The Truth We Must All Face | 7 June 2024

Ajahn Anan reflects on the inevitability of death, drawing lessons from the Buddha’s life and teachings. The Buddha's journey to final Nibbana, his teachings on generosity, morality, and mindfulness, and his reminder of the transient nature of life guide us to see impermanence as natural.

He emphasizes developing wisdom to overcome fear and suffering, encouraging acceptance of aging, sickness, and death as normal. Through mindfulness and merit-making, such as giving, meditation, and spreading kindness, we can live with peace and readiness, free from clinging. By contemplating life's impermanence, we honor the Buddha and prepare for liberation, finding inner strength and serenity.

Transcript

The full moon day of Vaisakha has passed,

And it has been 2,

567 years of the Buddhist era where we count one from when the Buddha attained final Nibbana.

And there was the occasion before the Buddha passed away into final Nibbana where he left from the city of Vesali after having relinquished his remaining lifespan there.

And from here in 90 days he would pass away into final Nibbana.

He walked from the city of Vesali to the town of Kushinara.

It took many days,

From the third lunar month to the sixth lunar month,

90 days.

The Buddha had to walk many hundreds of kilometers.

He taught the layman Chunda and his wife on the way,

Who had faith and they attained to Sotapanna,

The first level of enlightenment.

Chunda and his wife kept the five precepts,

And the Buddha taught about dāna,

Generosity,

Sila,

Morality,

And the benefits of having dāna and sila,

Which brings happiness to the mind.

We call this Sāgha,

Being in heaven.

But even if it's heaven,

The mind is like in heaven.

The Buddha taught to see the drawbacks and dangers of the cycle of saṃsāra,

Of renewed birth and death,

And then of the benefit of dhamma practice,

Of training the mind to have samādhi,

Concentration.

Like we sit meditation here and we are training the mind to have sati,

Mindfulness,

And samādhi.

This is keeping the brahmacharya,

The holy life,

For the mind.

When the layman Chunda and his wife had a mind to a good level,

Then the Buddha taught about the four noble truths,

About dukkha,

Samudaya,

Nirodha,

Māga,

Suffering,

Its cause,

Its cessation,

And the path leading to the end of suffering.

And they both entered the current of the dhamma.

They saw the dhamma,

That is,

They saw the normalness,

The truth,

Of material and mental phenomena as being anicca,

Dukkha,

Anattā,

Impermanent,

Unsatisfactory,

And not-self.

So this is important.

The mind has wisdom.

Because if the mind has no wisdom,

It will have a lot of suffering.

When the samma-sambuddha,

The perfectly self-awakened one,

Was passing away into final nibbāna in the town of Kushināra underneath the twin sāla trees,

The Buddha gave a reminder to the bhikkhus.

Bhikkhus here are those who see the danger in the round of saṃsāra.

So laypeople who see the dangers of saṃsāra are called bhikkhus as well.

And the Buddha taught to not be heedless,

To not be careless,

Because all saṃkharas,

Conditioned phenomena,

Have decay and cessation as something normal.

The Buddha entered the higher jhānas,

Absorptions.

He could successively enter and leave the jhānas.

And the Venerable Elder Aniruddha followed the Buddha's mind and notified the others of where the Buddha's level of jhāna was at at that time.

And when it was dawn,

The Buddha passed away into final nibbāna.

He would not cycle through death and be reborn again.

He had given the full and utmost benefit to human beings,

The deva world,

Brahma world,

To all sentient beings already.

After the Sāmasambuddha had passed away,

They took his body to the Makkot Bandhanācetiya.

And on the way,

Lady Malika,

Who had faith in the Buddha,

Took off her headdress,

The Mahālāta,

Which was an exquisite adornment of great value,

Heavily laden with gold,

Jewels and gems,

To give homage to the Sāmasambuddha.

Lady Malika was a sotāpanna and an extraordinary individual.

For all of us,

We may have wealth and possessions,

And we worry about it.

If we lose that wealth,

We suffer.

But here Lady Malika,

She had 32 sons who all lost their lives,

Along with her husband.

