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[0:00:26]

I have requested everybody to read carefully a Day 10 in the “Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand”. It covers six benefits of looking at the death, and six disadvantages of not remembering death. I hope you have done it.

Now we are going to carefully look at the main point and its true meaning. There is a difference in understanding the main point. The difference is what are we looking for. Are we looking for something material in spiritual path? It is common that people have a lot of limitations understanding the essence of the spiritual path. We do have a very limited view of what constitutes a spiritual path. Even if you have an idea of what is the spiritual path, it is very difficult to get a main message.

What really can this spiritual path offer and what do we really need? It is extremely difficult to comprehend. Those of us, who are claiming to be experienced spiritual practitioners or Buddhist practitioners, still would have problems with that. In the sense, spiritual materialism became a big issue because many practitioners have a difficult time to give up this spiritual materialism. [he is referring to “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism” by Chogyam Trungpa]

[0:03:05]

That is why I made a big deal last week explaining the essence of a spiritual goal. I will try to draw a careful distinction between a true practice and a spiritual materialism. Because if you are practicing spiritual materialism during guru devotion projects, six preliminaries, or embracing human life and death, we have no problem. However, beyond that there is a problem.

This is why we are looking at the big picture and asking questions, such as, what we are looking for, what is our spiritual goal, what does this spiritual goal means and why it is relevant. All those questions are very important. Spiritual development, in particular Lamrim, is not a pick and choose approach. There are some funny people that dissect Dharma teachings and say, “Lamrim offers this, that offers that, and it looks like some other teaching offers something from here and there”. This is incorrect. The main question is what do we need and want.

That is the main question. Here is where your motivation makes a difference, whenever you are looking for a spiritual materialism or beyond that. That what it is. Those are the answers only you can answer. It is really true, no one else can because your mind is only known to you, nobody else. Your mind is known to you; therefore, you know what do you want, what are you looking for.

Nobody else could tell or give you that understanding, nobody else can shape you, you have to do it yourself. Buddha is not interested to entertain people who are looking for a spiritual materialism at all. Recommendations that Buddha gave are to use six preliminaries and basic meditations, guru devotion projects, embracement [ of Buddhism] in life. All of them can be done together. However, here and now you need to make a personal choice. This choice will make a difference. That is why this point is the switching point.

[0:06:36]

Those of you who read Day 10 probably know it already. For example, the reason behind remembering about inevitability of death. If you are looking for a spiritual materialism only, then you will avoid thoughts about death. You don’t want it to happen, so you don’t even want to think about it. You will avoid dealing with death as much as you want to. That attitude makes a difference. If you really want to cut out a spiritual materialism, you will think about death.

Death represents a gross impermanence, not a subtle impermanence. This is a gross impermanence that actually cuts though spiritual materialism within an individual. By looking from that perspective, you may devaluate things in your life to becoming almost meaningless, almost without value. You have to be very careful here and not to ruin a delicate balance between embracing current human life with its benefits versus looking at and beyond death. Because if you are not very strong, there is a danger of losing an interest in everything, like I have mentioned in hermit translation.

It is mentioned in the “Three Principal Paths” or somewhere else where translation says, “Turn off the interest in this life”. The word that was used is “turn off”, but it is not really “turning off”. The main message is different, that is not what they are trying to tell you. If you are not careful with interpretation, you can completely shut out other things. It is not like you have to turn off or shut off an interest for this life, but at the same time you have to remember that you can’t go through life with spiritual materialism. This is very important. The spiritual materialism is one of the blocks that spiritual person wants to get rid of because it is a block, a very strong block.

[0:09:02]

A spiritual materialism is stronger than an actual materialism. It is very easy for us to spot materialism flaws. Everybody in this room will probably agree that materialism is not great. However, a spiritual materialism is a very difficult subject. We are going to lose half of the room, I am sure, because of people’s interests in such things.

