(upbeat music) - This podcast is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and happy listening. - Okay, so I drew the short straw. (laughing) Actually, I'm beginning to think maybe they're all short straws on this retreat. And I was just thinking how, I don't know about in other people's groups, but in our group, it's been quite, you know, the thing about reflecting on the precious human life has been quite difficult and quite challenging. And then in our team meeting, yesterday when we were talking about this, we were sort of saying, "Oh God, you know, "that was supposed to be the year." (laughing) That was supposed to be the easy bit. That was supposed to be like the uplifting bit at the beginning. So yeah, so maybe it's all, maybe it's all quite challenging in different ways. But what I'm going to talk about is death and impermanence. Many things threaten life, which is even more ephemeral than a bubble of water full of air. How amazing is the opportunity to exhale after inhaling and to awake from sleep? So this is in the gardener. And I really like that, particularly that last line. How amazing is the opportunity to exhale after inhaling and to awake from sleep? And how much we take over granted that with each breath, there'll be another breath. And each time we get to sleep, we'll wake up again. So because I've been thinking about this talk, and Ahmadine has been talking about the sort of precious human life, reflections on the precious human life. I think for me, I've just seen how closely they're connected and how much they go very much hand in hand. They only sort of make sense together in a way. That's what I've been thinking. And I was thinking that in a way, it's like we only really, well, I think this is my experience. We only really experience life as being precious when we have a sense of it being quite fragile, quite sort of frail. And by having that sense of it being quite fragile, we sort of realize the preciousness of it. So they're very much go-hand in hand. And in a way, I suppose what we're trying to do is have like a heightened sense of both of those things, so the kind of fragility of life and the preciousness of life, as opposed to having that kind of dull sense of both of those things. So sometimes we can kind of have that, I know for me that dull sense is like, well, life's not so great anyway. And so what if I die? So what if I die? There's this kind of dull, a dull sense of both. And what we're looking for is like a heightened sense of both. So I'm gonna talk about, I'm gonna talk about these reflections in this context. There's sort of a reflection on death in the context of these mind-turning reflections that I've realized is quite a particular reflection on death. It's not just a general kind of musing on death. It's thinking about death in a certain way for certain reasons. So I'm going to talk a bit about that kind of reflection on death. And then I'm also going to talk a bit about my own experience since my dad died. So my dad died at Christmas this year, very unexpectedly. So I've just thought quite a lot about death for the last nine months. So I'm going to bring in just some of those things that I've been thinking about. But first of all, I'm going to talk a bit about due drops. I'm gonna talk a little bit about a kind of image of impermanence from the zen tradition and from zen poetry. So I'll start with a little poem. The lecturers can cut like blades sometimes. While the due drop world is the due drop world, but yet, but yet. So the lecturers can cut like blades sometimes. While the due drop world is the due drop world, but yet, but yet. And this is a poem by somebody called Issa who lived in the 18th century, Japanese poet. And he had just had this really difficult life where his mum died when he was very young and then he had a stepmother who sort of made his life hell. So he left home as soon as he could. And eventually he married when he was about 50 and he had four children and they all died in infancy. And then his wife died in childbirth. And then his house burnt down. And then eventually he married. He remarried when he was quite old and he finally had a daughter who lived. But she wasn't born till after his death. So he died when he was 65. So there's a little kind of life story of Issa. And if you read his poems, he just writes the most beautiful, simple, sad poetry. And he has this quality of empathy. So he often writes about things like flies. You know, you're right about a fly. With this huge amount of kind of empathy that he's really like put himself in the position, you know, in the fly's shoes. So to speak, they don't have shoes, do they? It's just these beautiful sort of simple poetry filled with empathy. This world of due is nothing but a world of due. And yet, and yet. So I'll just come back to that in a minute, this world of due. I was also reading a book about Dogen's poetry. And he's the same in that he uses this image of due and due drops. And he lived in the 13th century and is on our refugee tree, one of the teachers on our refugee tree. His mother and father both died when he was very young. And he had quite a strong, I suppose, insight, really, as a very young boy into the whole of life and very fragile, this kind of loss and grief. And he decided to become a monk when he was about 14. And he writes, "Due drops on a