Meditation on the breath

Sit comfortably on your meditation cushion or chair. Adopt the meditation posture and generate the strong determination to focus on your breath without distraction. Again, press the pause button on your CD player, concentrate on your breath without distraction for as long as you like, and when you are ready to resume, press the play button.

Motivation

Now check your motivation. Ask yourself, “Why am I studying this topic; why am I learning about Buddhism?”

If the answer that you give yourself is one that’s simply concerned with the happiness of this life, if you find that you are undertaking these studies for merely temporal purposes, recognize that as a negative motivation, as worldly motivation, as the cause of suffering. By acting under the influence of such worldly motivations, you leave negative imprints on your consciousness, planted there like seeds in a field, and when in future the conditions become right for those seeds to ripen, without choice, you have to experience the sufferings that they bring.

Therefore, discard that motivation; don’t follow that motivation. Be aware that that motivation is there and replace it with a positive motivation. Think, “Since beginningless time I’ve been circling through the six realms of samsara, experiencing all the dreadful sufferings that can be experienced, particularly those of the three lower realms. This time I’ve received a perfect human rebirth, which has eight freedoms and ten richnesses and gives me every opportunity to practice Dharma to the full. I can use this life in order to avoid being reborn in the three lower realms, and as good as that is, it’s not the best result, because it doesn’t free me from cyclic existence and there’s no guarantee that I won’t fall into the three lower realms again.

“Therefore, I should at least strive for complete liberation from cyclic existence, which this life also gives me the possibility of doing. But again, that’s not enough because the only sentient being that really benefits from that is me, and I leave behind all the kind mother sentient beings from whom I receive all my past, present and future happiness, up to and including enlightenment. Because I receive all my happiness from other sentient beings, it’s my duty to repay their kindness in the highest possible way—by leading them to enlightenment. But at the moment, I can’t even enlighten myself, let alone all other sentient beings. Therefore, in order to pay my debt to the sentient beings, first I must achieve enlightenment myself. My achieving enlightenment depends upon my studying and completing the entire graduated path to enlightenment, and completing this study and practice depends upon realization of impermanence and death. Realization of impermanence and death requires me to study the topic. Therefore, I am going to study the teachings on impermanence and death in order to complete the path to enlightenment for the sole purpose of enlightening all mother sentient beings.”

Don’t only think these words but also try to feel their meaning as deeply as possible and make your motivation as heartfelt and sincere as you can.

Recapitulation

In the last session we looked at the six disadvantages of not remembering impermanence and death: we don’t remember Dharma; we remember Dharma but we procrastinate, we postpone our practice; we remember Dharma and we practice, but our practice becomes impure because of attachment; we remember Dharma, but our practice isn’t really serious or continuous; we don’t make an effort to stop creating negative karma; and we die with much worry and regret.

In this session, we’re going to look at the six advantages of remembering impermanence and death, but before we get into those, I’d like to read you a couple of verses from a short but wonderful teaching called Heartspoon: Encouragement through Recollecting Impermanence.

This text was written by Pabongka Rinpoche, the author of Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, and he says,

And though at present you’ve attained leisure and fortune so difficult to find,
Always till now, they’ve finished and been lost, have been empty and without meaning.
Now, if you care about yourself,
The time has come to practice the essence of future happiness—virtuous actions.

You appear so capable, smart and clever, but you’re fool
As long as you cling to the child’s play of the appearances of this life.
Suddenly you’re overwhelmed by the fearful Lord of Death
And, without hope or means to endure, there’s nothing you can do.
This is going to happen to you!

Because you think, “I’m not going to die for some time, I’m not going to die for some time,”
While you’re distracted by the never-ending activities of this life,
Suddenly the fearful Lord of Death arrives,
Announcing, “Now it’s time to die.”
This is going to happen to you!

Though you make arrangements, saying “tomorrow” and “tomorrow,”
Just then, suddenly, you have to go.
This is going to happen to you!
And without choice, leaving behind in disarray
Your left-off work, left food and drink, you have to depart.
This is going to happen to you!

So, Pabongka Rinpoche goes in this vein for the rest of this relatively short text, and it’s extremely inspiring in terms of forcing us to confront the reality that our precious and extremely meaningful human life is not only going to end but is going to end soon, and it’s finishing all the time, but we have no idea when death will finally come. In order to really get our minds around this topic, then, we have to consider the advantages of meditating on it.

The advantages of remembering impermanence and death

Just as the disadvantages of not remembering impermanence and death are limitless but can be summarized under six headings, so too can the limitless advantages of remembering impermanence and death be summarized under six headings.

