Dying, Death and the Bardo
Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche
Tape 3
Side 1
Question: Rinpoche, if we are beginners on the path and we're not maybe capable of having the ability of the body, speech, and mind or training this way, what can do to train for the time of death?
Answer: There are several things you can do to prepare for death and the interval after death. These include the accumulation of merit, the purification of obscurations, the cultivation of as much love and compassion for other beings as you can, and also regular contemplation of what will occur in the interval through studying the Great Liberation Through Hearing in the Interval and so on, preparing yourself for it by imagining what it is you are going to be going through at that time. This could also involve meditation on the forms of the peaceful and wrathful deities and the repetition of their mantras, and in that case should also include the reinforced recognition that these deities are innate to you and although they appear outside you in the interval they are not separate of you but they are part of you. Of especial importance is to dedicate the merit of whatever dharma practice you do to the rebirth of yourself and all others in Sukhavati, the Realm of Amitabha, because this is supreme among all pure Buddha realms. It is greatest in its qualities. It is also easiest to achieve rebirth in for anyone who wishes to. In that way we can insure that although we may not be capable of achieving liberation in the dharmakaya at death, we can achieve liberation in either the samboghakaya or nirmanakaya.
Question: Rinpoche you mentioned ejection of consciousness at one point in the dying process and I'm wondering if you could talk more about that and when it is done, what it means?
Answer: The ejection of consciousness refers to the practice through which the emergence of consciousness from the body of the dying person is controlled and directed. Specifically the consciousness is directed so that it emerges or is ejected out of the aperture at the top of the person's head. The value of this is that if the consciousness emerges out of the top of the person's head, even if the dying person led a rather evil existence, they will at the very least be reborn with a precious human body, and if they were a dharma practitioner, they will very likely be reborn in a pure realm. So there's great significance and advantage to this practice.
In general there are two ways that the ejection of consciousness can be achieved or performed. In one way, the dying does it for him or herself, the other way is when somebody else assists them by doing it for them. In terms of practicing the ejection of consciousness for your own benefit you need to receive the instructions and then perform the practice assiduously until the signs of having gained the ability to eject your consciousness in this way, have arisen. There are many systems of ejection practice. The most convenient for use in general is the system for ejection associated with the Amitabha cycle of teachings. When the person has practiced it to the point where the ability to eject their consciousness has been achieved, there will be physical signs of this, specifically itching or other irritation of the aperture at the top of the head and possible eruption or exuding of lymph and blood and fluids like that. Then, that person, having been trained in that way, would later on, when it's absolutely certain that they're dying, actually perform the ejection of consciousness and would be able to do so successfully. Exceptions to this are, if the dying person, although they were trained in the ejection of consciousness, has subdued faculties, where for example, their mind is dull because of medication or the illness, or if they are so terrified by death that they forget to do it. Under those circumstances they require the assistance of someone else. The assisting the person, that is to say, someone who performs the ejection of consciousness for another, needs to have practiced it him or herself, until they achieve the signs of the ability. Only thereafter will they have the ability to do it to somebody else. In any case, they perform the ejection of consciousness for the dying person at this critical moment, and it must not be done before then. It is of great benefit if it is performed at the right time. Especially if the person for whom it's performed is a practitioner, someone who trained in the ejection of consciousness, him or herself, the benefit will be certain and far greater than the benefit even of the ejection of consciousness of an ordinary person.
It's of the greatest importance, however, that the ejection of consciousness not be performed before the death process is irreversible. If it is performed when there is still hope of resuscitation, or of the person reviving or surviving, then if you do it to yourself, it's suicide and if you do it to another person, it's murder.
Question: I have two questions. One is, you talk about the consciousness leaving the body and then after that the person in the bardo has ideas and visions of himself as certain things. Like he sees himself in the body that he used to have and he sees himself in the body that he is going to have and I'm just wondering, if he doesn't have his consciousness, what part of him is actually perceiving that.
Translator: What do you mean, "doesn't have his consciousness?"
