Days of Miracles 2021 - Day 3 - Venerable Robina Courtin

welcome everybody can you hear me i'm not quite sure i don't hear anything today here it's very quiet anthony are you there winnable sayana for the italian translation you're good so we also have italian translation now and very soon also joining us translation into spanish and portuguese the brazilian center in situ de la matancapa and the spanish centers are joining us so we are very very happy a big fpmt family so thank you so much venobusayana great to have you here and welcome everybody for the third day with venerable robina let's see if everybody got the time change right so i think we might have lost on the zoom the live zoom some time zones um but others can join now more easily the europeans especially um so we see how it goes today uh please if you have questions venue robina is very very happy to take questions and uh just raise your hand yeah it's oh is there i always have to look not that she's appearing without me knowing it could be um raise your hand or put your question in your chat and then we will ask you a question but always best if you can ask yourself then it's more clear isn't it thank you so much everybody and what else just looking vulnerable will be nice there not oh i also want to be while we're waiting for whenever robina uh i want to make you aware um next week uh jitsu martens and palmer will be teaching and um she will take uh questions uh if you could please send us your questions beforehand we wanted to make it today deadline uh if you could send it today that would be great yeah and then we can pass it on to uh jitsuma yeah makes them quite short maybe not a whole page long quite short and condensed uh and then uh next saturday uh jutsuma will be here with us yes um then of course tomorrow uh we have uh paula chichester joining us from england uh from scotland and um there is a paula who just joined but i think it's an apology just she's in retreat right now and she will be joining us four o'clock um indian time yeah if you can exchange that to your time zone four o'clock every session from now on will be four o'clock yeah so it makes it easy it was just for whenever robina because she's in a totally different time zone in uh santa fe that we had to put it so early and so late um for indian time but um from now on everything will be four o'clock and polar chichester she is a quite amazing person uh she is also one of lamayeshi's students uh venables sayana would know much better and um and she announced already back in the hippie time she was one of the hippies she announced to llama yeah she said she wanted to become a maasida yeah so one of those great practitioners of the past meaning being in long-term retreat pretty much all her life and that's what she has done she has done for decades of retreats so um from venerable robina the powerhouse of being the active part uh tomorrow we're gonna have the retreat we are very benevolent are you there i can hear something but i can't see you somebody won let's see i hope you got the time changed well while we're waiting i might as well bubble on all the announcements i usually do afterwards oh i've seen her name showing up whenever robina are you there somewhere in robina yes i'm here i'm sorry i'm late no worries we're so glad having you good i can't see you yet i'm here you can see me yes okay let's go welcome back welcome back to toshita different time so what's the plan i forget the title today what's the time to do so today is still uh becoming your own therapist but i also wanted to request you because you're gonna lead a course for toshita end of april we are very very happy thank you so much for accepting on death so no time to lose how to make friends with death so i wanted you maybe uh to lead a little bit towards that course like a like a teaser preview or something good idea okay let me get comfortable first sorry all right good good good got some light we also have vanilla ceyana joining uh from instituto llamas on copper uh interpreting into italian my dearest celiana thank you so much darling okay we are ancient friends she's my italian voice without doubt okay one second put something on here all ready to go now we're ready okay good good good all right so happy to be here together so we're going to think just think we have do we have the prayer today or not the the the refuge prayer now oh god i'm sorry don't forget it leave it don't worry but think everybody just think it's good sometimes to say the words without singing the word it's nice to sing the tibetan prayers but but sometimes we just don't hear the words because we don't speak tibetan so let's think okay set ourselves off in the right direction we're going to sit here together for 90 minutes thinking about buddha's teachings in particular we're going to be using lamazeburushi's fairly recent book called um uh how to face death without fear we're going to look at this and and um bring this in to see if we can find a way to bring all the advice into our lives so we can help ourselves so we can help others finally long-term goal is so this leads us to become a buddha so we can truly be a benefit to others so thinking that's why we're here together and our little prayer and the first two lines of this prayer just express um our reliance on the buddha and his teachings so think those thoughts okay so this book of repute is um it it it started back actually quite a while ago when lomza was teaching in france in 2003 or something on a complete on another topic altogether and one of his students one of his old students a dear friend of mine hang on a second a dear friend of mine her she said she went to rimmiche and she said my father just died and i didn't know what to do well i mean she's a fairly old student you know and we we all know if we've heard any buddhist teachings of all we always hear about death and impermanence it's you know one of our favorites one of the favorite topics and if we've studied the lam rim it's absolutely there right at the beginning you know so i suppose michelle