Last moment
(By Tsem Rinpoche)
What really matters at the precise moment?
When is it your turn? Any day now most likely. None of what you believed, said, thought, eaten, travelled, learned, family, acquired, partner, kids, parents, likes, dislikes, games, humour, travels, anger or ego will help you at this precise moment. This moment is very precise and exact. No escape. The state of mind reflected by your habituated actions throughout your life will lead you out of your body and propel you into ‘light’ or a temporary tunnel, or a vast field, or seeing some dead ‘relatives’ depending on your thoughts then total darkness followed by another womb. A womb pregnant with further pain perhaps? Most likely, unless you are spiritually attained or awakened. You will again abide within a womb waiting to issue forth into the world temporarily armed or not armed for the same experiences again or their variations and more redundancy. Existence(1) is meaningless redundancy that we falsely imbue with meaning. A meaning that leads to further repeated meaninglessness. This has been going on countless untold times and will continue to unless you achieve the methods to end it. Like the proverbial blind turtle swimming in the ocean(2).
Whatever you have been used to telling yourself and ‘believing’ will determine your next womb birth or birth. No God, Gods or wealth or friends can do anything for you now. Not that they ever could and if you took confidence in them, you are going to be sweating with regrets now of the empty clingings throughout your life to them and many others things you believed falsely. A clinging of empty promises deluded by projections pushing us to act in ways that didn’t benefit ourselves at all or anyone.
How smart you think you were or what made you feel secure will all be gone in this precise moment. Only the attainments and good merits will lead you now. Only refuge, samaya, practice, merits and your Yidam will guide you now. Unless you forsook them by laziness, temperament, wrong sudden emotions or abandonment.
Your fancy talk, explanations or wit will not secure an exception with the dark figure in your room waiting to take you from your corporeal form ready to decompose. Yama the Grim Reaper has been waiting and watching with delight at all your deceptions both known and unknown and it’s time to pay back dues. Don’t think the next step or life will be better judging from this one. You know how you were and you know what you have done. If you don’t, that’s even worse. How can diamonds be found on the moon when you dig on earth? Everything you believed or not believed or courageously and loudly proclaimed to others now will only be echoes of a soon to be forgotten past. A past you thought was permanent and still and unchanging. Remember, the words of doom is not death is upon you, but life was wasted on projections.
Are you ready for the denizens of the other world waiting patiently to exhaust your last breath? If you are not, when will you be ready? Another few extended years will do not much for you. Being ready or not is not a characteristic of the Grim Reaper(3). He doesn’t wait for you to be ready, but he waits nevertheless. Look at yourself and what you have actually achieved spiritually. Are you ready? If not, what are you waiting for now? If you forsook your teacher, dharma, practice and the practice of compassion, then regret and reconnect. Start the time honored recommendations(4) now by the past Sages. Don’t look for reasons to not practice, but look for reasons to practice. If you have remained connected due to some merit infused wisdom, then step it up. Time is not on your side!
Tsem Rinpoche
1 Samsara
2 Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche describes in Lam Rim our chances of another good life is like a blind turtle that surfaces once every 100,000 years for air then goes back below the ocean again, and that his head can go through a yoke randomly floating and moving through a vast ocean. The turtle putting his head through this yoke is likened to the rarity of finding the ‘perfect’ human body again with the 8 leisures and 10 endowments and meeting the dharma again.
3 Yama, the Lord of Death or in Western terms, Grim Reaper – The one who comes to take you from your body with his minions.
4 Be vegetarian for life now. Read, study the Lam Rim and apply immediately without long explanations. Engage in Guru Yoga of Lord Tsongkapa and Migtseyma daily without a break and reap the benefits. The negative habits many and your teacher have mentioned about you for years, eliminate now. It will not hurt you but help you. Volunteer regularly in dharma works. Work for dharma fully if you can. Bring Dharma to others. Study up on dharma. Be emotionally close to your teacher and support the works. If you had differences with your teacher due to delusions, make up for it. Don’t wait. You or your teacher can die anytime. Apologize and make amends with your teacher immediately. Follow those who practice dharma and just smile at those who don’t even if they are in the dharma centre. Do your practices consistently and put the 8 Verses of Thought Transformation as the heart of your meditations combined with the first chapter of Lam Rim daily.