Question: Well the consciousness leaves the body.
Translator: The person we are talking about is the consciousness.
Question: So when the consciousness leaves the body, then that's where they go?
Answer: The person is the consciousness, not the body.
Question: The other question I have is a little more personal. I'm right now caring for someone who's aged and she's experiencing lots of delusions and lots of demented experiences. And when you were describing some of the experiences and the frightening, fearful experiences in the bardo it really reminded me of some of the things that she's been going through. And I was wondering if in the dying process there isn't some sort of�Xsomething of the bardo that enters into that and also attached to I'm wondering what Rinpoche might be able to suggest that I could do for her.
Answer: Well, she's not experiencing any phase of the bardo. She's experiencing hallucinations that Rinpoche said are caused by the deterioration of the parts of the brain that are resulting in the condition. And because the condition consists of a deterioration of the channels, and so forth within the brain, it makes communication with the person and therefore helping them in a meaningful way, very challenging. So it's hard to know exactly what you can do. But she's not experiencing the bardo yet.
Question: Rinpoche, I'm still a bit confused as to when you talk about ejecting the consciousness. What part, when, at what point would you know that it's time to do it for another person? How can you tell?
Answer: The actual point at which the ejection of consciousness proper should be performed is when the breathing stops and the usual criterion for this is to observe when the pulse in the neck stops. And after that pulse has ceased, then you can perform the ejection of consciousness. Up to that point, you should prepare for it through the preliminary recitation of the names of buddhas and the various liturgical practices associated with it that prepare the person to receive the guidance, and so forth.
Question: Just one more question. Also, why is it that it's more beneficial to eject the consciousness from the upper apertures? What determines that? I'm just curious why it's the upper ones and not...
Answer: First of all, ordinarily people's consciousness never leaves from that [upper] aperture. It leaves out of one of the sense doors or the lower gates and the only exception to this, the only circumstances under which someone's consciousness will naturally emerge out of the aperture at the top of the head is if they are someone with extraordinary virtue or merit or they are someone who has familiarized themselves to some degree with the ejection of consciousness. Otherwise, it simply won't go out from there and the reason is that the departure of the consciousness from the body in that direction is the avenue to the rebirth in a pure realm. More often that not, a person's consciousness leaves out of the lower parts of their body and this is almost invariably an indication of a lower rebirth.
Question: My cousin died this past week and she's someone that was close to my family. We saw her....she was almost like a sister. But she didn't practice any of this, or was not exposed to any of this. So now she's in the bardo. I asked for a lamp to be lit for her for 49 days. And I'm wondering how I'm helping her or how somebody who has no exposure or connection to these teachings is helped in the bardo?
Answer: In such cases the intervention of someone like yourself with sincere compassion for the deceased and especially your dedication of virtue and merit to them, actually helps them in spite of their previous absence of connection with Dharma. There are many instances of this. For example it is said that even if you say the names of buddhas or certain mantras in the ear of an animal recently dead, that will prevent that animal from being born in lower states. Now that animal certainly had no connection with dharma in that life but nevertheless can be benefited in this way.
Question: My question is, what would appropriate practices be when we are with someone at the moment they die. You just suggested I think one, reciting mantras and names of deities. Are there any kind of appropriate things we can do at that moment?
Answer: Well, the type of thing you would do would depend basically upon your degree of knowledge, but at the very least you could certainly recite mantras and the names of buddhas and so on with an attitude of love and compassion for that person and that would actually help them. This type of spiritual assistance is the most important thing to do for someone who is dying, because at that point, up to that point, your primary effort is to make them comfortable and so on, but they are getting to the point where that's no longer an issue.
Question: Rinpoche, about twelve years ago, I was visiting a friend of mine in the hospital and he had Aids and as I visited with him with two other friends, he asked me to meditate with him. So I did, I just made something up which would help him relax because I knew that he was very angry because he had Aids. And so I led him in a very brief meditation, mostly with the idea...because I didn't think he was going to die right then, but as it turned out, after I meditated with him, he closed his eyes. I stepped away, and joined my friends, but I kept an eye on my friend Peter and it probably wasn't even five minutes after that I saw that he was no longer breathing. So I went right over to him and I just whispered to him--I had heard of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, but I didn't know to say anything so I just whispered to him--it's okay, don't be afraid, don't be afraid, it's okay, Peter.