blade of grass, "having so little time before the sun rises, "let not the autumn wind blow so quickly on the field." So if you read this Zen poetry, Japanese poetry, and if you read about it, you realise there's all these kind of themes which are quite definite, they mean definite things, and they're reoccurring. So like, one is the seasons. You always get the seasons, poetry about the seasons, and each season is a symbol for something else. And it's interesting because we're in the season of death, of a death and impermanence being autumn. And also, apparently, in this poetry, Jew, whenever Jew appears as an image, it also means autumn, interestingly. So it's like this kind of fleetingness, it's like a sort of something disappearing in the Jew. So you have this image of Jew being an image of impermanence, really, an image of sort of transience of things. And there's a little saying or something that goes which will last longer, the master or his dwelling. And it's said to be like asking, which will last longer, the Jew on the morning glory, or the morning glory itself. And we've got this Chris has planted this morning glory. So I keep thinking about it because these flowers come out, and they don't last a day, do they? They last about half a day. So in a way, when we ask a question, which lasts longer the Jew or the morning glory? It's like, well, maybe the Jew will fade before the flower does, or maybe the flower will fade before the Jew does, but either way, by evening time, they'll both be gone. It's that sort of image. And then you also have another image to do with Jew, which is Jew frost. So I've just come across this idea of Jew frost. And if you go very early in the morning, on a morning, I don't know what weather conditions cause this, but sometimes there's just lots of Jew, isn't there? It's very kind of wet, so you get those kind of misty mornings. And if you go up by the reservoir, where there's, I mean, I particularly notice it here, but by the reservoir, there's these fences or these kind of, yeah, kind of like open sort of fence. And it's full of cobwebs, you know, which are presumably there, well, they're obviously there, all the time, but you don't normally see them. But because they're covered in Jew, in this Jew frost, I suppose it's the same as a sort of frost, you can see all these kind of forms out in nature that you don't normally see. So again, this Jew frost is used as a sort of symbol of things being insubstantial. So it's as if we need to reflect that we are, as insubstantial as that kind of Jew frost, those kind of forms made of Jew, made of nothing, you know, that will fade as the sun comes out. And then the image of Jew drops. So in this poetry, when he talks about the Jew drop world, well, the image of Jew drops is an image for tears. So it brings in the kind of whole emotional, the emotions that go with these reflections on impermanence and insubstantiality that that kind of reflection has got a certain kind of flavour. And the flavour is sadness. And so these, these Jew drops, they represent tears. So it's a kind of sort of painfulness. And I think, you know, it's quite interesting because it's the three lacheners. So Jew is impermanence. The Jew frost is insubstantiality. And the Jew drops is sort of painfulness. Yeah, suffering, sadness. (silence) So then you also see in this kind of poetry, like if you're familiar with the poetry of Ryakin, is that there's quite a strong connection between sadness and awakening. So sadness is a definite kind of flavour to a lot of this poetry. And actually that feeling, that sad feeling is savvy. So those of you that know that I talk about wabi-sabi. The savvy part of wabi-sabi is that sort of sadness. And it's not an unpleasant, it's not at all unpleasant. It's just, yeah, it's just a kind of sadness at the kind of fleetingness of life. But there's a connection between that and insight. So in terms of Zen poetry, there's quite a strong connection between that feeling of sadness and insight. So I was struck by Dom within a talking about this thing, Keith Diamond, whoever he is, saying this thing about nothing beats real experience. So it's all very well to reflect on things or even to sit in bed, read in this lovely sad Zen poetry. But it's quite different to actually experiencing death or loss and sadness that comes with that. And there's quite a strong connection, I think, between real experience and reflection, because what we reflect on affects then how we experience the world. And how we experience the world will be sort of reflected in our reflecting. If you see what I mean, they feed into each other. So if it was the case that we were never to fade away, that we were never to die, things would lose their power to move us. So it is only that we're moved by the Jew or the morning glories because they fade away and because we two are gonna fade away, that's why we're moved by it. And because we reflect on those things, because we take those things in, we also have to take in more that we will fade away, that's what I mean. So they kind of, they feed into each other our reflections and our experience. And I was thinking that it's a bit like death seems to be the koan, in a sense, the kind of ultimate koan. And I think what particularly moves me about this isa poem about the, the latchness cut-like blade sometimes. So