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Thank you, Rinpoche for sharing this insightful article. Life is short, and if we enjoy every moment of every day, then we will be happy no matter what happens or what changes along the way.What ever matter to us at the time of death is nothing. In the end, it’s not the years in our life that count it’s what you leave behind that matters. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. Learning Dharma and practicing dharma is the our choice that’s matter. Some of the key points to take notes, read, study the Lam Rim and apply it, engage in Sadhana daily and consistently. No one will help us at the moment of death but ourselves. Spiritual practicing is the best choice.
Thank you Rinpoche for this sharing.
Not even fancy talk can help us at the time of death. Ditto
Nobody can escape from this horrific uncertainty experience when it comes knocking at our door. We may enjoy many good life but we only live once. What good life indicated were merely on our attachments towards object we desired or clinging to. But unaware, this material however won’t bring any sentiment of blissful and happiness. Moreover, our merits will exhaust, karma will open and we will head start with miseries. Upon accepting our bad habits, change our attitudes and perceptions, hence we will be more happy and blissful. Therefore, spiritual help us ease our deluded mind and we have a kind and compassionate teacher who tirelessly taught us to be much better person and free from samsara. Thank you, Rinpoche for sharing this insightful article.
Great teachings on what matters at the Last Moment of our life. Life is uncertain, death is certain. The best thing to know is, not what everybody else does, but what we do. Self-discovery essentially is finding our own dharma . We work on ourselves in order to help others nor matter what happen and in order to work for others we are helping ourselves also. Making every single moment of the day ,more meaningful by doing dharma work and benefiting others without agenda in our life before its too late. Learn, practice Dharma and put it into action is the best choice .
Only refuge, samaya, practice, merits and your Yidam will guide us now……well said by Rinpoche.
Thank you Rinpoche for this teachings.
This is a powerful teaching on death and how we should live our life while we are still alive! We have to understand there is not only one life but there are many. It is a vicious cycle, we are born, we grow up, we work hard to accumulate external wealth, we are sick, then we die.
Sometimes we are born as a human again, but most likely an animal or a spirit. The sufferings of these beings are worse than when we are in the human form. When we are in the human form, we still have the chance to get out of this cycle if we practice as what the Buddha has taught.
When we die, we cannot bring along with us the people and the things that we love. They will not be useful for us at this moment. Our habituation and what comes to our mind will determine where we go and the environment we will be in. Developing positive habituation and mind is more worthy of our time than chasing after things that cannot help us when we die.
Thank you Rinpoche for this reminder. It is true that we cannot control or escape death. Therefore we would never know when is the last day. Knowing this we should in fact be more diligent in preparing it by transforming our mind and doing dharma work. No other person, money and material can help us when we die. And we should treasure our time now since we have a perfect physical body and having meeting the dharma. We should use more time to practice dharma and collect more merits.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this article. The last moment of our life is very important as it decides where we will go in the next life. Death can be quite scary because we do not know when it will come and we are not prepared for it. Everything we have and enjoy this life will not be brought forward to next life. We need to do all the necessary in order for us to be able to enjoy a human rebirth and also a good life which is Dharma work. Human rebirth is so precious to come about. So, we must make full use of it to collect as much merits as we can and also do Dharma all the way.
With folded palms,
Vivian
Dear Rinpoche,
I do not seriously look upon death. I know I am going to die one day and normally death come without we truly prepared for it. I took for granted my daily life and treated that I can live long forever.
I know I should have fear for my next life and future rebirth that is out of my control. And the future is unpredictable and getting worst. I know that maybe this could my last life that I can collect merits. All this knowledge given to Rinpoche for me/ us. Rinpoche have even given us the methods to liberate our self from samsara.
Thus, I am fortunate to be in Dharma to learn about wisdom and compassion, to have Rinpoche as my Guru to pinpoint my weakness and mistakes. To me, this life is so lucky. Thus, to have the life that I can be in Dharma in future lives, I know I have to practice now, by creating merits to be in Dharma in my future lives.