That's what I did and I did that for maybe five minutes, then they called the nurse in and he was dead. And I always felt okay about that, in fact I felt very fortunate that I was right there when he died. For some reason I just felt that way. I never thought I would. Now, that's the first part, I just wanted a little response about that, if you had any insight into that.
And now, I'm thinking about this for myself because I'm getting older and my practice is just okay. I'm not a great practitioner, yet the dharma is always on my mind and my behavior with others�XI always have the dharma in mind, so I do the best I can with that. And sometimes I do well and sometimes I don't and I regret it. But now I'm faced with, "Well, you've not been that great a practitioner and this is serious. My friend said, "Isn't this enjoyable?" and I said, "Well I wouldn't call it that." And I always enjoy your teachings but I can't put the word enjoyable on this. It's touching me too closely. But on the other hand, I can imagine that if I was doing a good practice, that I could look forward to when I do die with a certain amount of confidence, that it will be an okay death. And I know that that does happen. So from that point of view maybe it could be enjoyable. Anyway, I think I've said enough. And also if there are any people around who are prepared to be with someone who is dying, I'd like to know about who they are.
Answer: To answer your first question, the assistance you gave your friend was both altruistic and caring and therefore it could only have been helpful, especially your conveyance to him of assurance and the reduction of his fear would actually have helped him in the interval after death. Rinpoche said, I can't guarantee that he achieved liberation, but what I can tell you is that by making him less afraid at the beginning of the interval, you created a greater chance for him to do well in the interval.
With regard to your second question, I'm a lot older than you are so I've got more to worry about. So, therefore this is of great concern to me too, so I'll tell you what I really think. The single best preparation that we can have for dying is to recite the mantra OM MANI PEME HUNG. If you make the commitment to yourself, "I will recite 100 million OM MANI PEME HUNGs, whether or not you complete it in this life, your having that commitment, from the day you make it until the day you die, will have tremendous benefit and tremendous effect on you. As for what you meditate on, you should always visualize above you head, either the Buddha Amitabha, or the Bodhisattva Chenrezig, it doesn't matter which and think that the deity is the embodiment in one form of all sources of refuge and especially of all of your spiritual teachers. Continually visualize them there, above your head, day and night, and resolve at death you will dissolve upward, your consciousness will dissolve upward into them, so what you meditate on, what you visualize is your teacher in the form of Amitabha or Chenrezik above your head and what you recite is the mantra OM MANI PEME HUNG. And that is the best preparation.
Question: Rinpoche, I'm concerned about the possibility of having impaired mental functions at the time of death due to medication or to illness. What is the best thing to do if this is the case? What if one's functions are so reduced like if they're in a coma and can't practice at all at the time of death, let alone for possibly ten or fifteen years before the time of their death. If their mental functions are so incredibly impaired, what is the best thing? I wonder is there any hope for them to improve their situation at the time of death or are they just left to their karma completely at that point, as if they hadn't practiced at all during that lifetime?
Answer: It's by no means the case that if you're in coma or have otherwise impaired faculties at the time of your death that this will wipe out the benefit of your practice previous to that time, but it is the case as you indicated in your question, that it will be practically very difficult to make immediate use of the practice or what you learn through your practice, because you won't be conscious. However, if a person who is in a coma or whose faculties are impaired either by illness or by medication has an attending lama at their death, then the lama will be able to communicate with them because when the dissolution or shutdown process of dying has reached the point where their mind is, although still within the body, no longer biologically seated in it, then their mind becomes independent of the physical conditions which have produced the impairment.