it's like the painfulness of existence. And yeah, he talks about it being this Jew drop world. So this world of Jew, this world of illusion, that is also very, really painful. Well, in a way for me, that's a koan. You know, how is it that this world is just an illusion? And yeah, it's so real in terms of the painfulness of it. And there's a little story which I've told a few times about Marpa, so Marpa, his son dies. And he's absolutely filled with grief at the loss of his son. And his disciples are quite shocked that he's grieving so much. And they say, you know, how come you're grieving so much? Because you've taught us that everything is an illusion. How come you're grieving so much at the death of your son? And he says, yes, everything is an illusion. And the most painful illusion of all is the death of one's child. So it's this kind of this koan that Sanxara, I suppose, is a painful illusion. And because it is a koan, it keeps us reflecting on it. It's very hard, if you have some experience of death, to not reflect on it, it's a really big, it provokes really big questions, doesn't it? It's the time when you ask yourself really big questions. And for that reason, it does sort of take us deeper, I think. And the Buddha says, of all footprints, those of the elephant are the broadest and deepest of all meditations that on impermanence is the strongest and most beneficial. Okay, so it's a little bit about the Judrop world. And so coming onto these mind-turning reflection on death and impermanence. So what I'm going to talk about is these three things, that death is certain, that the time of death is uncertain, and that at the time of death, only the Dharma is of benefit. So that's the kind of framework of this reflection. So first of all, death is certain. So I will die, and you will die. And everybody dies, even the Buddha died. So in a way, I kind of think this is quite hard to reflect on because, well, we just think, well, yeah, of course I know I'll die, end of reflection or something. So what does it really mean to kind of know that we'll die? And one of the things that I was thinking about is that I think that I will die, but I realize that I think that when I die, it won't be me that dies. It will be this old lady called Vajradashni, who I've somehow kind of distanced myself from. Do you see what I mean? So I think we do think we will die, but because that person that's going to die, we've kind of projected them a bit into the future, we kind of disassociate with that person that's going to die. It's not really us, it's like this old lady, Vajradashni. So that's one thing to just kind of think about, that when you die, it will be you. With all your, actually you, with your clothes and your things and your habits and so on. It won't be that different. However you are then, when you do die, it won't be that different from how you are now. So you can't really disassociate from it. So then I was doing this thing where I was just imagining taking myself out of my world. Well, imagine what if I did die. I was thinking about it on the street, actually. Okay, what if I did die? What if I do die before the end of this talk? What will, you know, what happened? And I was thinking, well, there would be a lot of grief. I fairly sure they'd be quite a lot of grief if I died. And when I die, if I died during this talk. And there would probably be quite a big funeral. And I think people would kind of do me proud in a certain way. And then everybody would start kind of sorting out my stuff and like somebody would have my computer. That was one of the first things I thought. And there'd be a few things in my room that people wanted to have. But most of it, nobody would want really because it would just be rubbish really. And they'd kind of clear off all my files and everything off the computer. That would all go. Somebody else would, there'd be an ad going to Shabbatr saying, you know, in the unfortunate event of Badrashi's death. We are now looking for somebody to replace that. And then people would start getting quite excited about this new person that's applied for my job, you know. And somebody would say, oh, maybe, you know, maybe you could be chairman at Badrashi's death. And so all my responsibilities would be taken over by somebody else. And for a while, people would be quite sad and they'd kind of sit around the table in the, you know, in the community and they'd say, oh, can you remember that? Surat pudding that Badrashi used to make, things like that might have a few tears, whatever. But then, you know, after quite a short amount of time, it would be like there would be hours go by where nobody had even thought about me here. And then there'd be like days go by, you know. And I might be mentioned like every now and again, you know, every week or two or something. But mostly people would just be carrying on with their lives. And it's quite a reflection really to think that we're not that significant, oh, it's quite hard to take that in. And it doesn't mean that we're not loved. It just means that even, even to the people that really love us, we're not that significant. We're not insignificant, but we're not that significant. We're not the centre of their world in the same way that we are the centre of our world, hard to believe. But also, it's quite a nice thought, in a way, because it's like