This article also enables me to contemplate deeper when I am in stress, depression or feel unfair, because when I am in my sick bed, or dying, all this emotion does not help me anymore. Worst, the emotions might create bad karma for me during death.
Thank you Rinpoche for reveal to us about death. Making us to face it earlier before things really late.
With Folded hand,
Freon
Dear Rinpoche,
This message is just like death meditation. Through that meditation, we will realise everything is impermanent and the delusional pleasures that we are seeking now are just nothing more than just temporary happiness. Many people who do not know dharma are afraid during their final hour. They have no idea what is death like, and what is going to happen to them. This is very bad for their mind and most probably will trigger negative karma to ripen.
Dharma is the only thing that can help us during our final hour and after death. Without dharma, it is just like wondering in the dark and at the mercy of our karma.
Humbly,
Chris Chong
What is quite bewildering is how we are still surprised by death. Go to any funeral and you will see shock, regret, sorrow and a general sense of inequity, as if no one told us about death. As if we have been dealt a bad hand. We behave as if death is a robber come to take what is rightfully ours.
The truth is, death takes nothing from us. It doesn’t have to because in fact, we own nothing that is of substance. Why would one who is sober ever want to steal the befuddled imaginings of one who is intoxicated with wine?
One of the most important benefits of learning Dharma is that it correctly re-shapes our perception of death. I used to see death as something to avoid and not pay any attention to. And so I planned and lived life without one extremely significant part of the jigsaw – the eventuality and inevitability of death.
Dharma does not force us to think about death in a morbid way but in a realistic way. When we recognise and accept that life does not end at death, and that death is not a destination but a transiting process, then our horizon shifts further afield. That in turn should realign our priorities and give cause to reexamine the objective of this human life.
“Life asked death, who do people love me, and hate you?
Death responded because you are a beautiful lie and I’m a painful truth.”
Thank you Rinpoche for reminding us again that the time is not on our side.
Seeing people leaving the world one after another, be it sudden or not, it is not upto us to control. I may not be seeing the world again the next moment or not waking up again the next morning.
“If you have remained connected due to some merit infused wisdom, then step it up.”
Yes Rinpoche, while I still alive, and now have the chance to be with Rinpoche, Dharma and do Dharma work, i better use my life properly and spend my time well on Dharma, as only that will help me during my last moment…
Thank you Rinpoche for the precious teaching and reminder.
May Rinpoche live long to turn the wheel of Dharma always.
It is indeed true that death waits for no one. We are not even prepare to die.
If we were going to die we would have done things different. We would not done things that hurt others, taking advantange of others, anything which have to do with selfishness.
To die means we can no longer hold on to our selfishness. I think this is so scary because we can no longer cherish our selfcenterness. The death is the end of things, we think we are connected with, which the self is afraid of.
In our quest for comforts and security, we sacrifice our lives and time in search of it whatever that may be. But yet, when it is our time to leave this body, more often than not we are not prepared to face such a loss.
Who ever thinks that they will not wake up the next morning? No one ever does that and therein lies the problem. Hence most people are never quite prepared for the end of this life and they leave as most often than not unwillingly and full of fear. Rare it is to find a practitioner who leaves with much confidence. May everyone find the pure buddha dharma and gain realisations that help them to take a good rebirth to carry on their spiritual journey.
We instinctively want to avoid thinking about death. In fact, we encourage ourselves by not dwelling on it and even give ourselves positive affirmation to camouflage the depressing truth of impending death. Why else would we celebrate birthdays and new year when in fact it just really means that we are that much closer to meeting our end? And that is discounting the uncertainty aspect of life where our live can be snuffed out just like that. Yet, a rare glimpse of old age and death was enough to be the catalyst for Lord Buddha to take action.
Thus, it goes to show that by facing death as a matter of fact, the frailty of our existence and how easily life can end will hit home. This in turn should result in a sense of urgency for us to kick start our preparation to face our death and work at creating the right causes for a good rebirth.
Thank you Rinpoche for this invaluable teaching.
Thank you Rinpoche for the article. The picture at the end summarises what deludes us the most.
