Death meditation
misecmisc1
I am a HinduIndia Veteran
hi all,
do you do death meditation? if yes, then how do you do it? have you gained some insight doing it?
actually the thing is the way my life has passed till now, i am 32 years nearly now, i have not seen much deaths around me - you can get an idea about this thing that the only time i ever went to cremation ground was when my father-in-law expired nearly 2 years ago and we heard about my father-in-law's death through a phone call, then we went to his house and saw his dead body. since you all may be knowing that i am a hindu and from india, and since in hinduism the dead body is burnt to ashes, so the first time i actually saw a dead body burning was of my father-in-law. after that i have actually went to the ghat (a place beside river), where the dead bodies are burnt, in my city nearly 2 or 3 times - but now i have got bored even going there, as the same thing of dead-body getting burnt to ashes is repeatedly going on - and somehow it is not helping me to be more mindful.
somehow, even though, i understand that since i am born, so i will die - in other words, since my body has born, so it will die - but this fact does not make me any more mindful - i hope you are getting what i am trying to say - in other words, though i understand that my death can come at any moment, still somehow this thing is just a thought in my mind and is not provoking me to be more mindful.
have anyone of you seen a person who died in front of you - means in front of you, one moment that person was alive, the next moment the person was dead. i have not got any chance to see this thing - if anyone of you has witnessed this thing, can you please share your experience as to how you felt that that person was feeling at that moment when that moment arrived when the person was dead - means was that person in too much pain, or literally the person started becoming unconscious and just passed away during unconsciousness, or was the person fully aware when those last moments were coming.
it may be a bad thing or not a good thing to ask such questions, as to answer them the sad memories may again crop up and may give pain again - this is not my intention and if this lead to hurting you, then i am sorry for that - but since i have never experienced such a thing of any person dying in front of me, so thought of knowing if someone has experienced this type of sad incident of somebody who died in front of you?
metta to you and all sentient beings.
Comments
It depends what you mean by Death meditations..Every day I contemplate the inevitability of my own death.
Far from being morbid it is life affirming.
Its denial of death that is eventually morbid.
I have seen many people die. I think most of them were fully aware that they were dying.
At a particular moment they stop fighting that and let it take them.
by death meditation, i was meaning contemplation of death. actually what i think is that on doing death meditation, something should arise inside me, what can be called a samvega or an urgency that since i can die at any moment, so i should try to be more mindful. but this hit inside is not happening - even though i understand that since my body has born, so it will also die, so i can die at any moment, but this thing just appears to be a thought which is in mind for say few seconds and then it is gone and i pass the remaining whole day by not being mindful. That urgency is not coming inside, that since life can end at any moment, it is better to act more skillfully in every moment by being mindful. rather, i still pass on my day by getting carried away by my defilements of lust, anger, greed, attachment, aversion and ego - as it seems to me that these defilements are inside me in huge quantities.
so i was trying to know if somebody is doing meditation on death here and have they got some insights from death meditation. also, if people can share their experience as to how the person who died in front of them felt during that person's last moments.
may be these are stupid questions to ask, but you can consider me to be a complete idiot to ask such questions.
Perhaps it may help you come to terms with the fragility of life if you watch real -life films of human tragedy, like the 9/11 World Trade Centre attack or the tsunamis which decimate lives in minutes..
Google 'fatal accidents ' or 'human tragedies '....
Sadly, you will be spoiled for choice.
The purpose of such death meditations is to make you stop living in the past and future and come to live in the eternal moment of now, that is where you have always existed.
If you did not get the samvega, death meditation is not the way for you to get it.
Your self as you perceive it is an illusion, remember. Did that person you were a few years, a few months, a few weeks, a few moments ago die? Are you going to be reborn in a few moments, weeks, months, years? Of course not, it is all in the way you look at things; a shift in perspective reveals that there is no 'death' for what really matters, just the eternal now. Are you dead now?
I've been to the vet to put down our dog. I cried all day. That morning he was there by my bed when I woke up. We took him to the vet and he was alive. In less than a minute when the injection hit him he died. The injection hit his body like a truck. Gone.
You have to have a light touch. If it is depressing you then ease off of it. Do some brahmavira meditations such as metta or karuna.
'Die before you die' is a dervish saying. http://hermetic.com/bey/intro-sufi.html
It has great applicability. It refers to the death of the naf (false selves).
According to Buddhist philosophy death is transitional. We can believe this as a devout Hindu cosmology hang over, believe arising experiences or we can die.
Maybe you had something else in mind/skull?
Lobster you have quite the pillow collection!
I mistranslated nibbida as samvega on another thread. Thanks for the clarification. I think you're right @misecmisc1. The purpose of death meditation is to bring about a sense of readiness/awareness/mindfulness, if death were to come about very abruptly.
