I REMEMBER HOW PEOPLE would often come to see my master, Jamyang Khyentse, simply to ask for his guidance for the moment of death. He was so loved and revered throughout Tibet, especially in the eastern province of Kham, that some would travel for months on end to meet him and get his blessing just once before they died. All my masters would give this as their advice, for this is the essence of what is needed as you come to die: “Be free of attachment and aversion. Keep your mind pure. And unite your mind with the Buddha.”
The whole Buddhist attitude toward the moment of death can be summed up in this one verse by Padmasambhava from the cycle of the Tibetan Book of the Dead:
Now when the bardo of dying dawns upon me,
I will abandon all grasping, yearning, and attachment,
Enter undistracted into clear awareness of the teaching,
And eject my consciousness into the space of unborn Rigpa;
As I leave this compound body of flesh and blood
I will know it to be a transitory illusion.
At the moment of death, there are two things that count: whatever we have done in our lives, and what state of mind we are in at that moment. Even if we have accumulated a lot of negative karma, if we are able really to make a change of heart at the moment of death, it can decisively influence our future and transform our karma, for the moment of death is an exceptionally powerful opportunity for purifying karma.
Remember that all the habits and tendencies that are stored in the ground of our ordinary mind are lying ready to be activated by any influence. Even now we know how it only takes the slightest provocation to prompt our instinctive, habitual reactions to surface. This is especially true at the moment of death. The Dalai Lama explains:
At the time of death attitudes of long familiarity usually take precedence and direct the rebirth. For this same reason, strong attachment is generated for the self, since one fears that one’s self is becoming nonexistent. This attachment serves as the connecting link to the intermediate state between lives, the liking for a body in turn acts as a cause establishing the body of the intermediate (bardo) being.1
Therefore our state of mind at death is all-important. If we die in a positive frame of mind, we can improve our next birth, despite our negative karma. And if we are upset and distressed, it may have a detrimental effect, even though we may have used our lives well. This means that the last thought and emotion that we have before we die has an extremely powerful determining effect on our immediate future. Just as the mind of a mad person is usually entirely occupied by one obsession, which returns again and again, so at the moment of death our minds are totally vulnerable and exposed to whatever thoughts then preoccupy us. That last thought or emotion we have can be magnified out of all proportion and flood our whole perception. This is why the masters stress that the quality of the atmosphere around us when we die is crucial. With our friends and relatives, we should do all we can to inspire positive emotions and sacred feelings, like love, compassion, and devotion, and all we can to help them to “let go of grasping, yearning, and attachment.”
The ideal way for a person to die is having given away everything, internally and externally, so that there is as little as possible yearning, grasping, and attachment for the mind at that essential moment to latch onto. So before we die we should try to free ourselves of attachment to all our possessions, friends, and loved ones. We cannot take anything with us, so we should make plans to give away all our belongings beforehand as gifts or offerings to charity.
In Tibet the masters, before they left their bodies, would indicate what they would like to offer to other teachers. Sometimes a master who was intending to reincarnate in the future would leave a particular group of objects for his reincarnation, giving a clear indication of what he wanted to leave. I am convinced that we should also be exact about who is going to receive our possessions or our money. These wishes should be expressed as lucidly as possible. If they are not, then after you die, if you are in the bardo of becoming, you will see your relatives squabbling over your goods or misusing your money, and this will disturb you. State precisely just how much of your money should be dedicated to charity or different spiritual purposes, or given to each of your relatives. Making everything clear, down to the final details, will reassure you and help you truly to let go.
As I have said, it is essential that the atmosphere around us when we die should be as peaceful as possible. The Tibetan masters therefore advise that grieving friends and relatives should not be present at a dying person’s bedside, in case they provoke a disturbing emotion at the moment of death. Hospice workers have told me that dying people sometimes request that their close family do not visit them just as they are dying, because of this very fear of evoking painful feelings and strong attachment. Sometimes this may be extremely difficult for families to understand; they may feel they are no longer loved by the dying person. However, they should bear in mind that the mere presence of loved ones may provoke strong feelings of attachment in the dying person, which make it harder than ever for him or her to let go.
It is extremely hard not to cry when we are at the bedside of a loved one who is dying. I advise everyone to do their best to work out attachment and grief with the dying person before death comes: Cry together, express your love, and say goodbye, but try to finish with this process before the actual moment of death arrives. If possible, it is best if friends and relatives do not show excessive grief at the moment of death, because the consciousness of the dying person is at that moment exceptionally vulnerable. The Tibetan Book of the Dead says that your crying and tears around a person’s bedside are experienced like thunder and hail. But don’t worry if you have found yourself weeping at a deathbed; it can’t be helped, and there is no reason to upset yourself and to feel guilty.