But Lady Malika saw it as being something normal.

So here we think of how high Lady Malika's mind was.

It had the bhārami,

Spiritual level of an arahant,

Fully enlightened being.

Even though she was just a sotāpanna,

The strength of her samādhi and strength of wisdom was to the level of an arahant.

She could let go.

She could accept that loss was normal.

Her 32 sons,

And added one husband,

It was 33 heaps of earth.

And adding to herself,

It was 34 heaps of earth.

It is normal that it must decay and break apart.

Before we took what we've grown up to as now,

As a self,

It had come from a tiny heap in our mother's womb.

Then it was nourished by food,

Nourished by water,

By air,

By the fire element,

And it grew and expanded.

And ultimately it will shrink back to how it was before.

It goes back to the natural elements.

But when we have been born,

The mind has upadana,

Clinging.

And so it is scared.

We are scared to die.

We are scared to part from loved ones and loved things.

Or we have an experience of loved ones parting from us.

And it has a strong power that deeply affects our heart.

And we can even get various illnesses in our mind.

We will think about the experience constantly,

As if it is happening to us over and over again.

And then the mind can't handle it.

There is just a constant feeling of loss from us.

This feeling of loss is that we are being led on by the mood.

The mind that receives the sense object or mood is pulled by it.

The mind has no strength.

But if the mind has strength,

Like Lady Mallika,

Then the sense object or mood is simply a sense object or mood.

It has passed by already.

And they don't go back to thinking of past experiences,

Which give us no benefit.

So the Buddha taught not to go back and think of the past that has gone already.

And not to spread metta,

Loving kindness,

To those beings who have passed away.

Otherwise the mind will grieve and be saddened.

Whether they are parents or those we love who have passed away,

We try to see it as being something normal.

If we don't see it as being normal,

Then it will affect the heart.

And we can think that this one life is so valuable.

But if we go back,

We have been born for a hundred lives,

A hundred thousand lives,

One million lives,

Many millions of lifetimes,

So many lives.

If we have this belief,

Then we think that in this life we have to die from one more life.

And if we have not seen the Dhamma,

Attained to the Dhamma,

Then we have to die and be reborn again.

But some who have good strength of mind,

They think that to die is good as well.

Their lifespan has been sufficient.

To die and be reborn and get a new body is better off.

So they can build more benefit,

Develop their barami more.

They are not scared of death.

They aren't scared of death because,

One,

They're ready to die.

They have done enough goodness to go against death,

So they do not fear it.

Dying they are certain they will go to a good destination,

Because they have merit and goodness going with them.

Being reborn and getting a new body,

Then they will continue to make merit and barami until getting to nibbana,

Or succeeding according to their aspirations they have made.

They are not scared of dying.

So we should think that the Buddha has passed away to final nibbana already.

So it means we won't be able to escape death.

We won't escape it for sure.

We die,

Decay and break apart as normal.

Our grandparents and ancestors before them are all dead.

A hundred years ago we weren't here,

Because there is no one here who is a hundred years old.

A hundred years before there was no us in this world.

A hundred years into the future,

All of us sitting here will be gone.

The new generation will be coming to be born,

And it's up to their spiritual development and barami,

Building good and bad karma.

So the time we still have left,

We need to prepare ourselves first.

So we can see there are the elderly,

A husband and wife who are eighty years old,

And don't have children.

They have readied themselves to die.

They have wealth and possessions,

And they donate it away.

They have jewelry,

Gold,

Money,

Gold Buddha statues and amulets,

And they donate it away.

They take the merit with them.

From giving of material gifts,

They make merit and do dana first.

And what they get is a mental thing,

Which is the merit that is stored in their hearts.

And they are certain they will take that merit with them.

They will take the merit and goodness to use in the future.

There is merit arising from giving dana,

Merit from keeping sila,

From listening to dhamma,

From meditating,

Helping society,

Rejoicing with anumudana,

Spreading merit to others,

Or the service to others.

This is all about merit and goodness.

Whoever does good,

We sadhu sadhu.

Even if they just do a little goodness,

We give our sadhu.

