Motivation for Dying

This is a motivation for when we are dying. Of course, those who know how to practice will have their own motivation.

However, if our life is finishing and we are dying, first we try to have long life. There are various practices to do for long life. There are distant signs of death and also signs that death is near, such as dreams about red flowers or riding on a donkey, going to the south, and so forth. Why it is the south is because the Lord of Death, Yama, abides there. So, our dreams like that. There are more dreams that are signs of death, especially when they happen again and again.

Of course, we can take long-life initiation and do long-life practices, like White Tara, Amitayus or other deity practices for long life, or we can make long-life statues or thangkas. The most powerful one, according to Pabongkha, is if an artist draws Tara on the Tibetan 8th, completing the entire rough painting that day. The details can be done the next day, but on the same day, the 8th, the painting has to be consecrated. That’s a very special method to prolong the life, to pacify the danger of untimely death.

You can do that, and also make tsa tsas for long life. If you are unable to make long-life tsa tsas, you can ask other people to do it and pay money for that. A tsa tsa has many atoms, depending on how big the tsa tsa is, but even if it’s the size of a thumb it has so many atoms. As many atoms as there are, that many times you will be born as a king in the deva realm. Like that, you will achieve the firm contemplation, of which there are four types in the form realm.

However, we need to achieve zhi nä, calm abiding, which is the cause to be born in the form realm and then through meditation, achieve the formless realm. We achieve these four categories: infinite sky, infinite consciousness, nothingness and the tip of samsara. We achieve those things through the six beliefs, in Tibetan, yi che drug. We achieve things like that. We achieve perfect meditation of those realms, and also, depending on how many atoms the tsa tsa has, that many times we create good karma to achieve the aryan path, the arya bodhisattva path, where we are totally free from the suffering of rebirth and the sufferings of sickness, old age and death. As many atoms as the tsa tsa has, we create that many causes of enlightenment. Very briefly, it is like that.

It’s amazing the merit you create by making tsa tsas, by being able to make them yourself or asking somebody else to make them for you. Of course, you can dedicate that merit for the long life of His Holiness, for the fulfillment of all the holy wishes, and also for all the holy beings and your gurus, of course. You can dedicate for all the Sangha who preserve and spread Dharma, for their long lives and for them to succeed in preserving and spreading Dharma and actualizing the path. Dedicate for all the benefactors who serve the Sangha, for their long lives, and for all their wishes to serve the Sangha and the teachings to succeed. You can dedicate like that.

Also, if you are an FPMT student, you can dedicate for all the benefactors of the FPMT and for those who serve at the FPMT centers and projects in particular—for them to never to be reborn in the lower realms, to actualize the path and bodhicitta, and achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. Since I have so many projects, you can do the same dedication for all the benefactors who help the main projects.

There are many other people to whom we can dedicate. For example, during the COVID virus time, one actor helped so many people in India travel by train or bus back to their own place, also getting food for them and so forth. He helped so many, so many. There’s also the Tibetan boy who helped many poor people in India. Those he met on the road, he always helped. There’s also Lady Gaga, who helps His Holiness’ work. She gives for Tibet, helping His Holiness and emphasizing compassion. She has also helped many people who have AIDS. And Richard Gere has offered many years of service to His Holiness and Tibet.

There are many people like this who we don’t know, who help other people so much. Dedicate for the long life of all those people, for all their wishes to succeed according to Dharma, for them to actualize Dharma, to never be reborn in the lower realms, to actualize bodhicitta and achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

Even the evil people, all those evil people who harm so may sentient beings, like butchers and so forth, dedicate that they all meet Buddhadharma, abandon the cause of suffering, nonvirtue, and practice the cause of happiness, virtue. Dedicate for them to actualize bodhicitta, to stop giving harm and only benefit sentient beings and for them to have long life. 

Even if you are making tsa tsas, you can also develop long-life deity photos, so that many people can have them. You can do larger photos or smaller ones if you don’t have money. If you have a lot of tsa tsas, then you and your friends can put them around your house, inside or outside. Have a bigger round table or make some kind of throne, not putting tsa tsas on the ground but putting them a little bit higher, like on bricks. You can fill up the inside with all the tsa tsas, then put a bigger tsa tsa or stupa or something on top, like I have in Aptos. In Aptos there are four levels, with tsa tsas very nicely set up and a big one on top. You can use that to go around, especially when you do prayers.