Death waits for us all. It is a matter of whether we attained that realisation and step out of samsara. Are we doing / studying / practicing what is necessary to prepare us for the next life…? Or for enlightenment?
In this degenerate age, can we actually understand what our Living Buddhas, our Gurus are telling us?
Thank you Rinpoche, for giving me the opportunity to meet with you and learn the Dharma from you. Forgive me as I never once seems to bloom the seed you have planted in me.
I will definitely do my Migtsema in hopes to gain more wisdom and clarity.
Thank you Rinpoche.
The only religion on the face of this planet that keeps on talking about death so religiously, like it can happen tomorrow, because it can, is Buddhism. And although many may find it cynical, some thinks it is very pessimistic subject, but truth is it can be and it is actually quite the opposite. On the contrary those who shun the subject needs to reflect and check in with themselves why the “fear”. I guess everyone fears the unknown, I do too but what Rinpoche taught us was that it is a “good” fear.
How so…. well because of this fear, I am more in control of myself, my emotions, my behaviour, my mouth, my dos and don’ts, my OCDs and whatever irks me on is being put on lid, the lid that does it matter when I am dead/dying. Basically I ask myself how do I wanna feel when I’m dying, with all this anger and frustration and irritation or in peace. And the answer is simple… everyone wants peace, at least to finally go in PEACE. Yes I do, who doesn’t?
So why on earth do we continue to hold on to all those baggage and why do we really need to create more? It is because being in denial seems easier for the ego than being vulnerable when we hear the truth. We really are our worst own enemy.
It’s all really just an illusion – life – and what it entails. I use to work in an industry that sells people “ideas” and project to them what “happiness” is suppose to be… all lies of course, just to sell a product. I guess that is why I decided to get out of it, but it is just so easy to suck people in to this fake happiness. I realise it is because people are dying literally dying to find “happiness” and before they can find it, they kill themselves for working too hard, drinking too much, or accumulating too much. Basically looking for “happiness” at all the wrong places, not pausing to realise that every single minute, is a step closer to death anyways.
Honestly I have not mastered this “death” meditation enough for some kind of huge realisation/transformation but what I notice is that, it makes me “let go” a lot more and that is enough for me at the moment to at least have that moment of PEACE, and that moment who knows could be my very last. So thank you Rinpoche for this absolute truth reminder why we are in Dharma… to prevent us from getting sucked back into the darkness of samsara; another rebirth, another womb, another place we have no control of heading is really a scary thought to push us to do something good with our life while we can, or at least lessen the negative karmas.
I will dedicate however many years I have left to Dharma, for my crazy sister, niece, Justin, parents, those who has shown me kindness… for the sake of all those deluded and lost just like me before I met the Dharma. Thank you Rinpoche.
Dear Rinpoche
Thank you for this excellent article about what matters at the Last Moment. All the money, sweet talk, etc will not matter anymore at that moment. Thank you for the constant opportunities and inspirations to create merits in this life so we can prepare for our next journey and not only exhausting our good karma in this life through various indulging activities.
Valentina
生与死確是一件很重要的事，就如佛經所說：人身难得。话雖如此，但試问又有多少人会將之放在心上。大部份的人还是选择不信因果，今朝有酒今朝醉。但当面臨病痛，意外，靠近死亡时，这时才会感覺害怕，無助，徬徨。如今世界人類面对太多死亡威胁，天災，人禍，环境汚染，病菌。分分钟与死神擦身而过。但我自己又準備好了嗎？我自己也不知道，我只知现在有幸得聞佛法，有上师在指引，要好好把握，好好学习。当面臨死亡时，可以很坦然自在。感恩上师的开示。
We will always have fear to the unknown, for example when we move to a new place, when we change our job. We have the choice not to move to a new house or new job so we do not have to be fearful. However, we have no choice over if we will die or not, it is very certain that we will die. That is actually quite fearful because we are not taught how to face our death in school or at home.
Buddhism prepares us to face our death, through this preparation we hope to suffer less when we take our rebirth. Whatever our Guru teaches us or instructs us to do is to protect us and make sure we are ok when this moment comes. Do not doubt anymore, start practice now because we do not know when is our turn.
