We’ve been discussing this Letter to a Friend that Nagarjuna wrote to his friend the king. We have been going through one of the many different outlines of it. In that outline, there’s the general introductory material, and then there’s the main material, which is divided into the six far-reaching attitudes. We’re in the section on far-reaching discriminating awareness, or the perfection of wisdom. In that, there is a detailed explanation; within that, the explanation of the actual path; and within that, the explanation of the three trainings.
We’re in the explanation of the specific explanation of the training in higher discrimination awareness. That has a section called “How to Extract Ourselves from the Disturbing Emotions.” That has a subsection called “How to Turn Our Minds from Things of this Life.” And within that, we’re on the detailed explanation. So, the outline is very full. In any case, this has to do with developing the discriminating awareness of voidness.
We have discussed the main points of that already as the higher training in discriminating awareness. For that, we need to be able to rid ourselves of the disturbing emotions, and for that, we can turn our minds from our concerns about things in this life. We can also turn our minds from being totally involved with samsara in general. In any case, as we’ve seen, there are so many different ways of dividing the text in outlines that we can’t say that one is more definitive than the other.
In any case, here, the detailed explanation of how to turn our minds away from things in this life has sections on reflecting on the impermanence of life – that’s death and impermanence – and then reflecting on the difficulty of finding the precious human rebirth with all the respites, or freedoms, and enrichments.
Discussion about the Order of Lam-Rim Topics
It’s very interesting, actually, that here, Nagarjuna reverses the order that we find in the lam-rim texts. In the lam-rim texts, we always think of the precious human life first, and then, we think about death and impermanence – that it’s not going to last for long and, therefore, we need to take full advantage of it. But here, the order is thinking of death and impermanence first. Once we are aware of that, then we think of the precious opportunities that we have now.
One can wonder, psychologically, what the effect of that is – what the effect would be on one’s meditation practice or on the development of one’s own spiritual path. What would you think of first – death first and then, “Well, I’m not dead yet. And look at all the opportunities I have now. Therefore, I want to take advantage of this precious human life”? Or would you look at all the opportunities that you have now and then realize that it’s not going to last forever (therefore, you would use it)? What would you say the difference is? What would be the benefits of one and the benefits of the other? If you were teaching somebody or explaining the Dharma to somebody, how would you choose which order is better?
It’s clear that the order of the topics in lam-rim is not fixed. I’ve been doing a survey of all the different textual traditions of presenting that material in the four traditions of Tibetan Buddhism over the development of history, and the presentations and ways of organizing exactly the same material are extremely varied.
So, what do you think would be the advantage of teaching death first or the precious human life first?
Participant: If someone who is depressed, you make more emphasis on the precious human life.
Dr. Berzin: Right. So, somebody who is depressed, who has low self-esteem. Then you would need to encourage them by thinking about the precious human life that they have now
Participant: For someone who’s maybe too concentrated on their worldly pleasures and worldly interests, maybe death is more relevant.
Dr. Berzin: Right. So, somebody who is focused more on worldly pleasures and worldly interests and so on, doing basically fairly trivial things with their life from a Buddhist point of view. Then you would want to teach them about death and impermanence first. So, which category does the king fall into?
Participant: The second one, probably.
Dr. Berzin: The second one, probably – that the king is probably very involved in and attached to the harem and to all the trappings of royal life. Therefore, for somebody like that, it’s necessary to think about death and impermanence first.
Very good.
The text begins with a verse about the uncertainty of the time of death. It’s reflecting on the impermanence of life, on the uncertainty of the time of death and the certainty that death will come for sure, and reflecting on impermanence by reflecting on other aspects. Then there’s a summary. These outlines tend to give a topic for every single verse of the text regardless of how that might be accomplished.
Verse 55: Mindfulness of Death
[55] Many things can damage your life: it’s more impermanent than a bubble on a river, tossed by the wind. Any respite (from death) you may have – to breathe out (after) breathing in, and to awaken from having fallen asleep – that’s utterly amazing.
That’s true. The fact that we wake up after we’ve gone to sleep or that we’re able to breathe out after we breathe in or breathe in after we breathe out – that also is quite remarkable. It’s not something to take for granted. First, however, in order to convince ourselves (here, the king, but ourselves too since we’re applying this to ourselves), we would think of the various shortcomings of not being mindful of death and the benefits of being mindful. This is an important way of approaching many of these topics – to see what the benefits of this topic and thinking about this topic are and what the disadvantages of not thinking about them are.
The Six Disadvantages of Not Being Mindful of Death
There are six shortcomings, or disadvantages, of not being mindful of death. Remember, the verse before emphasized the importance of being mindful of our behavior and so on. But in general, mindfulness is important for keeping a hold (remember, mindfulness itself is the mental glue that doesn’t let go of something that’s in our focus). So, here, it’s to remain mindful of – to always remember – death.
