LTF 48: Death Will Come; When It Does, Only Dharma Can Help

Verse fifty-five is speaking about the uncertainty of the time 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.

In the discussion of death, what is involved here, of course, are various steps of meditation. These steps of meditation, the way that they’re presented in the lam-rim, are to think: 

• First, of the certainty of death – that death is going to come for sure
• Then, of the uncertainty of the time of death – that there’s no guarantee when we’re going to die
• Then, that nothing’s going to be of help at the time of death except the Dharma 

Here, in the text, again, the order is slightly changed. So, rather than speaking first about the certainty of death and then the uncertainty of when it will come, the verse first speaks about the uncertainty of the time of death. 

First Meditation: Uncertainty of the Time of Death – The Three Points

There are three points that are discussed in the general meditations concerning the uncertainty of the time of death. These are:

• There’s no certainty of a lifespan on the Southern Continent. 

In the abhidharma presentation, there are four island worlds (or “continents” as they’re usually translated) with different types of humanoid species on each of them. In the other three continents, the lifespan is fixed at a certain level. I think in one, it’s a thousand, in another, it’s seven hundred and fifty, and in another, it’s five hundred (if I remember correctly; I didn’t write it down). But anyway, that’s irrelevant. 

The point is that where we are, the human lifespan is uncertain. In other words, we don’t know when we could die. We could die while we’re still in the womb, before we’re even born (in terms of a miscarriage or an abortion or something like that), or we could live to an extreme old age – over a hundred years. So, you don’t have to be old in order to die; plenty of young people die as well. We know now, in terms of accidents, in terms of overdoses of drugs, in terms of AIDS, in terms of all sorts of diseases and so on, that it’s possible to die at any time.

The second point is:

• There are more chances of dying and fewer chances of remaining alive. 

What does that mean? Think about it: every time you drive your car or get in a car or get in a bus, there’s a chance that you’ll be in an accident. Every time you fly in an airplane, there’s a chance that there’ll be an accident. In other words, there are a lot of chances of getting hurt and dying. Even in terms of getting sick – you go into a crowd of people and you could catch some disease, catch a cold, or something like that. What are the chances of staying alive? Not so many. 

You could be sitting in your house and… This happened in my home town. An airplane fell out of the sky – a small airplane – and crashed into a house in my home town when I was a child, and it killed the people living in the house. So, that could happen as well. When I was in Dalhousie (the first place that I lived in India), there was this very funny thing that happened. Actually, there were two incidents. One was was during the monsoon, the heavy rainy season (there’s a tremendous amount of rain), when some friends of mine were visiting at my house. When they went back home, they found that a huge boulder, an enormous rock, had fallen from higher up on the mountain and crushed their house while they were gone. They were incredibly thankful that they were out of the house at that time. 

Another time (this also happened in Dalhousie), I was walking down the road. And again, it was the monsoon season. I was walking with a friend, and we heard some rumbling sound higher up on the mountain. In Dalhousie, where I was living, there was quite a steep mountain. There was a road that was cut into it and houses along the side of the mountain. We heard this rumbling further up on the mountainside, so we ran ahead. Then we turned around and looked, and a water buffalo came falling down the side of the mountain and landed smack on the road where we had just been – which was really quite awful. We used to joke after that about sending a letter home to my mother: “Dear Mrs. Berzin, your son was killed by a falling water buffalo.” But it was really quite awful because the poor thing didn’t die immediately; it was in terrible shape. And what was really weird was that this was the water buffalo that I used to get milk from. It was my own milkman’s water buffalo. The mud had given way, and the thing slid down and fell off the side of the mountain. 

So, like that, there are many, many chances of dying and not so many chances of staying alive. Very true, isn’t it? That doesn’t mean that we become paranoid like some friends that I have. They’re paranoid of flying in an airplane because they think that it’s going to fall out of the sky and that they’re going to have an accident. One tries to be careful. Nevertheless, that’s life. Death could come at any time – even if they don’t fly in an airplane. Every time you cross the street you could be hit by a car. 

Then the third point here is:

• The body is extremely fragile. 