No one really knows when are we going to die. It might be today, tomorrow, sometime this year or 20 more years to go and we will not be warned. Even though we are extremely aware of the food we eat, the environment we live, our surroundings and etc. Yes, it may save us a few times, but what about the times where other people make mistake?
My laziness and attachments (games, food, fun and etc) even though I know that I will not be able to gain any benefits from it after my death. The only thing I can bring to my future lifetimes is my karma. If I also want to have a good rebirth as human and be wealthy again, everything has to start now. I know that I won’t be able to control my next rebirth but I can do a lots of dharma practice so I will have a better chance to learn and practice more dharma in my future life.
Thank You Rinpoche for sharing this article. I have wondered about my death and future lifetimes quite a few times and now I have a good explanation from Rinpoche.
For an attainted personal death is a prelude to a new beginning with a new physical form continue their industrious work to benefit others.
For ignoramus like all of us who wasted this precious human in pursuit of physical pleasures, it is the end of our so believed comfort and enjoyments.
It is very kind of Rinpoche to always remind us of the purpose of our being here for the short time and also the ways and methods to make the purpose of our life to benefit us at the moment of death.
Personally I did not even wish to think of death, but with Rinpoche guidance I now fear death knowing it is inevitable. For now I will practise accepting death and to face it with courage by letting go of all my perceptions and delusions.
Dear Rinpoche ,
Thank you for reminding us.
We all know that all living being will come to death but not all of us are ready to face it. Most of the time we will focus on other more ‘important’ things like chasing for more money, climbing our career ladder, buying a big house, finding a good partner and so on. We will never put priority in preparing for death. It’s because since young we were being brought up to concentrate on material things and not spiritual.
We cannot escape from karma. Every action, word spoken and mind set will let us to certain result. Hence we must realize and change now. We should cut our negative habit and do more dharma practice. It is by changing our negative habit and action that will lead us to better preparation for our ‘last moment’. So do not wait and take action now.
Death seems to be so distant, but yet it is always so near; distant because we always imagine it at some time yet to come. Near because it can strike any moment. While death is certain, it’s hour is so unpredictable. As one famous writer did remarked, “We cannot live fully by excluding death from life, but welcoming death into our lives, we grow and enrich our lives.” Acceptance death as a part of life, serves as a spur to diligence and saves time on vain distractions. But it must be like what this great american buddhist monk once said, “Someone who used every second of his life to become a better person and to contribute to others’ happiness can die in peace”. It is said that a wise man who has prepared for death, dies tranquilly, without the look of sadness or regret, like most Lamas do, without attachment to what they are leaving behind. They leave their lives like eagles soaring into the blue sky, for they have gone beyond all fear of dying!!! We naturally conclude like what our good Guru has mercifully advised, “That we must seriously practise or work for the Dharma, since only good Karma is of any use on our death bed. Don’t look for reasons of not practising, but look for reasons to practise “Hard”, as time is not on our side.” Om Mani Padme Hung.
Our inability or unwillingness to let go is what keeps us in samsara. There are stories of even advanced practitioners who were attached to certain possessions (e.g. their begging bowl) which led to their downfall. Thank you Rinpoche for always reminding us about death and giving us the teachings and instructions on how to practise to overcome our delusions.
We are afraid of death because we feel it is a big and scary ‘unknown’ and we do not know what to expect. However, this is not really accurate from this profound sentence in this post – “The state of mind reflected by your habituated actions throughout your life will lead you out of your body and propel you …”
In other words, the passage in death and how we traverse it depends largely on how we have lived. So if we are afraid of death, it can only be because we know we spent an entire lifetime not creating the right causes not to be afraid of death.
We think of death as an entity independent of us, lurking and waiting to ‘get us’. Death is only the occurrence of a very natural and unavoidable process. What is lurking and waiting for us is the fruition of our own thoughts and actions.
Most people we meet will avoid speaking to us about death. It is only the good spiritual friend who keeps reminding us of the inevitability of death because every day that passes is a day spent either creating more reasons to be afraid of death, or to be prepared. I imagine when we understand karma, we can already guess where we will end up based on our thoughts and actions right now.