The shortcomings of not being mindful of death is, first of all:
[1] We won’t be mindful of the Dharma.
If we’re not aware that our lives can end at any time, then, obviously, we can become involved with very trivial things, and we won’t think more and more about the Dharma.
Too often, when we have really strong difficulties or really major problems or are facing our deaths, we would want to turn to the Dharma very strongly. Just think: if you were diagnosed with having terminal cancer, wouldn’t you want to practice the Dharma much more strongly at that point rather than just spend the rest of your life watching television or doing something very trivial? So, it’s very true that when we are mindful of death and when death is very real to us – our own deaths are very real to us – we tend turn more toward the Dharma.
There’s a saying. I forget who said it or what context it came up in, but it was, “When I was a young man, my first twenty years, I was too immature to think about the Dharma. Then, the next period of my life, I was too busy with work to think about the Dharma. Now, in the final parts of my life, I’m too old to think about the Dharma; my mind isn’t clear enough.” So that, I think, is called “The Story of a Perfectly Wasted Life.”
So, the first disadvantage of not being mindful of death is that we will not be mindful of Dharma.
The second is:
[2] Even if we are mindful of the Dharma, we won’t put it into practice.
So, we could go to class, and we could read books, but if the reality of our deaths is not strong for us, we won’t necessarily put the Dharma into practice in our attitudes, in our meditation, and so on.
The third one is:
[3] Even if we do practice, we won’t do so purely.
It’s very easy to get into a daily meditation routine which is our half hour of mental wandering in the morning while our mouths goes “blah, blah, blah” through some various ritual practices. It’s very easy to get into that habit. So, even if we practice, we won’t do it purely. But if we think of death, then, for sure, we’re not going to waste our meditation time with mental wandering. We’ll try to do our meditation practices much more seriously.
The fourth shortcoming is:
[4] If we’re not mindful of death, we’ll lose our determination to practice earnestly at all times.
In other words, we may practice some of the time, but then our enthusiasm goes away. But if we’re always mindful that death can come at any time, then we will have a strong determination to practice.
The fifth one is:
[5] By our destructive actions, we will disable ourselves from gaining liberation.
In other words, if we’re not mindful of death, we act in all sorts of destructive ways because we think that we have plenty of time, that our destructive actions don’t have any consequences, and so on. And by acting destructively, it ruins our chances to gain liberation because we just build up the causes for worse and worse rebirths.
So, this is very important to bear in mind – that if we think that life is going to end very soon, we won’t want to engage in as many destructive actions as we can and build up as much negative karma as we can before we die. That would be very foolish. We would want, instead, to try to purify as much negative karma as we can and build up more positive habits because the state of mind that we’re in at the time of death will affect very strongly the type of throwing karma we activate, the type of rebirths we will have. So, if we’re in the habit of destructive ways of thinking, negative ways of thinking – being angry, being very attached, being very greedy, complaining all the time and these sorts of thing – we’re likely to be in this negative state of mind as we’re dying. And that’s not very good in terms of the type of throwing karma that we’ll activate.
So, that is a disadvantage of not being mindful of death – that we will engage in more and more destructive actions and ruin our chances of liberation.
Then the final disadvantage of not being mindful of death is:
[6] At the time of our death, we’ll have to die with regrets.
In other words, if we haven’t been mindful of death and we haven’t been practicing and so on, then– all of a sudden – when death actually comes, it will catch us by surprise. Then we’ll be really filled with regret. As we said with this story of a perfectly wasted life, now there’s no time left. If there’s no time left, then we’re really in a terrible state of mind – “I really haven’t taken advantage of all the opportunities I’ve had. I haven’t taken advantage of my precious human life. I haven’t taken advantage of the fact that there are teachings available, that there are teachers available, that I didn’t have clarity of mind…”
Imagine if you found yourself starting to have Alzheimer’s disease, knowing that very, very soon, you won’t be able to remember any practice. You won’t even remember who you are. Surely, at that point, you’d have tremendous regret about having wasted your life and not having taken advantage of all the opportunities and, instead, just having built up more and more negative karma.
So, these are the shortcomings of not being mindful of death.
Why don’t we take a few moments to reflect on this. There are six shortcomings (just to review):
- We won’t be mindful of the Dharma.
- Even if we’re mindful of the Dharma, we won’t put it into practice;
- Even if we practice, we won’t do so purely.
- We’ll lose our determination to practice earnestly all the time.
- Our destructive actions will disable ourselves from gaining liberation.
- At the time of our deaths, we’ll have to die with regrets.
Are there any questions about this or comments? Anyone? OK.
The Eight Transitory Things in Life (Eight Worldly Dharmas)
When we don’t practice purely because we’re not mindful of death, we get caught up in the eight transitory things in life:
[1] Being pleased, or delighted, when we receive things like gifts or money.