If we had bodies like some sort of android made of incredibly strong material, it wouldn’t break so easily. But our bodies break very easily. All we have to do is to put some sharp object next to it and it goes right through our skin. We can catch colds so easily. The elements in our bodies are in very fragile balance. Just the slightest thing – a chill, anything like that – could make us sick and die. We don’t have very strong bodies at all.

Participant: A mosquito bite.

Dr. Berzin: A mosquito bite. An insect bite could kill us. Fall down, and we break a leg. If we went out to buy something and it broke as easily as our bodies do, we probably wouldn’t buy it. And it’s not so easy to repair. We can repair it to a certain extent, but not completely. This body is very, very fragile. 

That’s why there’s uncertainty to the time of death. And the verse refers to this. It says, “Many things can damage your life.” That’s the fact that there are more chances of dying and fewer of remaining alive. Many things could damage our lives. We could be harmed by external things (this is the way the commentary explains it). We could be harmed by other people, animals, harmful spirits, or something like that. And our lives could be damaged by internal things like sickness. Even eating can become a cause of death; we could choke on something and choke to death.  

“It’s more impermanent than a bubble on a river tossed by the wind.” Considering how fragile the body is, it’s really amazing that we are able to breathe out and breathe in again or that when we go to sleep at night, we wake up again. That’s quite amazing. I think that is something that most of us don’t really appreciate – that when we wake up in the morning, we’re still alive. We don’t die in our sleep, and when we wake up, now we’re Fifi the poodle or something like that. That would be quite awful! So, that is often emphasized – that we need to be very thankful that we continue to stay alive. 

So, let’s think a little bit about these three points concerning the uncertainty of the time of death. In general, there’s no certainty of lifespan for humans in our type of world, there are more chances of dying and fewer of remaining alive, and our bodies are extremely fragile. I don’t know if any of you have had a near death experience or have been in a severe accident or almost hit by a car or something like that, but those types of things tend to remind us of how easy it is to die. There’s no certainty as to when it will happen. 

How to Meditate on the Uncertainty of the Time of Death

When we meditate on this point concerning no certainty of the time when we could die, one could ask, “Well, how do you meditate on that? What do you actually do when you meditate on that?” I think that one of the ways of doing it, at least, is to look at a misconception that we might have. That misconception is that “I’m not going to die tomorrow. I’m not going to die tonight. I’m going to live a long life.” That’s the misconception that we have, and we think that that’s for sure. We don’t question whether or not we’re going to be alive tomorrow. We take it totally for granted. 

So, what we want to do is something that is in the spirit of voidness meditation. In voidness meditation, we have the thing to be refuted, and then we refute it logically – that this can’t possibly be the case. Then, we cut off our misconception. So, here, the misconception is that “For sure, I’m going to be alive tomorrow, and I’m going to live to be really old. And of course, I’ll be healthy and have a clear mind and all of that.” Then we think, “Why is that not something that anybody can guarantee – that I certainly can’t guarantee?” And the reason why we can’t guarantee that is because there’s no fixed lifespan. There’s no guarantee that everybody is going to live a hundred years or that everybody’s going to live to be ninety or whatever. There’s no guarantee of that. It’s not like there’s some little label written on the bottom of us that gives the date when we expire and have to be thrown away in the garbage. 

Why else can’t we guarantee that we’re going to be alive tomorrow? Because there are more chances of being killed or dying than of staying alive. Anything could kill us. And we don’t have to be in a war zone. We don’t have to be in a dangerous situation… we are in a dangerous situation because the body is very fragile. It could easily be harmed. We can’t count on our health. We can’t count on… anything. So, in that way, we refute this wrong view that we have, this false view – the misconception that we can guarantee that we will stay alive. OK? You get the idea?

Given the Uncertainty of the Time of Death, Is It a Mistake to Plan Ahead?

Participant: Is it then a mistake to plan ahead if there’s no certainty that we stay alive tomorrow and or… Because this idea of planning ahead strengthens this concept of “I will live forever” and so on.

Dr. Berzin: I don’t think that that is the case. Planning ahead is a very interesting point. Do we plan ahead only for the things of this lifetime? Or do we plan ahead for future lifetimes? And this is the whole point here in the death meditation – that we want to plan ahead for future lives. Just planning ahead to have things of this lifetime… well, we’re going to lose it. But that doesn’t mean that we totally ignore this lifetime. We plan ahead in terms of saving for old age – for retirement, for example. 

