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Death Meditation (Maranasati)
Glow
Veteran
For the past two weeks, I've been doing a intensive meditation on death. This is probably the most uncomfortable meditation I have ever done. The first week and a half was truly disturbing, but over the last few days, I have felt a powerful sense of peace. This is a meditation that forces you to let go of everything but what is most vital to you. It's hugely freeing. I find myself letting go of anger ("Those who realize we must die put to rest their quarrels...") and the needless, self-imposed hostility I found myself unable to shake off in the past.
Does anyone have any experience with this sort of meditation? How did it make you feel? What changes did you find transferred into your everyday life?
Does anyone have any experience with this sort of meditation? How did it make you feel? What changes did you find transferred into your everyday life?
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I to have performed this meditation in the past and still do it maybe once a week to put things in perspective when I might lose my awareness or even motivation to practice.
When I started my meditation I started with making myself aware that life isn’t guaranteed, many die when born and many that are perfectly healthy and this made me realize I could go at any moment. While the knowledge of this has always been there the true awareness of it has not been. My heart started racing and I could feel fear and panic rise up in myself. Next I meditated on how this body is not mine and was never made to last forever and how my fear was a result of the delusions of self and attachment. My fear and panic was slowly replaced by a sense of peace and calmness due to renunciation of my delusions I had become aware of.
I later pushed my meditation on death even further. I once read a discourse from the Pali where Buddha told the monks to visualize themselves being savagely sawed apart. I wondered what the possible purpose of this really could be so decided to perform this meditation. I truly visualized it, all of it, and tried to imagine the feeling of the saw. The fear started to come back again. But I returned to my previous meditation on how this fear was based purely on delusions and nothing more. How pain is a sensation just like any other and that it truly doesn’t affect the mind once we can learn to distinguish the mind from the brain (if that’s how you wish to see it).
The end result has been a more diligent and sincere practice because as it has been said we do not know how much time is left for ourselves. And a great sense of relief from removing a good amount of attachments and delusions.
I’m very happy you’re making progress for yourself and I hope it continues. The best of luck to you!
(It’s nice to see you again if indeed this is Glow from Buddha Chat from so long ago.)
Meditation on death is not for everyone but it is regarded as a powerful meditation. The results you have received are the results that are expected. This is why the Buddha praised Maranassati greatly. Meditation on death is a very efficient short-cut on the path. When the impermanence is full realised, fully experienced, then one has no choice but to let go. This life is 'not-self', it is 'not mine', it does not belong to me. It is merely nature, just natural elements, merely the elements of form, feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness.
If one has comprehended with their heart, the meaning of verse 6 of the Dhammapada, one has practised meditation on death well.
With metta,
DDhatu
Thanks for the helpful link Dhamma Dhatu! I haven't seen that sutta before. I particularly like the call of the Buddha to be grateful for every moment. This is a practice that truly wakes one up out of the trance of daily life.
The big question to ask is - oblivion or consciousness?
If the answer is oblivion then the act is fine - no worries, apart from the karma it can bring on one from the hurt visited on friends and family but then if friends and family had been a bit more insightful, would the suicidee have done it?
If the answer is karma - on whom? The people who pushed the victim to do it? The family who never bothered? The colleagues who just pushed past on the way to the water machine?
Maybe the answer is - this life was dealt out to a player who couldn't cope, couldn't play, re-deal, re-shuffle and see how it works next time?
For me, the mind ideally should have some experience of letting go and familiarity with a mind empty of 'self thinking'.
The mind to have at least some of this is good.
From this practice, dukkha, anicca and anatta become clear. That clarity of vision leads to dispassion towards being and becoming (I, me, my, etc) and eventually the end of tanha, if you keep with it. Or so I'm told. ^^
Of course, I assume there are other ways of doing this meditation that are equally effective, if not more so. I'd suggest experimenting with a few and finding out what produces the best results in terms of dispassion and detachment.
Reading of your struggles with suicidal intent brings me great pain. I hope you find peace.
Your profile says you're in France. Presumably they have suicide hotlines over there, too. Have you ever used one, during these struggles? If you can't find one in France, you can call one in the US, using skype. It's a big help to a lot of people.
Incidentally, it's a bit of a paradox, but the death meditation alluded to here can really help to bring an end to suicidal thoughts.
Palzang
I've also seen dying animals and humans on numerous occasions which has also been very useful, because death tends to be very sanitised in the west. Bodies made up with cosmetics and so on in their coffins to make the dead appear to be 'just sleeping' don't actually help people with seeing the reality.
In my last job I also used to take my lunch to the large nearby cemetery whenever possible. Not exactly a charnel ground - but a few moments of sheer peaceful bliss after a lunch duty on the secondary school playing field !:)
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Thank you for posting this. It's a great help to me. This is one very specific area in which I need a lot of practice. My experience with death is terribly limited and I feel the urgent need to start working on it as soon as possible. Your description of meditating on the death of my 'self' is something I can start doing right now. And will. Thanks so much.
I very much wish I'd had similar experiences with corpses and body parts like you and Palzang had. (I just reread that last line and thought how strange it must appear. It's true though.) I've got neuroses surrounding the ugliness of the physical body in sickness and death with its putrefaction and so on. See? I'm not even comfortable writing about it. :rolleyes: But I know that since it makes me so uncomfortable it's something that particularly needs to be addressed. So it shall be.