[2] Being displeased, depressed, or disappointed when we lose things or don’t receive things like gifts or money.
[3] Being all excited when things are going well – we’re happy and we’re healthy.
[4] Being depressed when things are not going well – we’re sick and suffering, we have problems and are unhappy.
[5] Being all excited and delighted when we hear pleasant sounds, good news, and communication – telephone calls, emails and so on – from our loved ones.
[6[ Being all depressed when we don’t hear such things.
[7] Being pleased and delighted when we’re praised or complimented.
[8] Being unhappy and depressed when we’re abused, degraded or criticized.
These are the eight transitory things in life, the so-called eight worldly dharmas.
The Ten Gem-like Innermost Attitudes – Gaining Equanimity Toward the Eight Transitory Things
When we’re not mindful of death and we don’t practice purely, we get caught up in these things. So, it’s important to try to gain equanimity toward these eight transitory things in life. And there’s a method for doing that, which is called “adopting the ten gem-like innermost attitudes” from of the Kadam Tradition. This comes from the Kadampa masters, the ones who came after Atisha. These ten are divided into three types:
- The four trusting acceptances
- The three diamond-strong convictions
- The mature attitudes toward being expelled, finding, and attaining
OK? That’s just the division of it.
The Four Trusting Acceptances
The first four, the trusting acceptances, are:
[1] As our innermost outlook on life, being willing to accept with total trust the Dharma.
In other words, if our innermost view of life, our innermost attitude toward life, is accepting and trusting ourselves completely to the Dharma. Then we won’t be affected by the ephemeral, transitory things like hearing from our loved ones or not hearing from them, being praised or being criticized and these sorts of things.
Second one is:
[2] As our innermost attitude toward the Dharma, being willing to accept with total trust even becoming a beggar.
Now, that sounds pretty drastic. But the point here is that we just don’t care whether people like us or dislike us, whether we get a promotion or we don’t get a promotion, whether we find the better job or we don’t find the better job. Of course, we can make efforts to improve our situations, but the point is not to be affected by the ups and downs and getting all excited or all depressed. And even if we have to become beggars, we’re going to stick to the Dharma practice of maintaining equanimity, peace of mind, and working on ourselves with the aim of gaining liberation and enlightenment. So that’s the second one – that even if we have to become beggars, we will trust ourselves to the Dharma so strongly.
The third one is:
[3] As our innermost attitude toward becoming a beggar, being willing to accept with total trust even having to die.
Each one sounds more drastic than the one before. But again, the Dharma here isn’t referring to some sort of religion or anything like that. What we’re talking about is the Dharma Gem, the Gem of the Dharma. That’s the state of mind in which the disturbing emotions and obscurations and all these things are removed from the mind,. And it is the state of mind that will remove them and is removed from them. It’s free of suffering, free of the causes of suffering, and even further, it’s the best state of mind for being able to help others. This is what we’re entrusting ourselves to.
This is, on the most serious level, what we mean when we talk about refuge – going in this safe direction. “It’s what I’m aiming for. And I don’t care if I don’t become famous, if I don’t make a lot of money, if I have to go around and beg like monks do, for example – depend on the support of others. And even if I have to die – in terms of not getting enough – I’m not going to give up; I’m not going to get distracted by worldly aims.”
Then the fourth one is:
[4] As our innermost attitude toward death, being willing to accept with total trust even having to die friendless and alone in an empty cave.
Now, this is talking about the Kadampa masters going off into life-long retreat in the caves. Well, that becomes a very interesting point. Are we mostly interested in friends and having a nice time with our friends (and nobody can deny that that’s nice)? Or is it more important to actually work on ourselves to be able to benefit as large a number of people as possible? Of course, one has to be sure not to become a total fanatic here, but these are the guidelines that are given.
Discussion about Applying These Attitudes in Our Daily Lives
Participant: They’re talking about dying from not getting involved into the worldly dharmas.
Does that include food as well?
Dr. Berzin: Well, let me give an example. I don’t know if this is relevant or not, but think of people who spend so much time with cooking and going to special stores so they can get the special organic food and can get the special delicacies that they like and so on. And they have to cook fresh every day and not use the microwave and not use a freezer or anything like that. So, a large percentage of their time is taking care of just their bodies – as Shantideva would say, being the servant of the body or the slave of the body.
One would be willing to eat the genetically modified crap that they sell in the cheap supermarkets that is convenient and microwaving or to do whatever in order to be able spend more time on doing something constructive than just feeding your body so it can produce excrement. You know what I mean? “I’m willing not to be Mr. Super-Organic-Biologically-Correct healthy in order to be able to put more time into Dharma practice.” That’s what it’s talking about. I think.
