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DEATH & REBIRTH: MEDITATION TWO

We’re now ready to begin the second meditation session.

Sit comfortably in the seven-point meditation posture and again, for a couple of minutes or more, focus on your breath as you did at the beginning of the first meditation session.

Motivation

Now generate bodhicitta motivation for doing this meditation. Think, “The purpose of my life is to lead all sentient beings from suffering into enlightenment. In order to be able to do this, I must first reach enlightenment myself. Reaching enlightenment depends on completing the graduated path to enlightenment. Among many other things, doing so includes realizing impermanence and death. Therefore, I am going to meditate on impermanence and death, in particular, the six disadvantages of not remembering death and six advantages of having such remembrance.”

The six disadvantages of not remembering impermanence and death

First we’re going to meditate on the six disadvantages of not remembering death. The purpose of this meditation is to get it through our thick skulls how important it is to have constant awareness of not only the fact that we are going to die but, more importantly, the imminence of death: the fact that the time of death is uncertain and that it can come at any moment. This being so, we should always be prepared for death and should lead our lives accordingly, that is, in such a way that when death does inevitably come, we’ll not only feel neither sorrow nor regret but will actually look forward to it.

The first disadvantage of not remembering death is the disadvantage of not remembering Dharma. Think, “If I don’t remember death, I won’t be afraid of death, and if I’m not afraid of death, I won’t remember to practice Dharma. Instead, I’ll waste my precious life in worldly pursuits, following attachment to the comfort of this life and working for money, sense pleasures, clothing, shelter, reputation and all the other useless things that benefit only this life. By failing to practice Dharma, I’ll completely waste my precious human rebirth.” Contemplate this.

The second disadvantage of not remembering death is that even though you remember to practice Dharma, you keep putting it off. Think, “If I don’t maintain constant awareness of death, even though I remember to practice Dharma, instead of doing it I’ll keep procrastinating, postponing my practice. If I don’t remember death, I’ll always have the thought ‘I’m not going to die today’ in my mind, and that will make me think, ‘Oh, I’ll practice tomorrow, next week, next month, next year or the year after that. First I have to finish my studies and get a degree; first I have to get a job and save some money; first I should get married and have a family; first I should buy a house; first I should buy a car….’ If I don’t remember death, everything else will become more important than practicing Dharma and in this way I’ll spend my life in worldly pursuits and run the risk of dying before I’ve been able to practice any Dharma whatsoever.”

The third disadvantage of not remembering impermanence and death is that of remembering to practice and not putting it off, but the Dharma practice that you do becomes impure, polluted, tainted by attachment, defiled by the eight worldly dharmas. Think, “If I allow myself to fall under the control of attachment, of the desire to receive material things, comfort, fame and praise and aversion to not receiving material things, being uncomfortable and being badly thought of and criticized, even when I do try to practice Dharma, my motivation will be more concerned with the comfort of this life, and this will poison whatever Dharma practice I undertake. Whether it’s practicing charity, keeping precepts, studying, meditating, whatever it is, it will be poisoned by attachment and aversion. Thus, whatever Dharma I try to practice will be impure and, therefore, non-Dharma.”

The fourth disadvantage of not remembering death is that even though you remember to practice Dharma, you don’t practice seriously or continuously. Think, “If I don’t constantly remember death, I’ll be unable to persevere in my practice and will easily get distracted. Even though I remember to practice Dharma, don’t put it off and even practice purely, after a short time, because I’ve forgotten that my death is imminent and my time to practice Dharma is rapidly running out, I’ll get bored and will want to do something new. If I don’t get immediate results from my practice, don’t have clear visualizations, don’t experience any peace of mind, fail to achieve any realizations or deep understanding, I’ll get discouraged and give up my practice.” All this is the fault of attachment to the comfort of this life, and that comes from not remembering impermanence and death.

The fifth disadvantage of not remembering impermanence and death is that of making no effort to control the negative mind and easily creating negative karma. Think, “If I don’t remember that death can come at any moment, I’ll very easily allow myself to fall under the influence of attachment to pleasure, to being with someone or to possessing something. Instead of thinking, ‘I shouldn’t follow attachment because I could die at any moment, and if I die with strong attachment in my mind, I’ll definitely be reborn in the three lower realms,’ I’ll allow myself to fall under the control of attachment. And when I get angry, because I’ve forgotten death, instead of thinking, ‘Anger is the most dangerous of negative minds; it destroys all my merit and causes me to be reborn in hell. Since I can die at any moment, if I die with strong anger in my mind, there’s no way I’ll be reborn in the upper realms,’ I’ll allow myself to fall under the control of anger. Not remembering death, I’ll think, ‘I’m not going to die soon; I’m not going to die today; it doesn’t matter; I can always purify it later.’” This, too, is a shortcoming of not remembering impermanence and death.

The sixth disadvantage of not remembering death is that when you die, you die with much worry and regret. Think, “If I don’t remember death, I’ll be unprepared when the time to die arrives. I won’t be able to die with a positive, virtuous mind. I’ll be afraid. My mind will be full of regret. All I’ll be able to think of is how much time I’ve wasted, the things I didn’t do. If it’s so hard to remember Dharma even now, while I’m healthy and all my faculties are intact, what chance will I have to generate a positive attitude at the time of death, when my mind is out of control and all the negative karmas that I’ve created in this and previous lives are bursting to manifest? Instead of dying in a positive frame of mind, I’ll die in a negative frame of mind and will be reborn in that way.”