This is a good thread.
I'm not sure what part of Canada you are in but if you are near Ontario the Body Worlds exhibition is going to be at the Science Centre from October this year. The exhibits are all made from real bodies and it's an opportunity to see that the human body is a wonderfully complex machine of many parts that can break down and break apart as we age and change.
Seeing the skin of a corpse positioned like a cloak and moving in the currents of air as people walk by is something that I particularly remember when I saw the exhibition in London a few years ago.
:cool:
As a young man I worked the graveyard shift of a med school security dept. To keep awake I would explore. Thus became quite familiar with corpses, organs in formaldehyde and assorted surgical goodies. This really shows that beauty is only skin deep.
Life and death are our constant companions. When I see a dead animal this always comes to mind. As you are I shall be. Dead bodies have never much bothered me.
But the screaming and agony of the wounded did. Their fear and uncertainty. Nonetheless it was always amazing to me to see how well healing took place after the ministrations of a wise and humane surgeon.
grackle
To say that you "meditate on something" fundamentally makes no sense to me. I can see it being a quiet and focused contemplation of death, but calling it "meditation" seems to me to be a misnomer and generally adding to the confusion many westerners have about what meditation is. You can not be of no-mind while considering a subject.
That sounds really hard. If I tell myself to not think, I start thinking about whether or not my thoughts have ceased. I've kind of resigned my thoughts as something I can't control, much like the weather. Sometimes they're great, sometimes they suck, but they're still there whether I pay attention to them or not.
Back to the original topic, I don't think I've ever tried death meditation, but sometimes I've done that thing where you suddenly lose all bearing of 'being' and it scares the shit out of me. If I stick with it, it can be really relaxing, and if I don't I usually end up feeling like I should have. Maybe that's what death feels like?
I think it was Mark Twain who said something along the lines of 'I don't fear death at all. I was dead for billions of years before I was born, and it didn't bother me one bit'
Now on the topic of death meditation, I would say death contemplation is one of the most powerful ways (personally) to bring me back to reality and dissolve all my problems in an instant...
I don't usually sit down and meditate on death, but I do contemplate it often throughout the day.
From my experience, it's easy to keep thinking "My death is a sure thing"... "My death can come at any moment"... but yet not feel "awoken" by these thoughts...
But...
There are the times when you really visualize and contemplate deeply (it helps if you've a still mind) on death, and then the "click" happens.
These are the times you'll feel yourself shaken at the level of being. Death suddenly becomes something VERY real to you, and everything you ever thought was important just falls away.
If there's one advice to anyone of you struggling with death meditation... its this - Focus on the quality of your meditation, really visualize, really reflect on how transient life is... and let the wisdom penetrate your heart.
Finally, I'd like to share my 2 favourite quotes, one from a poem by Thich Naht Hanh and one by Ajahn Chah.
"Where will you be 300 years from now?"
"If one doesn't understand death, life can be very confusing."
Peace.
Palzang
Ken's podcasts Death, Friend of Foe describe a series of such meditations.
Making Our Life Meaningful By Remember Death
Thank you.
I love your mention Kenny:
"I to have performed this meditation in the past and still do it maybe once a week to put things in perspective when I might lose my awareness or even motivation to practice."
It's definitely a good tool for honing in on and destroying delusion of having time. hehe. I found that a very useful point. : ) This forum is awesome.
"Mere comprehension" doesn't work for me.
I agree. I also focus on the fact that rebirth comes immediately after. In fact, I'm kinda afraid of Nirvana, simply because I'm not sure if it means "cessation of existence". (Buddha's description was "neither exist, nor not exist"). About the only reason I might opt for Nirvana will be the "push" factor in endless rebirths (teething pains, again??). I focus on Buddha's teaching on "non-nihilism". I also don't fear Nirvana as a "becoming a crude form of impersonal energy", because I wouldn't be subsequently attached (degraded) to yet another impermanent machinery (eg dog, cat, windmill, human, whatever).
From the responses to this thread, it seems there are 2 separate fears: the fear of death (cessation of life), and the fear of pain (fatal pains before death).
I don't think many people actually fear death. Why would we fear it, since we know we'll be reborn the split second after?
The pain of death might be overcome by realizing that vedana (feeling) is "a course of nature, devoid of ownership". The pain "is not mine", it just "is". Pretty useful technique for overcoming pain, really. When I had excruciating pains from diarrhea, I found I can have 2 acutely different "perspectives": When I "own" the pain, I moan and beg for rescue and salvation. When I "disown" the pain, it became a mere curiosity which I observe. Of course, I knew I wasn't gonna die from diarrhea. But diarrhea is a great tool to use for training "disownership" of pain. Utterly debilitating, excruciating, robs you of sleep, of strength, of mindfulness, even to the point of passing out. No, wait, I think I meant food poisoning. Well, ya, we can die from it.
Perhaps a "fear" of death might actually be a fear of the next rebirth. I've seen people who went mad just before dying (death-proximate karma?). Having recalled certain terrible deeds, a person could fear the next rebirth more than the current death itself.