Participant: It’s not that you become a beggar and that you don’t get enough food from people but that you can work for some money to get food.
Dr. Berzin: Yeah.
Participant: So, you actually choose work, don’t you?
Dr. Berzin: What he is saying is that this doesn’t mean literally that we go out and become beggars. We could go out and work and so on.
I think that what they’re talking about here are the people who become monks. So, instead of working at a job, you’re going to become a monk or a nun. Monks and nuns beg for their food; they don’t actually go out and work a nine to five job in order to get their food. And even if they don’t get enough food on the begging round – so what? Maybe the next day they’ll get food. They’re not going to get depressed by it. It’s a worldly dharma, a transitory thing to get all depressed – “Oh! Nobody gave me food today.” Also, it’s being willing to go off into retreat and eat tsampa (barley grain) every day and not get a big variety of food. I think it’s talking about that.
If you are able to work and are working simply to get enough money to be able to live… it’s not to make too big a deal out of it. You just do your work and take advantage of what you get from it in order to do more practice. In other words, your aim isn’t to find the perfect work situation: your aim is to find the perfect Dharma situation. The work situation would just be to make enough money and enough food so that you survive. Now, if you can find something that is also worthwhile and that benefits others, and you enjoy it – that’s a bonus. But don’t have that as the top priority.
He’s talking about contentment. We don’t have to have the most perfect, beautiful garden around our meditation hut. Be content with what’s there. I think it’s talking about that. In other words, what are our values and how strongly do we have those values? But admittedly, this is fairly extreme.
Anyway, this last one is, “As our innermost attitude toward death, being willing to accept with total trust even having to die friendless and alone in an empty cave.” You don’t care if your friends disapprove of what you’re doing – “I’m going to do it.” This type of thing.
Now, of course, when you have responsibilities and obligations, like a marriage partner and children and things like that, we can’t just totally ignore them. But then you think of the example of Buddha who had a wife and child, and he left them and went off to seek enlightenment. But I think that that’s a slightly different situation. First of all, Buddha came from a royal family (or, at least, that’s the way that it is related), which meant that he wasn’t leaving his wife and child deserted and alone to become beggars. They were obviously supported by the rest of the royal family. So, they were well taken care of, not left alone. Also, Buddha came from the warrior caste. It was totally expected that the warrior left home and went out to fight battles. So, it wasn’t unusual that Buddha left. He went off to fight the internal battle rather than the external battle.
But when you are not from a royal family and are not from the warrior caste, and you have responsibilities of family… well, yes, you can’t just totally ignore them and lock yourself in your room and, “I’m going to meditate, and tough luck. You go out and get a job and support the children. I’m going to just sit here and study and practice.” There are some people who act like that, I must say. Whether it’s in Buddhism or in other religions, there are some people that act like that. I don’t think that’s totally appropriate either. So, one has to find some sort of middle path.
Participant: In other religions, they have the kind of concept that, actually, it’s your duty to create a family. Like in Hinduism, you make a family, and after thirty years, you can go and it’s OK. In Buddhism, sometimes I get the impression that they don’t care much about putting so much emphasis on having children or a family.
Dr. Berzin: That’s very true. Karsten is saying that in some religions, like in Hinduism (also in Judaism), there’s a big emphasis on getting married and having a family. You go off and do more intensive religious practices after that householder phase. So, in a sense, it’s your duty and responsibility to raise a family. But Buddhism doesn’t seem to have that type of emphasis.
I think that’s true. Now, I don’t know what our attitude toward that is. Buddhism certainly says that the optimal way of practicing the Dharma is to have full renunciation. Full renunciation means renouncing family life, renouncing biology, in fact – renouncing all these things – and, optimally, becoming a monk or a nun.
Now, you do have the examples of householder bodhisattvas. That you have in Mahayana teachings. But seriously looking at it, I think that the number of householder bodhisattvas would be less than the number of monastic ones. I think it’s very difficult to really practice intensively and raise a family unless your partner is totally willing to do all the work or you have servants who do all the work for you. I think it’s very difficult.
You can say, of course, that raising children is your Dharma practice. This isn’t to say that the householder is incapable of practicing the Dharma. It’s not saying that at all. But if you’re really going to put a hundred percent of your time and effort into gaining liberation and enlightenment, the only way of doing that is if you have no other responsibilities. Isn’t it? So, one has to accept that there will be certain limitations and differences in the way of practicing. If you have small children, you can’t go off and do a three-year retreat, for example. You can’t just leave them. Some people may, but that’s not terribly nice to the children.
What about the Monastics?
Participant: So, actually, Buddhism is taking into account that it’s not one hundred percent effective because if the whole society went into the monastery, it would collapse after fifty years or something. So, there’s this kind of idea that the lay people do the hard stuff, like dirty work or… you know what I mean?
