Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Death Meditation
ThailandTom
Veteran
in Meditation
Hello all and season greetings.
I have lost a lot recently, material things mainly and also have felt the feeling of great loneliness for the first time in a very long time. This gave me some moments to reflect on life and where I am currently at. I realised that I am getting to the age where family members and loved ones will start to fall away from my life due to becoming deceased, and this realisation was an unpleasant one. It was one that after some brief mulling over I wanted to ignore and push to the back of my mind. I understand that ignoring it is probably the worst thing to do but also focusing on it or obsessing over it also is not very productive. So how should one go about obtaining a clear and stable mind prepared for death?
0
Comments
For early monks and Tantrikas, drinking out of skulls and meditating in caves with bodies in different states of decay is traditional.
However due to legal restrictions, difficulty with procurement and health and safety concerns, this might not be the most up to date method.
I have just been given a mala of skulls, made of resin and not Boddhissatva bones unfortunately. A mantra in conjunction with one of the delightful mandalas of wrathful tantric bogey men might suit. You might feel the need to be supervised and empowered for such practices.
You have to maintain the vision of emptiness inherent in these ghastly visions, personally I loves a good Buddha-zombie . . .
I've never been entirely sure what "meditating on death" might mean, precisely, but I do know that with some practice it becomes clearer and easier: No one can honestly love life if they try to escape from death. It simply doesn't compute.
It is what it is. Ask yourself, is it avoidable? Will I die? Can I do anything about it? Really, it is that basic and simple. It is a rock -solid prediction. In fact, you're busy dying, right now. Don't be so morose about it, though, that you forget to live, in the meantime....
Something I like to do now and then is read the obituaries. You can learn about how people lived their lives and how much they were loved and how they died. So you can get some idea about what a human lifespan is like and what kills people.
I think having a clear, stable mind will help you in all things in your life, but it won't prevent the pain of loss. You need to experience it to know what it's like. And each time might be different, depending on the relationship you had with the deceased and the circumstance of their death.
Like your mother. If she were to die suddenly before her time, the shock and grief could be quite intense.
If she dies gently in old age, the sadness is quite different. Perhaps tinged with relief that her struggle is over. Or happiness that a long life ended peacefully. And the mystery of it all.
Next week I'll be going to visit an old friend who is dieing. He is not yet 60. We will help to pack things up for his move to hospice. And make our plans for scattering his ashes at sea. I've lost quite a few good friends but this will be the first time we get to talk things over first. A new experience!
Perhaps this might be helpful.
@ThailandTom
This is a great question.
Recently stumbled onto this video: http://www.openculture.com/2013/03/leonard_cohen_narrates_film_on_ithe_tibetan_book_of_the_deadi_featuring_the_dalai_lama_1994.html
"The Tibetan Book of the Dead - A Way of Life"
Personally, it really helped me see some sensible attitudes toward death, and also helped deepen my understanding of practice in a vital way.
@ThailandTom
A clear and stable mind that is prepared for death is simply a mind well practiced at already manifesting equanimity with the clear observation of each arriving moment's presentation of all dying phenomena.
Nothing mystical or arcane..
Meditation is as much a practice prep for life
as it is for death.
I don't think we can know what death brings. But we can know what is here and understand how consciousness is at all times. In a way we practice Buddhism so we can die well, because the path leads to finding what is deeply beyond birth and death. It is deep because it is our heart of hearts rather than just a wave rising on the surface.
I just finished a year long workshop at my sangha where we focused on preparing for and practicing for death. It was based on Stephen Levine's "A Year To Live" book. It was helpful for me in helping to face those in my life who are near death, as well as to prepare for my own within a mindfulness practice. (I'm not that old yet, and plan on living many more decades!)
http://www.amazon.com/Year-Live-This-Were-Your/dp/0609801945/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418516249&sr=8-1&keywords=a+year+to+live
Thank you all for the links and opinions everyone. I was focusing my attention more on the passing of family members such as my mother and so forth rather than my own death, I was once a hypochondriac but these days I don't worry too much about my own fate because a lot of the time it is out of my hands. So is the fate of others I guess, the only difference is that I will still be around after..
@robot I hope your friend has a peaceful exit and has people around that care, all the best to you both.
For me it is an entirely different thing for me to consider and prepare for my own death versus the deaths of loved ones. I am not afraid of what happens to me when I die. I am, however, afraid of what happens to me if one of my children, or my husband dies. Or what happens to any of them if I die. But no concern for myself, I came to terms with my beliefs about that long ago.
Death meditation is helpful, mostly I think, for one's own death. You can do it for others, but it doesn't (for me anyhow) do much for how to come to terms with how you will deal with their death, especially if it is sudden or untimely. I feel more prepared than many others I know, but other aspects of it are scary when you are a stay at home mom and your day revolves around taking care of your family. So that part is mine to work on.
I can say, that once you have to deal with something, it does much differently than you imagine. i think the imagining and anticipating is worse than dealing with whatever events as they unfold. We tend to find strength we didn't know we had when we most need it. You just do what has to be done. It's much different than letting your mind come up with it's own crazy day dreams about how it'll go.
Here is Ajahn Chah wise advice.