please
take into account the fact that maybe there is a rebirth out
there. If you have a sense that the
Buddha was a very powerful spiritual master who lived two
and a half thousand years ago, that is certainly my feeling,
that he was a very special human being.
If you have that sense, then just the fact that the Buddha
said that there is rebirth is something worth taking, is a
reason why we should take this idea seriously.
And of course, again, if we take it seriously, even if we may not
give it 100% credence, we shouldn't really give it 100%
credence, because we don't know, we should just keep an open
mind. But the fact that it is possible
should give us a sense of alarm, okay, I better make sure that I
do myself. If I'm going to get reborn,
well, at least make it a good rebirth, make sure I don't get
reborn in a negative state, in a negative way.
And when you do that, of course, again, the answer to that, the
answer to how we get reborn in a good way, of course, again, is
the spiritual path, to make sure that we purify the mind, that
the mind is a beautiful thing inside of us where we feel at
ease, we feel relaxed, we feel a sense of self-esteem, we feel
good about ourselves. Then when the body falls away,
you are right there, right then, you are already in a good
destination, because you have made a pure, pure and beautiful
mind for yourself. And that, of course, is also how
you go to a good destination in the future.
So you can see here, all the problems that come with dying,
all the difficulties that we have, they're all basically
solvable through this one thing, the practicing of the spiritual
life. And this is just one other
reason for reminding yourself that unless we do that duty in
our life, we do the spiritual practice, it is going to be
difficult when we come to our end of our life.
And we may even face further difficulties after we die.
And remember just briefly what that spiritual practice is.
The spiritual practice is not doing any particular kind of
job, or being in any particular kind of relationship, or living
in any particular kind of lifestyle.
It is not what we do that is important, but it is how we live
our life that is important. What are the intentions?
What are the motivations behind our actions?
What is it that drives us? That is what matters, not what
we do, but how we do things. It is the how that makes a life
spiritual, not the what. And when you think like that,
then there is always lots of scope for change, lots of scope
for living in a better, more caring, kinder, more
compassionate way, and thereby making sure you increase your
own happiness and also the happiness of the people and the
world around you. Okay, so that is the talk for
this evening. Thank you very much.
So before we, I think there is a special surprise coming shortly
because it is Christmas Day. So before we have the special
surprise, are there any questions or anything anybody
wants to add or comment on or say?
Please feel free to say anything you like.
This is your chance. Any more questions about the
Bhikkhuni or the spiritual practice?
No? Okay, then I will leave it
there. Thank you.
Or the ordination question, anything like that is also
welcome if you want to do that. Anybody who is about to die here
maybe? Who has some reflections they
want to share? Okay.
Maybe we should all put our hand up for that question.
Yes, Peter. Yes, that is a good one.
I have heard that one before as well.
Yes. Nobody dies wishing that they
had spent more time in the office.
That is true actually. Actually, there is one more
thing I wanted to say which I forgot to say in my talk.
That was a beautiful... I met a Sri Lankan man when I
went to Brisbane and I was in the office.
I was in the office and I was talking to him.
And this Sri Lankan man, we are talking about death as well.
And he said something, gave some very beautiful thing that he was
doing every day when he left the house going for work.
And he said to me that every day as he was leaving the house, he
thought to himself that today I may not come back to see my wife
and children, my family. I could die today.
So because I could die today, I have to make sure I leave the
house in a good way. Saying the nice things, making
sure I don't argue as the last thing I do when I leave the
house. I thought that was a beautiful
way of using this death contemplation to remind yourself
that you never know when it's going to come.
So it's always good to act in a nice way, particularly to those
people who are close to us, who are our loved ones, who we may
often take for granted, may not always treat, but may be the
kind of respect that they deserve.
I'm not criticizing anybody. This is just the nature of
family life, that this is how things often are.
Help me find the health right way.
The inner heartava. We shouldn't forget that we can
all rely on our family in every way... unless we're supposed to
take good care of our family. We need to make sure that we
are. The family has been the key for
so many years. I need you always and every day
to take care of us. If not, do it.
There won't be to you guys, to me.
When we open the THEM We always something that will be there and
be the most important part and heart and soul of our children.
Lower the block and make a Little fast