One of my great-aunts, Ani Pelu, was an extraordinary spiritual practitioner. She had studied with some of the legendary masters of her time, especially with Jamyang Khyentse, and he blessed her by writing for her a special “heart advice.” She was sturdy and round, very much the boss of our household, with a beautiful and noble face and a yogin’s uninhibited, even temperamental, nature. She seemed to be a very practical woman, and she took direct charge of administering the family’s affairs. Yet a month before she died she changed completely, in the most moving way. She who had been so busy let everything drop, with a calm and carefree abandon. She seemed to be continually in a state of meditation, and kept singing out her favorite passages from the writings of Longchenpa, the Dzogchen saint. She had enjoyed eating meat; yet just before she died, she didn’t want to touch meat at all. She had been the queen of her world, and few people had thought of her as a yogini. In her dying she showed who she really was, and I shall never forget the profound peace that radiated from her in those days.
Ani Pelu, in many ways, was my guardian angel; I think she loved me specially because she had no children of her own. My father was always very busy being Jamyang Khyentse’s administrator, and my mother was also busy with her huge household; she did not think of things that Ani Pelu never forgot. Ani Pelu would often ask my master: “What’s going to happen to this boy when he grows up? Is he going to be all right? Is he going to have obstacles?” and sometimes he would reply to her and say things he would never have said about my future if she had not been there to badger him.
At the end of her life, Ani Pelu had tremendous serenity in her being and stability in her spiritual practice, yet even she, when she was at the point of death, made a request that I should not be present, just in case her love for me might cause her an instant’s attachment. This shows how seriously she took her beloved master Jamyang Khyentse’s heart advice: “At the moment of death, abandon all thoughts of attachment and aversion.”
Her sister Ani Rilu had also spent her whole life practicing, and had met the same great masters. She had a thick volume of prayers, and she would recite prayers and practice all day long. From time to time she would doze off, and when she woke up again she would carry on practicing from where she had left off. All day and all night she did the same thing, so that she hardly ever slept the whole night through, and often she ended up doing her morning practice in the evening and her evening practice in the morning. Her elder sister, Pelu, was a much more decisive and orderly person, and toward the end of her life she could not stand this endless disruption of normal routine. She would say: “Why don’t you do the morning practice in the morning and the evening practice in the evening, and switch the light off and go to bed like everybody else does?” Ani Rilu would murmur, “Yes . . . yes,” but go on just the same.
In those days I would have been rather on Ani Pelu’s side, but now I see the wisdom of what Ani Rilu was doing. She was immersing herself in a stream of spiritual practice, and her whole life and being became one continuous flow of prayer. In fact, I think her practice was so strong that she continued praying even in her dreams, and anyone who does that will have a very good chance of liberation in the bardos.
Ani Rilu’s dying had the same peaceful and passive quality as her life. She had been ill for some time, and it was nine o’clock one winter morning when the wife of my master sensed that death was approaching quickly. Although by that time Ani Rilu could not speak, she was still alert. Someone was sent immediately to ask Dodrupchen Rinpoche, a remarkable master who lived nearby, to come to give the last guidance and to effect the phowa, the practice of the transference of consciousness at the moment of death.
In our family there was an old man called A-pé Dorje, who died in 1989 at the age of eighty-five. He had been with my family for five generations, and was a man whose grandfatherly wisdom and common sense, exceptional moral strength and good heart, and gift for reconciling quarrels made him for me the embodiment of everything good that is Tibetan: a rugged, earthy, ordinary person who lives spontaneously by the spirit of the teachings.2 He taught me so much as a child, most especially, how important it is to be kind to others and never to harbor negative thoughts even if someone harms you. He had a natural gift of imparting spiritual values in the most simple way; he almost charmed you into being your best self. A-pé Dorje was a born storyteller, and he would keep me enthralled as a child with fairy stories and tales from the Gesar epic, or accounts of the struggles in the eastern provinces, when China invaded Tibet in the early 1950s. Wherever he went he brought a lightness and joy, and a humor that would make any difficult situation seem less complicated. Even when he was nearing his eighties, I remember, he was sprightly and active and went shopping every day almost till his death.
A-pé Dorje used to go shopping every morning around nine. He had heard that Ani Rilu was on the verge of death, and came to her room. He had a habit of speaking rather loudly, almost shouting. “Ani Rilu,” he called out. She opened her eyes. “My dear girl,” he beamed at her affectionately with his enchanting smile, “now is the moment to show your true mettle. Don’t falter. Don’t waver. You have been so blessed to have met so many wonderful masters and received teachings from all of them. Not only that, but you have had the priceless opportunity to practice as well. What more could you ask for? Now, the only thing you need to do is to keep the essence of the teachings in your heart, and especially the instruction for the moment of death that your masters have given you. Keep that in your mind, and do not be distracted.
“Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine. I’m going shopping now, and perhaps when I come back, I won’t see you. So, goodbye.” He said this with a huge grin. Ani Rilu was still alert and the way he said it made her smile in recognition, and give a little nod.
A-pé Dorje knew that it is vital, as we come near to death, to essentialize all our spiritual practice into one “heart practice” that embodies everything. What he said to Ani Rilu sums up the third line in the verse by Padmasambhava, which tells us, at the moment of death, to: “Enter, undistracted, into clear awareness of the teaching.”
For someone who has gained recognition of the nature of mind and stabilized it in his or her practice, this means to rest in the state of Rigpa. If you do not have that stability, remember, in your innermost heart, the essence of your master’s teaching, especially the most essential instructions for the moment of death. Hold that in your mind and heart, and think of your master, and unite your mind as one with him or her as you die.
An image that is often given to characterize the bardo of dying is that of a beautiful actress sitting in front of her mirror. Her final performance is about to begin, and she is putting on her makeup and checking her appearance for the last time before going out on stage. In just the same way, at the moment of death the master reintroduces us to the essential truth of the teachings—in the mirror of the nature of mind—and points us directly to the heart of our practice. If our master is not present, spiritual friends who have a good karmic connection with us should be there to help remind us.
It is said that the best time for this introduction is after the outer breathing has ceased and before the end of the “inner respiration,” though it is safest to begin during the dissolution process, before the senses have completely failed. If you will not have the opportunity to see your master just before your death, you will need to receive and acquaint yourself with these instructions well beforehand.
If the master is present at the deathbed, what he or she does then in our tradition follows this sequence. The master first declares words like: “O son/daughter of an enlightened family, listen without distraction . . .” and then leads us through the stages of the dissolution process, one by one. Then he or she will essentialize the heart of the introduction powerfully and explicitly, in a few pungent words, so that it creates a strong impression on our mind, and ask us to rest in the nature of mind. In case this is beyond our capacity, the master will remind us of the phowa practice, if we are familiar with it; if not, he or she will effect the phowa practice for us. Then, as a further precaution, the master might also explain the nature of the experiences of the bardos after death, and how they are all, without exception, the projections of our own mind, and inspire us with the confidence to recognize this at every moment. “O son or daughter, whatever you see, however terrifying it is, recognize it as your own projection; recognize it as the luminosity, the natural radiance of your mind.”3 Finally the master will instruct us to remember the pure realms of the buddhas, to generate devotion, and to pray to be reborn there. The master will repeat the words of the introduction three times and, remaining in the state of Rigpa, direct his or her blessing toward the dying disciple.
There are three essential practices for dying:
Supreme practitioners of Dzogchen, as I have said, have completely realized the nature of mind during their lifetime. So when they die, they need only to continue to rest and abide in that state of Rigpa, as they make the transition through death. They have no need to transfer their consciousness into any buddha or enlightened realm, for they have already made real the wisdom mind of the buddhas within themselves. Death, for them, is the moment of ultimate liberation—the crowning moment of their realization, and the consummation of their practice. The Tibetan Book of the Dead has only these few words to remind such a practitioner: “O Sir! Now the Ground Luminosity is dawning. Recognize it, and rest in the practice.”
Those who have completely accomplished the practice of Dzogchen are said to die “like a new-born child,” free of all care and concern about death. They do not need to concern themselves with when or where they will die, nor do they have any need of teachings, instructions, or reminders.
“Medium practitioners of the best capacity” die “like beggars in the street.” No one notices them and nothing disturbs them. Because of the stability of their practice, they are absolutely unaffected by the environment around them. They could die with the same ease in a busy hospital, or at home in the middle of a nagging and squabbling family.
I shall never forget an old yogin I knew in Tibet. He used to be like a Pied Piper, and all the children would follow him around. Everywhere he went, he would chant and sing, drawing the whole community around him, and he would tell them all to practice and to say “OM MANI PADME HUM,” the mantra of the Buddha of Compassion.4 He had a big prayer wheel; and whenever anyone gave him something, he would sew it onto his clothes, so that he ended up looking like a prayer wheel himself as he turned about. Also, I remember, he had a dog who followed him everywhere. He treated the dog like a human being, ate the same food as the dog from the same bowl, slept next to him, looked on him as his best friend, and regularly even talked to him.
Not many people took him seriously, and some called him a “crazy yogin,” but many Lamas spoke highly of him and said we should not look down on him. My grandfather and my family would always treat him with respect, and would invite him into the shrine room and offer him tea and bread. In Tibet it was the custom never to visit someone’s home empty-handed, and one day, in the middle of drinking his tea, he stopped: “Oh! I’m sorry, I almost forgot . . . this is my gift for you!” He picked up the very bread and white scarf my grandfather had just offered him, and gave them back to him as if they were a present.