1. The first of these is the advantage of being most beneficial, or the advantage of making your whole life purposeful.

In the Great Final Nirvana Sutra, just before passing away, the Buddha said,²⁹

Among all reapings, the autumn harvest is supreme. Among all tracks, the track of the elephant is supreme. Among all ideas, the idea of impermanence and death is supreme because with it you eliminate all the attachment, ignorance and pride of the three realms.

In other words, just as an elephant leaves deep footprints in the mud, so does meditation on impermanence and death leave deep impressions in our mind. Even the Buddha himself was inspired to renounce the worldly life, leave his father’s palace and go in search of Dharma by seeing an old person, a sick person and a corpse, and many other great practitioners were also similarly inspired.

And this tradition of concentrating the mind through recollection of death is found not only in Buddhism. Once, when I was in Rome, I visited the catacombs under one of the churches, where the skeletons of centuries of dead monks are preserved as a reminder of death and impermanence for the monks of today. Actually, I can’t say that that’s why these monks’ skeletons were preserved and displayed, but it certainly looked like it. Also, in Buddhist tantra, practitioners use implements such as cups made from human skulls and trumpets made from human thighbones to remind them of the constant presence of death; so that they will think, “Soon that will be me.”

Looking at skeletons and corpses can be very instructive, especially when you relate it to yourself and don’t see it, as we sometimes tend to do, as disconnected and nothing to do with us. It’s like, as I said before, when we look at animals, we never think, “One day that could be me.” If we do, it can be a strong inspiration to practice.

Geshe Chengawa said,³⁰

If you do not do at least one meditation session on impermanence in the morning, I think you will devote the whole day to this life.

And Zhangtsen Yerpa said that if you did not recall impermanence in the morning, you would devote the morning to this life, and if you did not develop this recollection at noon, you would devote the afternoon to this life, and if you devote yourself to this life, whatever you do does not become Dharma.³¹

Therefore, it’s important always to remember impermanence and death, and if we do we will quickly be able to accomplish all the practices of generosity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration and wisdom, and we’ll be able to progress quickly through the three scopes and attain enlightenment for the sake of all mother sentient beings.

2. The second advantage of remembering impermanence and death is that of its being most powerful. This recollection is one of the strongest ways of destroying delusion and negative mind and is said to be second only to realization of emptiness in doing so. It’s like a very powerful sledgehammer crushing a piece of rock. Again, that’s why practitioners often remind themselves of impermanence and death by going to meditate in charnel grounds, where corpses are strewn about everywhere.

Of course, we don’t have that advantage in the West, where our sanitized cemeteries are made to look like beautiful parks, in an apparent effort to disguise the dreadful reality of death. But if you go to India, for example, you can still go to the burning ghats and meditate while corpses are being burned on funeral piles. This, too, can also be a powerful reminder that “This is going to happen to me; today or tomorrow, I could well be dead.”

Therefore, the second advantage of remembering impermanence and death is that it is a very powerful destroyer of ignorance, attachment, aversion and all the other causes of suffering that reside within us.

3. The third advantage of remembering impermanence and death is its importance at the beginning of our practice where this recollection can inspire us to enter the Dharma path by remembering, as the Buddha said, that it is indeed uncertain which will come next, tomorrow or the next life, and since the next life is certain and tomorrow is not, even from today, we should devote ourselves to Dharma, and only Dharma. Thus, this recollection is important in getting us started on the path to enlightenment.

4. The fourth advantage of remembering impermanence and death is that in the middle of our practice, during our practice, once we have entered the path, it keeps us focused on practice, it keeps pushing us along, it prevents us from postponing or not persevering in our practice.

I have a small personal experience of this benefit when, back in 1974, I went up to Lawudo in north-eastern Nepal, the area from which Lama Zopa Rinpoche comes and where he has a small monastery. I went up there to do a four-month Vajrasattva purification retreat and was fortunate enough to stay in a small cave at a place called Charok. Before I went up, a group of us received teachings on the Vajrasattva practice from Lama Yeshe, and for a variety of reasons I interpreted many of the things that Lama Yeshe said during these teachings as indicating that I would die up there in retreat. This didn’t occur to me before I went up, only once I was there and was reading a transcript of the teachings that Lama Yeshe had given.