you sort of realise that everything would go on without you. So there's a certain amount of freedom in there. There's a certain amount of, yeah, just knowing that, actually, you've got a choice what you do. You know, I've got a choice whether I'm here or not, because if I died, I would just be replaced. So it's not like T-Rant Lake would kind of, you know, shut down and things like that. So there's a kind of a sort of freedom in realising that we're not that significant. That life goes on without us. And then there's the whole area of how permanent and how substantial we kind of see things or experience things to be. And we know that everything is impermanent, but we think that some things are more permanent than others. And we think that we are quite high on the scale of permanence, and probably our families and close friends are high on the scale of permanence. And then other things, like the dew drops and so on, we perhaps know that they're impermanent. But a few days ago, I just got a pen out of my thing to write something, and I got this pen out, which is really horrible pen, I don't know why. But, and I just saw to myself, I think my dad gave me this pen. And I just have a memory of it being in the conservatory where my parents lived. And, I mean, he didn't give it to me. It's like a prison, we're in a gym, but he just sort of said, "I think I took it," or he said, "I'll take that pen," or whatever. And I was just like, that is absolutely mad. You know, that this like horrible disposable pen is still here. Do you see what I mean? My dad isn't, you know, and my dad seemed so much. I wouldn't have been able to, if you told me that at the time, it would be so hard to believe that my dad was less substantial in a way, or less permanent than this pen. And this pen is supposed to be disposable. Do you see what I mean? It's like, it's things like that that suddenly, you just think that's not right. You know, that's not right that that pen is still here. So it's just trying to kind of, we're so kind of geared to not take in our own impermanence, I suppose, our own fragility. And I was thinking that I was on this aeroplane once, and I don't know, I don't know if other people like this. I always think that I'm like dying when I go on an aeroplane. I'm not particularly scared of flying, but it's just that you're completely out of control, and you just think if something happened, you know, that would be it, sort of thing. So I'm always a bit like, I always like to sit next to somebody that I wouldn't mind dying sitting next to. I always have that kind of thought, you know, like, oh, no, I don't think I want to die, so it makes this person. (laughing) And anyway, I was on this aeroplane, and I just thought to myself, oh, God, you know, it's like, what would happen if suddenly we realized that we were going to die, sort of thing? And I just said this kind of image of, like, everybody would be running up and down the aisle, you know, hysterical, probably. Screaming, you know, we're all gonna die, we're all gonna die. And then I thought, oh, isn't it funny that we're not doing that already? (laughing) You know, isn't it funny that we're not running up and down the aisle of life, just shouting, oh, my God, we're all going to die? It's only a matter of a slightly different timescale, isn't it? You know, but we don't, sort of, realize, I think when we read these, we listen to the news and we hear about kind of these disasters, I mean, actually, we are in a disaster. You know, samsara is a disaster, and none of us are gonna get out of it, survive it, I mean, in that sense, within samsara. So, you know, not that I'm suggesting we all get a hysterical job. (sighing) So, I've got some little quotes here that I got from Domedina, so this is one of them. Longchen Rabjam, it says, "With your heart contemplate the certainty "that all your relations and all your wealth "will be as nothing like a deserted city. "Everything is impermanent, so be detached. "With your heart contemplate the inevitability of death. "When it comes your home and possessions, "your friends and famous colleagues "will not accompany you. "Realize absolute truth." So, the next of these reflections is that the time of death is uncertain. So, death is certain, but the time of death is uncertain. I was reading to poetry the other night, and I came across this poem which I'm not going to read, but the idea of the poem was that one of these days is the anniversary of our death already. So, it just made me think, "Oh, yeah, what day is the anniversary of my death?" Is it July 23rd, like there's a day, each year we go around the calendar and we go past the day, and that day is the anniversary of our deaths in time. And it's just things like that, I think, but help to make it feel a bit more real, but that's really going to happen. And another thing, these are just various kind of musings really, but another thing that I've been thinking about recently is near misses. And how difficult it is to really experience a near miss as a near miss, yeah? So, I spilt my coffee in my bed the other morning, and I have this little kind of shelf thing by my bed, and it's not really big enough for all things I tend to put on there anyway. You know, it's like first thing in the morning, you have a little bit of sleepy, and what I realise is that I've often nearly