It is very hard to go through this subject. This is why we have to be careful approaching and keeping a delicate balance while discussing it. Contemplating on death makes us to cut through a spiritual materialism. That is true. They really tell you that death is definite, you will die. We have this outline here.

In the text, under the comment with the low scope, doctor, could you please read it to us?

[man from the audience] “Under significance of the future rebirth there is impermanence and death, and suffering in the lower realms.

Wait a minute, [recites in Tibetan], what do you have?

[man from the audience] The first two that you have mentioned were impermanence and death and suffering in the lower realms. And impermanence and death are subdivided into three.

That is good, thank you. The impermanence and death, and death is impermanent. That is impermanence here. Those of you who have read Day 10, you will know. Those are basically three most important points. The point number one is that you have to meditate on inevitability of death. We know it, that one helps. We are not here to build that knowledge; we have that knowledge already. We are here to transform our mental feelings, to make them different.

How do we feel?

[0:12:00]

How do we deal with our life? How we deal with it every day, how do we deal with people and yourself? Those are your feelings, and that is what we are looking at. We are not looking at your knowledge, we are looking at your feelings.

In order to invoke the understanding that “I am subject to death, I am definitely going to die”, you have to feel it. You don’t have to know it, we all know it. It won’t help. You need to project the death moment during your meditation and feel it. Meditate on death, so when this moment comes up, you know it is a cutout. Once you will remember that feeling, “I have to go, I have to go”, your perspective will change. When you realize that eventually you will have to departure from this life, you won’t be entertaining so many unnecessary things, particularly a spiritual materialism.

I had to say that, because if I don’t say it, I would be a failure. I know not many people are going to like it. But if you look at the New Age, a lot of New Age things are spiritual materialism. Sorry to say that, it is.

Somehow, they are spiritual, they are all very spiritual. I am not saying they are not spiritual, they are spiritual, but there is a spiritual materialism involved in that. Why?

With an exception of very few people, and my knowledge is very limited, most of the people are looking for a limited development, not the all way through. That is why it becomes spiritual materialism. Maybe I shouldn’t say that.

Anyway, try to make yourself not to waste your time, and get the best out of everything. It is like Americans putting a deadline on the jobs, so they get it done. You don’t let it go all the time. It is just like that, remember the impermanence and death and put your deadline [to meditate], it will make you move. That what it is. It is a bad example, but deadlines have advantages too. Nobody likes deadlines, but everybody creates those for themselves, including you.

[0:15:06]

You put a deadline, because you don’t want it to go day and night, go together. That is the problem. So, remembering death will do that.

[The Nine-Part meditation on death explanation starts below].

Point number one is that death is definite. Point number two is an uncertainty of the time of death. When will that happen? Point number three, “In case if I die today, what would help me?” Those are three most important points to be meditated upon. [Each point or root has three reasons each, making nine parts in all].

[Explanation of the point number one, the inevitability of death].

Have you ever convinced yourself why death is definite? Nobody has raised that question here, but you may. We know we are going to die without a doubt, for sure. It is no wonder we are going to die. There is nothing that could save you from that, nothing. Even the highly spiritually developed human beings like Buddha or Eastern and Western great religious masters, founders have gone away. Nobody is alive here today. They are all dead.

Spiritual or not spiritual person, nobody can live forever, a materially, [in the same body], no one. Even the ones possessing a military power, they can’t live forever. In another words, there is nothing that will really hold you back. So, death is definite. In addition to it, whatever life we have now, day by day we are using that. We are shortening our lifespan; nothing is building up. It is like a soap opera “Days of our lives”. It is like a sand clock, you turned it up side down, and the sand slowly trickles down, just like days of our lives.

That what it is. I do watch that soap opera, whatever I have an opportunity.