was quite surprised and then then he shifted direction and he then proceeded to teach about uh how did how to how to help how to help how to die well but also how to help at the time of death because it he said so the book that's out now it came out a few years ago in a different form it was called how to enjoy death and it was a different format altogether but now it's um it's can't come out as a paperback and it's excellent now and it's called how to face death without fear so as rumors says in the very beginning we quote him right at the beginning you know if you want to help anybody in their lifetime when they actually need you most is when they die now this is quite shocking if we're regular materialist people who you know when the end of a life it's like when we think well excuse me that's no they're nearly ending what do you mean they need our help but this is the point of buddhism taking the view you know that our consciousness is a beginningless continuity of mental moments taking the view in other words that it came from the past into this life program basically this is the best way to put it with all our own karmic tendencies because you know when we look at the buddha's view it's fundamental that everybody is the result of their own past actions we are all the creators of ourselves so given that our mind comes from before program with our own tendencies given that um when we die our mind continues and given crucially that everything we think and do and say that's positive will leaves positive imprints in the mind seeds in the mind and produces when we die that will produce future happiness and negative seeds will produce use of suffering so given this this is the essence of all the advice you know this is a central point because the whole re why then as will mache says that they need you at death is because it is at the time of death and it's quite technical and we'll describe it we'll go into much more detail when we do the course because it's at the time of death about when you stop breathing and this don't it's described in great detail at the time you you die before you stop breathing that is when the karmic seed from your past actions that will determine your next life is triggered so clearly at that time you want to have a you want you know you you need to be happy and virtuous happy my when the mind is happy the mind is virtuous this is something very logical in buddhist psychology we don't think like this in modern psychology virtuous what do you mean you know well if your mind is relaxed if you might if you're okay if you're not grasping if you're not fearful if you're not angry if you're not worried then your mind can be relaxed if your mind is angry fearful your mind is not relaxed therefore that that has a relationship with the negative karmic implants because they're related to ego and when the mind is freaking out that's ego it's not kind of judgment it's not reward it's just a practical technical point this is the whole reason behind this entire book of ripper chase so okay in i know in these days in the modern world there's so much attention now being paid to dying well hospice movements helping people but and that's marvelous but it's this point is so central and this point is not covered of course in the in the materialist view i mean i but it's still marvelous that people are now trying to confront the reality of death they're making their own they're writing they're doing their living wills people go to hospice that you know people help people die but it's also helping the family and helping people with their grief which is fantastic but i mean it was interesting when i finished the manuscript of this book and i gave it to one of my friends to just proofread and to make some suggestions she said where's the chapter on grief well that's not the issue here that's not that's not the point i mean if you're a buddhist and you have the buddhist view then you would know how to handle your grief because you've dealt with impermanence so the whole point here you know the whole point is to help the person and this is whether the person is a rat the mouse in your kitchen the ant your little pussycat or your grandmother is the same advice you know this book is is is so so practical it's like a handbook two-thirds of the book are all the 87 different practices i mean ribbit has got so many practices to do at different stages of the process so the first part of the book is like the background of um of of you know for example why why we die why we die with so much fear it's because of attachment and he describes that you know ha die with a happy to die with um with a good heart to then one whole section on the detailed process of death which of course as we know is coming from the more advanced vagina teachings there's a there's a very special chapter in there that's related to the 12 links of dependent arising particularly at the time of death there's a marvelous chapter that's that is called death is what the yogis have been waiting for of course that sounds so shocking to us you know but that's again crucial for those who have taken a highest yoga tampa empowerment and explains exactly how that's the whole of those practices all those practices are geared are structured to enable us to to incorporate this process that arises that occurs at the time of death so we can really be prepared for it and that the greatest yogis have spent their life preparing for this because because this is the point because when the mind gets to the subtle level at the end of this eight stages of death they call it the clear-like mind this occurs every time we sleep it's the same thing it's occurred every time we've died all our counters past lives but this is a very powerful point because that's the subtlest level of mind and the most capable the most potent the most the most clear the most capable it's like the microscope of our mind so most of us don't we don't you know we don't access it every time we sleep we don't do that but the yogis are prepared for it so this is a really important part of