Often he used to sleep outside in the open air. One day, in the precincts of the Dzogchen monastery, he passed away: with his dog by his side, right in the middle of the street, and in a pile of garbage. No one expected what happened next, but it was witnessed by many people. All around his body appeared a dazzling sphere of rainbow-colored light.
It is said that “medium practitioners of middling capacity die like wild animals or lions, on snow mountains, in mountain caves and empty valleys.” They can take care of themselves completely and prefer to go to deserted places and die quietly, without being disturbed or fussed over by friends and relatives.
Accomplished practitioners such as these are reminded by the master of the practices they would employ as they approach death. Here are two examples from the tradition of Dzogchen. In the first, practitioners are advised to lie down in the “sleeping lion position.” Then they are told to focus their awareness in their eyes, and fix their gaze in the sky in front of them. Simply leaving their mind unaltered, they rest in that state, allowing their Rigpa to mix with the primordial space of truth. As the Ground Luminosity of death arises, they flow into it quite naturally and attain enlightenment.
But this is only possible for a person who has already stabilized his or her realization of the nature of mind through the practice. For those who have not reached this level of perfection, and need a more formal method to focus on, there is another practice: To visualize their consciousness as a white syllable “A,” and eject it through the central channel and out through the crown of their heads into the buddha realm. This is a practice of phowa, the transference of consciousness, and it is the method my master helped Lama Tseten do when he died.
People who successfully accomplish either of these two practices will still go through the physical processes of dying, it is said, but they will not go through the subsequent bardo states.
Now that the bardo of dying dawns upon me,
I will abandon all grasping, yearning, and attachment,
Enter undistracted into clear awareness of the teaching,
And eject my consciousness into the space of unborn Rigpa;
As I leave this compound body of flesh and blood
I will know it to be a transitory illusion.
“Ejecting the consciousness into the space of unborn Rigpa” refers to the transference of consciousness, the phowa practice, which is the most commonly used practice for dying, and the special instruction associated with the bardo of dying. Phowa is a practice of yoga and meditation that has been used for centuries to help the dying and to prepare for death. The principle is that at the moment of death, the practitioner ejects his or her consciousness and merges it with the wisdom mind of the Buddha, in what Padmasambhava calls “the space of unborn Rigpa.” This practice can be carried out by the individual, or effected by a qualified master or good practitioner on the individual’s behalf.
There are many categories of phowa corresponding to the capacities, experience, and training of different individuals. But the phowa practice most commonly used is known as the “phowa of three recognitions”: recognition of our central channel5 as the path; recognition of our consciousness as the traveler; and recognition of the environment of a buddha realm as the destination.
Ordinary Tibetan people with responsibilities of work and family are not able to devote all their lives to study and practice, yet they have tremendous faith and trust in the teachings. When their children grow up and they approach the end of their lives—what in the West would be called “retirement”—Tibetans often go on pilgrimage or meet masters and concentrate on spiritual practice; frequently they will undertake a training in phowa to prepare for death. Phowa is often referred to in the teachings as a method of attaining enlightenment without a lifelong experience of meditation practice.
In the phowa practice, the central presence invoked is that of the Buddha Amitabha, the Buddha of Limitless Light. Amitabha enjoys widespread popularity among ordinary people in China and Japan, as well as in Tibet and the Himalayas. He is the primordial Buddha of the Lotus or Padma family, which is the buddha family to which human beings belong; he represents our pure nature and symbolizes the transmutation of desire, the predominant emotion of the human realm. More intrinsically, Amitabha is the limitless, luminous nature of our mind. At death the true nature of mind will manifest at the moment of the dawning of the Ground Luminosity, yet not all of us may have the familiarity with it to recognize it. How skillful and compassionate the buddhas are to have handed down to us a method for invoking the very embodiment of the luminosity, in the radiant presence of Amitabha!
It would be inappropriate here to explain the details of the traditional phowa practice, which must, always and in all circumstances, be carried out under the guidance of a qualified master. Never try to do this practice on your own without the proper guidance.
At death, the teachings explain, our consciousness, which is mounted on a “wind” and so needs an aperture through which to leave the body, can leave it through any one of nine openings. The route it takes determines exactly which realm of existence we are to be reborn in. When it leaves through the opening at the fontanel, at the crown of the head, we are reborn, it is said, in a pure land, where we can gradually proceed toward enlightenment.6
This practice, I must stress again, can only be carried out under the supervision of a qualified master, who has the blessing to give the proper transmission. It does not require extensive intellectual knowledge or depth of realization to accomplish the phowa successfully, only devotion, compassion, one-pointed visualization, and a deep feeling of the presence of the Buddha Amitabha. The student receives the instructions and then practices them until the signs of accomplishment appear. These include an itching at the top of the head, headaches, the emergence of a clear fluid, a swelling or a softness around the area of the fontanel, or even the opening of a small hole there, into which traditionally the tip of a stalk of grass is inserted as a test or measure of how successful the practice has been.