Usually a state of coma or unconsciousness, or a state of diminished faculties is produced by physical conditions such as damage to the brain or medications and so on that prevent brain functioning, but once the body has shut down, then their consciousness has an alertness that is independent of these physical conditions so the person would become conscious at that point, although it wouldn't be physically evident. At that point, the lama could perform the ejection of consciousness, could also communicate with the person, give them guidance and they would be able to understand it.
It's also possible that the person could at that point, where their mind has biologically separated from the body, it's possible that they could become conscious. But you can't bank on that, you can't depend on that, because it's also possible that other habits would intervene and the person's previous habits of practice might not reassert themselves. So the dependable resort under those circumstances would be to have an attending lama.
Question: Rinpoche, you mentioned before about the ejection of the consciousness through the crown and how that sometimes manifested with some sort of physical appearance. Is it always the case that when the consciousness does eject through one of the gates of the body a physical manifestation occurs and how would it occur through some of the other gates or orifices?
Answer: There is some confusion�Xthe physical evidence, such as the exuding of lymph and blood and so on�Xthis is not a sign that the consciousness has been ejected. It's a sign that the person has gained the ability to eject it. When the consciousness is actually ejected either from that gate or from any other, there will be no such swelling or sign.
Question: Rinpoche, how about in the case of some people who are from a different religious orientation and they have a very strong concept about that religion, and if you recite the Buddha's mantras which are very foreign to them, I heard that this would also be very scary for them because they have fear about other religions, so how would you work with that?
Answer: Well, what you say is very true. In those situations you have to do whatever you do for their benefit silently, such as the cultivation of compassion for them and silent visualizations or meditations, because if you recite the names of Buddhas or Buddhist mantras, in the hearing of someone who is a staunch adherent of another religious tradition, at the very least they are going to feel disoriented and possibly betrayed. They'll think, "Well, they are denying my source of refuge or my savior and trying to appeal to another," and that will anger them. So you have to be silent.
Question: Rinpoche, speaking of my own death, if I'm lucky enough to be able to go through it and not have it be sudden, when you're dealing with pain, I'm understanding that it's better to do it without medication and so I can be clear, but also, when I'm dying is it better to try to sit up and maintain a meditative posture, or there's also the left and right side that you lay on to prepare for death and I was curious about that too.
Answer: With regard to the use of pain medication, if someone has a very strong practice such that they, by maintaining the full clarity of mind during the dying process, they will be able to achieve liberation, then they should avoid any pain medication that will excessively dull their faculties, if possible. Otherwise, if the person doesn't have that kind of strong practice, it's better that they will receive whatever medication will alleviate their suffering. As far as physical posture at the time of death, of course if someone can, it's excellent to die sitting up straight, but most people can't because after all you are dying. So in that case, it's better to lie on the right side in the posture that the Buddha adopted at his death.
Question: Rinpoche, I had a question about the process that you described about the red and white elements and the life wind withdrawing into the heart center. When that occurs is that process an irreversible process or is that something that someone might experience during a near-death experience where the life functions appear to have ceased, but they are then revived?
Answer: The full process where all of the pressure exerted by the life wind is gone and the drops completely descend and ascend respectively to the heart and combine there, that entire thing doesn't happen unless the person has reached the irreversible stage which is the third stage of attainment. Up to that, where there is merely some weakening of the life wind and therefore there could be some movement but not the full thing and there could therefore be the first two stages of dissolution, the white appearance [TAPE 3, SIDE 1 ENDED HERE AND SOMETHING SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN LOST SUCH AS THE REST OF THIS ANSWER]
Side 2
Translator: The first thing, I was basically just checking out because I think there were a couple of things that maybe I didn't put clearly or something. The preparation in this life for the recognition of the ground clear light does not normally consist of simulation of the process of disolution, but of the generation of a state of even-placement where the mind is immersed in what's called, "the path clear light." So it's not necessarily connected with the process of shutdown or dissolution. The border between the first and second parts of the interval of possibility, the whole dying and death process, is the appearance of the ground clear light. The appearance of the ground clear light is the fourth state of dissolution, the fourth moment. It's the actual moment of death and if it's not recognized, then one enters what we call the bardo proper.