[0:18:00]

[person walks in into the room; teacher points him to the seat]

I was able to watch TV daily when I first came to visit Dexter. I was watching what was happening on “Days of our lives”. Then, I haven’t had an opportunity for a while until the last week at San Francisco. The same old thing is still goes on in that show. [everybody laughs]. Maybe the sand in the sand clock doesn’t go down here. Anyway, the sand clock reminds me of days of our lives. Whatever life we have, it keeps dropping down and nothing adds up. It naturally goes down, right? [Speaks Tibetan]. That is the second reason why we are definitely going to die.

On this third point, to prove that we definitely are going to die, it is not fit very well, but it is very helpful to meditator. [Speaks Tibetan]. During our lifetime, we don’t have much time to practice a spiritual path. Actually, if you read “Liberation in the palm of your hand”, it will tell you that if you live up to sixty years, you will have only 5 years of practice.

Have you seen it in the text? It is because we have to sleep, talk, do daily chores. Remember, this has been written for practitioners, for Tibetans, who were living in the 1930s and 1940s. That was the audience. The style and quality of life was like living 100 or even 200 years ago here. The pace of our current lifestyle is three times faster. If during that period it took only 5 years out of 60 to be spent on meditation, what do we have now?

[0:21:03]

Out of 60 years, we only probably have one year? It is highly likely, because we have so many things to do. We have to carve time out to watch “Days of our lives” as well.

No questions, I am sorry. Not now, maybe a little bit later.

It means the time we really have [for our spiritual development] is very limited. You know how our time goes, and you need to do so many things. In reality, how much time could we spend for our total benefit?

That is why. I was talking at Green Gulch Zen center in San Francisco this Sunday. It had about two hundred or three hundred people, and someone asked me a question. I could see it the person was asking the question and felt so bad on what to do. He asked me, “If you have limited days, a month to live, how should you spend that time? What do you need to do?”

This is one of the [hardest] questions. I looked at this guy’s face, and obviously, he is sick. It is hard to say it, whenever how I would answer that. I said, “Well, we all have limited days, which we don’t know about. We all have limited time, but we don’t know how much time. If I been told, me, an individual, this one, that I have only six months to live, by the prognosis given by the doctor, then I would do two or three things. If you can’t do it, then you can’t do it. If you can, you try to change a death into a clear light. If you are incapable of doing that, the second-best thing would be try to protect poor or something [to be generous and donate to poor and needy?]”.

The Tibetan Buddhism is really awful slot of things for that. [?]

[0:24:04]

So over here, it says [speaks Tibetan], “if I have one or two months to live, at least I will try to achieve that my immediate future live will be okay. If I have one or two years to live, I would make definite that my sequential lives (not only the immediate one, but also the one after will be made perfect”

Has anyone read it in the “Liberation in the Palms of your Hands”? Can you read that portion?

[man from audience] I am not quite sure where is that.

It should say that in that Day 10. You find it in the book a lot, but it is there, for sure. I thought it was there, but I also can’t find it.

[students are searching for the phrase in the book]

“Day 9. The optimum human rebirth”, p.285

“It is so good you have not yet died! You now have only so much of this

life left: two years, three years, or whatever it may be. If you now do not

perform austerities day and night and practice some holy Dharma, you

must consider: “Dare I risk going back to the lower realms?”

[Another quote has been read by a student. “Day 10. Remembering death”, p. 313

My own precious guru, my refuge and protector, said:

Pray that if you don’t die in a month or two, you may achieve some

benefit for your next rebirths; and if you don’t die in a year or two, may you

achieve your eternal hope for all your rebirths!]

That is right. Why does translation say “you don’t die”? It says “If I don’t die” in Trijang Rinpoche’s version in Tibetan. The English version constantly says “you, you, you” everywhere. In Tibetan, you don’t have to say “I” or “you” many times, you can just go straight without reference to the person. In English, if you don’t say it, it doesn’t work in the sentence.

Anyway, that is the point. [speaks Tibetan].

