3. What Is Important at the Time of Death?
And that brings us to the third point, the crux of it. At the time of death, at the moment when this consciousness leaves this body, what is important? What is useful to me in that moment? What will be useful to the consciousness that will leave this body and take another body. What will be useful?
That’s not the way we think of death. We think of death as the end, and we see a big black hole that we’ll sort of go into that no one knows about. We think of death from the point of view of the observer. We should think about death from the point of view of this consciousness moving forward to another body, another house, you’ve got to go to another house soon. So it’s a bit of a difficult transition, and clearly, the more attached you are to this house, the more painful it is to move.
If we never confronted impermanence, our own, and never thought about death, the definiteness of it, the uncertainty of the time of it, well then that’s how death will be, death will be a very scary time.
I remember a friend of mine, Lenny, who worked for years as a hospice worker, she said it’s a given that most people die with fear. She said the ones who didn’t die with fear were those who had some kind of spiritual path. My feeling is it’s not because they’re such a high practitioners but because the only people who think about death are spiritual people, Christians, say, because they talk about God or heaven. Materialists, why would we think about death? Because as far as the materialist’s view is concerned you disappear when you die, there’s nothing left. So there’s no reason to think about death. There’s no reason to prepare yourself for that event.
If you’re a Buddhist you prepare for that event because you’re going to move from this body to another one. So it’s an important event, it’s a very important event that’s going to happen in your life: your death. Like moving from your house, you prepare an awful lot for that. Look at the simple things we do that will happen in the future that we have to prepare for. We don’t just say, “Oh, when it happens I’ll deal with it”. That’s how we think about death.
We prepare in the most elaborate ways for the smallest things that are going to happen in the future. Especially if you don’t know how to do it. Like your driving test. You don’t just say, “Oh, when I get to the driving test I’ll manage it then”. Don’t be ridiculous! You’ve got to train now, you know, it’s obvious. It’s such a simple point.
So if you think of death in this sense, not as some black hole that I will fall into, but as simply a transition. This is the Buddhist approach. From this body to the next. Clearly a very important event to prepare for. And I’m not talking about having your nice coffin, the way people prepare, and the nice plot, out there. We’re not discussing that. That’s just for your body. By the time your consciousness leaves your body it’s just a piece of ka-ka, so don’t worry about the body; other people can take care of that. The main point from Buddha’s point of view is to prepare internally, to think about your mind.
And how do you prepare for death? It doesn’t mean you’ve got to imagine when you’re dying, although that’s helpful. You’re not preparing for death by thinking about death. You’re preparing for death by knowing about impermanence now. How do you prepare for your driving test? By driving a car now. It’s obvious. How do you prepare for death: by facing the reality of it. And you prepare for death by living our lives in a way that prepares us for death.
The conclusion from this is it’s a wakeup call. And that’s the point that Atisha’s stressing here: to prepare ourselves. In other words change the way we think now and therefore change the way we live our lives, because that’s how you prepare for death, that’s how you prepare for this event. You put all the steps in place. Like you prepare for the wedding, you prepare for the driving test. You do the steps now and so when the day comes it’ll just happen in a natural way.
So this third point is, at the time of death what is it useful to me? Well, there’s a few givens here: let’s look at them.
Given Buddha’s assertion that this consciousness of mine didn’t begin at conception and goes back and back and back, and that it will not end at death, will continue just into the future – it’s indestructible this consciousness of ours; and given that whatever I have said, done, and thought in this life, and in infinite previous ones, necessarily leaves a seed in my mind that just doesn’t disappear; and given that seeds ripen in the future as one’s own experiences: negative actions of body, speech and mind necessarily leave seeds in my mind that will ripen as suffering and positive actions leave a seed in my mind that will ripen as my happiness in the future; and given that I don’t want suffering and do want happiness – given all this, then it follows logically that at the time of death the only thing that is of any use to me is the positive seeds in my mind. That’s it.
The body is useless, it can’t help. Princess Diana died at 36. I always think of her. This gorgeous aerobiced body, totally in love, everything is perfect, blissful, blah, blah, blah. She died. So at that moment, the only thing that was any benefit to her were the seeds in her mind from the virtue she had done in her life. All the rest was worse than useless.
The things that I now see as most important in life, Buddha would say – and you analyze it according to his view and it’s clear – they are totally essenceless. The things we do take as the purpose of life, you ask most people, it’s almost like a mantra: health and family are the main point of our life. Everyone will say that’s the point of life.
Well, the Buddha would say we are missing the point because at the time of death if they were so crucial they would be a benefit to us, but they are useless. Your family, your husband, your children, your possessions, your nice house, your nice body, your health, your reputation, money in the bank, all the things we spend all our time worrying about and putting into place because we believe in the propaganda that that’s the security we are need, that that’s what life is all about; we believe in the materialists’ propaganda, which we are part of, we buy into it.
But at the time of death all the things you spend your life thinking are important are of no use. They crumble. There’s nothing. We all say at the time of death you can’t take it with you, but we treat it like a joke. It’s very profound when you really get an experience of its truth.
So if this is true, then I had better prepare now by living my life in a reasonable way now: by trying to remove the negative seeds that I have already planted and by trying to develop the positive ones. This is reasonable, based on these assumptions.
So at the time of death, when it comes, I must be ready, I have to be prepared. And the way to be prepared is by having thought about it, therefore, when it comes I’m not shocked because I know it’s natural that I die. And I’m prepared because I’ve lived my life by practicing morality, goodness, by not harming others – at the very least, this.
We don’t have to be fundamentalist about it and chuck out the husband, and chuck out the kids, and chuck out the reputation, and chuck out our money, no. Just change the way you see them. Change your attitude towards them. That’s the real point. Give up attachment to the house, the family, the body; give up the jealousy, the fear, the neurosis, the blaming. Because those imprints in your mind will be there when you die and you do not want those. But you do want your virtue and your kindness and your generosity and your patience and your non-attachment seeds to ripen.
So you don’t wait until death to do it, it’s too late then. Start sowing seeds now. That’s how you lead your life. By recognizing that it’s going to change, that death is definite, the time of death is completely uncertain, so you might as well be ready when it does come unexpectedly. It won’t give a warning: “You’ve got ten more breaths left Robina, you better get ready”. We might have; we’d be lucky. It’s actually very fortunate if you get sick before you die, because you’ve got time to prepare. That’s actually really the Buddhist approach. My Buddhist friends on death row have been forced to confront the reality of death, so they can prepare for it. How fortunate.
Source: Based on “How to Think About Death” by Venerable Robina Courtin. From teachings in the FPMT’s Discovering Buddhism, Module 3, “Practicing the Path”. Also, in the publication entitled How to Live & Die Well So We Can Go Happily to Our Next Rebirth. Institut Vajra Yogini Marzens. December 27, 2015 — January 2, 2016, Venerable Robina Courtin.
That’s not the way we think of death. We think of death as the end, and we see a big black hole that we’ll sort of go into that no one knows about.
We think of death from the point of view of the observer. We should think about death from the point of view of this consciousness moving forward to another body, another house; you’ve got to go to another house soon. So it’s a bit of a difficult transition, and clearly, the more attached you are to this house, the more painful it is to move.
If we never confronted impermanence, our own, and never thought about death, the definiteness of it, the uncertainty of the time of it, well then that’s how death will be, death will be a very scary time.
(Venerable Robina Courtin)