So I really became convinced that I was going to die before the retreat was over, and once I had gotten over my incredulity that knowing this, Lama Yeshe had still sent me up there instead of back to the West where I could get hospital treatment for whatever it was that was going to kill me, I realized that if I had to die—and going to hospital is no guarantee of survival—this would be the perfect time and place from which to depart to the next life. Then, whenever I got distracted or my mind wandered out of the cave to other parts of the world, I’d always be able to bring it back quite readily by thinking, “Focus, you fool. You’re not getting out of here alive. These are the last few months of your life, perhaps the last few weeks or days,” and because of that, I was able to do a much better retreat than I would otherwise have been able to do. In this way, I personally experienced the benefit of this kind of awareness.

Of course, once the retreat had finished and I found myself still alive, I felt like I had escaped from death row and unfortunately the strong awareness of the imminence of death left me and hasn’t returned. But at least for that short time, it was really helpful.

5. The fifth advantage of remembering impermanence and death is its benefit at the end of the practice in that it inspires us to bring our Dharma practice to completion and attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.

6. The sixth and final advantage of remembering impermanence and death is that it allows us to die happily and gladly, without regret. As I mentioned before there are three levels of practitioner in terms of how they respond to death: the best looks forward to death, like returning home after a long absence; the intermediate-level practitioner dies with the confidence of knowing that he or she will not be reborn in the three lower realms; and the least-level practitioner dies without regret, without feelings of having wasted his or her life. We should try to achieve at least that.

Thus, there are many advantages of remembering impermanence and death and they’re summarized under these six headings.

The actual way of remembering death: the nine-part meditation on death

We now come to the actual way of remembering death, which is basically in two parts: the nine- round meditation on death and meditation on the aspects of death.

The nine-part meditation on death has three main sections, which are called the three roots. Each of these three roots has three reasons and also has three conclusions that we are supposed to draw from the meditation.

The first root is thinking about the inevitability of death; the second root is that the time of death is uncertain; and the third root is that at the time of death, only the Dharma can help.

1. The inevitability of death

Now let’s look at the first root, the inevitability of death, and look at the three reasons.

(a) Death is inevitable and nothing can prevent it

The first reason for the certainty of death is that death will definitely come and there is nothing at all that can prevent it. Intellectually, of course, we all understand that we are going to die, but somehow, in the depths of our heart, we have a kind of feeling that “I am going to live forever.” Certainly we have this idea that I mentioned before, “I am not going to die today.” The idea that we are not going to die today is probably the biggest hindrance to our Dharma practice, but we should think that ever since human beings evolved on Earth, none has been able to escape death. Think of all the powerful and famous people who have died. They died at fifty, sixty, seventy, maximum a hundred years old. If anybody lives over a hundred, it’s news, they get into the papers; it’s a rarity. So think, “Why should this not happen to me?” Think of all the highly evolved spiritual practitioners, the great practitioners of Buddhism, they’ve all died. Even the Buddha himself manifested impermanence and death as a teaching to us, his followers. Also, we know that eventually this planet upon which we live will disintegrate and disappear; the whole solar system will disintegrate and disappear; the entire galaxy will one day be gone. “Nothing is going to last. Everything is going to finish. I am definitely going to die. There is nowhere I can run to escape death. Death is inevitable.” Think like this.

(b) Nothing is being added to our lifespan and it is always diminishing

The second reason that death is definite is that nothing is being added to our life span and it’s always decreasing. Like an arrow shot from a bow towards a target, which constantly approaches the target without pause, or like a pebble dropped into a well, which keeps plummeting downwards until it finally hits the water, in the same way, without pause, our life rushes headlong towards its inevitable conclusion, death. Constantly moving forward without a moment in reverse, our life is running out. An animal led to slaughter gets closer to death with every step it takes; like that, every breath we take brings us closer to death. Whenever we hear a clock ticking, we should think that with each tick, our life is that much shorter. Every beat of our heart is one beat less; each beat brings us closer to death.

There’s a website called the Death Clock where you are greeted by the message: “Welcome to the Death Clock, the Internet's friendly reminder that life is slipping away…second by second. Like the hourglass of the Net, the Death Clock will remind you just how short life is.” Here you can type in the basic details of your life, like your date of birth, sex and psychological disposition, and it will bring up a window that shows you how many more seconds you have to live. As you watch, you can see the seconds ticking away.

(c) We will die before we get around to practicing Dharma

The third reason is that we will definitely die before we get around to practicing Dharma. Strictly speaking, this is not really a logical reason, but it’s given to emphasize just how short our life is and how little time within this short life we have for practicing Dharma. First of all, think how much time we spend in sleep, more than a third of our lives; how much time we spend eating; how much time we spend working; how much time we spend entertaining ourselves by watching TV, going to the movies, reading newspapers, magazines and novels, going to parties, going to the pub, listening to music; chasing boyfriends and girlfriends. So many of the things we do are not practicing Dharma.