Recently a group of elderly Tibetan laypeople settled in Switzerland trained under a well-known phowa master. Their children, who had been brought up in Switzerland, were skeptical about the effectiveness of this practice. But they were astounded at how their parents had been transformed and actually showed some of the signs of accomplishment mentioned above after a ten-day phowa retreat.
Research into the psychophysiological effects of phowa has been carried out by the Japanese scientist Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama. Precise physiological changes in the nervous, metabolic, and acupuncture meridian systems were detected to take place during phowa practice.7 One of Dr. Motoyama’s findings was that the patterns of the flow of energy through the meridians of the body of the phowa master he was studying were very similar to those measured in psychics with strong ESP abilities. He also found, from EEG (electroencephalograph) measurements, that brain waves during the phowa practice were quite different from those found in yogins practicing other kinds of meditation. They showed that phowa involves the stimulation of a certain part of the brain, the hypothalamus, as well as the stopping of ordinary conscious mental activity, in order to allow a deep state of meditation to be experienced.
Sometimes it is the case that through the blessing of the phowa, ordinary people will have strong visionary experiences. Their glimpses of the peace and light of the Buddha realm, and their visions of Amitabha, are reminiscent of certain aspects of the near-death experience. And, as in the near-death experience, success in the phowa practice also brings confidence and fearlessness in facing the moment of death.
The essential phowa practice I have explained in the previous chapter is as much a healing practice for the living as a practice for the moment of death, and can be done at any time without danger. However, the timing of the traditional phowa practice is of paramount importance. For example, it is said that if one were actually to transfer one’s consciousness successfully before the moment of natural death, it would be equivalent to suicide. The point when the phowa is done is when the outer respiration has ceased, and the inner breathing still continues; but perhaps it is safest to begin the phowa practice during the dissolution process (described in the next chapter), and to repeat the practice several times.
So when a master who has perfected the traditional phowa performs it for a dying person, visualizing the consciousness of the person and ejecting it out through the fontanel, it is essential that the timing is right and it is not done too early. An advanced practitioner, however, with knowledge of the process of death, can check details such as the channels, the movement of the winds, and the heat of the body to see when the moment for phowa has come. If a master is requested to do the transference for someone who is dying, he or she should be contacted as soon as possible, because even from a distance phowa can still be effected.
A number of obstacles to a successful phowa can present themselves. As any unwholesome frame of mind, or even the smallest longing for any possession, will be a hindrance when the time of death arrives, you should try not to be dominated by even the slightest negative thought or hankering. In Tibet they used to believe that phowa would be very difficult to accomplish if there were any materials made of animal skins or furs in the same room as the dying person. Finally, as smoking—or any kind of drug—has the effect of blocking the central channel, it will render the phowa more difficult.
“Even a great sinner,” it is said, can be liberated at the moment of death if a realized and powerful master transfers the person’s consciousness into a buddha realm. And even if the dying person lacks merit and practice, and the master is not completely successful in effecting the phowa, the master can still affect the dying person’s future, and this practice can help him or her take rebirth in a higher realm. For a successful phowa, however, the conditions do have to be perfect. Phowa can help a person with strong negative karma, but only if that person has a close and pure connection with the master who performs it, if he or she has faith in the teachings, and if he or she has truly asked, from the heart, for purification.
In an ideal setting in Tibet, members of the family would normally invite many Lamas to come and do the phowa again and again, until the signs of accomplishment appeared. They might do it for hours on end, hundreds of times, or even the whole day long. Some dying persons would take only one or two sessions of phowa to manifest a sign, whereas for others not even a whole day was enough. This, it goes without saying, depends very much on the karma of the person dying.
In Tibet there were practitioners who, even though they were not renowned for their practice, had special power to effect the phowa, and the signs would readily appear. There are various signs in the dying person of a successful phowa carried out by a practitioner. Sometimes a bunch of hair falls out near the fontanel, or a warmth or vapor is felt or seen to rise from the crown of the head. In some exceptional cases, the masters or practitioners have been so powerful that when they uttered the syllable that effects the transference, everyone in the room would faint, or a piece of bone would fly off the dead person’s skull as the consciousness was propelled out with immense force.8
In all religious traditions it is held that to die in a state of prayer is enormously powerful. So what I hope you can do, as you die, is to invoke wholeheartedly all the buddhas and your master. Pray that, through regretting all your negative actions in this and other lives, they may be purified, and that you may die consciously and at peace, gain a good rebirth, and ultimately achieve liberation.
