Todayand#8217;s Dharmabyte features the lovely Vajradharshini in an excerpt from her talk and#8220;The Transitoriness of Life and the Certainty of Death.and#8221; In and#8220;Dying with Fearlessnessand#8221; we are reminded that at the time of death only the Dharma is of benefit.
Talk given at Tiratanaloka Retreat Centre 2005.
[Music] Dharma Vites 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. [Music] 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, he 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, probably there won't be time to finish anything off. We'll just go mid-life. When I was at my parents' house 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 going to 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. It really integrated us, goes 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 it, 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 imagine 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, you know, 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 Zhenpo 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 the 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 dom is of benefit. They lead to, well, kind of decisions, I suppose. They galvanize 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 realize that we do believe in the Dharma. And often we're not put in that kind of position, aren't 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 realize 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 practicing for that moment in a funny sort of way, in a way that hadn't really, hadn't quite put two and two together like that. But I had been kind of practicing 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 what I had very much that other people didn't have. So, like I said, my brother, my mum, my sister and a lot of 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. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. (music) (music) (music)