Dr. Berzin: Well, I don’t know. What Karsten is saying that this is a bit elitist and that (well, you said several things that don’t quite fit together in one line of thinking) if everybody were to enter a monastery, the society would fall apart. Well, in a sense. If everybody became enlightened, which is highly unlikely, then we wouldn’t have our usual samsaric world; everything would be a pure land Buddha field. So, it wouldn’t be your normal society.
Then the other thing that you mentioned – isn’t it an elitist thing that you go into the monastery and let the lay people do all the dirty work? I don’t think that that’s so true. I think that can be true, and maybe in some countries it is. But if you look at Tibet, the Tibetan situation – sure, the monasteries were supported by donations from people, from the land that they owned and part of the crops they got from that land. That’s for sure. But people within the monastery certainly had to cook and collect water, which was usually miles away, kilometers away – no easy task. They had to collect fuel for building fires and stuff like that. There was work that had to be done – unless you were a high rinpoche and you didn’t have to do that kind of work.
Participant: Didn’t they also do social work – that they had to perform rituals?
Dr. Berzin: Right. Didn’t they have to do social work? Well, in the Tibetan community, yes, they did rituals. Not all of them did rituals but many did rituals. That’s very true. And not in the Tibetan Buddhist monastic community but in many of the Southeast Asian monastic communities, they ran schools, and they were the teachers. They did various types of community service. The Chinese as well. The Tibetans, for some reason, never really developed that. Maybe because of their isolation. Maybe because of their low population. I don’t know.
Participant: Maybe because the percentage of the population that was in the monasteries was higher.
Dr. Berzin: There was a larger percentage of people in the monasteries. But… not to become critical of Tibetan society, but they didn’t really have lay education. So, the monks and nuns could have been teachers for the lay people, for example. But the monasteries were very isolated. They couldn’t just walk around town and beg for their food when they lived so far away from any place of population. So, geography played quite a big role here as well. I think.
Participant: Even these isolated places, people came and asked advice or asked please to pray us for this or that. Or “What shall I do? Make mo’s…”
Dr. Berzin: Definitely. In these isolated places, the laypeople came, and they asked for prayers and they asked for advice and they asked for mo’s (prognostication of what to do). Certainly. So, the monks did play a role within society. That they did.
But playing a role serving society is part of Dharma practice. “And I’m willing to…” It is an interesting point – “I’m willing to become a beggar, and I’m willing to die, even, when I serve others.” In other words, “I’m going to serve them and not worry about how much offerings they give. I’m not going to charge them; I’m going to make it free of charge. If they give some donation – very good, but I’m not going to get excited about it. If they don’t give any donation, I’m not going to get depressed about it.” That’s exactly what this is talking about: equanimity to the worldly dharmas, to these transitory things of gain or loss. “I’m going to help them regardless – even if I don’t have enough food. Even if not enough money comes in to buy the food, I’m not going to charge.” That, I think, is what they’re talking about here. “I will continue to help.”
They also say that it’s unheard of for anybody who sincerely practices the Dharma ever to starve to death. Whether that is statistically true or not, I have no idea. But usually, some people will recognize those practitioners who are really sincere, pure practitioners and help them in some way or another. I think that almost always is the case.
Who supplies the food for these meditators up in the caves above Dharamsala? It’s usually His Holiness – his private office. And it’s not that these meditators make sure that they’re going to get this before they go up. But His Holiness values what they’re doing and the sincerity of what they’re doing, so he’s not going to let them starve to death. So, the private office sends people up in the mountains with food for these people. Serkong Rinpoche used to do that as well. I think it’s like that.
Participant: Yeah, the monastics. They were supported by Westerners and Taiwanese people. And when you look at Sera…
Dr. Berzin: Right. The modern-day exile Tibetan monastic community in India – they are supported by Western communities, by the overseas Chinese communities, and so on. So, it’s like that.
The next three of these ten gem-like innermost attitudes of the Kadampa tradition… Remember, the Kadampas were noted for their humility, for being sincere practioners who kept a very, very low profile. They didn’t walk around wearing brocade and all this sort of stuff. So, this very much gives a flavor of what they were like.
The Three Diamond-Strong Convictions
The next three are the diamond-strong convictions. First of all:
[5] To go ahead with our Dharma practice without consideration for what others think.
“I’m going to go ahead with the Dharma practice. I’m going to go ahead with meditating every day. I don’t care what other people think. It doesn’t matter because I have such strong conviction. For instance, I’m not going to drink alcohol, I’m not going to take drugs. I don’t care what my friends say or think. I don’t care what my family says or thinks. These are my convictions. I know that it is something positive. And if they have any respect or understanding for me, they will accept that. And if not – so what? I’m not going to get depressed by that.”
Then, the next one:
[6] Keep the constant company of deep awareness of our commitments.