Make a one-pointed and concentrated wish that you will be reborn either in a pure realm or as a human being, but in order to protect, nurture, and help others. To die with such love and such tender compassion in your heart until your last breath is said in the Tibetan tradition to be another form of phowa, and it will ensure that you will at least attain another precious human body.
To create the most positive possible imprint on the mindstream before death is essential. The most effective practice of all to achieve this is a simple practice of Guru Yoga, where the dying person merges his or her mind with the wisdom mind of the master, or Buddha, or any enlightened being. Even if you cannot visualize your master at this moment, try at least to remember him, think of him in your heart, and die in a state of devotion. When your consciousness awakens again after death, this imprint of the master’s presence will awaken with you, and you will be liberated. If you die remembering the master, then the possibilities of his or her grace are limitless: even the display of sound, light, and color in the bardo of dharmata may arise as the master’s blessing and the radiance of his or her wisdom nature.
If the master is present at the deathbed, he or she will ensure that the mindstream of the dying person is imprinted with his or her presence. The master may, to retrieve the dying person from other distractions, make some striking and significant remark. He or she might say in a loud voice: “Remember me!” The master will draw the dying person’s attention in whatever way is necessary, and create an indelible impression that will return as a memory of the master in the bardo state. When one well-known teacher’s mother was dying and slipping into a coma, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was present at her bedside and did something very unusual. He slapped her on the leg. If she did not forget Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche as she entered into death, she would have been blessed indeed.
In our tradition ordinary practitioners will also pray to whichever buddha they feel devotion for, and with whom they feel a karmic connection. If it is Padmasambhava, they will pray to be born in his glorious pure realm, the Palace of Lotus Light on the Copper-Colored Mountain; and if it is Amitabha they love and revere, they will pray to be reborn in his “Blissful” heaven, the marvelous Pure Land of Dewachen.9
How then do we most sensitively help ordinary spiritual practitioners who are dying? All of us will need the love and care that comes with emotional and practical support, but for spiritual practitioners the atmosphere, intensity, and dimension of spiritual help take on a special meaning. It would be ideal, and a great blessing, if their master were with them; but if this is not possible, their spiritual friends can be of enormous help in reminding the dying of the essence of the teachings and the practice that has been closest to their heart during life. For a practitioner who is dying, spiritual inspiration, and the atmosphere of trust and faith and devotion that will naturally arise from it, are essential. The loving and unflagging presence of the master or spiritual friends, the encouragement of the teachings, and the strength of their own practice, all combine together to create and sustain this inspiration, as precious in the last weeks and days almost as breath itself.
A beloved student of mine was dying of cancer, and asked me how best she should practice as she came nearer to death, particularly when she no longer had the strength to concentrate on any formal practice.
“Remember just how very fortunate you have been,” I told her, “to have met so many masters, received so many teachings, and had the time and possibility to practice. I promise you, the benefit of all that will never leave you: The good karma you have created by it will stay with you and help you. Even to hear the teaching once, or meet a master like Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and have a strong connection with him as you did, is liberating in itself. Never forget that, and never forget also how many people there are in your position who did not have that marvelous opportunity.
“If the time comes when you cannot practice actively any more, the only really important thing for you to do is to relax, as deeply as possible, in the confidence of the View, and rest in the nature of mind. It does not matter whether your body or your brain are still functioning: the nature of your mind is always there, sky-like, radiant, blissful, limitless and unchanging . . . Know that beyond all doubt, and let that knowledge give you the strength to say with carefree abandon to all your pain, however great it is: ‘Go away now, and leave me alone!’ If there is anything that irritates you or makes you feel uncomfortable in any way, don’t waste your time trying to change it; keep returning to the View.
“Trust in the nature of your mind, trust it deeply, and relax completely. There is nothing new you need to learn or acquire or understand; just allow what you have already been given to blossom in you and open at greater and greater depths.
“Rely on whatever for you is the most inspiring of all the practices. And if it is difficult for you to visualize or follow a formal kind of practice, remember what Dudjom Rinpoche always used to say: that to feel the presence is more important than getting the details of the visualization clear. Now is the time to feel, as intensely as you can, to feel with your whole being the presence of your masters, of Padmasambhava, of the buddhas. Whatever may be happening to your body, remember that your heart is never sick or crippled.
“You have loved Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Feel his presence, and really ask him for help and purification. Put yourself entirely in his hands: heart and mind, body and soul. The simplicity of total trust is one of the most powerful forces in the world.
