Impermanence (part 8)

(2) The impermanence of life

The way to practice the impermanence of life

Within the Dharma of Tibetan Buddhism we often practice imagining ourselves on the verge of death. The methods of observing and practicing the impermanence of life will now be introduced.

First it is important to contemplate the fact that death is certain. Everyone will definitely die.

  1. Since the beginning of time nobody has escaped death. Every phenomenon is impermanent. Every phenomenon that is made up of the four elements is in the process of change, from becoming, dwelling, deteriorating, and being extinguished. There is not one thing that is permanent that does not change. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter slowly interchange over time. Time continuously lapses from the world of the past to the world of the future… Our life is just like cattle and sheep that are being led to the abattoir, destined to die with no possibility of escape. When the causes and conditions come together and death arrives, fear, struggling, or crying will be of no use. Every person will enter into the Bardos and into the next life alone… From ancient China to current day China and anywhere in the world, not one person has escaped death. They have all left this human world. Even the great Sakyamuni Buddha, every single lineage master, such as Milarepa, Tulku Arik Rinchope, HH Jigmi Pontsog all attained paranirvana. Our ancestors, all the friends of our parents, all our neighbours and fellow villagers, all our friends and our enemies have and will all continuously leave this human realm. Do we know where they went to? Just as the great HH Lama Achuk Rinpoche said, “The place we live, our homeland, our close ones and friends and so on, those that we have known for a long time, we do not know where they are today, everything is changing.” Right now our life is like a flower that has just come into bloom but one day it will definitely wither. Of all the people that listened to the teachings last year many are not here anymore. A hundred years from now everyone here, before your eyes, will definitely have left this world with which they are so familiar …. From this you can be certain that eventually, one day, you will have to leave this human realm alone.
  2. Life is continuously elapsing and we have no possibility of extending it.
    Our guide Buddha said that what is born must die, life is like a flash of lightning, a fleeting moment, like a blink of an eye. Our life from the day we are born is just like a shadow at sunset, continuously, moment by moment, moving closer to death, just like the flow of water in a waterfall. Right now, moment by moment, we are moving closer and closer to death, just like a prisoner on death row, every step forward brings us closer to death. Life is just like a battery whose power is slowly being consumed and eventually becomes completely dead. Visualise yourself from when you are young until gradually you grow old, passing from a child to an adult. Think about your youth, when your body was strong and since then has gradually become weaker and weaker. In this way, you can be certain that the day that you leave this world is coming closer, day by day, minute by minute, second by second.
  3. This life only lasts a few very short decades; however, our future reincarnations are endless. To sacrifice endless happiness in the future for a few short decades of happiness in this life would be obviously unwise. In this short life the amount of time that we have to practice is very little. Within this one life in the first 20 or 30 years we do not understand about practicing, in the next 20 to 30 years we are so busy with our livelihood, and in the next 20 to 30 years we are already old. In those days that we can practice a third is used in sleeping, another third is busy with eating, talking, and doing other things. That does not leave many years at all to practice. Through the three methods of contemplation understand very clearly that this life is short. We will leave this human world very quickly. This gives rise to the idea that we had better very quickly seize this opportunity and use this time to practice with resolute determination.

Next, realising that death can happen at any time:

  1. The length of human life is uncertain
  2. The causes of human life are few, the causes of death are many
  3. Life is very fragile and easy to lose

Knowing that death is certain, we still do not seize the opportunity to practice. We often wonder about the time and place of our death, and the manner of our death, all of which are inherently uncertain. Death happens suddenly, when we have made absolutely no preparations.

When death comes it does not differentiate between big or small, rich or poor, noble or commoner, beautiful or ugly, and so on. Death will not give us notice for when it is coming. When we breathe out and do not breathe in again, death has arrived, it is that simple!
We have absolutely no certainty when and where death will take place and the reason it will happen. Nor do we know from which direction it will come. There are many different circumstances which can cause death, such as food poisoning, a falling object, lightening, receiving a heavy blow, disease, earthquakes, car accidents, and so on. Even our food or our clothes, or lack of them, could be the cause for our death at any time. Who knows, the car you are in could be involved in an accident this evening or the next morning? Will the house you rent collapse? Will the region you live in have an earthquake? Perhaps the plate of food in front of you may be your last meal. You could pass away on your next trip abroad. We can never be truly sure of what will happen. You could go to sleep tonight and not wake up the next morning, and the next time you open your eyes you could already be in your next life, in a completely strange place. However, we are still making all sorts of plans, “Once I have finished this or that task then I will practice, I still have so many things to do”. Nobody wants to listen to this kind of topic but this is the reality!