it but the general the whole book is generally you know it's it's it's written i mean obviously when he teaches it he's talking to you in the audience but clearly the book has to be talking to a person so it's all about how to help your loved ones die well you know and that includes your pussycat so that's the general idea but i mean like i said in the west it's very interesting this not the west in the modern world these days there's much more interest in death confronting it accepting it helping people die well which is marvelous but it's more to do with the person dying happily for that for them now because the western view the materialist view doesn't discuss future lives you know but the and the other thing i found is very moving i know in australia i've been to two different conferences one was into some small country town and it was and it was it all the you know nurses and doctors who um you know involved in this whole area you know of health death and i was very moved because these young doctors and nurses choosing to walk work in this area you know choosing to and it was such a moving conference so powerful i remember going to another one in sydney one wonderful doctor who is the main who's the head of this particular hospital for children and he's he deals with the death the sickness and death of babies and children i mean that's a terrifying subject for most people and so it was such a good conference he led all these people the parents coming and just the suffering and pain and denial and awful way that things go because it's the death of children and he was trying to open it all up and making people confront it and accept it it was really so moving you know of course nothing about future life because that's not their job but i remember the the morgue for the little for the dead babies and dead children it was he decorate he had it decorated like a nursery and it was kept open and then you know the little brothers and sisters who would be going in and out and one of them would one of them said come and meet my dead brother i mean this is wonderful to talk this way to bring it into the open you know but of course being buddhist the viewers are very specific view you know but what's also interesting about this many people who are materialist find this advice very helpful they find because people want to know how to help dying people they want to know how to think you know i mean many people i know when i've done conferences using this book over the years send you know set courses at centers um you know funeral home directors come because their job is death and they're fascinated by the different approaches to death so it's a very interesting topic these days but this one is a complete handbook really of rumor chase teachings the first part is the very first part is all the background you know then the next section is all about this particular process of death what happens at death the 12 links then the main parts of the last three the next parts are then what to do this is kind of cro in chronological order what to do the weeks and months before months and weeks before death what to do the hours the days before death what to do the hours before death what to do when the breath stops what to do after the breath stops for the next three days what to do when the mind leaves and then what to do the 49 days after so the advice obviously mr you know gives the advice the main process if you want to choose one practice you can do medicine buddha so you know you would do medicine buddha the weeks and months before you would do medicine buddha the days before you do medicine what are the you know the hours before so you can't write it like that it's completely boring can't say it 17 times you know so the book is written in chronological order and describes the practices to do and then all the practices in numbered order because it's easy to find them at the back of the book like two-thirds of the book is this you know various practices a lot the sutras and different meditations very many many mantras it's a really excellent handbook you know now the thing is if we're buddhist and we read it we will have heard most of this information before but we don't think about it because nobody likes to think about death you know so let's look at that so basically the two ways you know if you're a buddhist that you would prepare for death yourself one is to live your life this is from the sutra teachings as we know in the lam rim this is entry level junior school grade one teaching think about impermanence and death so of course a teesha in his little text was used as the basis for songkappa's lamrim literature the very first practice in the very big first stages the the junior school i like to call it or the the the the lower scope of teachings the first section of practice why is you know a teaser's a gender for why death is the first topic is because he's trying to give us a wake-up call his the whole approach of the lamb as we know is this psychological progression getting us to be ready to prime our minds to even want to practice so the very first thing is we think about as we all know you think about how precious this life is and then the action point from that is well i don't want to waste it and then the next point at the very first stage of the of the lower scope teachings you know taken from all buddha's extensive teachings about impermanence tatisha and therefore cause tonkata gets particularly the point about death our our impermanence not the impermanence of your computer or your lamp or your chair but so why because at this point it artesia and songkapa are getting us to increase our wake-up call our increase our sense of urgency not to waste this precious human life because it's a rare thing to have if we compare with the whole universe and he wants us not to waste it to increase our wish not to waste it because we realize one death is definite two the time of death is absolutely not definite and three the the conclusion point you know that at the time of death and it's a logical point not an