All living beings coming into life are destined to end with death. This process will continue until we are finally liberated from existence. Knowing that death is definite, when it arrives is indefinite and uncertain, most of us choose to not think about death, living in fear while pretending everything is alright. For those who face death as a matter of fact, a sense of urgency will arise naturally giving them strength and purpose to live a meaningful life.
The majority of us, whether we believe in religion or not, tend to spend our time in chasing outer happiness by acquiring fame, relationship, power, security etc. through materials or human beings which are also subject to uncertainty – death or degeneration. When the nature of things are uncertain, how can they guarantee security?
Many of us are taught by our parents, influenced by our society, our culture, to plan our life around outer happiness, pay less or no emphasis on spiritual practice, focus solely on our desire and want, duplicate their formula of an unsatisfied life evolves around anger, jealousy, hatred, greed; meaningless and endless chasing after one relationship and another, a bigger house, more branded items, expensive trips…that explain why we are afraid of change, change from the comfort of the known to unknown, from having something to nothing, to downsizing, to poor from rich, so we continue to chase for the better, to make sure we are secured with the comfort of what we are familiar with. Deep down we know, this is actually the reflection of our fear of death, the end of our life we spend so much efforts in building.
The beautiful teachings of the Buddha on impermanence clearly stated that no one person or thing can remain unchanged forever. If we take comfort in them, we will be disappointed eventually, wasting our energy and time at things that do not bear positive results, not giving inner fulfilment, sense of security. The dharma gives us security, certainty, fearlessness that gain from knowing, understanding and realising the truth of our life, ourselves and our surrounding. Hence, the wise choose to spend their life in spiritual advancement, a path that guarantee certainty, satisfaction and stability we all craving for.
Life is uncertain, death is certain. Again, Rinpoche is so kind to constantly remind us that nothing is permanent. No wealth, qualifications or any material gains that we have will help us during the time of death. We may not know when we are going to exhaust our karma and we may die anytime. It is just a breath away.
Life is so precious since we are born in a conducive condition to be so near the dharma and we should not waste this precious life on samsaric activities but take this opportunity to cultivate our spiritual practice.
Thx Rinpoche for sharing.life is too short for doing dharma works.We should make every single moment more meaningful by doing dharma work and benefit others. I am very appreciated Tsem Rinpoche and Kechara members hardwork to spread the dharma .I must do more dharma works as a return to Rinpoche also can benefit more sentient being.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for reminding us yet again about impermanence and death. We are so full with the ego and desire in ourselves that keep demanding to be praised, to be pleasured, and to feel good. We keep forgetting that how fragile this human life is, and keep thinking that we will live for a long long time.
As Rinpoche always said, the only thing that keeps us alive and not dead is just one breath. We should not just waste our whole life in chasing mundane things such as money, house, car and relationship. It is not wrong to do so, but our life should have more meaning than materialistic gains. Those items will not help us one bit when we close our eyes for one last time.
Dharma is the only thing that we can bring along with us when we pass away and into our next life. Practice dharma when we still have the chance.
Chris
Thankyou Rinpoche, you continue to inspire and give strength to me. Appreciate you and offer you my sincere wish to get back on track.
_()_ Thank you so much Rinpoche,
Remembering death every second and minute is very important to develop renunciation. Thank you for always guiding us through this cloudy days and age. Though difficult, I must wake up early for the benefits of others. Bless us all to be able to do so. _()_
Milarepa said that:
“All worldly pursuits have but the one unavoidable end, which is sorrow: acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings in destruction; meetings in separation; births, in death. Knowing this, one should, from the very first, renounce acquisition and heaping up, and building, and meeting; and faithful to the commands of an eminent guru, set about realizing the Truth (which has no birth or death).”
Looking into death is actually facing ourselves because sooner or later we have to come to terms with ourselves. If we develop some kind of attitude right from the beginning that death will come; then when death actually does come, we will be much less anxious.
As such, we need to develop a sense of urgency to do more meaningful activities in our life. It is also important to not give excuse that we are too busy to prepare for death.