Also, many of us are well into adulthood before we even meet the Dharma. So all our life up until then has been wasted; we’ve been getting closer and closer to death without even having heard the word “Dharma.” But what’s worse, even then, even after we’ve met the Dharma, is how little time we spend practicing it. When we are sick, we’re unable to practice. Then, later on, we get old, we lose energy, our mind becomes less sharp, we get more easily tired, and again, it’s difficult for us to practice Dharma. Make a chart of how you’ve spent your life up to the point when you first met the Dharma, then forget all that; that time’s a complete write-off. You can forget all that because there was not even the possibility of practice. Then make a chart showing how you’ve spent your time since you met the Dharma; what percentage of your life has been spent practicing Dharma? It’s very little, yet when death comes, the only thing that can possibly help you is the Dharma practice that you’ve done. It’s very depressing.

The first determination

Anyway, you need to think about the certainty of death in the light of these three reasons and then come to the conclusion, “Yes, I am definitely going to die, therefore, I must practice Dharma.”

2. The uncertainty of the time of death

The second root is thinking about the uncertainty of the time of death, that the time of death is uncertain, and again, there are three reasons for this.

(a) The lifespan in our world is not fixed

The first reason for the uncertainty of the time of death is that the lifespan of people on the southern continent is not fixed, especially during these degenerate times. According to Buddhist cosmology, there are certain worlds, or continents, where the lifespan of the inhabitants is fixed, perhaps for a thousand years or something like that, but here, where we live, in what’s call the southern continent, the lifespan is not fixed.

Many, many eons ago, when the first human beings evolved, their life spans were extremely long, tens of thousands of our years, perhaps almost immeasurable, but gradually their life spans decreased, and the lifespan here will continue to decrease until it reaches about ten years in duration. At the moment we can see that the average lifespan is seventy, eighty, ninety years, depending upon where you live. However, even though there’s an average lifespan, nobody knows when he or she is going to die. Some die in the womb, before they’re even born; some at birth; some in infancy; some in early childhood; some as teenagers, young adults and so on. Whatever your age, you can find many people exactly the same age as you around the world who died today.

We think that we’re not going to die today because we’re young, but young people die all the time. We might think we’re not going to die today because we’re healthy, but healthy people die every day, too. Even quite ill people can finish up living longer than healthy people; it’s never certain. We might think, “Well, I am quite well off; I have enough money to pay for doctors, hospitals and medicine,” but we can find old beggars in excellent health and millionaires dying young. Wealth is also no guarantee of anything. Our lifespan is completely unfixed.

If we think, “I am going to die today,” or even “I’ll probably die today,” we’ll be more likely to make preparations for our next life and won’t be so concerned with doing things for only this one. And should we finish up surviving today, we will have accomplished many things that will benefit our future lives. Of course, if it happens that we do die today, then we will have done the best by ourselves.

Many years ago, I’d been at Lawudo and was up at Shyangboche airport just above Namche Bazaar, high in the Himalayas, waiting with Lama Zopa Rinpoche and a couple of other people for a flight out. Up there, towards the beginning of summer, it’s very cloudy and the planes can’t always land; they need a break in the clouds to find the airstrip.

So there we were, waiting for a plane, and every now and then we’d hear a plane circling above the clouds, waiting for a break, and after a while, if there was no break, they’d go away. We waited like that for several days, always ready to leave, staying in a small, empty shack beside the airstrip, and because we knew that when a plane did manage to land we’d just have to rush out and jump on, we didn’t put any effort into decorating the shack or making it comfortable. So that’s how we should be with our life, waiting, expecting death to come at any time, always ready to leave, and not putting too much effort into fixing up our present circumstances.

So the first reason that we can be sure the time of death is uncertain is that our lifespan is not fixed and we can die at any time.

(b) Many factors contribute to death but few towards life

The second reason that the time of death is uncertain is because there are many factors contributing towards death, but few towards life. As Nagarjuna said,³²

The causes of death are many,
Those of staying alive are few.
These too can become causes of death,
Therefore always perform the practices.