emotional one from the buddhist perspective given that your consciousness comes from before and will continue when you die and given that whatever you think and do and say programs you and produces your future life it's you who does it there's no boss out there there's no judge the buddhist can help there's many many tools we can use and riboshe's book is full of all this but we're the one we're the boss we have to control our own mind and body and speech and then so that we can be ready for death so we can ensure that a virtuous karmic seed is triggered and then we'll get a decent human rebirth or pure land for example so this is this is this is the fundamental point at the very beginning to get the sense of urgency because at the moment buddha's telling us this because at the moment we know intellectually we're going to die we're intelligent we'll be silly if we said we wouldn't die but it it it's virtually that we believe we won't die because we can't stand the thought of dying you know so let's look at this so living our lives by confronting this reality all the llamas say if you get some some realization of impermanence your whole your whole life changes everything changes your entire view of the world of yourself completely changes so in other words another way of putting it is buddha's telling us across the board in all his teachings that we suffer the reason we suffer this is good as fundamental teaching the reason we suffer is because of the layers and layers and layers of ridiculous misconceptions of wrong views of emotional afflictions of disturbing emotions in our mind that's the main reason we suffer so this one islamazopa calls it grasping at a permanent me is one of the major reasons in daily life we suffer terribly and of course is why we totally live in denial of death so let's look at exactly that point because we don't we don't think about it we don't like to think about it so you know a teacher's first point it's on carpa's first point that death is definite he wants us to contemplate that and you think what do you mean contemplating what am i supposed to do with that death is definite death is definite death is definite no no no you just start to see basically all these you know the teachings of the buddha are just his particular way of presenting his view of reality how things exist so this is a crucial one he's saying everything that comes into existence a flower a tiniest thing the biggest thing the entire planet a mind a person everything necessarily is impermanent which means it's the product of causes which means it changes moment by moment so this is the these are these extensive teachings of the buddha on impermanence that even even marvelous teachings are for example what they refer to as subtle impermanence so subtle impermanence is so subtle it's such a refined concept that people mistake it for the view of emptiness you know and you know and you can only really cognize that in in single-pointed concentration so artisans don't worry about that at this point it's a fascinating concept he's talking about gross impermanence that what comes into being will die lamps break computers break relationships end people die so as i said his reason his agenda at this point is to give us a wake-up call not to waste his precious life so how to then contemplate this very first point there are three main points the death is definite well the only way i mean you can do it in your meditation by looking at the books and taking the the you know the the author's points you read them and then you think about it until one day the penny drops but then but you know but just once you've opened your eyes that doesn't end there the rest of the day is how then you try to think about these things differently so we know death is everywhere i mean especially now you know with all our incredible social media on all the instantaneous news from around the planet and for some reason always too because we crazy human beings we always report death as one of the most dramatic pieces of news you know people get killed people who do killing so death is everywhere we can never avoid it even if you never read an ipad or a newspaper and you're living in a little room especially in india i joke about it's like living in jurassic park in india in the rainy season isn't it i mean i mentioned that's the last time we were together you know about karma i'm living in santa fe and it's fairly dry here it's up about 4000 meters or something no 5000 feet or something i can't remember so it's fairly dry i mean the only little other creatures i meet in my house are ants a few little tiny black ants so they pop in every now and again you know for some food but i mean like in india it's like it is like jurassic park and bombarded daily by creatures you know so death and then you see them slaughtered all the time i mean just everywhere dying animals dying creatures so we see death all the time now why is it what how do we see it now this is the point how do we at this moment interpret it well if it's just most of the most of the people who die in the world are strangers to us we've got friends enemies and strangers haven't we the whole world is divided into friends enemies and strangers we learn about this in the body's subject path and it's a very simple way to put the whole world we see everybody through the lenses of attachment aversion and couldn't care less indifference well most of the creatures who die we don't have much attachment to those ants we don't have much attachment to those cockroaches and those flying creatures in fact we probably have a version for most of them and we try and we all try not to be happy that they're dead because now they're not interfering with my precious life but if we've got some semblance of compassion we might have compassion but it doesn't touch us very deeply then we read all the news about countries you've never heard of i always remember looking in my ipad and i read all my news on my ipad you know there was i was reading my new york times on the home page and the heading was there