Caring for the Dying

Caring for the Dying

Preparing a House for End-of-Life Care
Date of Advice:
October 2017
Date Posted:
November 2024

This advice was given to students who were thinking of starting a hospice service. Rinpoche explained how to arrange a house for someone who is dying.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, 1983. Photo: Ueli Minder.

Ensure you have the following at the house:

1. Dharma books, such as How to Face Death Without Fear, Practicing the Five Powers Near the Time of Death, the Eight Prayers, also many other books on tonglen and any texts that will help at the death time. Ensure there is not just one copy of the book but many copies.

2. Mantras, such as Namgyälma mantra, should be available for people to recite. Also have all the prayers, such as the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, Calling the Guru from Afar and so forth, so people can recite them.

3. Audio recordings of Calling the Guru from Afar, Confession of a Bodhisattva's Downfalls to the Thirty-five Buddhas, Lama Tsongkhapa’s Hymn of Experience and different mantras, Namgyälma, Medicine Buddha, Chenrezig, etc. These should be played about six times a day, for about ten or twenty minutes each time. You can have different tapes that can be played and listened to. Also play mantra recitations from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Khadro-la for the dying people to hear. Rinpoche can record some mantras for them to listen to. You can also play recordings of mantras from their guru, verses about bodhicitta, Vajrasattva mantra, etc.

4. Thangkas of the different pure lands: Padmasambhava pure land, Amitabha pure land, Chenrezig pure land and Tara pure land. You can have different thangkas, very beautiful ones. The place should be made very beautiful, uplifting, so people can enjoy and not feel depressed. If not thangkas, then display images of the pure lands in big picture frames.

5. On the ceiling of the rooms have the long Namgyälma mantra, takdröl and the Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha mantra—OM PÄDMO USHNISHA VIMALE HUM PHAT. Stick these to the ceilings for the dying person to not get reborn in the lower realms.

6. Powa pills: have these available. When the breath stops, you can mix these with honey and butter and put the substance on their crown.

7. Lama Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo.

8. Liberation Card for a Dying Person, that Rinpoche put together. Ensure there are many copies for people to look at.

9. Mantra water blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Khadro-la.

10. Prayer wheels and stupas.

11. Nepalese statues in each room.

12. Ksitigarbha statue installed on the roof of the house. Ensure it is very beautiful, not an old one, and it is in the aspect of standing, with a monk’s staff. Either some Chinese people can come and build it, or you can get the statue from Vietnam. The best size is one story for your center. This is so people can be guided by Ksitigarbha. It can be a statue on the roof, one story in size, blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Then inside the house, there can also be a Ksitigarbha statue.

[Find links to these practices and mantras in the FPMT Catalogue and FPMT's Death and Dying: Practices and Resources webpage.]

Strong Prayers for Mother
Date of Advice:
September 2017
Date Posted:
March 2022

A student asked Rinpoche whether they should visit their mother, who was very close to dying. Rinpoche advised these practices.

Most important is the practice you do for your mother. Do Vajrasattva practice as much as possible to purify the mother. When doing Vajrasattva practice, visualize a moon disc in your heart and on that moon disc are all sentient beings and your mother. Nectar comes to [the sentient beings], to you and also to your mother, purifying the negative karma from beginningless rebirths. It seems this is extremely beneficial and most important for you to do.

Reading the Golden Light Sutra for your mother is also very good, most beneficial. Try to read it four hundred times. Also, you can ask the monks at Kopan Monastery to do one session for your mother. You can do it and the monks can also do it. [It’s beneficial] if they finish the whole sutra, but you can also recite it, because blood generation is much more powerful. The monks can do it and then you can just continue as long as your mother is alive. If you can still gradually accomplish four hundred recitations that is very good, otherwise do whatever you can.

If you can, recite the longest Chenrezig mantra. Read that mantra five times for your mother and visualize that nectar beams come from Thousand-arm Chenrezig to your mother and purify all the defilements and negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths. First generate bodhicitta, then you can think your mother becomes Chenrezig at the end.

Make strong prayers to Chenrezig for her not to be reborn in the lower realms and to be reborn in Amitabha’s pure land, or to receive a perfect human body, meet the Mahayana teachings and meet a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru revealing the unmistaken path to enlightenment, and by pleasing most the mind of the virtuous friend she achieves enlightenment the quickest. So make strong prayers to Chenrezig like this.

Coffee Shop in the Pure Land
Date of Advice:
July 2017
Date Posted:
August 2021

Rinpoche sent this message to a family whose daughter was close to passing away.