But it’s very interesting. Retired, older people very often won’t spend the money that they’ve saved because they think, “Well, I’ll need it later when I’m really old.” When are they going to actually use what they have saved? That’s a big issue for a lot of older people. They keep on saving and saving, never spending what they’ve saved on themselves. Then they die, and they’ve never actually enjoyed what they had. 

So, you plan ahead to a certain extent what you want to accomplish in this lifetime, and certainly that’s the case in terms of spiritual things. But you also try to guarantee that you’ll have a precious human rebirth so that you can continue. That’s very important. In terms of the worldly things, you certainly plan ahead to a certain extent. You want to get an education so you can get a good job, etc. – but without being attached. I think that’s the way. And certainly, when you’re young, you need to find some sort of career, find some way of making a livelihood – unless you want to become a monk or a nun, in which case, you’ll be supported. Otherwise, you have to make a living. 

But the main focus is not on planning ahead just for short-term things of this lifetime; it’s planning for long-term things – thinking of future lives and working toward liberation and enlightenment. That’s why (maybe we’ll get to it a little bit later) a very important aspect of death meditation is to contemplate, “If I were to die now, would I be ready? Have I planned ahead enough in terms of future lives, or am I going to die with regrets that I didn’t really make the best use of my precious human rebirth?” That’s the state that we want to achieve – to have the peace of mind that, even if we were to die now, it’s cool; it’s OK. That doesn’t mean we don’t stop building up more and more positive things for future lives, which, of course, will also bring some benefit in this lifetime… maybe. Can’t say “of course,” but maybe.

Dying with Peace of Mind

It’s very important to be realistic about death and to have peace of mind about it and not to be afraid of it. This comes in the later point, which has to do with what is of help at the time of death. The only thing that’s really of help at the time of death is our Dharma practice and the positive force that we’ve built up in our lifetimes and the amount of negative force that we’ve been able to purify, to get rid of. Then we die in peace. “Do I have a strong connection with the Dharma? Do I have a strong connection with the great spiritual masters?” And to die with bodhichitta.

It’s very interesting. I was listening to the recording of His Holiness’s teachings at Schneverdingen, when he taught lam-rim here in Germany in ninety-seven or ninety-eight. His Holiness spoke about death as he went through the various points of lam-rim. And what he said was that there are all these complicated visualizations and tantric practices at the time of death – with the dissolution of the winds and the visions that you get and all sorts of practices, and imagining yourself as a Buddha figure while you’re doing this, etc. But he said that that’s much too complicated. Chances are that you’ll not be in a very clear state of mind when you die, that you’ll be pretty upset and weak and not be able to actually do this. 

So, he said the main thing to think about at the time of death is bodhichitta: “I want to continue on the path to be able to reach enlightenment to benefit all.” That is a much less disturbing thought. Otherwise, what’ll happen if you try to do the complicated tantric practices at the time of death is that you’ll get confused. You’ll get frustrated if you’re not able to do it, and you’ll be worried that you’re not able to do it correctly, and then you die in a disturbed state of mind. I was quite amazed to hear His Holiness say that. He said a much more stable way of dying is with bodhichitta. It’s not confusing. It’s not disturbing. And it’s not so difficult to sustain. OK?

So, let’s try once more this meditation on the uncertainty of the time of death. And think in terms of what your attitude is – “Do I really have the attitude that I’m going to be alive tomorrow?” Then, you refute that and see, “This can’t possibly be something that I can guarantee. There’s no certainty of lifespan on the Southern continent, in this world. There are more circumstances that could lead to my dying than to my staying alive. The body is very fragile and weak,” and so on. OK?

One of my teachers gave a very good example. He said, “If you bought a car that doesn’t function properly and that broke as often as the human body gets sick, you’d get rid of that car pretty quickly.” Wouldn’t you? 

OK. Another helpful practice in terms of realizing the uncertainty of the time of death is walking in cemeteries (especially here in Germany, the cemeteries are very beautiful – like parks), looking at the gravestones and just noting how old each person was when they died. This I find is actually quite useful because you see that not everybody there in the cemetery was an old person when they died. Some lived only twenty-five years. Some died as children. Some lived to be quite old. It reinforces the fact that there’s no certainty: we never know how long our lifespan is going to be. OK? Any questions?