down on the right the right hand corner the heading i grabbed the in my eye i saw the heading and the heading said 350 people die in a ferry accident in tasmania well i was born in australia okay so that's my people right they're under the friends category my people and i went oh no and then i went to the story and then i noticed that it said not tasmania tanzania and i then thought oh that's okay i mean instinctively you know of course i noticed my mind and i read the story and i had to think about where tanzania was but it was not the same as my people dying in a very accident we're all like this we have our we have our people we have the enemies and we have the strangers well most the entire universe 99.999 of strangers so the deaths we read about and the deaths we see was the creatures they're all in the stranger category some might be in the enemy category like the rats and the ex-boyfriend maybe but mostly we don't care we notice it oh that's just death we in other words we take it for granted this is a really powerful point you know we've got to look at this point you see buddha's telling us that everything that is existing in front of us we bring our own interpretation to it this finally is proving emptiness this is buddha's final point but we don't think that we just we don't realize our mind is full of viewpoints and opinions you know and that they inform everything we see and do so when we when we see death of creatures and death in countries that we don't know about what we think what we're doing is interpreting it as not important because they're not close to us of course it's true that's why i didn't much care when it was tanzania it's tasmania oh my goodness you know my interest was peach so we we just don't care so then we just think we don't think about it that's all we just don't think about it we don't give it any meaning so how do we use these ordinary daily experiences you know to get us to wake up to the reality that i am impermanent and that and i will die one of the most marvelous simple simple ways to do that it's immediate but we never do it it's as soon as you see that ant dead as soon as you read about those that ferry accident in tanzania as soon as you hear about you you know the old grandpa next door died you hear it you think about it and you go that will happen to me i swear to you this is the most instant method but of course it's the last thing that occurs to us death gets a bit closer to us when it's our beloveds doesn't it when it's our country people when it's our next-door neighbor it's a bit closer but when it's our beloveds our own precious pet our beloved grandma our dearest old you know whatever it is then we're really touched by death but we still don't get the point we we have compassion we have grief yes all that's fine but we until we say this will happen to me we will not get the wake up call because in other words islamazopa says because of this deep misconception in the bones of our being because we can't stand the idea of death because we're so attack is because we are attached to me attached at the time of death the greatest fear is because of attachment to this body and especially in our world we consider the body to be me don't we so this is the reason there is so much denial and fear of death but it's so primordial we don't notice it it's because of unbelievable attachment unbelievable attachment so because of this we have all these ridiculous misconceptions i mean it says so clear as he talks as he says you know we divide the whole world into living people and dying people and look at our view look at how we think you know you hear that you know that your grandmother suddenly has got cancer you're shocked and now what happens before this she was your real living grandma she was a living person of course we never say words like this but it's so profound there's an assumption that she's a real person that means she's got today and she's got a tomorrow and she's got a next week and you've got a future if you're a living person you're kind of you're living you never factor in death to it you kind of you're here but suddenly in the dying category you don't even want to talk about dying people and if you do talk to them you look at them sadly you talk in kind of quiet tones why would you want to talk to a dying person you're embarrassed you don't know what to talk about i mean people who say they've got you know um diseases and they're going to be dying soon the way people treat them is so appalling because they're treated like some alien because we don't i mean and as as all remittances pointing out is this a total joke to think there's a group over there called dying because they're sick or old and there's a group here including me and that's the hubris of it i'm in the living group and we'll always feel that even even when our beloved grandma dies even when our beloved peck dies we'll have our grief and compassion that's fine but it's not the point yet we're still feeling there's an instinctive feeling of who it's not me it's over there death is over there death happens to other people i think that's pretty clear if we look at this it's quite shocking so until we say the words that will be me but it's an absurd thought to have we think it's too ridiculous like depressing thought to have we think why would i want to think that and this is the other point because we're so believing that we are living people well my husband is a living person my children are living people which means we've really got a life we exist we and the impermanence does not come into our mind it's completely somewhere else so then someone comes along and becomes a dying person it shakes everything but until we think this is the point that a teacher's saying some kind of saying you know i will die and the second point should scare the life out of us and this is also logical this is scientific truth but we don't like to think about it the time of death is absolutely not definite you know as amazon says the best is to think i'll die today and that's even more shocking to us