Although we are growing older and older, moving closer and closer to death, we continue planning: I have a lot of things to do. Once I have finished this I will practice the Buddha Dharma. For tomorrow, we have prepared so much food, things to wear, to use and eventually we cannot eat, wear or use it all – and then we die. Death does not wait for us to first finish all the things we have to do before it arrives! Remember, death will come suddenly! Nobody has promised us that older people must die first, younger people will die later. Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna said, “This life is like a sea breeze. We will fade as quickly as a bubble in water. Between breaths, when we sleep, that we don’t die and wake up again, how rare, how rare!” Many people plan to practice but they always prioritise worldly things that they need to finish. The result is that they die still preparing to practice. Nearly everyone, from a young age, prepares for their old age. There is no guarantee that everybody will reach old age, but it is a certainty that everyone will die!

In Tibet there is a saying, “Will tomorrow come first or will death come first, who knows!” It is very possible that this evening we may suddenly leave this world. We often hear people  nearby shouting, “Somebody has died here”, “Over there somebody else has died” …. . It could be a child, only a few years old, a teenager, a young person in their twenties, or maybe somebody thirty or forty years old. Yesterday we still had a happy young friend and early today they suddenly died without time to even leave behind many good memories. A proud middle aged man may also suddenly die leaving behind all sorts of bold and smug plans, still to be achieved…. This is Lord Yama ( the king of death) telling us, “You could be next. Have you prepared adequately or not?”

Remind yourself to contemplate in this way. When you have practiced in this way over a long time it will naturally give rise to the following thoughts, “I have to stop procrastinating. I must completely abandon all of these random worldly thoughts and transform my mind. I must start to practice the Dharma immediately, and with resolute determination.”

Next, when we have decided on the certainty of death, only our good deeds and the wisdom of meditation practised during our ordinary life will help us.

  1. When we die, our friends are not able to help us at all. When we are facing death it does not matter how many friends we have, none of them can bring us life. Our loved ones are not able to accompany us when we go, they can only sit crying by our side. Not only can they not help us, on the contrary, because of our love for them, we are not able to let go of our attachment, which exacerbates our suffering at the time of death.
  2. Money, wealth and power will be of no help to us either. Nothing in this world is ours and very quickly we will leave this human realm. When the time of death comes there is no difference between a king leaving behind his kingdom and a beggar leaving behind his begging bowl. All our possessions and our wealth that we have accumulated in our lifetime, such as good food, nice clothes, power, status, and so on, satisfied our desire and our vanity when we were alive, but when we die we will not be able to take one single item along with us. In addition, in order to attain all of these things, we created a lot of negative karma. When our mind leaves our body, like a feather blown in the wind, we wander aimlessly in the unfamiliar and terrifying world of the Bardos. The fruits of all our negative and positive karma will follow us wherever we go into the Bardos and into our next life, just like our shadow.
  3. Take the example of myself: I am a monk, a teacher of the Dharma. While I am alive, no matter how much praise other people give me, how many students follow me, how grand my Dharma seat, how well I teach the Dharma, the day that death arrives, the way that I die and the way that a beggar dies will be exactly the same. Only the Buddhist mind training that I have undertaken is going to help me. Even if all the sentient beings of the three worlds and six realms had come to praise me, it would not add anything to my positive karma. If this gives rise to pride in myself after I have died, I will have to pay the price for the negative karma I have created. When we stand before death everyone is equal. Many people say, “Right now I will enjoy myself and when death arrives then I will let everything go because I will not need to use all the things I have, it will be easier to let everything go.” In reality this is impossible! Whether or not you can let go is not decided by the external world but is determined by your habit of desire. From beginningless time our habit of greed and attachment is very strong. Without a long time of conscientious Dharma practice it will be very difficult to let go. If we wait until that day, even if we have a guide next to us to lead us through the process of death, it is still very difficult to let go.
  4. This body that we have cherished and loved so much for our whole life will eventually be treated and disposed of like rubbish by our loved ones.