As we all know, we live in a very dangerous world. We can be killed from inside or outside. From inside, we’re susceptible to hundreds of different kinds of disease, and if our bodily elements get out of balance, we can easily die. Even mental disorders can kill us: deranged people commit suicide or lead themselves into dangerous, life-threatening situations. Even people’s useless worldly ambitions can lead to their death: think of people who die racing cars, climbing mountains, jumping out of airplanes or doing so many other things simply for entertainment.

And from outside, there are also many factors contributing towards our death. The weather: people die of exposure to cold weather; people die of hunger or thirst in remote places; people die in war; people die when being attacked by criminals trying to rob them; people get murdered for all kinds of different reasons There are so many factors contributing to our death: earthquakes, cyclones, tornadoes, buildings collapsing, motor-car accidents, plane crashes.

Even the things that we think will sustain our lives turn against us and kill us. Food: people die from indigestion, from inhaling a piece of food, from food poisoning and so forth. People take a medicine to prolong their life but die from its side effects. We have families for support and protection, yet parents are killed by their children; children are killed by their parents; brothers and sisters kill each other and so on. There are so many factors contributing towards death and very few factors contributing to keeping us alive.

Therefore, the time of death is uncertain. Our life is like a little candle put outside on a wild and stormy night; it’s so easily extinguished.

(c) The body is extremely fragile

The third reason that the time of death is uncertain is that our body is very fragile, like a water bubble. It doesn’t take much to kill us; the prick of a tiny thorn can do it. One tiny virus, invisible to even a microscope, can cause our death. One tiny cell can turn malignant and destroy the rest of our body. We never know when something like this is going to happen; therefore, the time of death is uncertain.

You have to think over these three reasons again and again and realize that you can die at any moment and stop deceiving yourself by thinking, “Well, first I have to finish my studies; then I can practice Dharma”; or “First, I have to get married and have a family; then I can practice Dharma”; or, “First I have to do this, then I can practice”; “First I have to do that, then I can practice.” We constantly deceive ourselves in this way. As Gungtang Rinpoche said, the great danger is that the death of today may well come before the Dharma practice of tomorrow.³³

Now, all this doesn’t mean that we have to rush off to become monks or nuns, or immediately disappear into a cave and spend the rest of our life meditating, or retire to a monastery to end our days studying the great texts—not that any of these would be bad things—but what we really need to learn is how to transform all our actions into Dharma. There are many ways of doing this and Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains these techniques very clearly in his book, Making Life Meaningful.

The second determination

Having thought about the uncertainty of the time of death in light of these three reasons, you should come to the conclusion, “Yes, not only must I practice Dharma, but I must practice it from this very moment, right now!”

3. The only thing that helps at death is Dharma

The third root is thinking of how nothing can help us at the time of death except the Dharma. As Padmasambhava, who in the eighth century brought tantra to Tibet, said,³⁴

The vision of this life is like last night’s dream. All meaningless actions are like ripples on a lake.

(a) Wealth cannot help

The first reason that only Dharma helps at the time of death is that our wealth and possessions can’t. No matter how rich you are, no matter how many resources you have, no matter how great your power or position, you can’t take anything with you. At death, the mind leaves the body like a hair pulled out of butter. This analogy might be better for Tibetans, whose yak butter often had hairs in it, than for us, but you get the idea. Absolutely alone, without an atom of physical matter, our mind goes from this life into the next. No matter how much money you have in the bank, no matter how much food you have in your house, it will all be left behind.

Not only can we not take it with us, our wealth and possessions can also cause us great problems at the time of death. First of all we expended much energy and probably created a lot of negative karma accumulating all the money, possessions and property that we have. We accumulate such things with great attachment, and at the time of death, this attachment arises and we feel very sad and torn at having to leave it all behind. We also expend a lot of energy protecting our possessions, keeping others away from them, and at the time of death this manifests as sorrow, knowing that everything we have worked so hard for and fought to protect will go to others. We might even be lying on our death bed and hear our relatives arguing and fighting about who’s getting what. All this makes us sad and unhappy and we cling more and more, but it’s like trying to hold water in your fist. It can’t be held. So, with a mind burdened with grief, we pass into the next life, and as I mentioned before, the mind that dies unhappy is reborn unhappy, probably in one of the three lower realms, most likely as a hungry ghost. That’s the result of miserly attachment to possessions.