[0:27:06]

That is the main point, but when I said “how?”, then it becomes a problem. It is sad, but it is obvious that he is one of those positives, almost on the point. It is a sad thing. [Interpretation of the “sad thing”: The sick person who has a positive attitude towards the last weeks of this life unfortunately is not prepared for the challenge understanding transient process of death and rebirth. He might get scared during the process, misunderstand the process and will be forced to have a karmic rebirth without control over it. It might be a good or bad karmic rebirth; the point is that he is not in the control and won’t be able understand the process]. The point is that we all came to that point and we will get to that point. Not necessarily positive, actually it will be positive but have a limited time. We even have limited time today. The problem is we don’t know when the death will occur. We are presuming it is going to be a long time afterwards, a very long time. That is why this is our problem. That is why even when we are living, we won’t have time to prepare for the process of death. As a result, we might have to, without preparation, go through the process of death.

Those are the three major points to make a point number one. Three major reasons to make a point one, that the death is definite. What you really need to do is, and I am not going to use word “meditation”, you have to think about it.

[Explains steps during meditative contemplation on mind training]. You really need to think about death, very seriously. That death will happen, definitely, those are the reasons [tell yourself reasons]. Additionally, more reasons are there [tell yourself those reasons as well].

Then, if you are convinced that we are definitely going to die, and you got the message, got idea, tell yourself that you are in the subject and you understand it. However, mentally stop yourself there and don’t focus on this moment. Otherwise, we are going to worry about ourselves. This is common with lower level [practitioners], we worry about ourselves.

[Tell yourself that] this is my situation. You should develop compassion to yourself, not feeling pity for yourself, but compassion.

[0:30:03]

[Then, ask yourself mentally during the contemplation the first question], “How can I help myself?” Compassion and method are the main tools to help you. If you have a compassion to yourself, the method portion will be to reach a conclusion and a decision to firmly practice Dharma. “I am going through a practice and I am going to use Dharma practice”. Dharma or no Dharma, whatever it is, “I am going to help myself. I am going through a practice”. That is your conclusion.

You going to do it, that is one thing. That is why you are here, because you are really looking for something. You have already convinced yourself, “Yes, I am here and I know it, I have to do Dharma practice and I know I am going to be dead”.

[Explanation of the root number two, the uncertainty of the time of death].

The second question you need to ask yourself is, “But will I have time to practice?” Usually in our mind we say, “First, my priority is to finish this, this and that. After that, I am going to devote a lot of time to practice. Otherwise, I have to go slow in between. I have to go slow on that, but later I am going to do it”.

To combat that thinking, apply three reasons: you don’t know when death occurs, there are more causes of dying than of living, things that made for healing are also causes of death.

The first point to practice Dharma now is that you don’t know when you are going to die. The lifespan is uncertain, there is no precise time limit of your life. In the human land, nothing has a predetermined life. Therefore, you don’t know when the life will come to an end.

The second point to practice now is that we have much more causes of death, than causes of life. If you look at it from this angle, here is a danger, and there is a danger. That cause triggers another cause. For example, every single thing that we use has a warning label. It gives as a message that the causes of death are prevalent than causes of life. It is understandable, it is cyclical. Everything you use will cause this, and in turn will cause that. As a result, every single thing could be a cause of losing our lives rather than living our lives.

[0:33:17]

That is the second point. The third point is things that are made for healing and getting better will also cause death. Consider a food as a good example. A sugar for me, right? Food is supposed to noirish your body and prolong your life, but it could be a cause of death as well. Other things could be examples as well. Those are main three reasons.

You never know when you going to die. Even the earlier teachers used to say, “When you go to sleep, you dissolve the gross consciousness, breath in and out take, and will go to a little subtler [state of mind]. To some people, at least. A lot of people will go more gross. However, most people during the sleep dissolve gross consciousness of air movement and go to a subtle consciousness state, just a little subtler. Earlier teachers used to say, “It is amazing you woke up alive, could of being lost there”.