Sometimes, you may fall asleep when saying prayers, so when you go around the holy objects, you collect virtuous actions of body or speech. Then by developing compassion, bodhicitta, devotion to the guru or to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, you collect virtuous activities of body, speech and mind. You can also tell your friends and those who would like to do that. Even if you are making a phone call for a long time, you can go around [the holy objects]. While you are talking, you can go around, so you don’t waste time. You can talk while you go around, so at least there is some virtuous action. You can do that, then you never waste your time.

There are many nice ways to make this, even in the house. You can have a kind of table, then a throne, very high with many levels, and put many nice tsa tsas, statues and stupas around, and set it out very beautifully with offerings, also around. Tsa tsas can also be placed below the ceiling in your meditation room. You can put lined-up tsa tsas on the wall at about the level of the ceiling. Then put up one thin wooden [shelf] on which you can offer lights, like Christmas lights, lined up. You can put another row of tsa tsas down below, lined up nicely and again have a wooden shelf and lights. You can do it in many ways.

There are meditations for long life, such as an eating meditation, where the sky is food. The vase breathing meditation also becomes a long-life meditation. So you see, there are different things that can be done.

Reading the Long-life Sutra is a very powerful one. It has the [same] benefits as having read all the Buddhadharma. Unbelievable. Doing this purifies mountains of negative karma. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable. You can read it yourself or ask friends or other people to read it—for example, have it read at the monasteries or nunneries if there is a large number. You can ask the monks or nuns to read it, and of course, you can make offerings to them.

There is also the puja Betraying the Death [Tib. འཆི་བསླུ་; Wyl:'chi bslu], with the different deities, Most Secret Hayagriva and Tara Cittamani. It’s very powerful. There’s also the bodhisattva Samantabhadhra’s prayer, The King of Prayers, which you have to recite 100,000 times. There are different practices to do with the different deities: kam bar ma, ten drel chi lu (dependent arising), and a practice to do with betraying the death. I think you also need to recite the Heart Sutra. So, there are many different practices, depending on what comes in the observation.

The practice of liberating animals is such a great thing. If you have money, liberate a big animal. It will cost a lot of money, yes, but if you have money you should do that because they have to suffer so much when they get killed. If you were to be killed at the butcher’s place, how would you feel about that? It doesn’t matter whether you have a tall body, a small body or whatever. How is it if it’s you? There are so many sufferings for animals. If you want to liberate one thousand, ten thousand or one hundred thousand animals, buy insects. In Chinese towns and especially in those countries where people keep animals as pets, those animals which are the best pets are fed with the insects. That’s why people sell different insects in the city. You can buy them so easily, for example, in one plastic bag there can be one thousand crickets. I did that in Hong Kong many years ago, with only half that number. It’s so cheap and there are many other types of beings. As well as being so cheap, if you buy insects, you can liberate a lot. 

Not only can you buy animals and put them on a mountain or in the water, you can also take them around a holy object. At least, develop pictures of holy objects—hundreds or thousands—then put many in a bundle and carry the insects around them. Even goats and beings like that you can bring around [the holy objects]. Similarly, you can put tsa tsas on a table along with any holy texts, such as lamrim, Prajnaparamita, the Buddha’s teachings, and the stupas and statues from your room. Or other people can bring these. Set them up and take the animals around. That’s the best one.

We cause everyone to achieve enlightenment, even the insects. However many times we take them around, that many times we create the cause of enlightenment. If there are one thousand insects, every thousand insects or one hundred thousand or however many there are, we help them create the cause to achieve enlightenment. It’s unbelievable, incredible, incredible! Therefore, we should do this as much as possible.

The second thing to do is to bless the water with mantras, all the powerful, different mantras and then put the water on the insects and other animals. For those animals that live in the water, of course, we can pour water on them. For birds and other things like that, sprinkle it on them. After reciting the mantras, everybody should blow over the water, to bless it. Put water over the sea animals and for birds and so forth, sprinkle them with water to purify them, doing it again and again.