So, those are the six disadvantages of not remembering death, and what I’m doing here is giving you just an extremely brief indication of how to meditate on the topic. Once you become familiar with analytical meditation you should spend five, ten, fifteen minutes or more on each of these six disadvantages. Also, you can sometimes do this meditation by following the teaching on it in Liberation in the Palm of your Hand, meditating in the way that Pabongka Rinpoche himself recommended. Also, you’ll find an explanation of how to meditate on these topics in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s commentary from the Sixth Kopan Meditation Course, which is included in the required reading. So you should use these and other teachings, as well as your own wisdom, to figure out how to meditate effectively on this topic.

Before you start the meditation, look into your mind to see how important you think it is to constantly recollect impermanence and death. When you’ve finished the meditation, check again to see if there’s been any change in your attitude. If there has, if you see it as more important, your meditation has been effective. If there has not, your meditation has not been effective. In either case, you still have to practice it again and again.

The six advantages of remembering impermanence and death

The first advantage of remembering death is that it is most beneficial. Think, “Remembering death makes my whole life meaningful and gives it great purpose. By maintaining constant awareness of death, I’ll always be mindful to practice Dharma and to transform all my actions, even what would normally be considered worldly ones, into Dharma. Understanding that life is short and constantly running out, I’ll be aware that I have to make every moment a step closer to enlightenment, because each moment that passes without being transformed into Dharma, is a moment, an opportunity, lost forever.”

The second advantage of remembering death is that it is most powerful. Think, “Remembering death is one of the most powerful and effective ways in which I can destroy my delusions and negative minds. At the moment it’s very difficult for me to meditate on emptiness when strong anger arises, especially in the heat of the moment, but remembering that I could die at any moment is well within my capabilities and is, therefore, a very effective way of bringing me to my senses. When anger arises, I should think, ‘I could die right now; how ridiculous it is to be angry, to leave yet another imprint of anger on my mind. What a waste of my perfect human rebirth. I must never allow myself to get angry.’ Remembering impermanence and death is equally powerful in subduing any other delusions arising strongly in my mind. It’s like pouring cold into boiling water; the boiling water is immediately subdued.”

The third advantage of remembering death is that it’s important at the beginning of the practice. Think, “The purpose of my life is to practice Dharma. The reason I was born human is that many of my previous lives worked hard to create merit, to practice morality, charity and the other perfections, and made stainless prayers to again be reborn human to continue the practice of Dharma. This is why I have found a perfect human rebirth this time. Therefore, if I don’t practice Dharma, I’ll waste all the incredible effort I made in my previous lives. It will be worse than squandering a fabulous inheritance. And since I can die at any time, I must start practicing Dharma immediately.”

The fourth advantage of remembering death is that it’s important once we have set out on the Dharma path. Think, “Now that I’m on the path to enlightenment, no matter what difficulties arise when I try to study or practice meditation, by remembering impermanence and death I’ll be able to overcome them. No matter how hard it is to understand the teachings on emptiness or other difficult subjects, no matter how hard it is to get up early, to keep precepts, to do long retreats, to battle the delusions, to develop single-pointed concentration, remembering impermanence and death will allow me eventually to accomplish all these virtuous activities.”

The fifth advantage of remembering death is that it allows us to complete our Dharma practice and attain enlightenment. Think, “Milarepa said, ‘Through fear of death I fled to the mountains, where I realized the nature of the mind; now death holds no fears for me.’ Just as mindfulness of death allowed him to remain in extremely harsh conditions and complete all the difficult, austere practices and attain enlightenment, in the same way, it can help me when I approach the end of the path. May I become like that.”

The sixth advantage of remembering death is that it allows us to die happily, without regret. Think, “As long as I remember impermanence and death, I’ll always remember Dharma. As long as I remember Dharma, I’ll keep practicing and may even become like those great practitioners for whom death is a picnic. Even if I don’t become like that and look forward to death, I can still die with the confidence that I won’t be reborn in the three lower realms. And if not that, at least I’ll be able to die without feeling regret that I’ve wasted my life.”

These are the six disadvantages of not remembering impermanence and death and the six advantages of doing so.

In your own sessions, you have to meditate on each of these twelve points for much longer than we’ve been able to here. Also, remember that what you’re doing here is what we call formal meditation, where you sit on your cushion in the proper meditation posture, focus on your breath, generate bodhicitta, do the meditation and conclude with dedication. After that, you get up and go about your other activities. But in the scheme of things, half an hour’s formal meditation here, half an hour’s formal meditation there, is not much meditation. Therefore, you also need to be able to do informal meditation, in other words, meditate for the other twenty-three-and-a-half hours a day. Since you can’t spend much time on your cushion, you need to be able to make everything you do a meditation. Therefore, you should keep awareness of impermanence and death with you constantly as you go about your daily life and use it to transform all your actions into Dharma and protect you from creating any negative karma whatsoever.

Dedication

Now let’s dedicate the merit of this meditation. Think, “Because of the merit of having done this meditation on impermanence and death, may I quickly become Buddha for the sole purpose of leading all sentient beings into his enlightened state.”

Thank you.