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An interviewer once asked the yogi Iyengar why he practiced. His answer was 'to have a good death'. It seemed a banal comment but I thought about it a lot over the years. A good death is linked to a good life. It seems an especially skilful comment.
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In the final stages of dying, the grosser consciousnesses dissolve into the subtlest form of mind, or clear light mind:
"If you are able to transform the clear light of death into a fully qualified spiritual consciousness, the mind recognizes its own face, its own nature: the entity of the fundamental mind." (The Dalai Lama, Advice on Dying and Living a Better Life)
"All the stages which make up the life of each living being--death, the intermediate state, and rebirth--represent nothing more than the various manifestations of the potential of clear light. It is both the most subtle consciousness and energy. The more clear light loses its subtlety, the more your experiences take shape.
In this way, death and the intermediate state are moments where the gross manifestations emanating from clear light are reabsorbed. At death we return to that original source, and from there a slightly more gross state emerges to form the intermediate state preceding rebirth. At the stage of rebirth, clear light is apparent in a physical incarnation. At death we return to this source. And so on.
The ability to recognize subtle clear light, also called the Primordial Buddha, is equivalent to realizing nirvana, whereas ignorance of the nature of clear light leaves us to wander in the different realms of samsaric existence." (The Dalai Lama, transcribed from talks given in New Zealand)
Oh, Child of Buddha Nature, listen!
Pure inner radiance – reality itself – is now arising before you! Recognise it!
This radiant essence that is now your conscious awareness is a brilliant emptiness.
It is beyond substance, beyond characteristics and beyond colour,
completely empty of inherent existence in any respect whatsoever.
The essence of your own conscious awareness is emptiness.
Yet, this is not a vacuous or nihilistic emptiness.
This, your very own conscious awareness is unimpededly radiant, brilliant and vibrant.
The utterly indivisible presence of these two; the essence of your own awareness which is empty, without inherent existence with respect to any substance whatsoever and your own conscious awareness, which is vibrant and radiantly present, is the Buddha Body of Reality.
This intrinsic awareness, manifest in a great mass of light, in which radiance and emptiness are indivisible, is the buddha nature of unchanging light, beyond birth or death.
Just to recognise this is enough!
~ Padmasambhava
Asatru is a completely new word for me - thank you... reading up!
I can now see you with a hammer rather than a samurai sword...
One Zen teacher I studied with called Kensho/ satori/ understanding, a practise run through death.
If I were to die tomorrow what would I choose now?
That way you always make the right choice and always do a thing properly.
Having no or few regrets when you die that is a good death.
/Victor
Buddha: Life is uncertain; death is certain.
http://viewonbuddhism.org/dharma-quotes-quotations-buddhist/death-dying-bardo.htm
Woody Allen: Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.
Another was a Warrior chain gunner in Gulf War 2; as a 23 year old he reckons he killed between 10 and 15 people. He's totally off the rails now - he's abandoned a wife and child, been caught drink driving twice, is unemployable and will probably end up in prison.
It's not glorious, you will have fear in your heart - and in your pants - and it doesn't look like a good death to me. Stinking dirty death; yes, good no.
No fear of death! No fear of life!
I think I had better whimper a few mantras in celebration . . . :thumbsup:
I like giving amazon.com links ... the "customer reviews" say it so very well:
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Death-Rimpoche-Nawang-Gehlek/dp/1573229520/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352865275&sr=8-1&keywords=good+life+good+death
It is about the good life you lead. A good life leads to a good death and to a good rebirth. Even without the rebirth doctrine in there, a good life still leads to a good death.
Perhaps when we stop viewing death and birth as some way divisible, then we can gain insight... Not two, not one etc... What it there to die? What is there to be reborn or created? We must transcend this deluded duality, and soon, for as some remember, our human lives are shorter than a single breath, compared to time itself. The work is done off the cushions... Not that there is any work involved, or any cushions for no-one to sit one, hehehe... Sorry, couldn't resist :-)
"Gate, gate, paragate, parasangate... Bodhi - Svaha!
Beyond the conditioned, beyond the unconditioned, beyond their duality, altogether beyond going beyond anything at all... Awaken - rejoice!" - Heart Sutta (and my rudimentary interpretation of the Perfection of Wisdom)
Never forget, you are the path...
Jay x
It is good to be a born again Buddhist . . .
There is a YinYana saying "No difference unless perceived"
I once had a yoga teacher who said that a special breathing technique he employed was the equivalent of living one complete incarnation. Que? m m m . . . could be . . .
Reincarnation, now I am dead as a Buddhist, makes perfection sense.
Luv that closing of the prajnaparimita. One translation I liked was...
Going, going and always going on..always becoming Buddha.
@From my own meditative experience, I doubt that time, as our identity understands it, is relevant at deaths door.
Life and death is no more divisible or understandable than it would be trying to describe a three dimension universe to a two dimensional being.
At this point I think it just comes down to how well we love.
Lord Nabeshima Naoshige
It is good to be a born again Buddhist . . .
There is a YinYana saying "No difference unless perceived"
I once had a yoga teacher who said that a special breathing technique he employed was the equivalent of living one complete incarnation. Que? m m m . . . could be . . .
Reincarnation, now I am dead as a Buddhist, makes perfection sense.
Yawn ... sorry, :coffee: :coffee: ... was just nodding off then.
For those who think death is just the beginning of another chapter in the book; death is no big deal or it shouldn’t be.
What we really fear is non-existence, but how can that be a scary thing when we think a bit deeper? No-one will ever know what it is like to be dead. “Knowing what it is like” implies we are alive not dead.
So the prospect of death (meaning non-existence) just throws us back on our experience here and now. That’s all we have. That’s all we will ever have. At the moment of dying we have nothing but a few remaining seconds of life; a couple of crucial seconds of being here and now.
Believe it or not; the thought makes me happy; I find this liberating.
For those who think death is just the beginning of another chapter in the book; death is no big deal or it shouldn’t be.
What we really fear is non-existence, but how can that be a scary thing when we think a bit deeper? No-one will ever know what it is like to be dead. “Knowing what it is like” implies we are alive not dead.
So the prospect of death (meaning non-existence) just throws us back on our experience here and now. That’s all we have. That’s all we will ever have. At the moment of dying we have nothing but a few remaining seconds of life; a couple of crucial seconds of being here and now.
Believe it or not; the thought makes me happy; I find this liberating.
We go into the savannah and think "what if there is a lion"
Then we see a lion and think "what if he sees me"
Then the lion sees me and we think "what if he chases me"
Then he chases me and I think "what if he catches me"
Then he catches me and I think "what if he wounds me"
Then he wounds us and I think "what if he kills me"
Then he kills me and I don't think anything!
Then we see a lion and think "what if he sees me"
Then the lion sees me and we think "what if he chases me"
Then he chases me and I think "what if he catches me"
Then he catches me and I think "what if he wounds me"
Then he wounds us and I think "what if he kills me"
Then he kills me and I don't think anything!
Hope you never go on an African safari.