Death: The Only Thing We Have To Do

Venerable Thubten Semkye gives a short talk on why it's helpful to think about the certainty of our death and leads a guided meditation on how meditating on death can help us to clarify our priorities and bring vividness and meaning to our lives.

Transcript

So when I saw that the topic for October was impermanence,

Being a Tibetan Buddhist,

One of the first things that pops into my head is death,

Which is probably one of the most profoundly direct experiences of impermanence that we have as living beings.

And so I didn't want to get all heavy-handed about it because we've got death pretty demonized I think in our culture.

It's either kind of out there,

You know,

Famous people,

Political people,

People out there dying,

And we get quite caught up in talking about other people dying and how they died and how old they were and what happened.

But I think we kind of sort of skirt around the periphery of thinking about our own death,

Which according to the Buddha is,

And we know for a fact,

Is certain,

But the time of death,

Who knows,

And at the time of death the only thing that goes with us is the karma that we've created,

Both the constructive,

Virtuous,

And the not-so-helpful karma with us on to next life.

So I want to talk about it today on the way that I use it to really transform my mind and to really help me live my life in a really,

Really meaningful way.

And in fact,

Thinking about death in one of our winter retreats here at the Abbey about,

Gosh,

It's now almost eight and a half years ago,

I thought about it during one of our winter retreats to the point where it really made me decide to put on robes.

Not that I'm sort of suggesting that if you thought of death deeply that you're all going to want to put on robes,

But it really made quite a profound effect on my mind and in my life.

So that's,

And some of the points that I used during that winter retreat is what I wanted to share with you today.

One of the things that I thought about quite a bit during that retreat is the metaphor of likening death to driving around in a car with the no-gas gauge.

I mean,

You know,

We've kind of come into this life and due to our karma we have a particular model that we have,

Sort of like the model of a car,

And we've got a tank in there as far as our karma,

Our cause of the conditions for us to be in this life,

But we have no idea how full that tank is.

So we're going on this road trip and we have no idea when that tank is going to run out.

So I use this quite a bit,

You know,

As a metaphor.

I love cars,

Even though I'm a monastic,

I've worked on them,

I can identify cars from just the logos on the backs of the bumpers.

And so I've always managed to find this to be a helpful metaphor.

And that even though we take care of these vehicles that we have,

We can't guarantee that they're not going to break down or they're going to be in need of an overhaul or that they get in an accident.

You know,

We just don't know,

Much less run out of gas.

And that it's eventually going to happen to each and every one of us because we're living beings.

And that the profundity is one of the points that I,

The second thought,

Okay,

So the first one is about the metaphor about the car.

The second one is,

It kind of segues into it,

Is that we exist because the causes and conditions for us to exist,

Exist.

Alright,

We have this karma that we've brought in,

That we have the causes and conditions,

They arise,

They abide and cease moment by moment,

These causes and conditions.

And when those causes and conditions begin to subside,

When they start to end and finally cease,

So do we.

We are conditioned phenomena.

We exist simply because the causes and conditions for us exist,

Are in play.

And when they aren't,

We're not.

So on a lot of levels,

We're like a cup.

We're a conditioned phenomena.

And one day that cup is going to fall off the table and it's going to split into who knows how many charts.

Same as us.

We're conditioned phenomena,

Just like a cup in lots of ways.

And so we can think about this intellectually,

Understanding that we're going to get sick,

We're going to develop disease,

We might even suffer a tragic end.

I mean we can really kind of think about that,

Kind of play out the scenarios.

We know people who have died in different types of ways.

But if we truly,

Deeply think about the fact that death is certain,

That we have no idea when it's going to happen,

And we don't take anything with us but our karma when we die,

Is that if we don't think about that,

We're kind of like a car,

We just put our lives on cruise control.

We're not really thinking much about what we're doing.

We don't know what our motivation is when we get up in the morning or why we do what we do or say what we do or think what we think.

And that we do really spend a lot of time distracted by a lot of small things.

You know,

A lot of trivia.

We squander our precious lives and instead of trying to cultivate purpose and meaning,

We're just fueling sometimes a lot of our anger,

Our pride,

Our jealousy,

Our attachment.

So we kind of think about it,

You know,

On our heads when we're courageous enough to even go there.

But we've really got to get it down into our hearts.

Another point that has helped me to kind of tie these pieces together on thinking about death is that in our tradition there's a very simple saying that if you don't think about death in the morning,

You've wasted your morning.

If you don't think about death in the afternoon,

You've wasted your afternoon.