Lord Buddha’s first teachings and also his last teaching was about impermanence or the transicence of life. Hence, in comtemplating that, it will help us to be motivated to learn more about the Truth from an eminent guru, like what Milarepa spoke about.
Tsem Rinpoche has kindly given many teachings on this, and 2 important teachings are available here on the blog for us:
https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/kechara-13-depts/last-night-i-spoke-about-death-meditation-in-more-detail.html
https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/the-dying-process.html
Thank you Rinpoche for this remainder on our death. Time is short is very true we do not know when is our time of death we need to put in more effort on our spriritual, but unfortunately a lot of people do not see it so is very lucky for us as a Kecharian who has a guru to constantly guide us and remind us about our destiny that us next life, without a guru we be putting all our effort to persuade our so call samsaric goal that eventually do not bring us to anyway.
No matter how we high up in the clouds of bliss and fame we are, no matter how caught up in suffering we are, at that precise moment -the last moment of our life – Death, the grim Reaper, or Yama, the Lord of Death, will be there waiting to take us.
At that precise moment, there is no use regretting that we have wasted our lives. It will be pointless to plead to be spared for a day,a month or a year. Whatever security we have garnered for ourselves – wealth for old age, a healthy body and the like -will be of no help.
“Only the attainments and good merits will lead you now. Only refuge, samaya, practice, merits and your Yidam will guide you now”. Nothing else will matter then.
Thank you Rinpoche for this grim reminder of the inevitability of Death. As the Lamrim says, Death is certain, but the time of Death is uncertain. We can die in infancy or in the prime of our lives or we can die as a broken down, decrepit ,worn out elderly being.
Death is inevitable and we don’t know when it is our turn. I like the following sentence very much.
“Remember, the words of doom is not death is upon you, but life was wasted on projections.”
When we understand more of what Buddha has been pointing out to us, we begin to realize that our perceived reality is only an illusion. Yet, we get so caught up with this reality of ours. Dharma practice is the key to the truth, hence when we realize the truth, we literally awaken or in other words, become enlightened.
This article is a very powerful reminder especially when we get distracted with life’s delusions.
Thank You Rinpoche for sharing such a profound and powerful article. It is indeed a strong wake up call for all of us, reminding us that time was never on our side and that we should do something before the time comes.
Death is uncertain, people can die of sickness and accidents. I can be enjoying myself in a party and have a heart attack and drop dead. Age does not really matter, death is just a matter of time. I really love the quote above that says: Life asked death, who do people love me, and hate you? Death responded because you are a beautiful lie and I’m a painful truth.
It’s sad that most of us choose to live in denial and prefer to reach out for more lies instead of accepting and understand the truths, yes the truths always hurt but the truths allow us to learn our lessons and become better human beings.
In the recent years I have a lot of friends and relatives who passed away, young or old. Upon witnessing this, it has made me realise that it is very crucial for me to learn and practise the dharma, I am just an ordinary human being who has no control of my thoughts for most of the time and certainly I have no control over my rebirths. To have a human life is indeed very precious because there’s a lot of things that we can do with this temporary body. We can choose to live a samsaric life and just die with all sorts of regrets OR we can choose to be in the dharma and apply it into our daily lives so that we can die peacefully knowing that we have done things that benefited not only ourselves but also others.
This is a strong wake up call in the lights of David Bowie’s demise a day ago. Rinpoche had always been so kind reminding us that time is not on our side and we must not waste precious time on samsara indulgence out of our own delusion. The process to the next rebirth is real and out of our control. If we do not practice dharma now and immediately, it is unthinkable to imagine that we will get a good or better rebirth, as described in the Lam Rim by Pabongka Rinpoche.
Thank You Rinpoche for tirelessly reminding us of the painful truth – death, that it is impending and can happen anytime. Make amends and practice dharma is the only way.
Humbly, bowing down,
Stella Cheang
Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference where should end up after this life is important.. Just like we all want to secure our old age by bank Blanche .. But we forget at time of last moment what we have saved is not Gona work.. Only our spiritual practice will help us to go better place.. Its scary to think how we going to end up …