So, this is diamond-strong conviction that we’re always going to stay with our deep awareness of the Dharma and our commitments to it – to the vows, to the general precepts, to the general guidelines.
Then the third one is:
[7] To carry on continuously without getting caught up in useless concerns.
So, we all know what useless concerns can be and how much we can get caught up in them – “Everything in my house has to be just like this or just like that.” We have many, many useless concerns. I’m sure all of us have our own pet ones.
The Mature Attitudes Toward Being Expelled, Finding, and Attaining
Then, the last three are the mature attitudes toward being expelled, finding, and attaining.
So, first, the mature attitude of:
[8] Being willing to be expelled from the ranks of so-called normal people.
I think the whole “freak” culture is quite attuned to that – not wanting to be in the ranks of straight, normal people. But for a lot of people, that also could be quite difficult.
Then:
[9] Being willing to find ourselves regarded among the ranks of dogs.
Participant: This is a high rank in Germany.
Dr. Berzin: But in India, dogs have about the same level of respect as cockroaches. They are considered very dirty. And if you look at the street dogs in India that eat the excrement that people leave on the street, you understand why they are not looked up to.
So, “being willing to find ourselves regarded among the ranks of dogs” – in other words, we don’t care that people don’t hold us in high esteem because of the way that we dress or these sorts of things. “I don’t care. I don’t have to spend all my money getting the latest fashion, having my hair done every week and this sort of thing. I’m going to spend my time in a much more constructive type of way.”
Then the last one:
[10] Being completely involved in attaining the divine rank of a Buddha.
This is our major goal. And if we have these ten attitudes, these gem-like innermost attitudes from the Kadam tradition, we will be able to gain equanimity toward the eight transitory things in life, the so-called eight worldly dharmas. In that way, we’ll be able to practice the Dharma purely.
If we’re mindful of death, we’ll be able to do these ten much more easily. If we’re mindful of death all the time… And mindful doesn’t mean that we have to constantly be consciously thinking about it. Mindful means that we have that awareness deeply within us, whether we’re actively thinking about it or not. It’s just part of our general outlook on life. Then we’re willing to accept with total trust the Dharma, willing to trust even becoming a beggar, even having to die.
As I said, if we’re diagnosed with terminal cancer, we’re not going to worry about having a good job; we’re not going to worry about all these things. “Even if my insurance won’t cover me, and I won’t be able to go to the hospital and get chemotherapy and the fancy surgery and stuff like that, that’s not my major concern. Even if I have to beg, that’s OK. I’m not going to spend my last months trying to make enough money so that I can get chemotherapy and live another month. I’m going to spend my time on practice. And even if I have to die – I’m going to die anyway – this is the most important thing. I’m not going to get detracted. I’m not going to spend these last days hanging out with friends and playing cards, for example. That would be a waste of my time… or sitting and gossiping. I’m going to go ahead without consideration for what others think, keep my commitments, not get caught up in useless concerns, be willing to be expelled from the ranks of so-called normal people, and be regarded among the ranks of dogs. I’m totally involved in attaining the level of a Buddha or to coming as close to that as possible by going in this direction before I finally die.” OK?
So, let’s just reflect on this for a few moments.
[Pause]
A Reflection: What Would We Do if We Were Told We Had Terminal Cancer?
I think that, in reflecting on this, what can be very helpful is to think, “What would I do if I were told that I had terminal cancer?” What would you do? Would you spend all your time trying to make more money and have chemotherapy and drastic surgery? Or would you spend your time totally devoted to Dharma practice?
I think that most of us, if we were diagnosed with terminal cancer and had just had a couple months left to live, would probably want to spend those months very meaningfully and not be worried about whether we had enough money to be able to get that surgery – which is probably not going to help either. It’s probably just going to make things a little bit worse or just prolong the inevitable, but with a lot more pain. “Am I going to spend all my time worrying about that and fighting with the insurance company and all of that? No. I’m willing to let death come, willing to live with whatever I have now.”
And are we going to spend all our time with endless telephone conversations with friends and emails and going out for lunch and them feeling very uncomfortable because they look at us as if we were dead already and having people feeling sorry for us and so on? Or do we just say, “Enough! I don’t care what people think at this point. I’m just going to really try to get my mind in shape for death and for future lives.” And even if people criticize us, if our family and friends criticize us and say, “Oh, you should go out and have a good time while you can. Why don’t you go on a holiday cruise and a vacation and go to the beach,” and this and that – what’s the point? We don’t care what they think.
The whole purpose is not to please our relatives and friends. That’s the point of these ten gems from the Kadampa tradition. We certainly don’t know when death will come, but death will come for sure. That’s what these next verses are talking about. And although we don’t need to go to a fanatic position, nevertheless, I think this gives very good guidelines for what’s going to have priority in our lives.