As mentioned in these suttas: (1), (2)
In a previous life I was a paramedic. Actually that's not a very good way to put it on a Buddhist forum. I have no earthly clue what I was in a previous life. But in this life, a long time ago, I was a paramedic. I worked for a few years in a very busy big city ER/Trauma Center. I have unfortunately seen many deaths. Some after a long life, some too early and tragic. But being there for their deaths really does not enable me to answer your question, because the time frame is too short. It's not the same as seeing the death of someone you know. And everyone is a little different. Some knew they were dying, many did not.
I was with my father when he died. We knew about a week before that his condition was terminal, and we stayed with him at the hospital. Although he woke up and talked to us toward the end of the week, he did not seem to know that he was dying. He had experienced many years of chronic debilitating back pain, but during his final week he experienced no pain and was (mostly) at peace. He was tired, and wanted to go to sleep, which he did. His final words were "Good night."
hi all,
thanks for your answers.
it is not possible to know what is exactly going on inside the person, who is going to die, but from their facial expressions or the way they react - can someone please tell, if they have seen a person who died in front of them, that how the person was feeling at the end moments - or - is it the case that by that time, the pain usually grows so much that the person just gives up (a sort of frustration mood that somehow this pain is not going to end as the medication is not giving relief, so damn nothing can be done about it, but rather just suffer with the pain)?
also, how do you do death meditation (or contemplation of death)? please tell. thanks in advance.
How many people have died? That's how many different expressions, feelings, attitudes and reactions there have been.
Death is like falling in love ; only you can know what it feels like when it happens to you, and no two people in love feel the same.
You could imagine attending your own funeral.
Ooh no..! I'd be too busy listening to what people had to say about me!!
i think i tried that method - i went to a ghat, where dead bodies are burnt in my city. i was there for nearly 4 to 5 hours, saw many dead bodies coming and then their funeral ritual and finally they getting burnt to ashes. i thought my body will also be burnt to ashes in this way. i saw the way the skin burns, then the fat inside comes up, then the water starts rinsing from it, the leg bone at the knee kept on burning finally all the fat got burnt, then it came to just bones being joined, then finally the joint between bones started to become weaker and finally the lower bone from knee got detached from the upper bone to knee, the burning of human body kept on happening, the skull got roasted in fire and finally a blow of stick to break the skull showed that the brain was turned to yellow powder inside, the five to six feet dead body after complete burning got reduced to just 5 to 6 inches of burnt chest muscles, which was then took with 2 small sticks and thrown in the river.
but still the samvega or the urgency inside me has not come - that i can die at any moment, so i have to work on getting my defilements reduced quickly.
even i went to the cremation ground 2 or 3 times and now i have got bored even going there, as the same process of a human body getting burnt to ashes is repeatedly going on there.
may be i am not suffering enough now, due to which this samvega has not arisen in me. actually currently my life is going pretty cool (touch wood)- i have my parents, my wife and my 3 year old daughter - my job is going at a satisfactory rate with not too much work pressure and the salary is ok, though now i am trying to switch to another job to get a better salary.
so since the above urgency has not arisen in me, so i am not mindful most of the time. so i was thinking if there is some way to arise the above samvega or urgency in me. even though i fear death, but when i think about my death - it just remains as a thought in my mind and after few seconds, i forget about my death and pass my whole day mindlessly with my defilements of lust, anger, greed, attachment, aversion and ego inside me. so may be my destiny is to just pass on my current life mindlessly and then keep on suffering in my remaining infinite lifetimes. seems like a very stupid person i am.
Maybe the secret is to live well, serenely and contentedly in the present moment and appreciate how wonderful it is to actually benefit from human existence, rather than think we SHOULD be doing this, or we OUGHT to be thinking that.
Seems to me you're struggling because you are under the impression you need to be perfectly prepared for Death. Not even those whose daily practice focuses on death are ever prepared for it.
Sorry to hear about your loss @jeffrey, was it because of old age or illness?
The death of a pet is often the first introduction to death that we westerners get (I was about 7 when my pet cat died (was murdered - by the next door neighbour) and 11 when my first pet dog died (run over by a bus). Not exactly sure as memory can be a bit fuzzy! The experiences really cut to the fibre of my existence.
I hope with rest and a new tomorrow, his death is easier to cope with.
@anataman, thanks for the well wishes. My dog died 3 or 4 years ago so I am ok. But when it happened I didn't want to get out of bed for about three days. Then I got over it.
Me neither, but death from a child's perspective is something else - seems like yesterday doesn't it!
OK I have a better understanding of your reasoning. You are trying to force an emotive reaction to inspire your practice . . .
You need to release/soften your heart. How?
Do you dance? Yes I am asking . . .
If they have local open barbecues for the dead . . . must be something dubious available?