And if you don't think about death in the evening,

You've wasted your evening as well.

So that is really something to think about.

To think that there's no way around it,

No matter how beautiful we are,

No matter how wealthy we are,

No matter what we do for living,

No matter how many people love us.

In the end,

All we take is the karma that we've created this life.

And trying to be happy in this life,

To get what we want,

To be pissed off when we don't get what we want.

That's all that goes with us.

And to really try to put together,

You know,

What does that mean for us?

What does it mean to get serious about the certainty of our death?

And that rather than obsessing about,

You know,

Someone said something to us at work that hurt our feelings,

Or we're having arguments with our roommates because they didn't do the dishes,

Or somebody forgot to invite us to dinner with a group of friends.

When we think about death a little bit more than just an intellectual exercise,

We start to realize when we get into these moments where we're kind of in a hissy fit or we're really getting pissed off or hurt,

We say,

If at this one moment my body decided,

The causing conditions for me decided to cease,

Is this the kind of mind I want when I die?

Do I want to be angry?

Do I want to be scared?

Do I want to be jealous?

Do I want to be pissed off?

Do I want to be craving and clutching onto somebody if I should die right now?

It's a helpful little exercise.

I mean,

You can really,

Really get into it.

I mean,

We have so much drama in our life anyway.

Why don't we create these scenarios that really can do something for us?

And what's really helpful is that at the time of death,

No matter when that is,

The mind that we have at that time is totally the kind of mind that we have habituated through the course of our life.

So if we want to die with a mind that's filled with gratitude,

A mind that's filled with,

You know,

I lived a pretty darn good life.

I didn't know I was kind most of the time.

I made amends with the people that I had to make amends with.

I had bodhicitta at some extent,

Even fabricated in my heart that I thought about others and that I want to be the best I can so I can help them.

Whatever we put into our minds while we are alive,

Whether it be love and care and joy and compassion,

Or it's going to be fretting and attachment and anger and pride,

At the time of death,

That's what's going to be there.

It's not like we can have our whole life full of craving and attachment and being resentful towards somebody and at the time of death we finally decide we want to have joy.

We can't just snap our fingers and turn on a dime.

The mind is going to do exactly what we've been training it to do for the past 12 years,

20 years,

50 years,

85 years.

Because you know,

If we want certain kind of results,

We've got to create the causes.

And at death,

You know,

Whatever our bodies are doing,

Whatever our minds are doing,

We've got to have as best as we can some little piece of the Buddhist teachings that we hold on like an anchor,

Something that's going to really guide us into our next life.

And one of the things,

Just to kind of bring it a little bit more real,

The other thing that I use is that at the Abbey we receive a lot of prayer requests from all over the world and we dedicate all of our virtue during the course of the day to them.

People grieving at the death of somebody they really care about.

And this past year we've had a member of the community find out that a good friend committed suicide,

That a young child died from a rare form of cancer,

That two young women,

Best friends,

Just out of college,

Died trekking in Nepal during that earthquake,

And that one of our dear Dharma brothers,

Not far from here,

His daughter was murdered by her estranged husband at 32 years of age.

These are the kind of things that kind of bring it,

And it's not to get depressed about our life.

What the Buddha says is we think about death to bring peace and vibrancy into our life because we cut to the chase.

We say,

Okay,

If I'm going to die tomorrow,

What kind of mind,

What kind of purpose,

What type of meaning do I want in my life?

Do I want to be squandering it over this piddly stuff?

Because these people,

When they woke up in the morning,

When that young daughter and those two good friends and that child,

They didn't think they were going to die that day.

We've got to put that question up because we don't know what our fuel tank is looking like right now.

We have no idea how much gas we have in our tank,

What this vehicle is carrying.

So it's really helpful.

And if you know somebody in your life that has lost somebody or you've lost somebody,

Take that as a gift.

Take that as a gift to sort of bring some clarity and some joy into your life,

Knowing that this is like a snap of a finger,

This life.

It's like a flash of lightning in the sky and have to really use this life like we mean it,

To bring a vibrancy to it that brings us alive into the moment and really helps us to make these decisions during the course of the day.

What are we doing right now in the event that I die right now?

Now carbon goes through the yellow light and I'm crossing in the intersection.

What do I want my mind to be?

It's practical.

This isn't like some far-fetched kind of thinking.

This is practical Dharma practice each day and to use death as really a great tool to prioritize those things that really have meaning in our lives.