Do I want to spend my time just building up more karma to be reborn as an animal by acting out various animalistic instincts and so on? Am I going to just get angry whenever I want to get angry, or just be greedy and eat this or that or have this or that type of sexual pursuit and so on? Or do I want to build up more constructive habits while I can? These are the important points.
Then, there are six benefits of being mindful of death. Are there any comments, by the way, before we go on?
Yeah, Dirk.
Participant: How do you make sure that… I mean, if you’re thinking about death, you feel like you need to act in some way. How do you make sure that the Dharma comes up as the first thing?
Dr. Berzin: How can we make sure that Dharma comes up as the first thing that we would want to do? Well, that’s part of the death meditation that comes a few verses later – that if you think about it, building up your body to have more muscles is not going to help at the time of death. Having a lot of friends is not going to help. Having a lot of money is not going to help. And having a big title is not going to help. The only thing that’s going to help is having trained your mind with the Dharma. So, it’s based on that and on careful analysis of what is of help at the time of death, which is turning to the Dharma.
OK?
The Six Benefits of Being Mindful of Death
Then we have the six benefits of being mindful of death.
The first benefit is that:
[1] It makes us act very meaningfully.
“Meaningfully” means doing things that have a longer term, beneficial meaning. And I think we have an idea of what is meaningful in our lives or in life in general. Watching a certain television program or having seen this movie or that movie – in the end, will it make much difference? No. Having eaten at a special, fancy restaurant – is that going to make any difference at the time of death? No. So, if we are mindful of death, we will act in much more meaningful ways.
What would be meaningful? Not just sitting and meditating but actually helping people, actually doing things that can help others to improve their lives in a meaningful way, in a way that will help to eliminate long-term suffering and so on. So, being mindful of death makes us act very meaningfully.
Second benefit is:
[2] It makes all our positive actions most powerful and effective.
What could that mean? What makes a positive action – or negative action, for that matter – stronger?
Participant: Motivation.
Dr. Berzin: Motivation. Right. Motivation, frequency of committing the action, and these types of things. So, if we’re thinking in terms of death, we will think more about improving future lives and making sure that we continue to have opportunities in future lives so that we can work more toward liberation and enlightenment. There’s a stronger motivation, a stronger sincerity, behind our positive actions. And we’ll do them more frequently.
So, being mindful of death in this way makes the positive actions most powerful and effective. We’re not just doing it because, you know, “Well, Buddha said so, so I’m going to do it,” or because we want others to see us doing it so they’ll think well of us. Not like that.
Third benefit of being mindful of death:
[3] It is very important in the beginning of our practice.
In other words, it will get us going into practice as a start. Remember, one of the things that Buddha saw that helped him to get into Dharma practice was death – sickness, old age, and death. Very often, many people, especially when they’ve experienced horrible things as a child or a young person, a teenager – their various loved ones got sick or died, or they got physically hurt in some way – think in terms of death and turn very strongly to the Dharma.
I know of one friend who, when he was in his early twenties, had a brain tumor. It was benign; it was not malignant. But he had a very big, serious operation to cut it out. After that, he became a very, very strong Dharma practitioner because, from that point on, death was very, very real to him – that some tumor could grow back and that, next time, it’ll be malignant. So, it’s very good for helping us start in the Dharma practice.
The next one:
[4} It is important in the middle of our practice.
Being mindful of death has the benefit during our practice of keeping us going.
Especially as we get a little bit older and friends and relatives who are the same age as us start to die… it’s not just the “older” generation dying off, but now it’s my generation also dying off – that really keeps you going in the Dharma practice. It becomes much more real: death. So, it keeps us going in the practice during the process.
Another benefit is:
[5] It is very important at the end of our study and practice of the Dharma.
In other words, it will help us to go all the way, not just part of the way. So, it has that benefit.
Lastly, at the time of our deaths:
[6] We’ll be able to die both happily and pleasantly.
How would you be able to die happily and pleasantly?
Yeah. Derek.
Participant: Because you’re convinced that you did your best in some way.
Dr. Berzin: Right, being convinced that we’ve done our best in some way. It could be in a worldly sense – that I’ve taken care of my family, that I’ve left behind a nice legacy in terms of my work or in terms of the influence that I’ve had on others. So, I’ve lived a beneficial, good life. That’s one thing – looking back.
But also, we could look ahead. From a Buddhist point of view, we would also look ahead, thinking, “I have acted constructively; I have been working toward liberation and enlightenment; I’ve been working to benefit others; been working to lessen my selfishness, my naivety, my anger, my greed, my attachment. So, I am confident that I’ll be able to continue in future lives. I’ve established a very excellent, close bond with my spiritual teachers. And that bond, hopefully, will carry me on.”