The next verse deals with the certainty of death. Verse fifty-six:

[56] The endpoint of the body is to wind ups as ashes, or to wind up dried out or putrefied, or in the end (to become) excrement. Realize that, having no essence, it’s something that’ll be consumed, desiccate, rot, or be chewed into bits. 

This is referring to various ways in which the body could end up. It could wind up as ashes – in other words, it’s cremated, destroyed by fire. It could wind up dried out – that could be by the sun and the wind (sometimes, in some cultures, they just leave the body out to dry out). It could be putrefied – that would be if it’s thrown in the water; it would rot and putrefy in the water (like in India, they throw the dead bodies of lepers, I think, into the Ganges River, and also the bodies of babies when they die). Or in the end, it could become excrement – that would be if it’s eaten by worms, which is what happens in the West. We think of being buried as being something that’s quite OK. But if you think about it – what’s going to happen with your body? It’s going to be eaten by worms and insects. So, that’s really no better than the Tibetans chopping up the bodies and feeding them to the vultures.

So “realize that, having no essence” – in other words, there’s no essence to the body – “it’s something that will be consumed” (that means consumed by fire), “desiccate” (that means by sun and wind), “rot” (that means rot in the water), “or chewed into bits” by… well, worms don’t have teeth, but eaten by various animals. 

Contemplating What Happens to Our Bodies After Death

So, that’s the verse dealing with the certainty of death. And that’s an interesting thing to think about – to think about what’s going to happen to this body that we’re so attached to. It fits in very well with what Shantideva says about the nature of the body, the body that we’re so attached to, not only our own but other peoples’ bodies – “Look what’s going to happen to it.” It’s going to turn to ashes or get dried out like some sort of a mummy, or it’s going to rot in water or be eaten by animals and insects and turn into excrement.

Do you want to think about that for a moment? That’s a rather lovely thought, a nice thought. Let’s think about that for a moment. “What’s going to happen to my body? And what’s going to happen to the body of anybody that I am attracted to or, in fact, the body of somebody that I don’t like and the bodies of everybody that I see on U-Bahn (the subway, the Underground)? The point here is that it’s certain that this is going to happen, certain that this is going to be the endpoint of our bodies.

So, tell me. How do you feel about your body being cremated or eaten by worms? 

Participant: It could always be classified.

Dr. Berzin: Right. It could be classified. So, that’s another thing you could do with your body. You could donate it to science, to medical schools, so that medical students can dissect your body into little pieces and learn from it. (I don’t know what they do with all the pieces afterwards – throw it in the garbage, or what?)

Participant: If you are classified, the corpse can stay about five thousand and something years.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, you’re made into plastic and cut into little slices. Or you could be made into a mummy, like in ancient Egypt, and your body will last. Would that give you any satisfaction? Would you want that?

Participant: I think it’s a nice idea to give the body back to the plants and the animals.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, it would be nice to give our bodies back to plants and animals. Would you like your body to be chopped up, like in the old tradition in Tibet, and fed to the vultures?

Participant: Yeah. If it’s going in the earth, it can be eaten by other little animals. Also, it becomes earth, and plants can grow. I think it’s a good idea. It’s a nice idea.

Dr. Berzin: So, Marianna feels it’s a nice idea for our bodies to be buried so that they can feed the various insects, can turn into soil, can help the plants, and so on. So, it’s a rather organic type of thing.

Participant: Or you could be put in a coffin made from some hardwood from the Amazon that’s very expensive and ecologically destructive.

Dr. Berzin: As Jorge points out, in the West, it is not uncommon to have incredibly expensive hardwood from the Amazon as a coffin that’s lined with silk and satin and all these sorts of things. You might as well have a pyramid with all our servants and slaves inside.

Participant: The Muslims just do it with cloth.

Dr. Berzin: Right. That is probably much more ecologically intelligent.

Participant: It’s the best way.