The Pemo Ushnisha deity picture you developed, you can give to people on the New Year or anytime as you like. If you wait for me to give by hand it might take a long time, so don’t worry about that. When you print the deity images* make sure it has the benefits.

In my observation it comes out for your daughter who is so sick, it seems very good, best for her to go to Dagpa Khacho, Vajrayogini pure land, if she dies. Tell her mother and brother this is because she has taken initiation of Vajrayogini.

First her mother should go there and start a restaurant or coffee or tea shop, one that when people are in the car they can drive through, and young girls give them the coffee and tea through a small window. After that, then everybody can move from the center to Vajrayogini pure land.

Why it came best to be born in Vajrayogini pure land is because her mother gave her body, not just to make kaka and pipi, but also due to your own every effort that you put into her, to purify negative karma and collect merit for her. HA HA HO.

[* Note: These deity images may be the Amoghapasha deity card, which has unbelievable benefits, and / or the door mantras, which purify eons of negative karma. See also the Wish-Granting Wheel mantra.]

We All Have to Die Sooner or Later
Date of Advice:
July 2018
Date Posted:
July 2020

A student wrote that her husband was close to dying and she was taking care of him. It was an extremely difficult time for her and she was very upset that he was passing away.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche in meditation on Saka Dawa at Chenrezig Institute, Australia, May 25, 1975. Photo: Wendy Finster.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,

I have been praying for your husband.

If you serve your husband from your heart as a sentient being, not as your husband with attachment, but as a most kind, most precious, most dear, wish-fulfilling sentient being, then this is the greatest purification for you and the greatest way to collect extensive merits. It is the quick way to achieve enlightenment and as you dedicate, then it’s a quicker way to achieve enlightenment. You have to recognize that it is a way for you to create the cause for enlightenment, so think this is an incredible opportunity and you are very fortunate.

We need to be aware that we all have to die sooner or later—that’s what has been happening during our life and our time is coming soon. We are going to go through that also and it has happened in past lives. The same thing that is happening to others has happened to us.

That’s why the Dharma is most important and bodhicitta practice is most important, so serve him as the most kind, most precious, most dear, wish-fulfilling person to you—not just as your husband and with attachment to him, not like that. Generally, also practice in this way toward every sentient being, recognize that [they are most kind, precious and wish-fulfilling] and dedicate your life for sentient beings. This is the practice of Mahayana teachings.

Sometimes when we see someone in the hospital, like people with cancer or those who are very sick, we think that they are dying and we are not dying, but we are in the same process, every hour, every minute. We are extremely close and getting closer to death, second by second. If our negative karma is not purified, if Dharma is not practiced, if our negative karma is not purified, then every second we are getting closer to the lower realms and then we have to suffer for eons there. I am saying this generally—it doesn’t mean particularly yourself, it is for all of us.

Sometimes those who [take care of] the people dying in the hospital think, “I am not dying; I will live a long time,” but sometimes they will die first, before the people in the hospital.

I just wanted to pass this message to you, with my love and prayers. Please continue to make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta day and night and in everything you do, as you are.

With much love and prayers ...

Make Strong Prayers to Medicine Buddha
Date of Advice:
September 2017
Date Posted:
May 2019

This advice was given to a student whose brother was in intensive care and close to dying. The student asked what could be done for his brother to avoid rebirth in the lower realms.

Holy objects at Lama Zopa Rinpoche's house in Aptos, California.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your kind letter and thank you for coming to the Light of the Path retreat, that was so good.

Regarding your brother, I checked and if possible, if you can manage, do the extensive Medicine Buddha puja five times, with the dedication for him to not be reborn in the lower realms, in the hell realms. Otherwise, as it is now, according to my observation, and I can’t say what other lamas would say, but according to my observation it seems maybe the hell realm. So, you need to make very strong prayers to Medicine Buddha, with the extensive Medicine Buddha puja, the one that was written by the Fifth Dalai Lama. You need to do that five times for him.

Of course, it is not only for your brother, but for every sentient being—those who are your brother, sister, father and mother. You have to know that, you must have heard this numberless times from the gurus. It’s so good to pray for all sentient beings, to do the Medicine Buddha puja for all the sentient beings, for example, the animals, there are thousands of different types of fish, sharks, small fish and others that are big like mountains, so for all of them, as well as for all the ants in this universe and in other universes, for every single ant, for banana slugs and so forth.

Kopan Nunnery comes out best to do three extensive Medicine Buddha pujas—not the short one, it has to be the extensive one. So you can sponsor the Kopan nuns, if you can. If it can be done at Kopan, the puja only needs to be done three times not five times.