These are all the different things for long life, then if nothing works, we die.

Thirdly, recite mantras for those that can hear, as it plants the seed of enlightenment for them. I have written a book, Liberating Animals, so follow that. It has very important mantras, like OM MANI PADME HUM, Chenrezig’s mantra. By hearing this mantra, beings don’t get reborn in the lower realms. Instead, they will be reborn in the higher realms, like in the pure realms, and meet Dharma again. It has infinite benefits.

Other mantras to recite over the water include:

• Wish-granting Wheel Mantra: OM PÄDMO USHNISHA VIMALE HUM PHAT. If we recite or even see, touch or remember this mantra, it purifies the heavy negative karmas without break, which cause us to be born in the most unbearable hell realm. We will never be reborn in the lower realms, and for 100,000 eons we will achieve the state of a wheel-turning king. If we recite the mantra seven times each day for the benefit of transmigrating beings, we will be reborn in the blissful pure realm. If we recite seven mantras then blow on a conch, drum or other musical instrument, hearing the sound purifies the five heavy negative karmas without break. That means hearing it purifies the ten nonvirtuous karmas by the way. If a fully ordained monk has broken any of the four root vows, which causes rebirth in a hell realm, then if someone recites this mantra and thinks of that monk, it causes him to be liberated immediately from the hell realm and get a higher rebirth.
• Celestial Mansion Extremely Secret Sublime Success Mantra
• Medicine Buddha Mantra
• Maitreya Buddha Mantra
• Namgyalma Mantra: the long and short mantra. If there’s no time to recite the long one, then you can recite the short one.
• The Holy Name of Buddha Rinchen Tsugtor Chän: DE ZHIN SHEG PA RIN CHHEN TSUG TOR CHÄN LA CHHAG TSHÄL LO. Those beings who hear this name never get reborn in the lower realms. This is what we recite before doing powa. The first thing is to recite this mantra, then we do powa, practicing whatever we know.

Then recite the extremely blessed Mantra from the Sutra of the Great Liberation. Also recite The Heart Mantra of Secret Relic if you can. [Find this mantra in the Four Dharmakaya Relic Heart Mantras PDF] and the Ornaments of Enlightenment mantra (Tib: jang chub gyän bum). If you can, recite the Five Powerful Mantras, the five divisions of great mantra. Otherwise, recite the names of those I have mentioned.

[Find links to the above mantras and practices in the FPMT Catalogue.]

It’s very important to first take the animals around the holy objects in case some animals die while prayers are being done. If some people can take the animals around during the prayers, that’s the best thing. Generally at your house (if you are in a house), if you have tsa tsas or a stupa or statue of the Buddha, or even pictures of the buddhas—the Guru Puja merit field, sixteen arhats, Twenty-one Taras, Thirty-five Buddhas, Medicine Buddhas and so forth—you can take pictures of many of them, then make copies, like one hundred or fifty or however many you can, put them all together on a table, then they can be used for the animals and people, other humans and yourself, to go around. Even if you don’t have animals at your house, you can go around.

For the animals in the house, the ants and especially those that get into the kitchen, in Singapore I created this idea. At the center there, two boxes were created, one was called compassion and the other was called wisdom. With the two boxes, you collect the insects, ants and whatever you find in the house and under the house. They go inside the box, which has the mantra OM PÄDMO USHNISHA VIMALE HUM PHAT on top. By going inside the box, the animal has one thousand eons of negative karma purified. From the inside perspective, there’s a Namgyalma protection on top, so they are constantly purifying for however long they are inside. There are also two pieces of paper that describe how to think from our side and the benefits from the animals’ side. It’s very, very good.