Dr. Berzin: The Muslim way is probably the best way. Then do you want to have an elaborate gravestone and for your relatives to have to pay a tremendous amount of money every year to maintain it? That was the reason why my mother and many people in my family opted for being cremated rather than buried. They didn’t want to trouble and burden people in the family with having to maintain the cemetery plot.

Participant: But you can get anonymous…

Dr. Berzin: You can get an anonymous one? You’re just put it in the ground and… nothing?

Participant: Yes. My mother’s buried in the forest, in the woods, actually, beneath a tree.

Dr. Berzin: Oh, really?

Participant: Yes. There’s no stone; there’s nothing. It’s communally known that this is a burial place. It’s called a “Friedwald.” 

Dr. Berzin: Ah, ha. So, this is a very nice custom in Germany.

Participant: A very nice custom. It’s very easy.

Dr. Berzin: I’ve never heard of that in the United States. But then, again, I haven’t lived there in a long time. Here in Germany, you can choose to be buried in a forest at the foot of a tree (sounds very much like Shantideva, doesn’t it?), with no marker, no grave, or anything like that. And people might know that that’s where it is. That’s rather nice, actually.

Participant: Yeah. I like this idea also.

Participant: No hardwood.

Dr. Berzin: No hardwood. No coffin.

Participant: There’s only a number on the tree.

Dr. Berzin: So, are you put into a box, and it’s made out of hardwood with satin and silk?

Participant: No, no. She was cremated and put in this vase thing.

Dr. Berzin: So, she was still cremated?

Participant: Yeah, yeah. 

Dr. Berzin: Can you be buried like that?

Participant: You cannot dig big holes in the forest because of all the trees and all this. You make only little holes, and you put the ashes in.

Participant: I know one case, one neighbor of mine, who was also buried anonymously. It was just a meadow on a Friedhof. Just a Wiese, a meadow. There he was cremated. 

Dr. Berzin: He was cremated?

Participant: No, no. He was not cremated. He was in the earth, in a Sarg.

Dr. Berzin: In a box.

Participant: Coffin.

Participant: In a coffin. And he was just put in this field that is reserved for people who want to be buried anonymously.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, also in Germany, you have the custom where you can be buried anonymously, though still in a coffin, in a field, in a cemetery.

Participant: The coffin had to be this, umm… Vorschrift.

Participant: The regulation. You can’t…

Dr. Berzin: So, the regulation was that he had to be in a coffin, but in a meadow so that the family doesn’t have to pay a lot of money to maintain a grave. 

It’s very interesting. Do you want to leave something that your relatives and friends can go to (let’s leave aside the fact that they have to pay to maintain it) that they can go to, to remember you? Is that something that would be important to you? If you look at the great lamas, they usually… I mean, I’ve never heard of any of them being buried. They cremate them. Or as in the case of Ling Rinpoche, they make a mummy out of him.

Participant: What out of him? 

Dr. Berzin: A mummy. Like in ancient Egypt. His Holiness has him in his palace. Yeah. It’s pretty strange when you think about it. But the body of a teacher is considered to be something holy and special, so they cremate it and put the ashes in stupas, and stuff like that.

Participant: For some families, it’s very important to have a regular place to remember you. But even if you don’t like to be worshipped in a way like in the cemeteries, it can be of help to your family to have a place to mourn. Maybe somebody proposes to you, “If you die, I would like to go there” So, it’s also nice to be aware of that. But I think it’s in a way like the monks – they’re not very fond of being worshipped afterwards, maybe. But I would think that we need a place for inspiration and… 

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, we might take into consideration that our relatives would like a place to honor and remember us after we’ve died. And it could be a help to them so long as it doesn’t just feed on their attachment. But if it can be an inspiration to them about our life, that could be something that is helpful. Certainly, that is the idea of the lamas – that if they are cremated and there’s a stupa… 

In fact, Shantideva devoted a few verses to that, if you remember. It’s in the ninth chapter. There’s the question about whether or not positive force can be built up by making offerings to a stupa – which has no mind, they were saying. Shantideva said that whether the person is alive or not – whether there’s just a stupa – doesn’t make any difference; still, positive force can be built up. We can understand that in many ways, but positive force is built up dependently on many, many factors. It’s not just dependent on the object being alive or dead. It has to do with our own minds and all sorts of things like that. 