“Did I ever tell you that beautiful story about Ben of Kongpo? He was a very simple man, with immense faith, who came from Kongpo, a province in southeastern Tibet. He had heard a lot about the Jowo Rinpoche, the ‘Precious Lord,’ a beautiful statue of Buddha as a prince at the age of twelve that is kept in the central cathedral in Lhasa. It is said to have been made while the Buddha was alive, and is the most holy statue in the whole of Tibet. Ben could not make out whether it was a buddha or a human being, and he was determined to go and visit the Jowo Rinpoche to see what all the talk was about. So he put on his boots and walked, week after week, to get to Lhasa in central Tibet.
“He was hungry when he arrived, and when he entered the cathedral, he saw the great statue of Buddha, and in front of it a row of butter-lamps and special cakes made as offerings to the shrine. He assumed at once that these cakes were what the Jowo Rinpoche ate: ‘The cakes,’ he said to himself, ‘must be for dipping into the butter in the lamps, and the lamps must be kept alight to stop the butter from going hard. I’d better do what Jowo Rinpoche does.’ So he dipped one in the butter and ate it, looking up at the statue, which seemed to be smiling down benignly just at him.
“’What a nice Lama you are,’ he said. ‘The dogs come in and steal the food people offer you, and all you do is smile. The wind blows out the lamps, and still you keep on smiling . . . Anyway, I am going to walk all around the temple in prayer, to show my respect. Would you mind looking after my boots till I get back?’ Taking off his dirty old boots, he placed them on the altar in front of the statue, and left.
“While Ben was walking around the huge temple, the caretaker returned and saw to his horror that someone had been eating the offerings and had left a filthy pair of boots on the altar. He was outraged, and furiously seized the boots to throw them outside, when a voice came from the statue, saying: ‘Stop! Put those boots back. I’m watching them for Ben of Kongpo.’
“Soon Ben came back to collect his boots, and gazed up at the face of the statue, still calmly smiling at him. ‘You really are what I’d call a good Lama. Why don’t you come down to our place next year? I will roast a pig and brew some beer . . .’ The Jowo Rinpoche spoke for a second time, and promised he would visit Ben.
“Ben went home to Kongpo, told his wife everything that had happened, and instructed her to keep an eye open for the Jowo Rinpoche, because he didn’t know exactly when he was coming. The year went by, and one day his wife came rushing back to the house to tell him she had seen something glowing like the sun, under the surface of the river. Ben told her to put the water on for tea, and raced down to the river. He saw the Jowo Rinpoche glittering in the water, and immediately thought he must have fallen in and was drowning. He leapt into the water, took hold of him, and carried him out.
“As they went back to Ben’s house, chatting all the way, they came to a huge rock face. The Jowo Rinpoche said: ‘Well, actually I’m afraid I cannot come into the house,’ and with that he dissolved into the rock. To this day there are two famous places of pilgrimage in Kongpo: one is the Rock Jowo, the rock face where a form of Buddha can be seen, and the other is the River Jowo, where the shape of Buddha can be seen in the river. People say that the blessing and the healing powers of these places are identical to the Jowo Rinpoche in Lhasa. And it was all because of Ben’s immense faith and simple trust.
“I want you to have the same kind of pure trust as Ben. Let your heart fill with devotion for Padmasambhava and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and simply feel you are in his presence, that the whole space around you is him. Then invoke him and go over in your mind every moment you spent with him. Merge your mind with his and say, from the depths of your heart, in your own words, ‘You see how helpless I am, how I can no longer practice intensively. Now I must rely totally on you. I trust you completely. Take care of me. Make me one with you.’ Do the Guru Yoga practice, imagining with special intensity the rays of light streaming out from your master and purifying you, burning away all your impurities, your illness too, and healing you; your body melting into light; and merging your mind, in the end, with his wisdom mind, in complete confidence.
“When you practice, don’t worry if you feel it is not flowing easily; simply trust and feel it in your heart. Everything now depends on inspiration, because only that will relax your anxiety and dissolve your nervousness. So keep a wonderful photograph of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, or Padmasambhava, in front of you. Focus on it gently at the beginning of your practice, and then just relax into its radiance. Imagine it was sunny outside, and that you could take off all your clothes and bask in the warmth: slip out of all your inhibitions and relax in the glow of the blessing, when you really feel it. And deeply, deeply let go of everything.
“Don’t worry about anything. Even if you find your attention wandering, there is no particular ‘thing’ you have to hold onto. Just let go, and drift in the awareness of the blessing. Don’t let small, niggling questions distract you, like ‘Is this Rigpa? Is it not?’ Just let yourself be more and more natural. Remember, your Rigpa is always there, always in the nature of your mind. Remember Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s words: ‘If your mind is unaltered, you are in the state of Rigpa.’ So as you have received the teachings, you received the introduction to the nature of mind, just relax in the Rigpa, without doubting.