spilt my coffee. So, you know, you kind of put your coffee down and then it goes a bit like that and you just kind of catch it in time. And that's like a near miss. And then sometimes, very occasionally, you don't catch it in time, and it's all spilt in your bed, and then you've got to, like, a memoir coffee, you've got to make your day off, you've got to do all these things. And what I've thinking of is, in terms of the results of that, there's such a big difference between spilling your coffee and not spilling your coffee. You know, in terms of the consequences, there's such a big difference. And in terms of the action, there's such a tiny difference as to whether you catch that coffee or not, yeah? And I don't know why, but this just keeps, every time I have something of a near miss with something I just think, "Oh, it's really interesting," 'cause it's like, if it wasn't what we call a near miss, if it was a sort of miss, and that thing had happened, the consequences would then be completely different. A whole sort of chain of something would be set up. And I was thinking how our life is probably like that, that we probably have loads of near misses, but we don't experience them necessarily as near misses because we're still here, you know? Nothing's happened to us. Yeah, we haven't spilled the coffee in a sense. Yet there's perhaps just a very tiny thread in a sense that we're kind of, we've managed to hang on to our lives. So any moment could be our last moment, and all the plans that we make are provisional, are provisional plans. And I'm thinking about how my, my nanny, when she was still alive, I used to go and see, and she lived to be into her 80s, and she was used to say, you know, if I'd say or see you on Sunday or something, she'd say, "Yes, good willing," you know? And I noticed that this happened as she got older more, and we talk about my brother's wedding, and she'd say, "Well, if I'm here then," yeah? And yeah, I suppose it's quite a good thing to do. And another reading that I've got here, which I'll read, which is quite long, but it's very good. It's Patro Rinpoche, and it's about this as a practice in a sense, this, "Well, if I'm here then," yeah? Just reflecting that we might not be here, that anything we plan to do is provisional. So he says, "Meditate single-mindedly on death, "all the time in in every circumstance, "while standing up, sitting or lying down. "Tell yourself, "This is my last act in this world, "and meditate upon it with utter conviction. "On your way to wherever you might be going, "say to yourself, "Maybe I will die there. "There is no certainty I will ever come back. "Wherever you are, you should wonder "if this might be where you will die. "At night when you lie down, ask yourself "whether you might die in bed during the night, "or whether you can be sure "that you are going to get up in the morning. "When you rise, ask yourself "whether you might die sometime during the day, "and reflect that there is no certainty at all "that you will be going to bed in the evening. "Meditate only on death, earnestly and from the core "of your being. "Meditate like the Kadampa gheshes of old, "who are always thinking about death at every moment. "At night, they would turn their bowls upside down, "which is only done when a person died. "And thinking how the next day, there might be no need "to light a fire because they died, "they would never cover the embers for the night." So it's quite sort of an incident to live in a way that you don't keep your fire in overnight because you really think you might die in the night. And I was thinking about how much we, well, we do this kind of forward planning thing, don't we? So, I can tell you what I'm doing every day of 2006. (audience laughs) Very much. God willing, yeah, if I get to be there. But we don't know. We don't know that we're gonna be doing those things. It is all provisional. And we have this idea that there is going to be sometime later when we die, or there is going to be sometime later when our parents die, when other people die. But not yet. I remember this thing of not yet. So I think that's quite interesting as well because it's almost like, I think I have this quite strongly. It's almost like, I sort of try to be prepared for things that I know I have to face, if you know what I mean. But there is this like, but not yet. Yeah, I'm willing to go there. I'm willing to do whatever it is, but not yet. You know, that's sort of not yet. And I know when my dad died, I think the thing that I was most shocked by, and I just couldn't believe it, was that I was 38, I was 37. And I'd so thought somewhere, somewhere I'd kind of thought about my parents dying, I'd thought about what that might feel like, how I might handle it. But I just always thought that I would be in my 50s. I'd just somewhere, unconsciously, obviously, but somewhere I'd got it so strongly that when I was in my 50s, you know, and it was so sort of like, but I'm 37. This is not right, you know, this pen, you know, me only being 37. It's sort of like we're prepared for something, but I think we've got it, you know, we've got a certain idea of how that's gonna happen. We've got a certain idea of how and when that's gonna happen. And actually, we just don't know how and when that's gonna happen. Okay, so the third of the reflections is at the time of