Then for yourself, when you do the short Medicine Buddha practice, even just the mantra every day, you must pray every day to Medicine Buddha. Pray strongly that when he dies it is with a virtuous thought, in order to not be reborn in the hell realms. Make this dedication:

May he be reborn in a pure realm where he can become enlightened; may he receive a perfect human body and receive Mahayana teachings, and meet a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru who reveals the unmistaken path and by pleasing most the holy mind of the virtuous friend may he achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

Do that dedication every day when you do the Medicine Buddha practice.

[Dedicate] not only for your brother, but also for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s wishes to succeed immediately, and for all the holy beings in the world who benefit others, for all the Sangha who preserve and spread the Dharma, for their success, then for those who offer service and materials to benefit them, for all sentient beings who do good things for others, for their success, and for all the evil beings to meet Dharma and to abandon the cause of suffering and practice the cause of happiness. You can do these dedications for yourself but if you can, dedicate more for other sentient beings.

When you sponsor the pujas, when you spend that money, it’s so incredible what you collect with every dollar spent. You collect unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable merit and with bodhicitta motivation you collect more than skies of merit with each dollar spent.

You must do these things, and if you know how to practice Dharma in a skillful way then you will always collect unbelievable merit. Most of the Kopan nuns have already received teachings from His Holiness, therefore His Holiness is their guru and they look at His Holiness as their guru. That means every nun is a pore of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, therefore if you also offer and generate the motivation of bodhicitta when you ask for the puja, and think “I am making offering to His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s pores,” in this way you collect so much more merit than having made skies of offerings to numberless buddhas, Dharma, Sangha and numberless statues, stupas and scriptures.

Even by offering one rupee or one mug of tea or one piece of bread to one nun or monk or lay person who is His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s disciple, you collect so much merit. Now there are so many nuns in Kopan Nunnery, so can you imagine, you collect so much merit. If you offer with bodhicitta, then you collect more than skies of merit—more than having just offered to numberless buddhas, Dharma, Sangha and numberless statues, stupas and scriptures—by making an offering to one nun of just one mug of tea or one piece of bread or one rupee, offering whatever. Anyway, you can discuss with them what to offer for the pujas and request, if possible, if they can do the puja completely three times.

Please continue to live your life with bodhicitta, as you are.

My most dear one, billions, zillions and trillions of thanks for your retreat. I am thanking you on behalf of the numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Yeshe and numberless sentient beings. I speak on their behalf.

With much love and prayers ...

How to Help People Who Are Sick and Dying
Date of Advice:
September 2017
Date Posted:
December 2018

Rinpoche advised a student how to best help people in hospital who were ill and approaching death, by reciting prayers and dedicating other daily practices for them.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
It doesn’t come out for you to keep going to the hospital to help the dying. Maybe they don’t have the karma.

You don’t have to go to help them; instead, wherever you stay, you can do the Eight Prayers to Benefit the Dead. Recite a different one, or two, each day, dedicated for them, for example, the King of Prayers, the Prayer of the Virtuous Beginning, Middle and End, the Prayer to Be Reborn in Sukhavati, Shantideva’s Dedication Prayer, and so forth. You can do that for them, as well as for every sentient being of the six realms.

Also, every OM MANI PADME HUM mantra you recite, or whatever mantras you do, such as Vajrayogini, you can do for every sentient being, including those who are sick and dying. That is helpful for them. Whatever you practice normally, do for others. Try to live your life for others—for every single sentient being, including every single insect, even the tiniest animals, and every single sura and asura. Whatever you do, try to help and dedicate it to everybody. That is very good.

Sometimes going to see people who are dying, if you don’t really know what helps them, then it can be that it doesn’t help and can even disturb their mind, causing attachment. Even if they regard it as good, actually it harms them by generating attachment. In the West people think attachment is very good, but they don’t know that generating attachment to the other person in reality is not helping but is harming.

Renunciation, bodhicitta, emptiness and correctly following virtuous friend [help those who are dying]. This is just talking from the side of sutra. This helps, otherwise it’s not so good. You have to know what is helping and what is harming. You have to know that. In the West, maybe the person is your enemy, but when that person is dying and you go to see them in hospital, if that person can’t speak, they may die with anger or attachment. So it harms them; it causes them to be reborn in the lower realms. I am using this as an example.

Anyway, for the time being it doesn’t come out to help those people who are dying and in the hospitals. What comes out best is to focus on your preliminary practices, retreats and to do prayers for those people.

With much love and prayers ...

Pages