But it’s an interesting point. What would we like to be done with our bodies after we die? Because for sure, we’re going to die. And that brings us to the three points concerning why there’s certainty of death.

Second Meditation: Certainty of Death – The Three Points

• First of all, it’s definite that the lord of death will come (this is the way it’s stated in the text), and nothing can turn him back. 

So, that means that time is running out; every moment we are getting one moment closer to our deaths. It’s like we are… Shantideva used the image of animals being led to the slaughter, being led closer and closer, step by step, closer to our deaths. And we don’t realize that. But that’s an important point: time is running out, and nothing can turn death back.

• Secondly, the lifespan can’t be extended when it’s time to die, and the remainder is constantly getting shorter. 

Now, obviously, there are practices of long-life Buddha and Medicine Buddha and things like that. Even in Tibetan astrology, it gives options, things you can do to extend the lifespan. There’s an example of that from Nagarjuna’s life as well. If you recall, he was supposed to die at the age of seven days and seven years (I forget what it was), but his lifespan extended. However, when it is extended to the length that it can be extended, when it’s time to die, it’s time to die.

I had a very nice example of that in Dharamsala. It was during the monsoon again. By the library, there was a drain that had a lot of water in it, and there was a mouse that was drowning in the water. So, I went and took the mouse out, and I put it on the sidewalk for it to recover from almost drowning in the water. As I walked away, a large hawk came and dived down and took the mouse away. I thought that was a very good example of when it’s time to go, your time is up. So, that’s very true. Your lifespan can be extended, but when it’s time to die, your time is up; you’re out of time, the train has left – this type of thing.

• Third point is that you will die even if you had no time while you were alive to practice the Dharma and, thus, prevent your future downfall. 

We can’t say, “Well, wait a second, death. I haven’t finished all my mudras, my preliminary practices,” or “I haven’t finished this project or that project.” Death isn’t going to wait. It could catch you in the middle of a sentence. You could have a heart attack and be finished. 

So, there’s the certainty that we’re going to die. It’s definite that death is coming; nothing can turn it back. We’re getting closer and closer to death. The lifespan can be extended, but when it’s time to die, your time is up. The remainder of your lifespan is constantly getting shorter. And when it’s time to die, death isn’t going to wait for us to finish doing what we wanted to do – even Dharma practice. 

OK? Let’s reflect on those three points.

OK. So, there’s no way of telling when we’re going to die, but for sure, we are going to die some day. But when it says that when it’s time to die and that our lifespans can’t be extended and so on, it doesn’t mean that we don’t take care of ourselves and try to become healthy so that we live a long life. Go to a fitness club, go on a diet, go whatever, but be realistic; we know it’s not going to make us live forever. When our time is up, it doesn’t matter how physically fit we are. When time is up, our time is up. 

Then the next verse reflects on impermanence by reflecting on other aspects (that’s what it’s called in the commentaries). This deals with the point that we had with the uncertainty of time of death – that the body is extremely fragile. It underlines this point. It says,

[57] If even the earth, Mount Meru, and the oceans – these (physical) bodies – will burn up through the shining of seven suns, so that not even their ashes will remain, what need is there to mention something extremely frail like (the body of) a man?

So, if even the whole universe is going to come to an end… the way that it is described in abhidharma is that at the end of eighty intermediate eons, seven suns will shine. First there’ll be one sun, then there’ll be two, then there’ll be three, four… like that. Eventually, everything will burn up. And whether we conceptualize the end of the universe in that form, or we conceptualize it with the big crunch, or we conceptualize everything just expanding to infinity or whatever, the point is: what need is there to mention our own bodies if even the universe will come to an end,. Everybody who has been born has died. 

There’s this lovely joke. “What’s the definition of life?” “The definition of life is a sexually transmitted disease with a hundred percent mortality rate.” That is very true! If you’re born, it’s one hundred percent for sure that you’re going to die. What’s the cause of death? Having been born. What we actually die of is just the condition, the circumstance. But the deepest cause of dying is having been born. That’s very true. That’s called “subtle impermanence.”

So, if everything is going to be destroyed at the end of the universe, for sure, our bodies are going to be destroyed. Right?