It’s like… I think it’s in one of the prayers where it says that the guru has “hooked” us with his compassion. So, I am hooked, linked, to the guru, to my teacher, through my teacher’s compassion. This will lead me on, and I’ll continue to be held by that compassion in all my lives. It’s a very nice image. But of course, we need to have the proper attitude toward the teachers and toward the teachings in order to be able to stay on that hook. If we’ve done this, then we can die with confidence; we can die with peace of mind.
Questions
What Are Our Own Attitudes Toward Death?
There are a lot of people who are very afraid of death. Why are they afraid? Well, some of them might be afraid because they do believe in future lives and think that they’re going to go to some hell or something like that. There’s that. But also, it can be fear of the unknown. Or it could be fear of becoming nothing, which is, of course, making a something out of a nothing. If it were really nothing, you couldn’t be afraid of it. So, they make the nothing into a something and then are afraid that it’s going to be awful. If it were really nothing, you wouldn’t experience it.
So, I don’t know. I think it’s important to look at our attitudes toward death. Are we afraid of it? Do we see it simply like falling asleep, and then, when we wake up, we’re in next life? How do we view it? And of course, everything depends on our understanding of how the self exists. If we understand the voidness of the self, that changes very much our view of what death is all about and what continues from lifetime to lifetime. It very much affects our attitudes toward death, I must say.
What if We Get Alzheimer’s and Forget All the Teachings?
Participant: But when you have Alzheimer’s, you forget all the teachings. You’re really completely lost.
Dr. Berzin: Right. What if we get Alzheimer’s, and we forget all the Dharma teachings? Well, there’s a very nice line in one of the Upanishads, which came earlier than Buddhism (but I think the spirit of this line is carried on in Buddhism as well), which is, “There is no loss of a beginning once made.” In other words, if we have planted various so-called seeds and tendencies from Dharma practice, even if they temporarily become obscured because of Alzheimer’s disease, they’re not lost; they’re still there. They’re just temporarily obscured by the disease, and they can be reactivated in future lives. And given the three possibilities of dying in a positive state of mind, a negative state of mind, or a neutral state of mind of Alzheimer’s – not knowing anything – dying in that neutral state of mind is certainly better than dying in a negative state of mind. That’s for sure.
It’s just as when you go to sleep. Sleep can be made into a positive or negative state, depending on your motivation or intention or thoughts as you go to sleep. I think it’s the same thing with Alzheimer’s. If we discover that we have Alzheimer’s disease and that we’re slowly losing it, it’s very important, I think, that in our moments of clarity, before it fades completely, we try to set as positive a state of mind as possible so that when we reach the state of forgetting everything, that positive state is there. In other words, it will make that state of Alzheimer’s more positive.
It’s very interesting. My mother died of Alzheimer’s. So, I am a bit familiar with what happens with it. You go through a phase in which you get very angry and even hit people. My mother never hit people, although she did, at one stage, hit a few people in the hospital. I think that was from frustration because you can’t express yourself, and you can’t remember how to do things. You can’t relate to other people because you can’t even get five words out that are connected to each other; you can’t really talk to anybody. It’s unbelievably frustrating. But again, if you have done a lot of Dharma practice beforehand, then you’ll be able to accept that. Again, take it as one of the eight worldly dharmas – not to get…
Memory Can Fade, but Strong Habits Persist
Participant: But you don’t remember things.
Dr. Berzin: Well, it’s not a matter of remembering: it’s a matter of habit. If the habit is strong enough, that habit will be your habitual response. There’s a later stage of Alzheimer’s in which what you’re left with is the most dominant aspect of your personality. That’s there toward the end. And it’s very interesting to see what the dominant aspect of your personality is that you’re left with.
With my mother… My mother was a remarkable woman. What she was left with at the end was helping others. She liked very much to walk around with the nurse in the Alzheimer’s ward at the old age hospital. I mean, she couldn’t do anything to help others, but she would just walk with the nurse as if she were trying to do that. Also, if you brought her anything that she liked to eat, she absolutely refused to eat it unless we gave some to the other people in the room. She would not eat it. She had to share it.
So, it is quite remarkable that this is what she was left with. Other people can be left with much more destructive states of mind, negative states of mind. It wasn’t, I don’t think, that she remembered being like that. It’s that she always liked to help people before she had Alzheimer’s, especially people in unfortunate situations. But if a habit is very strongly there, that habit will arise again. That, I think, is our only hope with something like Alzheimer’s disease.
Therefore, be mindful of death and of the fact that we could get Alzheimer’s at any time. Especially when we can’t find our keys and have what one calls an “Alzheimer’s moment” of trying to find them, we’re reminded to try to spend more time and effort on building up positive force, positive habits.
OK. So, that brings us to the end of our hour. We’ve done the preparation now for the death meditation, and then next time we can deal with the few verses that Nagarjuna devotes to the topic.
Thank you.