so then why this is this is what we have to process i remember always i quote nicole kidman i love this woman but i'm always quoting her as a perfect example of how we grasp at things as permanent it just i just remember it because i was reading this is years ago when she was still married to tom cruise i read this article in a magazine and she said at the end of the article it was all about you know they were these loving couple they had these children their life was amazing they were in love with each other everything was perfect so she said we will be together until we're 80. so now think about that that's how we all feel when and this is a general point about seeing things as permanent because we have fear of things changing incredible fear of change because of gra because of attachment so the analysis there is and this is the same as your own life you know i will live till i'm 80. it's like we're saying that basically and we're basically on what and this is the point what's the logic for saying we will be together until we're 80. what is the logic of saying i will live till i'm 18. it's that we base it on the present and that's the present is i'm young i'm healthy and all the in all the research we do in the you know in the in the modern world in medical profession you'll live too long you'll live a long age because we don't factor in anything else we base we base uh life on the length of life on your health and your and your age you know but pretty much although we know every day people who aren't who are sick people who are healthy and young die but we just don't like to think of that we don't factor those in we think they're they're like a medical mistake so we ignore them you know so i we're conv so because let's say in tom and nicole's case a good example a couple we all this relates to our own life because that everything at that moment was delicious meaning they were all they were getting what their attachment wants attachment is the main cause of all this pain attachment says junkie in us that only wants the nice things it's desperate to get only the nice things this pervades every second of our lives okay the grasping it's this attachment this is what underneath so this but when attachment's getting what it wants that means you've got a happy life the house is lovely the husband's kind the kids are there you've got a life you know the kids come home every day you get up in the morning the kids come home every day you get up in the morning life keeps going like this so we basically we take it for granted and that means we assume because it's good today well of course it'll be good tomorrow and because it'll be good today and we love others we love each other so much now you know it we will be together until we're 80. and we say this with absolute certainty don't we well buddha's basically telling us it's complete nonsense it's a complete fabrication it might be true but we say it with absolute conviction as scientific truth and we base it on the fact that we're young healthy i'm talking about our life now that because i'm young i'm because i'm healthy or even if i'm old and i'm healthy we still have this assumption i'm as permanent because we're attached to me that of course i'll be alive tomorrow and of course i'll be alive the next day now as you get closer to death in terms of age you have to know you know that when you look in the mirror you're not young anymore you know that you are getting closer to that but it's very distant idea it's sort of way in the distance and you do not engage in it we don't want to engage in it and the thing is because we see things as permanent we think engaging it is depressing then you think well to lamazopa's point you know what do you mean i should think i could die today is he trying to make me depressed that's like thinking nicole's suddenly thinking well tom could leave me today and really contemplating that truth and getting a realization of the reality that tom could leave her today i mean why would you think about it why would she think about this you think about your own life you've got a really good job let's say and you say to yourself well you know i could get sacked today you think what are you telling us therefore am i supposed to get depressed we don't know what to do with that thought because we believe in things as being permanent we believe things won't change so as soon as we recognize that they do change then what happens we become depressed we get shattered we get overwhelmed we we think it's just it's a the life falls apart the bubble bursts you know so there is it's a lot of work to do to think about impermanence as a reason to help you get a wake-up call and to in fact live your life better not worse not worse so let's look at the logic of that it's not so easy for us i think there's such good examples you know let's say you take you've got your house and your home and your job and your family and it feels so it feels so permanent it feels so solid and you know it will be there tomorrow and you imagine it will be there in 20 years time when you're fantasizing about and then your grandchildren coming to visit you we think like this we think we map out our lives now there's nothing wrong with mapping out your life but we forget to factor in the reality that everything changes moment by moment and because we're not clairvoyant very simple we don't know when things will change we don't know when the house will fall down we don't know when the money runs out we don't know this is logic even though we believe it'll last until 85 or something so the thing is this very simple example you know if you just go even you go away for a weekend let's say a nice holiday for the weekend to a nice hotel somewhere by the beach just to say now think about this it's so logical you look forward to it and you go to this nice weekend resort or something for two days for just two days now think about this you know it's only two days you know it's a very impermanent uh scenario you're going for two days now listen to this point because you know it's only