Question: I have two questions. The first has to do with the descending and the ascending in the central channel of the life wind at what I'm going to call the heart center and I've always thought that somehow I have to think of this in my mind as being that the central channel is symmetrically in the center of one's physical body and we know that our heart is asymmetrically placed in our body, so I just want to make sure that I'm clear that I'm thinking of, when we say, the heart, we're talking about a place in the central channel at the same level of the heart but symmetrically in the center of our body.
Answer: It means the central channel at the height of the heart.
Question: My other question is having to do with the time from the moment of death through 49 days. And I know I've heard that 49 days is a general number within which the whole process of rebirth can take place, so it's hard to pin down exactly what. There are two parts to this question. One is kind of technical: when do you start counting? For instance the first three days are said to be good to do certain practices, the seventh day, what constitutes that seventh day? Do you start counting from, one is the day you die, or the person dies? That is the first part of the question and the second part is, do most of the things when you talk about the sort of, you compared it last night to the dharmakaya, samboghakaya, nirmanakaya experience possibility, within that 49 days, do those first two, like the possibility for recognizing the ground clear light, generally happen right away in that 49 day period?
Translator: In your question, did you just equate the first two of those with the recognition of the ground clear light?
Question: No. Ground clear light I'm connecting to dharmakaya, deities to samboghakaya...
Translator: Okay, good.
Answer: Well, to answer or in fact, further obscure your first question, there are two systems for reckoning the 49 day period. One system is, if you die today, the first day starts with sunrise tomorrow. So that's day one, and then you count from then on.
The other way, and this is based on the fact that people are only sporadically conscious for the first three days after death in the bardo, as will come up, Rinpoche said, tomorrow, in the rest of our text. The other system therefore, discounts the first three days and so again, to get the three days, you start sunrise tomorrow, call that days A, B, and C and then you start day one of the 49 on the fourth day, fourth sunrise, after death.
However, these are not so much different opinions about how they should be counted, as different ways they can be applied depending upon what happens to the individual. Some people, and this is assuming that there is no recognition of the ground clear light, some people if there is no recognition of the ground clear light, become unconscious, but stay in the body and they'll remain unconscious for two or three days and then their consciousness will leave the body. For those people, it's better to reckon it with the three days excluded.
Other people, with slightly different channels, who also don't recognize the ground clear light, leave their body as soon as the ground clear light has passed. For those people it's obviously better to start counting the morning of the next day. The problem is, there is no obvious way to tell, Rinpoche said, which is happening, because although there are signs of someone recognizing the ground clear light, as we went through, there are no really obvious signs of whether the person's consciousness has remained or left after failing to recognize it. So what that means is that basically there are two customs and one or another will be applied arbitrarily.
As far as the correlation between the 49-day period and the opportunity of the three kayas, the dharmakaya opportunity, the opportunity to achieve liberation in the dharmakaya is the ground clear light. If someone recognizes that, then they will remain immersed in that for the period of their ensuing samadhi, which is normally three days but can be longer. And they're in a totally different category, I mean, they are not in the bardo and so on. Assuming that they don't recognize it, the dharmakaya window, the dharmakaya opportunity is gone, as soon as they don't recognize it, because the ground clear light will cease; they'll move on to this next stage. So the next stage is what's called the opportunity to achieve the samboghakaya....[Rinpoche interrupts here to clarify something.]
The samboghakaya window has two aspects to it. Generally speaking, the way that we classify the samboghakaya window is twofold and generally in most Kagyu presentations they are not totally sequential: in other words, window one and window two, within the samboghakaya. Obviously window here is not literal but I think it's the best word. The two things are this: the one opportunity for liberation in the samboghakaya is the appearances of spontaneous presence, which means the rays of wisdom light and the peaceful and wrathful deities. According to the Great Liberation Through Hearing in the Bardo, this goes on for several days and Rinpoche said that if you consult that book, you'll see that there is actually a schedule for what happens on what day, and there is a progressive coarsening, and therefore a greater difficulty of liberation and he says he doesn't remember the exact schedule but it is clear in the book and it lasts for a couple of weeks.