But if someone does something bad,

We don't make it worse for them.

Because everyone's mind wants to get goodness.

But the badness is not the mind.

It is from ignorance that pulls the mind.

So those who have prepared themselves,

It is a readiness with dhamma.

They have fully prepared themselves with goodness,

Like the elderly couple who were prepared.

They are not heedless.

And they might see the dhamma in this life.

And it will be merit that they will continue building on in their next life.

So the Buddha taught us not to be heedless.

And here I listened to the dhamma of Venerable Ajahn Chah about heedfulness.

We see people who have died who aren't breathing.

But have you seen dead people who are breathing?

There are many walking around in cities,

In countries around the world.

It's all mostly dead people.

The living person is one who has mindfulness.

So this is a deep dhamma.

Those who are breathing but don't build goodness,

Don't build merit and skillfulness,

They are heedless and are as if already dead.

Those who are heedful are ones who haven't died.

And more so when we are in pain and sick,

We have to contemplate it as being something normal.

We make ourselves accept and take it as being normal.

The Buddha taught Dighanaka Brahman.

It is normal,

Brahman.

Aging,

Sickness and death is something normal.

Brahman,

Do you like it?

The Brahman didn't like it.

You don't like it,

But you have to get it.

Brahman,

Will you be happy or suffer?

I don't like it.

I don't want to get it.

It will be suffering.

Dighanaka Brahman,

The long-nailed Brahman,

Thought,

Oh,

It is normal.

It's better to accept it.

I can't go against it.

So you can't go against it.

So why go against it?

If we cannot go against it,

We must accept it.

We are tiny and there's someone big with a gun or a knife coming to harm us and we won't be able to fight against them.

If we fight,

We will die.

So we better give in to it.

Aging,

Sickness and death has great power.

No one can go against it.

So we give in to it.

We accept that it's something normal.

We have to be like this.

Every person is like this.

All beings are like this.

So we are at ease.

If we don't accept the normalness of this,

Then we are going against it.

That which goes against it is not us.

It's the kilesas,

The mental defilements.

Ignorance,

Craving and clinging won't accept it.

It attaches to something and wants it to be around forever.

But it doesn't go that way.

But ignorance,

Craving,

Clinging is like that.

Being born in whatever life,

It attaches to this as being me.

This is mine.

And then we die.

It's like this always.

And we are scared of death.

But we are not scared of birth.

Right?

However we are born,

It is clinging that makes one born.

Having liking and satisfaction,

It makes us to be born.

But ignorance is not scared.

It likes it even more.

It enjoys it a lot.

The more we are attached,

The more it likes it.

It leads us to be born.

And leads us to be scared of death.

It tricks us like this.

When we have dhamma,

We contemplate it like Lady Malika or like Digha Nakabrahman to accept it.

So they were at ease.

It's the way it is.

We must die.

Accepting like this is called seeing the dhamma.

We are discarding one heap.

A heap of elements.

A heap of earth.

We discard it away.

Water,

Fire,

Air element.

We discard it.

And today we will need to add earth element and water element to our body for it to survive.

But the day when the cells decay and end,

Then we need to discard it away for sure.

So we accept it as being something normal.

It has to be this way.

Then we will see the dhamma.

So we have to be established in heedfulness.

Contemplate like this.

The Buddha has passed away into final nibbana already on the day of visakha.

So we have to try to give our dhamma practice as homage to the Buddha.

Even if we don't come to the monastery,

Then at home we chant and practice a lot,

Make a lot of merit,

Which is to practice and meditate.

It is making our minds peaceful and cool.

That which is in the past and buried in the heart,

We let go.

That which makes our heart be deeply affected,

However much it is,

We accept it as being something normal.

We don't need to be scared.

Aging,

Sickness and death are normal.

To die from another life is normal.

We should die with acceptance that we have to die.

We do not need to be scared of death.

Like this then our mind is at ease.

The mind is uplifted.

There is rapture and bliss.

Because having been born,

We age,

Get sick and die as being normal.

Here we will see the true Buddha in our hearts.

May you grow in blessings.

Reviews

🙏🏾 2025.