two days because you know it's so it's impermanent guess what you don't say oh why should i go away for two days it's only two days it's not forever why bother no you're so excited to go away for two days because you're gonna have fun think of this and then because it's only two days you do not waste a single moment this is the simple analogy because it is only two days or a week or a month whatever the holiday is you do not want to waste one second of it because how absurd you get to your fancy hotel on friday night you've paid all this money and then you go oh i can't be bothered going i can't be bothered going out i'm just going to have a sleep i feel i've got a bit of a headache i'll just sleep i'll go tomorrow then on saturday you know you've only got one day left i can't be bothered going out today you know i'll go tomorrow then suddenly on sunday night they chuck you out because you forgot that it was impermanent so the thinking that it's impermanent is the way to enjoy it so i remember one woman recently in a course talking about her fears you know we all got fears and hers is she constantly thinks about how her husband could die she's all the time having panic attacks and worries about how her husband could die now you'd think well that's isn't she doing what buddha said isn't she thinking about how her husband's impermanent no she's being completely neurotic because she's believing he shouldn't die she can't stand the thought that he will die and she keeps having a panic attack about it since she said how can i learn to live in the moment or something i said forget about living in the moment just face the fact please your husband will definitely die but what do you do with it then you don't just go oh well he could die why bother that's the point about the holiday you don't say i won't go away for two days why bother it's not forever and then you say well my husband's going to die then why bother no everything is impermanent everything changes everybody dies everything changes and we don't know when so what's the point the point is you make the most of it while you've got it you make the most of that two days you know it's impermanent but then you make the most of it because it is impermanent so you don't waste it and that's the analogy about life so then i said to her well just don't stop trying to you know push the thoughts away live in the moment forget that i said just tell yourself he will die and then what do you do like in the two-day holiday you make the most of it you use it you use the life well you i said you be so happy he's right there this second you you learn to be kind and loving and compassionate because if you could die you don't want to die during a fight do you you learn you have a happy mind you practice every single day and then you wake up in the morning and he's still breathing next to you wow it's a bonus and you live another day where you don't waste your life so the logic of this is so clear we've got to think it through because to think that you think you could die today is the most absurd thought because why we have these assumptions that i won't die assumption that things won't change it's very deep in us and we simply don't even notice it you know so this is so practical so it's when it when you really do get a feel it's quite advanced i mean here i am hearing all these teachings but god knows how many years blah blah blah out of my own mouth all the time with such conviction and i'm telling you i promise you i don't believe i will die today i really don't i mean this is just how deep the delusion is you don't pretend so when you've realized the reality of impermanence everything in your life changes you don't waste a single second you there's no point in having arguments and fights you wouldn't get angry you wouldn't get depressed why waste your time it's like in the hotel for two days why you know spend the whole time in bed because you can't be bothered because you forgot that it's impermanent no you'd make the most of it that's the analogy you'd make the most of this precious human life you'd allow things to come and go you wouldn't grasp at things you know it's so logical we've got to think it through and it's not an easy realization to have i mean i know technically you know under a map of my life i know i'm definitely closer to death there's no question i know it in fact but still this is the other thing too the the fee you know when you've got when you're going on an even like going down to the shops it takes you 10 minutes to drive there or five minutes to walk there whatever it might be we have a very vivid feeling don't we of of things moving forward you you go out of your house and even as you're walking out of your house you've got the feeling of moving away from your house towards the shop you have a sense of how long it will take you see the different signposts on the way and there's a feeling of moving forward a feeling of moving towards your goal which is the shop or on an airplane journey for you know when i used to fly from melbourne to london 24 hours of flying you look at your clock and now we're singapore now with this you're moving forward it's quite dynamic now that's how we should think about our life moving towards death but we do not do that every time i wake up in the morning it's the same lump of concrete permanent rabina as like like i felt 57 years ago or whatever it was and it's the same feeling you know that i'm this there's this concrete permanent me plodding through life there's no feeling of one day gone and they wake up the next day one day closer to death like every time you you know you go past this thing and i think a little bit closer to the shop there's no feeling of moving towards death why is because of our concepts we've got other concepts in our mind so we're trying to bring these concepts into our minds so that they inform this this life so we get a feeling of our being impermanent so the point of all this is then what's the conclusion if it's true the way in permanent we're going to die what's the point what's