“You are lucky enough to have some good spiritual friends near you now. Encourage them to create an environment of practice around you, and to go on practicing around you up until and after your death. Get them to read you a poem you love, or a guidance from your master, or an inspiring teaching. Ask them to play you a tape of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, a chant of the practice, or an exalting piece of music. What I pray is that your every waking moment should mingle with the blessing of the practice, in an atmosphere alive and luminous with inspiration.
“As the music or the tape of the teaching goes on playing, drift off to sleep in it, wake up in it, doze in it, eat in it . . . Let the atmosphere of practice totally pervade this last part of your life, just as my aunt Ani Rilu did. Do nothing but practice, so that it even continues in your dreams. And just as she did, let the practice be the last and strongest memory and influence on your mind, replacing in your mindstream a lifetime’s ordinary habits.
“And as you feel yourself nearing the end, think only of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, with every breath and heartbeat. Whatever thought you die with, remember, is the one that will return most potently when you reawaken in the bardos after death.”
Now that the bardo of dying dawns upon me,
I will abandon all grasping, yearning, and attachment,
Enter undistracted into clear awareness of the teaching,
And eject my consciousness into the space of unborn Rigpa;
As I leave this compound body of flesh and blood
I will know it to be a transitory illusion.
At present, our body is undoubtedly the center of our whole universe. We associate it, without thinking, with our self and our ego, and this thoughtless and false association continually reinforces our illusion of their inseparable, concrete existence. Because our body seems so convincingly to exist, our “I” seems to exist and “you” seem to exist, and the entire illusory, dualistic world we never stop projecting around us looks ultimately solid and real. When we die this whole compound construction falls dramatically to pieces.
What happens, to put it extremely simply, is that consciousness, at its subtlest level, continues without the body and goes through the series of states called “bardos.” The teachings tell us that it is precisely because we no longer have a body in the bardos that there is no ultimate reason to fear any experience, however terrifying, that may happen to us after death. How can any harm, after all, ever come to a “nobody”? The problem, however, is that in the bardos, most people go on grasping at a false sense of self, with its ghostly grasping at physical solidity; and this continuation of that illusion, which has been at the root of all suffering in life, exposes them in death to more suffering, especially in the “bardo of becoming.”
What is essential, you can see, is to realize now, in life, when we still have a body, that its apparent, so convincing solidity is a mere illusion. The most powerful way to realize this is to learn how, after meditation, to “become a child of illusion”: to refrain from solidifying, as we are always tempted to do, the perceptions of ourselves and our world; and to go on, like the “child of illusion,” seeing directly, as we do in meditation, that all phenomena are illusory and dream like. The deepening perception of the body’s illusory nature is one of the most profound and inspiring realizations we can have to help us to let go.
Inspired by and armed with this knowledge, when we are faced at death with the fact that our body is an illusion, we will be able to recognize its illusory nature without fear, to calmly free ourselves from all attachment to it, and to leave it behind willingly, even gratefully and joyfully, knowing it now for what it is. In fact, you could say, we will be able, really and completely, to die when we die, and so achieve ultimate freedom.
Think, then, of the moment of death as a strange border zone of the mind, a no-man’s land in which on the one hand, if we do not understand the illusory nature of our body, we might suffer vast emotional trauma as we lose it; and on the other hand, we are presented with the possibility of limitless freedom, a freedom that springs precisely from the absence of that very same body.
When we are at last freed from the body that has defined and dominated our understanding of ourselves for so long, the karmic vision of one life is completely exhausted, but any karma that might be created in the future has not yet begun to crystallize. So what happens in death is that there is a “gap” or space that is fertile with vast possibility; it is a moment of tremendous, pregnant power where the only thing that matters, or could matter, is how exactly our mind is. Stripped of a physical body, mind stands naked, revealed startlingly for what it has always been: the architect of our reality.
So if, at the moment of death, we have already a stable realization of the nature of mind, in one instant we can purify all our karma. And if we continue that stable recognition, we will actually be able to end our karma altogether, by entering the expanse of the primordial purity of the nature of mind, and attaining liberation. Padmasambhava explained this:
Why is it, you might wonder, that during the bardo state you can find stability by merely recognizing the nature of mind for a single instant? The answer is this: at present our mind is encased in a net, the net of the “wind of karma.” And the “wind of karma” is encased itself in a net, the net of our physical body. The result is that we have no independence or freedom.
But as soon as our body has separated into mind and matter, in the gap before it has been encased once again in the net of a future body, the mind,10 along with its magical display, has no concrete, material support. For as long as it lacks such a material basis, we are independent—and we can recognize.
This power to attain stability by just recognizing the nature of mind is like a torch which in one instant can clear away the darkness of eons. So if we can recognize the nature of mind in the bardo in the same way as we can now when it is introduced by the master, there is not the slightest doubt that we will attain enlightenment. This is why, from this very moment on, we must become familiar with the nature of mind through practice.11