And then the summary verse, verse fifty-eight:

[58] Thus, all these are impermanent, without a true “soul,” they’re not a refuge, not a protector, and not a resting place. Therefore, Highest of Men, you must develop disgust for recurring samsara: it has no essence, (like) a plantain tree. 

So, all these are impermanent – the world, our bodies, the five aggregates, the lifespan. All of these are impermanent, without a true soul – in other words, they’re without some sort of permanent essence that, by their own power, will make them last forever. None of these things are a refuge. You can’t take refuge in your body or your health or something like that.  Another way of interpreting this line is that they’re not a protector; they’re not a resting place. You can’t stay forever in this body, in this world, in this century or on this planet. Nobody can protect you; there’s no refuge, no protector, no resting place that you can go to, to avoid death. 

So, there are two ways of interpreting the line. But I like the first one – that the body, the world and all these things are impermanent; you can’t take refuge in them. “Therefore, Highest of Men” (Nagarjuna’s speaking to the king), “you must develop disgust for recurring samsara.” 

“Disgust” is another word that’s used for renunciation. You’re so disgusted and bored with this situation that you say, “Enough already!” There’s no essence to the body, no essence to this particular lifetime, no essence to any of the things that we have. It’s “(like) a plantain tree.” A plantain tree (a type of banana tree) is hollow on the inside. 

Third Meditation: At the Time of Death, Nothing Will Be of Help Except the Dharma

And this brings us to the topic of

• Except for the Dharma, nothing else is of help at the time of death. 

That’s the third point in the death meditation: (1) death will come for sure, (2) there’s no certainty of when it will come, and (3) at the time of death, nothing will help except the Dharma. 

These are three things that are mentioned in the death meditation. 

Wealth and possessions are of no help. It doesn’t matter if you have a new computer, have new curtains on your window, you have a new dress, a new suit of clothes. They’re of no help whatsoever. You can’t bribe the lord of death, as they say, with money or anything like that.

Also, friends are of no help at the time of death. I think it was Shantideva who said that you can have so many people around you, that you can be surrounded by friends and relatives, holding onto you even, but when it’s time to go, they can’t keep you from dying. All they can do is hinder you by making you attached and disturbing your mind when you die. It’s very important, as Shantideva says, “May I die alone in the forest.” That was like the four trusting acceptances and the Kadampas that we were talking about last week – being willing to die alone. Then, the mind can die in peace. 

And not only are wealth and friends of no help, our bodies are also of no help. Doesn’t matter how strong we are, doesn’t matter how good looking we are, doesn’t matter whether we are overweight, underweight… it makes absolutely no difference when we die.

It’s very interesting. When some people who get a terminal disease, like terminal cancer, and are going to die in a few days, the doctors say to them, “You shouldn’t eat this, and you shouldn’t eat that,” and so on. I remember my brother-in-law when he was in the terminal phase of his sickness (he died of a brain tumor). He was quite overweight as well. He went out every day and ate the most enormous ice cream Sundays, regardless of what the doctors said, because it was obvious that he didn’t have more than a couple weeks to live. So, as he said, it didn’t matter. Whether or not he increased his attachment and desire is something else. But our bodies are of no help; we have to move on. It’s not a resting place, not a refuge, not a protector.

It’s only if we have built up positive force and positive habits through practicing the Dharma that we can have some sort of confidence and refuge at the time of death. We can think, “This is something that has made a positive impact on my mental continuum, and it’s something that will last.” We sure don’t want to have the negative impacts of negative behavior, behavior committed under the influence of strong, disturbing emotions, which will shape our mental continuums in a negative way and lead us to terrible rebirths. So, only the Dharma is of help.

Let’s just think about that for a moment, and then we’ll end here.

So, it’s important that we don’t take refuge in our friends, in our possessions, or in our money. They’re not going to be of any help at the time of death. What we take refuge in, what we really put our emphasis on in life, is building up positive habits and positive force through Dharma practice – trying to lessen our disturbing emotions and attitudes, trying to lessen our destructive behavior, and trying to be of as much help and benefit to everybody we meet, everybody who encounters us. Shantideva said it very nicely: “May anyone who ever has contact with me, may that contact be meaningful in a positive way.” A wonderful prayer. 

Thank you.