2. The Time of Death Is Uncertain
The second point, getting closer to home now, is the time of death is not certain. So even though we do factor in death to some extent – we have insurance policies and pensions, we organize our funeral, we make our will – still, even if we’re old, we haven’t scheduled death in, have we? “Well next week is the dentist, and the week after that is death”. Or even five years’ time. We can plan vacations even in five years, but we don’t schedule death. No way, because even though we do know we will die, that death is definite, we don’t like to think that the time of death is uncertain. Why? Because I still feel like a living person. How can I be dying next week? Not possible. I feel alive.
So the time of death is obviously uncertain. We all know we’re going to die. But then if I ask each one of us, “Okay, stick it into your schedule. Come on, do a ten-year schedule now, work out your schedule for your life, your plan. Now factor death in please” we’ll think it’s a joke.
And, of course, we don’t know when we will die. That’s the point. We vaguely know it’ll be some time in the future. It’s a logical fact that if I know I will die and I don’t know when, then I could die today, couldn’t I? But we laugh if we say that. It’s an instinctive belief. “Of course I won’t die today.
Tomorrow? Of course not. Next week? No, come on, don’t be ridiculous!” There is a story about a Tibetan astrologer, who had done his own chart, and according to the chart he was going to die today. His own chart. He sat there thinking about it, “Where did I make a mistake?” He was totally convinced he was wrong. And what happened was, while he was trying to work out where he had made the mistake, convinced that he was wrong, the story is that he had this pokey thing and he was playing with it in his ear while he was thinking. And the window shutter blew open and it hit him and he pierced his ear and he died. He died that moment. But the immediate impulse was, “Of course it’s a mistake. How can I die today?”
And any one of us if we dared to think that thought and really go into it and make a meditation out of it, to use our creative imagination, it’s too scary to us, we don’t want to go there, because we can’t bear the thought that we could die. And then to do the processing we’d have to do, like the people up on the hundredth floor of the World Trade Center, think of the vivid stories, and the wives and husbands talking to each other, and “I love you, I love you”, before they were burned alive in that building. I mean you’ve really got to speed up the process of giving up attachment and recognizing impermanence when you’ve only got a few minutes. So what Buddha is saying
is, we can have the luxury while we’ve got this precious life to contemplate these things. To recognize the reality that the time of death really is uncertain.
Most of us, probably Betty can speculate, being 74, that it’s possible that she could probably die sooner than a 20-year-old. But there is no certainty. I read about a footballer who died, a 17-year old. Whatever the reason was, he died. Now, believe me, he didn’t expect to die. “No way, I’m young. No way, I’m healthy. No way, I’m happy”. Fantasty, fantasy, fantasy.
Lama Zopa says, “Best to think, ‘I will die today.’” If you really want to practice, best to think, “I will die today”. Because then you won’t waste your life. That’s the point Atisha wants from us by contemplating these things right here, because it will energize us not to waste this precious life, not to waste this opportunity.
And, you think about it: what’s the name of the day you’ll die? It’s “today”, isn’t it! So we might as well get used to thinking it!
Probably Betty can speculate, being 74, that it’s possible that she could probably die sooner than a 20-year-old. But there is no certainty.
I read about a footballer who died, a 17-year old. Whatever the reason was, he died. Now, believe me, he didn’t expect to die. “No way, I’m young. No way, I’m healthy. No way, I’m happy”. Fantasty, fantasy, fantasy. (Venerable Robina Courtin)