death, only the dharma is of benefit. All you take with you is the core of your being, so you take nothing with you. And I think, again, with my dad, I was just kind of shocked by that, really, that he took nothing with him. Not his watch, not his vest, he owes war vest, but he didn't take his vest, you know, he took nothing. It took nothing with him. You leave everything behind and you go completely alone. Nobody can go with you, you go completely alone. And you go, in a sense, mostly, I think we go completely unprepared. So it's not even like going on retreat or going on holiday, where, you know, you will perhaps kind of finish things off and do your washing up before you leave your house and do your laundry. And for most of us, properly, there won't be time to finish anything off. We'll just go mid-life, mm? When I was at, my parents had fun after my dad died, I was just really, you know, like, he's a gardener and there's the greenhouse. He's got his sweet peas ready to go in. He's got all these things that are half done. And that just seems so strange, you know, that he'd just kind of, yeah, just so unbelievable that you could just like be gone. And yet there's all these kind of unfinished things, there's all your things that you thought you were gonna carry on with, yeah, all your plans, I suppose. So we don't have that chance to finish anything off. And nothing, nothing will be of any use to us. Nobody will be of any use to us. All that will be of any use to us is how much of the Dharma we've integrated. And really integrated, I suppose, into the kind of core of our being. So how much love we have, how much fearlessness we have, how much insight we have, is all that will be of any use to us. It's very difficult to know, isn't that, how much of any of those things we do have, in a sense. And I know you often hear about people who have practiced the Dharma to varying extents. You hear about how they die and how they seem to die quite well, in a way. They seem to be able to die with quite a lot of fearlessness. You know, I don't know how I would be if I was kind of facing my own death at all. And I imagined that I would be really, really frightened. But another of the things that I've thought a lot about since my dad died was that I was with him when he died. And although I was really, really upset, I had no fear. And that was quite a shock to me because I would have thought I would have been really frightened. And I just had no fear at all. And that sort of changed my idea a bit about my own death. It's given me a bit more confidence, I suppose, in my own death, in a sense, that yeah, maybe I have developed some level of fearlessness. And maybe we all have it, whether we practice or not, maybe it's like there is a sort of level of fearlessness in the face of death. Maybe it's not as we would expect it to be. So in a way we can't kind of underestimate the effects of our practice and think, well, actually, you know, all those days when I didn't meditate and all that, and all my lack of meta and so on. It's like we can underestimate our practice, I think. And actually we might have a lot more as a sort of resource there when we actually really need it than we think we have. So Togmi Zangpo says, "We will be parted from close friends of close acquaintance. Our wealth and possessions obtained with great effort will be left behind. The guesthouse of our body must be left by its guest, the mind." Casting away thoughts concerned with this life only is a practice of the Bodhisattvas. So casting away thoughts concerned with this life only is a practice of Bodhisattvas. I'll come back a bit to that. So these reflections that death is certain, that the time of death is uncertain and at the time of death only the Dharma is of benefit. They lead to, well, kind of decisions I suppose. They galvanise us, so the idea is that they motivate us and they lead to certain qualities. So when we reflect that death is certain, that leads us to think, "I must practice," which is a kind of feeling of conviction. We have a strong sense of conviction. So when push comes to shove, we do really realise that we do believe in the Dharma. Often we're not put in that kind of position, are we? So it sort of makes you think how kind of doubt is a bit of a luxury, really, that we're often in a position where we can afford to doubt, in a sense, we can afford to, yeah, I don't know, whatever, yeah. But when push comes to shove, actually we realise the degree to which we do have conviction in the Dharma. And I think that knowing we will die, the more we can take this in, the more our faith will be strengthened, because in knowing that we will die, we therefore know that we need a refuge. And I think we don't always know that we need a refuge. When we have the need of a refuge, what happens is that there is a refuge there. We have an experience of the three refuges in some form or other, which would be different for each of us. But we have some strong experience of those refuges because we really experience ourselves as in need of a refuge. Whereas often I don't think we experience that strongly enough on our own need for a refuge. And I did feel, when my dad died, that I had been kind of practising for that moment in a funny sort of way, in a way that hadn't really, and hadn't quite put two and two together like that. But I had