When we are alive we rely on many close friends and loved ones for our happiness. We depend on many other people’s praise, then we feel pleased or that life has meaning. When you live well, many people want to be around you, to speak to you, to have a good time with you. They seem to really need you and are not able to leave you. You feel that you are very important and you think that if you are not there, there will be many things that other people just will not be able to do without you. But when you are sick, on the way to death, slowly these people who need you cannot be found, saying, “This person is so dirty, this person is so ugly, so difficult to look after …” and they become fed up with your body and your mind. And when you die, who needs you then? “Somebody has just died here, let’s leave as soon as we can,” they say very quickly. The people who loved us most will treat this body that we loved and cherished for our whole life like rubbish, and they will quickly forget about us. You are not actually so important. In reality there is nobody who would never be able to leave you. The question is whether or not you are breathing? When you are breathing, you have life. You think you are very important. When you have no breath, who needs you? Everyone will very quickly leave you behind.

As Duluo Rinpoche said, “Within one year, four seasons, day and night, everything is all in a state of change and death. The change of this life is just like the appearing and disappearing of fog and clouds in autumn. Loved ones and very close friends are just like a crowd in a market: as they come together, they are certain to separate. Death is just like a shadow which disappears in the evening. The next life is like a fish net that has been cast open. This life’s appearance is just like a joyful dream: hidden desires and all the wealth and possessions are just like an imaginary banquet at a wedding, just like the ripples on the surface of water, which have absolutely no meaning. Parents, dear ones, friends have absolutely no way to save you – you, one person alone, will have to enter the Bardos…”

Is the only thing that we take with us after our inevitable death the karma that we created during this life? It is not like this and the habit of our ten virtuous deeds and renunciation that we practiced in this life, our Bodhicitta, our faith in our teacher and the Three Jewels, meditation, and wisdom, these qualities of our right thinking will continue into our future lives. These positive qualities will directly influence the appearances we experience in the Bardos and the place in which we are born in our next life. They will definitely help our minds to pass through the stage of the Bardos peacefully. A great practitioner, who has already attained stable realisation of enlightenment, can even attain Buddhahood at the time of death and not even have to go through the stage of the Bardos. In this way, it is possible to enter into an even better next life, for example, by going to the Pure Land or even attaining a beneficial next life in order to be able to continue to practice the Dharma.

The life that we have is more or less already wasted. For the fear of our unknown future lives and generations, we have not prepared at all. And while we are still alive, we really should take advantage of sincerely considering the fact that, “In a moment I could suddenly be knocking at the door of Lord Yama, the King of Death, and then all the material goods, all the money, and all my fame will not be of any help to me. I will not have any more time to think about all those worldly things that I will never be able to finish! From now on, I will not waste this life anymore, letting my practice stop merely at the stage of words and contemplation. I will not continuously postpone my Dharma practice to tomorrow and then the next day. From this moment on I want to start with actual practice in order to prepare for death!”

“Through these three contemplations, with a resolute mind, there will be no fear of death. I must immediately and conscientiously master my practice of the Buddha Dharma!”
The above practice of the impermanence of life is very important. Past realised teachers said that if we do not practice impermanence for one day, then this day has been wasted. Lonchen Rabjampa Rinpoche also spoke about the perils of delaying our practice, “If we attain this precious human life but do not practice, if we spend one day absent–mindedly, then the time of death is uncertain and may happen suddenly. After death we may sink into the three lower realms of samsara, in which we may experience great suffering in body and mind. Even if we have great regret and remorse, it may be too late and we may continue revolving in the suffering of samsara for a long.

There will come a time when the body of this life dies,
When life ends it’s like water falling off a steep mountain
The causes and conditions of death do not discriminate
Therefore one should practice Samadhi mindfully.

This chapter is part of: Introduction Course - Part 1: Renunciation