At the same time, there is the opportunity for another type of liberation in the samboghakaya and this is what's going to presented tomorrow, where the practitioner is able to arise, cause their mental body to arise in the form of a deity, in which case they achieve liberation in the form of that deity. In the Kagyu tradition, we classify both of these as samboghakaya windows and we don't think that it's first the one and then the other. The opportunities for either are more or less simultaneous.
The opportunity for the achievement of nirmanakaya begins when one is approaching rebirth and one's principal effort is in stopping an undesirable rebirth and choosing one's rebirth. But, as for exactly how long that period lasts, this brings up the whole issue of the 49-day period as a whole. The 49-day period is considered an average time or duration of the interval, the whole thing. But it's by no means certain that any specific individual, is going to remain in the interval for that long or only that long. Generally, speaking, Rinpoche said, the stronger one's karma in one direction or another, good or bad, the more quickly one is likely to achieve rebirth, to the extent that if someone has cultivated extraordinary virtue, there will be almost immediate rebirth in a pure realm. If they cultivated great evil, there could be almost immediate rebirth in a lower realm.
If someone's balance of wrongdoing and virtue is pretty well even�Xcausing their rebirth to be less certain, the karmic propulsion to be less focussed�Xthey might remain in the interval for even longer than 49 days. In any case, the nirmankaya opportunity is over when the person either successfully or unsuccessfully enters their next place of birth. Successfully means that they have used this period of the interval to achieve the nirmanakaya, which in this case means, that through the forces of aspirations, moral discipline, love and compassion, they have consciously chosen a rebirth that will be of benefit to themselves and others. That's what the achievement of the nirmanakaya means in this particular context. Unsuccessful means uncontrolled rebirth. In either case, that's when it ends.
Question: Rinpoche, from what you said earlier, I have the impression that your rebirth is determined largely by the choices you make in the interval state, when you see the five lights of wisdom and the five lights of samsaric rebirth. I always heard that it was your karma that determines your rebirth, so how do you reconcile this. Is is your karma that propels you to make one choice over another?
Answer: Well, that question actually brings up the primary significance of the interval. Birth is called the full ripening of karma, in other words, when you are conceived or born, when you enter the place of birth, you become locked into the results of previous actions. Once these have in that way ripened as the aggregates of a certain life, once you have a certain birth, there's not much you can do about it. You can't all of the sudden change it. It may change through adventitious circumstances, but basically you are, for as long as you remain alive in that life, limited by those circumstances and you have no choice about it.
What happens when you die, is the karma which propelled you into a certain life, which allowed you to take a certain rebirth, has been used up. Now there remains some habit for that type of life, as is evidenced for example, by perceiving yourself as having the previous body and so on, but nevertheless, the actual karma is gone. The karma which will cause your next rebirth has not yet taken effect. And because you have several different such karmas within your being, it may not even be certain which one you're going to take yet.
In a sense, therefore, when you're in the interval between lives, you are in a gap that is in between karmically determined, or karmically locked circumstances. Therefore, in between, you can, if you know how to do so, actually make some changes and make some choices, which you cannot do once you have entered the place of birth and are locked into the next life. That's why the power of a virtuous state of mind in the interval is tremendous because it can actually bring an immediate and great change to what happens to you.
Question: Rinpoche, I'm wondering what one can do when someone dies, like I'm thinking of my parents. How to stay calm enough to do practice....with some ways to think about it, because that's what I'm afraid of: I'll be too upset to be effective. I thought of going on a retreat after one of them dies to do practice and I remember Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche gave an empowerment at KTD. It was a shortened version of the peaceful and wrathful deities with the OM RAPASANADI mantra, and that's what I do for the people that have died in my life so far. So I'm wondering about that mantra in regards to the OM MANI PEME HUNG. And if you do go on retreat, for someone is that a good idea and how long, which practice to do? Stuff like that and how to stay calm?