been kind of practising a bit for that moment. I had reflected on death. And it was quite interesting to think about what I had that other people didn't have because it wasn't very much. I didn't feel like I had very much that other people didn't have. So, like, say my brother, my mom, my sister-in-law, other people that were around. In a way, I didn't feel like I had more courage, more love. I didn't feel, you know, I felt like that was drawn out of all of us, in a sense. But I felt like what I did have was some kind of framework, whereby I could sort of make sense, I mean, not in a very sensible way, but I could make sense of what was happening. It's like I had some way of understanding what was happening with my dad dying, which in a way they didn't have. So that was quite interesting just to kind of notice what I had. It wasn't that much, but it was quite significant. It really was the difference, I think, in being able to take in his death. So, if we develop this kind of certainty that we are going to die, one of the things it does is it liberates us from unfocused practice. So it focuses the mind. When we're quite close to death, whether it's the prospect of our own death, or whether it's death, somebody else, I think what happens is it brings a certain clarity. Suddenly you are perfectly clear about what is but important and what isn't important, and you just want to do what is important. So it brings this kind of focus, this clarity. So then when we reflect that the time of death is uncertain, that leads us to think, I must practice now. So it gives us this sense of urgency. So I must practice and I must practice now. So there's not necessarily tomorrow. So we've done all this kind of forward planning, but we're not necessarily going to be here to kind of see out those plans. And it's worth thinking about, what does this mean in terms of being in the moment? I think it's something that we can kind of get the wrong end of the stick with this kind of being in the moment business. And think that being in the moment means that we don't make any plans for the future. Whereas it doesn't mean that, it just means that we know that all plans are provisional. Yeah? And we're in the moment with our forward planning, knowing that all that forward planning is provisional. Yet we still plan. So this sense of urgency is going to make us ask ourselves, how do we spend our time and how do we want to spend our time? So one of the things I've done recently is I've given up watching rubbish films. I've just certainly got this sense that life is too short to watch films that aren't really, really good. So I still watch quite a lot of films, but I only watch films that are really good. And I think that's quite interesting because I used to be a bit like, there was a sort of middle ground. I don't think I've ever watched awful films, but there was a kind of middle ground of these kind of films that would be quite kind of entertaining. Really, they would be a way to sort of kill an evening. So to speak, kill a couple of hours, veg out. So they were in the kind of middle ground. And sometimes I'd just quite fancy a movie like that actually. And I think recently I've just like, no, I only really want to watch good films. And it's this idea of like killing time, isn't it? You know, people talk about killing time. I mean, other people might not experience this with such the same amount of horror, but those word puzzles, you know those word puzzles that you do where you, not Sudoku, no, no, no, that's a different movie. Those word puzzles where you have to find the words and then you circle them. I have this sort of like, when I see somebody doing them, I just have this kind of like, it fills me with a sort of horror because it's like, they're not even challenging, are they? They're just, they're literally like how to lose half an hour sort of thing. So this idea of just kind of losing time like that. So what are we doing with our time? And there's this little poem that I love. It often comes into my mind and I can't think of who it's by actually, but it says, and the days are not long enough and the nights are not long enough and life slips by like a field mass, not even shaking the grass. So it's like, I love this image of life being this like field mass. You know how they kind of run through the grass and it's so fast and they don't even, the grass doesn't even move and that that's life is going that fast. So just to have this feeling that the days are not long enough and the nights are not long enough. Yet it also brings up the question, well, what does it mean to make the most of our lives? So life is certainly too short to waste it by being busy all the time. So making the most of our lives and the days not being long enough and the nights not being long enough, isn't it about how much we can kind of cram into our precious opportunity of life? So we develop this sense of urgency and it's a combination. This urgency, I think, is a combination of energy being freed up. So there's that sort of aspect to urgency but there's also a really sort of disciplined focus. We know what we want to do with our time even if we sometimes want to do nothing. We know that quite clearly that's what we want to do with our time. So then at the time of death, only the dharma is of benefit. So this leads us to, I must practice purely