(b) Friends and relatives can’t help

The second reason that only Dharma helps at the time of death is because our friends and relatives can’t. Again, they’re more likely to hinder our smooth passage into a better future life than to help. All our life, we have generated strong attachment to our family, our friends, our husband, our wife, our parents, our children, and as we die, these people gather around us weeping, crying, clutching our arms and legs, begging us, “Please don’t go.” All this is a huge disturbance to our mind. Again, attachment arises very strongly because we can’t bear to leave them. Not only have we created much negative karma during our life collecting and protecting wealth and possessions, but also with our family and friends: attachment, jealousy, hatred, anger and so forth. All these imprints arise as we leave our beloved family and friends at the time of death, our heart breaks, and yet again we’re reborn into bad circumstances. Therefore, since our wealth and possessions can’t help us at the time of death, since our family and friends can’t help us at time of death, since attachment to all these things only causes us great suffering at the time of death, and since we can die at any moment, what use is there of being attached to any these things or people, even now? All they can bring us is harm. Therefore, we should completely cut attachment to our relatives and friends.

(c) Even our body can’t help

The third reason that only Dharma helps at the time of death is that even our most cherished body can’t. This body, which we have looked after so carefully all our life, that’s been our constant companion from the moment of our conception, that we’ve protected from being hit, cut and burned, that we’ve fed, clothed and taken here and there, showing it a good time, that we’ve pressed up against other bodies to make it feel good, this body, to which we’re so attached, will fail us and become our worst enemy. Despite all the care and attention we’ve lavished on our body, in the end, what does it do for us? Relentlessly, it deteriorates, gets sick and dies. We’ve treated our body as our best friend, but it constantly betrays us and, in the end, becomes our worst enemy. At the time of death we realize that we are leaving our most cherished body behind and can’t bear it; foolishly and uselessly, we cling strongly to our body but there’s nothing we can do; it has to be left. This unbearable suffering again causes our mind to leave this life in a bad way and take rebirth in the lower realms.

As we die, because we have so strongly identified with our body, because this body has always been a part of our ego identity, of who and what we are, we feel, “Now I’m becoming non-existent,” and this is a very terrifying thought. So we crave and grasp for another body, and this craving and grasping conditions the throwing karma that determines our next rebirth and projects us into continued embodied existence and keeps us in cyclic existence.

Thus, not only does our body not help us at the time of death, it actually becomes our worst enemy. Therefore, why are we still attached to it? Since we could die at any moment, we should remain detached from our body even now.

So, these are the three reasons why only the Dharma can help us at the time of death, but we shouldn’t get depressed or unhappy that our possessions, our wealth, our property, our family, our friends, and even our body can’t help us at the time of death because we have the Dharma. The Dharma can really help us at the time of death.

The third determination

Therefore, having thought about how only the Dharma can help you at the time of death, you should come to the conclusion, “Yes, not only must I practice Dharma and practice it right now, I must also practice only Dharma.”

If you do this meditation properly, you will very firmly set yourself on the Dharma path, and the nature of that path is that it leads from happiness to happiness. With worldly work, the happiness you experience always finishes but the work goes on forever. Dharma work is the complete opposite: with Dharma, the work has an end but the happiness it brings is everlasting.

Meditation

Before going on to the fifth teaching session, please go back to the first meditation CD and do Meditation 2 again: the six disadvantages of not remembering impermanence and death and the six advantages of doing so. Then go to the second meditation CD and do Meditation 3, which covers the nine-part meditation on death and one of the meditations on the aspects of death, which we get into at the beginning of the next session.

Dedication

Now we’ve again come to the end of the session and once more we should dedicate our merit. We began by generating bodhicitta, the determination to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings; we then looked at the six advantages of remembering impermanence and death; and after that we began on the actual way of remembering death by studying the three roots, the nine reasons and the three determinations: that death is certain, therefore, we should practice Dharma; that the time of death is extremely uncertain, therefore, we should practice Dharma from this moment on; and that at the time of death, nothing other than Dharma can help, therefore, we should practice only Dharma.

Thus, because of the power of bodhicitta, we have created infinite merit, and we should dedicate this merit in harmony with our motivation by thinking, “Because of this merit, may our spiritual teachers live long and healthy lives, may the Dharma spread throughout the infinite reaches of space, and may all sentient beings quickly reach enlightenment.”

Thank you.

Notes

²⁹ Great Treatise, p. 147. [Return to text]

³⁰  Liberation, p. 341. [Return to text]

³¹  Liberation, p. 341. [Return to text]

³²  Buddhist Advice for Living and Liberation: Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland, p. 130, v. 278; see also Great Treatise, p. 157. [Return to text]

³³  Liberation, p. 354. [Return to text]

³⁴  Quoted by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Wish-Fulfilling Golden Sun p. 53. [Return to text]

Sources for these publications can be found on the References page.