It is very true. In my case I need to have a breathing machine, a wake machine, to make sure an air goes via a brain or something [lungs]. It has been three years now, that is what I have to do. That is true, it is shows you there is no certainties. That is why you will never know when is your time to go. Nobody will know, you won’t know, so you better prepare.

At the end of that [contemplative reflection], you make a decision. The decision will be, “I am going to do it right now, whatever else is going on, I have to do it now”. “Doing it Now” is the main point, because I might not have an opportunity or chance later. The chance of doing this practice might not be present again very soon, not likely. That is a reality and we can see it. Whatever we have an opportunity now, it is better to take advantage now because of uncertainties of the future.

[0:36:10]

This is a training of your mind; a mind training in the positive way. This is how you change your attitude, that is how you transform your negative addictions to positive addictions. It is really true. This is why we are trying to do this and using a very effective way of thinking, which is reality and truth.

[Explanation of the root number three, the Dharma way].

The third point or root is [speaks Tibetan] that at the time of death nothing can help except the positive karma or Dharmic reserve that you have, Dharmic karma. It is very relevant.

For instance, two years ago I was visiting Omeka. We went down the river in a boat, remember, Coleen? We saw a rabbi Zamin Shakhta sitting in another boat. We pulled our boats close and started talking. Suddenly, I saw that his paddle was sliding down into the water. I pointed it to him, and he quickly grabbed the paddle. “Oh, I am glad I caught it, because if I lose it, I will be a Karma without Dharma”, he said.

It is very important point. Karma without Dharma. At the time of the death, what can help us? Zamin Shakhta said, “If I lose it, I will be Karma without Dharma”. That is exactly what it is. At the time of the death, without Dharmic karma, nothing can help.

This third root also has three reasons: friends, wealth and body cannot help you.

The friends can’t help, they all have to go around and watch the body, what else can they do beyond that?

[0:39:23]

The friends, the spiritual teachers have to leave disciples and friends behind, the rules and politicians will have to leave that “tham chais”. I told you about this “tham chais” business. That is the Hindi word for “battering them all the time”. At the time of death, parents leave children, children leave parents, husbands leave wives, wives leave husbands. What else can you do? You have to watch and that is all.

Truly helplessly, hopelessly we watch and then we make a little bit of “human makeup” and say, “Oh, everything is very well, smooth, and nice, and this thing and that thing.” We sort of repaint and remade the color in a picture. Otherwise, in reality, we can’t do anything. That is where the friends and family members can’t help.

Food, wealth, health all this won’t help. Food and wealth won’t help because you are dying. I leave that out, even though body can help. The body that has been born with us, born together and looked after so much, and being taken care so much.

You know, when I was watching His Holiness Dalai Lama’s conference with western Dharma teachers and he was saying, “I look after this body so much” and they go like this, in the video I saw. “Take care all the time, I cover, I feed, but why it gives me so much trouble?”

[0:42:02]

We take care of our body so much, we look after yourself by meaning we take care of our body. If I say “take care of your mind”, a very few people will say that. Take care of yourself means take care of your body. We ask each other, do this and we do it. Take some care. We worried about our body getting cold or getting too hot. If it too cold, we put extra clothing on, increase temperature in the room. If it too hot, we take off an extra layer of clothing, decrease temperature in the room by using a fan or an air conditioner. We do all of this just to please this body. That is how we are taking care of our body by trying to provide a comfort to it. That body is also going to let us fail during a time of death. We can’t help it.

What else can help us during the time of death? [recites text on Tibetan], “The rulers will leave their kingdoms, the beggars will leave their begging bowls”. You know, when you stay here the homeless people carry begging bowls, that is their material property, that is what they are begging. The kings, on the other hand, have kingdoms as properties. Whatever they might have it, at the time of the death, they leave it behind. The beggars and kings will leave their properties and depart.