and I wasn't sure what this meant. I must practice purely. So I thought about it a bit and in a way, maybe what it means is I must practice with insight in mind. So I must practice with that big perspective, not just in order to be a bit happier, in order to cope a little bit better with samsara, in order to get on with people a bit better. And so what does it mean to practice purely? I think it probably means to practice with insight in mind. So to practice in a way that changes us fundamentally in our deepest self because that deeper self is all we've got at the point of death. So that needs to be changed. It's not that we're trying to fix samsara. So I think that's a really easy mistake to make is that going for refuge, Buddhism is about being better at life, being better at samsara. And it's not because samsara is samsara. And the only solution is to get out of it, to step outside of it, to see through it whatever image we like to use. And one of the things that we need to do is we need to rely on something other than the material plane. So again, this has been in my mind quite a lot with my dad's death, is how much I rely on the material plane. And I think this is a really hard one for me 'cause I am so, I'm quite outer. I don't have a very strong kind of inner life or, well, I think I do in a certain way, but I want to make things. I want things to be manifest, if you see what I mean. So like my practice, there has been to work. I like to make shrines. I like to make talks, it's like to kind of manifest something. And just this idea of actually relying on something that is non-material. So where we go in our meditation, where we sometimes go in our meditation, that there is a sort of, there's another kind of plane to existence, however we experience it. And that's where we've got to put our reliance. That's what we've got to start relying on more than the material plane, not that they're kind of separate, but yeah, I was just thinking that I really don't think I would be very good at being dead. I was thinking this yesterday, I just thought I had sort of anxiety about it and I just thought, oh, I really don't think I'd be very good at being dead because there's nothing to do which I'm not very good at. And you have to go there on your own, which I'm not very good at. And I was just thinking about how like, I'm not very good in a way, I'm not very good at solitary retreats, I'm better at kind of people and things and doing things and stuff. And I did, yesterday I was just thinking, oh, God, I really must go on solitary and start sort of practicing because I really don't think I would be very good, you know. We've given my experience of solitary and I think it might be similar. You know, you've not got any of your familiar stuff around you, you know, you're not at home. There's just all these things about being dead that I don't think I'd be very good at. So in a way we are sort of practicing or being dead in a way or for dying. So abandoning actions done solely for this life. It's not that those things won't have an effect in this life, they will have an effect. If we develop matter, we develop fearlessness and so on, they will have an effect in this life but it's abandoning the actions that are done solely for this life and don't have any effect on our most essential core. So another little quote by Lama Guntan Conch-Drone. Not a made up name, I don't think. Who says, "The Lord of Death who dwells in the South "does not consider the state of your plan. "You should speak with him. "When he comes to call on you, he will not ask "if you are young or old, high or low, rich or poor, "ready or not. "All are forced to go alone, "leaving behind their unfinished works. "The thread of life is suddenly broken, "like a rope snapping under a heavy load. "There is not time for plan making. "To die without spiritual knowledge "is to die in pathetic helplessness." So just to finish, just coming back to this kind of co-an of the dew drop world. So this world of dew, this sort of illusory world, which is, at the same time, very real to us and very potentially painful to us. And yet it's an illusion. And within this world, within this co-an, I suppose, of life and death, we have another co-an, which is how do we make the most of life without hanging onto it? And how do we need a waste time nor resist the passing of time? Yeah? And just to finish, I'm just going to read a little quote from Dennis Potter who wrote this when he was dying of cancer. And I suppose it's to do with the kind of perspective that you get when you're close to death, either your own death or somebody else's death. I think you get a different kind of perspective. And in a way, I think we're looking to get that different kind of perspective. That's why we're reflecting on death and impermanence, to bring about this kind of perspective. The blossom is out in full now. It's plum tree. It looks like apple blossom, but it's white. It's the whitest, throwfiest, blossom-est, blossom that ever could be. And I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever were and more important than they ever were. And the difference between the trivial and the important doesn't seem to matter. But the knownness of everything is absolutely wondrous. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. (upbeat music) (music fades) [BLANK_AUDIO]