So butterflies and anything else that you find, big or small, you can collect with these boxes. Put the insects inside, then take them around the holy objects as many times as you can, because each time it creates the cause of their enlightenment. They also help you create the cause of enlightenment. Like that, you benefit each other. After that, you put them in a safe place, among the plants or something, so that the birds don’t eat them. At home, picking up insects and then taking them around is an incredible way to help sentient beings, to bring them to enlightenment—freeing them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bringing them to enlightenment. Incredible, incredible. Outside there are also numberless creatures, but inside the house, whatever you find, benefitting them like this is unbelievable, so good.  It gives you the opportunity to help sentient beings and they help you to achieve enlightenment. You help each other. So fantastic!

One time in Singapore, I offered some money to print many images of holy objects and each student’s family received a whole bundle of holy pictures. There were maybe more than one hundred and maybe less than one thousand, I’m not sure. They were to use for liberating animals, by collecting the insects in the box then carrying them around the holy objects. You can develop pictures yourself and you can do that. It’s very, very good. Otherwise, you can do it at the center or if you have a lot of holy objects on your altar, you can go around the house. In Singapore, there’s a truck that takes the big fish around the center. They circumambulate, then are liberated in covered or reserved water. Like that.

A Meditation for Long Life and Motivation for Death and Dying

This is a meditation from the great translator, Ra Lotsawa. [The verse is not translated yet.] The meaning is that instantaneously you become Heruka, then parts of the body—the skin, nerves and arteries—you take off, like taking off a dress. The body parts are taken out so only the skeleton is left. Then two skulls are joined, one is turned up and one is turned down, and you’re inside. Go to bed like that. Then you cannot be harmed by the Lord of Death. It becomes the supreme method for achieving long life.

Probably, I didn’t get teachings on this, but I think it’s like the cemetery in the deity’s mandala, where you have to visualize the corpse and pieces of the body, bones and so forth. I think all that appearing as ordinary is the essence of the transcendental wisdom of nondual bliss and voidness of Heruka, for example, as in the Heruka mandala. So it’s like that. All this is in essence Heruka’s transcendental wisdom of great bliss nondual with emptiness. I think it might be like that. Alternatively, if you know just Heruka’s holy mind, then that’s enough. The essence appears ordinary, but the reality is that. Then there’s no problem.

Concerning the motivation for death and dying, of course, for somebody who practices, they know how to do it, so I don’t have to push. But for those who would like to know, I explained this particular motivation. So many ordinary people do not know what to think, so this can be very good, very effective for the ego, the self-cherishing thought.

The first thing is to meditate on all the obstacles to His Holiness, the precious object of refuge and guide. Think, “May all the obstacles to his long life and all the obstacles interfering with the success of every single wish of His Holiness be ripened on me, on my self-cherishing thought, right now.” That’s the first motivation.

Secondly, “May all the obstacles to the great holy beings’ preserving and spreading Buddhadharma be ripened right away on this self-cherishing thought, who is my enemy, who is giving me suffering from beginningless rebirths, now and in the future and who didn’t allow me to achieve enlightenment until now and also in the future, and didn’t allow me to liberate sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment.

“May all the obstacles to the teachings of Buddha lasting a long time in the world be ripened on my self-cherishing thought right now. May all the sentient beings’ sickness and all their sufferings be ripened on my self-cherishing thought and may it be annihilated from the root. May it be non-existent, even in name. May the root of samsara, the ignorance holding the I [as truly existent], be non-existent even in name.

“May the root of true success for self and others, conventional bodhicitta, and the remedy to samsara, absolute bodhicitta, be simultaneously generated right away in my mental continuum and may the practice be completed immediately. Please grant me blessings for this.”

If you have disease, think, “May all these obstacles ripen on my disease, so I become the substitute for all the obstacles of all those holy beings, the teachings and all sentient beings and become worthwhile in the sickness and death of all the sentient beings.”

If you wish, you can do tonglen by taking all the sentient beings’ suffering. Continue the meditation on that, taking all the suffering and its causes, until the gross mind stops functioning. Or you can meditate on the emptiness of the I, looking at the I as empty, as it is empty. If you have received initiation you can meditate on the dharmakaya, utilizing death in the path to achieve dharmakaya. You can do that meditation until the breath and the mind functioning stops. That’s it.

Thank you very much. Goodbye. Welcome to the pure land, to Buddha, and after that, to enlightenment.