So what I wanted to do is I've got a little meditation here just for us to ponder three points that might be helpful,

And we're going to use what if.

We're going to use a little bit of a what if thing.

So find yourself,

Put down your teacup,

Put down your breakfast,

Whatever you've got there.

We're going to do three little things we're going to consider.

So if we really got it in our hearts that death was certain and we didn't know when we would die and the only thing that we took to the next life was the karma we created,

Name one thing that you would refrain from doing right now.

What action of body,

Speech,

And mind,

If you knew this understanding of truth about death,

What would you stop doing immediately?

Okay,

Second thing to ponder.

If you really got it in your heart that death was certain and that you had no idea when was going to happen and that the only thing that you took to your next life was the karma you created,

Who would you want to forgive and who would you want to ask forgiveness from?

It might not happen today.

And then if you knew deep in your heart that death was certain,

The time of death was uncertain and all that you were going to take to your next life was the karma you created,

What virtuous quality or what teaching of the Buddha would you commit to familiarizing your mind with right now that would be so clear and strong at the time of death that it would arise spontaneously?

One virtuous quality,

One teaching of the Buddha that you would want in your mind and heart at the time of death.

One virtuous quality,

One teaching of the Buddha that you would want in your mind and heart at the time of death.

And then lastly,

What ideas or what idea do you have that you could really sort of commit to right now to explore these three things,

To implement one of them in your life?

What virtuous quality,

How could you do that?

How could you go about getting ready to forgive somebody or to ask forgiveness?

And what unethical thing,

What non-virtuous thing do you have habituated in your life that you might want to make a commitment to to considering doing differently or putting it down?

What idea?

Something simple.

Something you could do to start thinking about it.

Entire craft is this love.

You

Reviews

Just what I needed, as I contemplate the agony of a younger family member and expect personal analysis results. Thank you deeply for the practical coaching.

That was amazing & deeply enriching!!

Good voice. Straight to the point. Helpful and maybe for more experienced meditator? Because forgiving and asking for forgiveness is something one cannot do lightly even with the urgency of knowing that we are going to die. We just don't know when but, could be an incentive to forgive and or ask forgiveness more quickly.

Quite useful considerations in preparation of path entrance ❤️. I would really like more contemplation time in the meditation itself on the questions at the end. Thank you 🌷🙏

I was raised Roman Catholic but I’m non practicing. I found comfort in your talk and the speakers voice is beautiful and soothing. I’m grieving right now, a precious life taken away much too young. Thank you for the insight, thoughts, exercises. Namaste. ❤️

Deeply touched. Thank you ! 🙏🕊️❤️

A subject that we need to acknowledge and think about. Not with fear, but with recognition to surrender with love for ourselves and those that touch our lives. 🙏

This makes me realize. I need to accept an apology that will never
be given as the person is not capable of understanding their wrong doings.

Why are we so afraid of the unknown, death may be a beautiful thing?

Really healthy to pull my focus to what I wish everyone around me to receive from me right in each moment.

Life changing. Thank you

An extremely provocative and beneficial meditation. Thank you for your kindness Venerable.

That was a super inspiring speech and meditation thanks 😊 🥰🌙

Strikingly simple metaphor and some really good advice there.

Thank you for making me think honestly about things that I push under the rug and try to ignore about myself, I realize I have to think about lots of stuff and try to make amends and also start making up for so much before I can even think about returning to start another life and expect to be able to have a decent life and have a “do-over” without changing this life. I am blabbering on and on here, my mind knows what I am trying to say, but the words aren’t coming out right. I do have cognitive problems do to a medical problem (MS) but I don’t want that as an excuse, I need to be honest here. Anyway, your words and meditation seem to hit something in me that I need to concentrate on a lot more. Thank you for this. I will be looking for more talks on death to help me.

I loved the quote “If you don’t start your morning thinking about death, you’ve wasted your morning”

This is such a lovely plainly spoken dharma talk on awareness and acceptance of death. I love the image of the gas in the tank and the cup (or glass). I had lovely revelations in response to the questions during the meditation. I love the talk and the teacher and I will listen again. I think you might like this: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2019/10/57682/

Wonderful teaching! Thank you for sharing! ♥️🙏🏼♥️

Thanks 🙏 this is one of the most inspiring mediations I’ve had in Insight Timer.

Very helpful, thank you🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻I am working on"letting go with ease and joy" in preparation of leaving a quarter of a century of life behind and returning to Europe. Realizing that the only thing I will take with me when I die, is the karma I built throughout my life, helps me tremendously in that process🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