Answer: First of all, Rinpoche said, he thinks the mantra that Jamgon Rinpoche gave, the short mantra for the peaceful and wrathful deities is not the one you mentioned. It's AH AH SHA SA MA HA, not the ARO PAT SAMADI mantra, but anyway, as far as the state of sadness or grief that results from the deaths of people we love, of course this happens to us. The best thing you can think when you are going through this, is to reflect upon the fact that death is natural, that everyone dies, that everyone at some point is going to die and they are not going to be here anymore. In that way that parting and separation from those we love, is simply a fact of life. And continuing in that way of thinking you should reflect upon the fact that you also, are going to die, exactly like those for whom you are grieving.
By thinking in those terms, you transform the potentially paralyzing grief into a source of inspiration. Because the best opportunity for someone to practice is when some event such as the death of one of their parents and so on, has brought impermanence vividly before their mind. And so you should think, "Well if I can't practice now, I'll be wasting the best possible opportunity."
Question: Rinpoche, I have a question regarding the death of a young infant or children. How does this work for them? They haven't been exposed to the practice. Can you explain a bit on that subject?
Translator: What do you mean? You mean, how can you help them?
Question: Yes, because it appears their life has just begun. What can you do for them?
Answer: Well, all you can do is to recite mantras such as OM MANI PEME HUNG for their benefit and in their hearing or to dedicate all other virtues you perform to their benefit and if you can to perform the ejection of consciousness for them and so on. You can't really do much more than that.
Question: Rinpoche, you were referring earlier to meditating on the clear light and I'm not sure what that is. So if you could explain that. And then I have another question and I have read and have been told often to accept impermanence and I have an idea that in the Tibetan culture there has been much more comfort and practice in knowing how to deal with this or work with this, but in our culture we haven't been able to talk about death, except for in maybe the last ten years. So many soldiers are dying; a lot of our friends are dying at a much earlier age because of illness, that kind of thing. Perhaps we need to pay much more attention to this, in that there is a certain freedom in being comfortable with the idea of death and that it is natural, and yet I don't think we are all in that place. So could you speak about that?
Answer: To answer your second question first. It is true as you say that generally speaking, people live in denial of death. We flee the concept and we are intensely uncomfortable with it. But being uncomfortable with it is actually the starting point of contemplation because whether someone is Tibetan, or American or anything else, if they become comfortable with the idea of death, so they think, "Well, death is coming, impermanence is coming, that's natural, that's okay." Simply thinking that, being comfortable with it does no good whatsoever.
The purpose of contemplation of death is not to alleviate anxiety about it but to use the approach of death as inspiration for the prioritization of practice, because it's only if the contemplation of death and impermanence causes you to realize you have no time to waste and possibly no time at all, and therefore causes you to practice assiduously, it's only under those circumstances, that that contemplation has any value or has achieved it's intended purpose. So the instruction which you have heard and read, to contemplate impermanence and contemplate death, really means to take these things to heart so that you are inspired to practice with diligence.
Now, with regard with to the contemplation of impermanence, some people seem to have the idea that if you think about death and impermanence all the time, it's going to shorten your life, you're going to die sooner because you think about death, you're attracting death by thinking about it. This is nonsense. The length of your life is primarily a matter of your karma and you're not changing your karma by thinking about death. If it were true that you shortened your life by thinking about death, then you could lengthen your life endlessly by repeatedly contemplating immortality, and we've seen that doesn't happen, so therefore we can assume reasonably that we're in no danger of dying sooner, merely because we contemplate impermanence.
As for what constitutes meditation on the clear light, I'll give you an example of it. When you are meditating upon Chenrezik, as I instructed you several minutes ago, and reciting the mantra OM MAN PADME HUNG continuously, from time to time, while reciting the mantra, rest your mind in a state, free of any mental engagement, any thought, or mental activity, and that is an encounter with the clear light.
We're out of time.
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