The conclusion is that nothing but Dharma can help. Those are the three major reasons. Two decisions, three more important points, three reasons each make nine reasons. Two decisions: going to practice Dharma to help myself and do it now, I repeat, do it now.

We can talk, I can talk, I can give you information, but unless you think about it yourself and get it, everything is useless. If you don’t get it, nothing good will happen to you. You may read this Lamrim twenty times. Somebody in San Francisco told me, that he is fifty years old and he read this text twenty times. It is great, but if you read it twenty times, unless you are going to get this message now, it won’t going to make any difference.

[0:45:08]

If you get that message, it will make difference. The message is: you have to get it, not the knowledge, but the feelings, realization. Moreover, it has to become a principle of your life, your way of looking at everything. Then, it will make a difference.

I am not going into much detail, because if I do, then it is a lot of specifics. Just remember the essence, the three major points that the death is definite, the time of death is uncertain, and nothing can help at the time of the death except the Dharma.

What time have we left? Do we have time to do projects [practice] on those three reasons?

To prove the second point, when you are going to die, there are no certainty, our life is not a fixed life. For example, some people die early, others die later. Nothing is fixed and we will never know.

We have a lot of causes of dying, very few causes of living. Even those are meant for living they are causes of death. Our body is very weak, no matter how much you think of it, right? Building up strength and all of this. You can do it, but body is weak. Anybody can crash a body; it is so easy. In a way it is a very strong body, you can build it up and do all sort of things. At the same time, it is a very weak comparing to anything else. Anything can crash.

[0:48:00]

All of those are the reasons. The third one, “At the time of death what will help”. Can the friend help, can the bank balance help? Nothing can help. The food, wealth, health, nothing can help. Even our body can’t help.

That is basically three points, with three reasons each and two decisions. You have to reach it by yourself by thinking. If you want to be a little romantic, do it by meditating, if not, by thinking and getting to total conclusion by yourself. This way of thinking is impermanent and is called a Tsongkhapa’s special gift.

In addition to that, meditate as if you are really going [through stages of death]. It is also in “Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand”, but I am not going to discuss it now. But if you read it, you will have it. And I don’t think I will have time to go other this, but if I get sometime later on, I will probably will go other there with additional projects on this by Pabongka Rinpoche on this particular thing.

[speaks Tibetan]

There is a very important particular project, the visualization meditation by Pabongka Rinpoche in order to move. If some people couldn’t even move bodies impermanent, there is an additional one. Probably we won’t have time here.

[speaks Tibetan]

It says, “last two words what you call it your wills or the last message you want to give, or experience of the suffering that you had. And you try your best to put all tiny little energy, whatever you have, try to put it and try to say it.

[0:51:06]

However, the other person will not understand the word. [speaks Tibetan].

You will know he or she won’t be able to understand, you have to go with very sad feelings. Like that, whatever we said, repeatedly nineteen or twenty times, and they are there? Or dead.

So even if our heart is that rough, and even if this cannot move much, they will move to the other one. But the most Americans even don’t need those three rounds.

Really basic three most important points you are contemplating while in meditation. It will make difference. If you think analytically and critically, you will make this judgement and don’t follow blindly. That makes a difference.

Three reasons, three major points with three reasons each will definitely do it. If not, then we will add other ones. To summarize, you will need to draw a very convincing, hard-felt conclusion by yourself. It is done not by words, but realization, your feelings. If you would do it merely by words, instead of help it will harm you. Simple reason if that doesn’t work with you, get all this information and immediately work with very difficult.

[speaks Tibetan]

Kadampa lamas used to say, “You can through a raw leather outside for a year or more. If you bring it back and soften it by kneading with a butter, the leather could be useful again. However, if you store butter in the leather container, then you can never soften the leather, no matter how hard you try.”

The meaning is if the knowledge didn’t affect you for a while, then it becomes very difficult to help. Instead of help it becomes harm, that is what I meant.

Let’s stop here for tonight. Kathy said she made an announcement, but I would like to repeat once.