the concluding point from this well when i die and it could be today the only thing that is of any use to me at the time my mind separates from my body the only thing that is of any use is my mind for start and in the mind the only things they've only used is the virtuous states of mind the positive states of mind why because they will enable that you know they they will ripen as my future happiness so forget about even future enlightenment future anything at least future happiness so the cause of my future happiness and given that my mind will leave this body and inexorably within not more than seven weeks definitely find another body i want to find a decent body please i want a decent human mother or father or i want a pure land birth there's only two options we'll go into this when we discuss the court in the course there's only two options and we have to decide where we want to get reborn this too sounds hilarious we make plans all our life but we never plan for our next life we think it's a joke you know it's not a joke not for the buddha it's practical if i want to go to india i've got to first have the thought i want to go to india but i don't i don't just only have the thought i want to go to india on the day that i thought i was going to go if i'd forgotten to create the causes to get to india by packing my bags and getting an air ticket and going to the airport then i'll be a big shock i won't get to india but the first one has to be i want to go to india well you've got to decide i want you know i want to get reborn as a human or as in the pure land there's only two options you don't want to be born as a rat a worm an animal of any kind other realms of existence you don't want those rebirths not according to the buddha's you you don't want to suffer you want to at least carry on as another human being so you continue your spiritual path bare minimum so then you've got to create the courses what are the gotta want it first but then you have to know what causes that well for it for india it's you know an air ticket etc etc and for the next life you've got to know i mean this is practical stuff this is practical not but we hear it as religious punitive kind of scary you know [Music] so you've got to know i've won a human body what's the cause of a human body this is this is why but atisha has got this point right at the beginning of the lamrim to prime our minds to get to where we now start to practice where we start to abide by the laws of karma the laws of karma run the universe it's a natural law that your genius indians before the buddha first identified and then the buddha identified and it's still at the basis of all buddha's worldview that we are the boss of our own reality i am at this moment experiencing the fruits of my past actions and i will experience in the future the result of my present action so this is the logic so i'd better start putting my money where my mouth is hadn't i and stop harming sentient beings live in vows practice you know connect with the buddha every day a little bit do some practice do some study and take refuge live in vows and purify so if i do this much i can guarantee death will be a pleasant experience and i'll get another decent human body and keep on bopping on my spiritual path that's the logic behind this whole book that's a taste now ask me some questions this is the first step this is the first one let's determine sorry to finish this determines that you live your life differently you're preparing for death by living your life differently by seeing it differently and the point is when you get these kind of basic thoughts you become much happier you're more realistic you know death is natural you don't waste your time you don't waste your life you don't you won't get i mean the reason we get depressed or angry is because we believe things will never end so we and we just get completely caught up in the bubble of all these stories you know so it prepares us to live our life so who's got questions is there somebody who's got a question i'm not sure whenever robina antonin can you see somebody please raise your hand if you have a question or you can also type it down in the chat please yeah oh yes there's somebody can i yes you please go ahead talk to me namaste that was challenging again uh quick question when you say at the time of death your karmic seed is planted or sort of it gets narrowed down to culmination yes being virtuous at that state of mind would naturally mean that you would have had to have a virtuous life you can't suddenly become virtuous at the time of that and number two how does the karmic seed at that point of time add to the life that you have left behind do you negate those karmic accounts or they anyways travel respectively i understand no these are really important points i think we have many different viewpoints about this idea of these karmic seeds well let's just try and keep it as simple as possible that if we've got beginningless lifetimes as we know the buddha's teachings say and if every millisecond of what we think and do and say i mean every millisecond of what we think and do and say so seeds in the mind or i like to say programs the mind you know which is pretty powerful concept buddha would have liked that but the idea of seeds is pretty practical so every millisecond what we think and do and say so sees in our mind so we came into this life program with you know carrying with us i like to joke and call it our bank vaults of karmic seeds from countless past lives so we've got a whole bunch that are so called negative which are those that are planted in our mind as a result of actions we do that harm in general that are that are based on deluded states of my actions we do based on anger attachment jealousy the usual stuff you know and then those they sew negative seeds and then these seeds are going to ripen in four different ways all seeds ripen in four different ways and i'll say that in a minute then the other seeds there's the positive seeds and they're things that are dropped into our bank vault that see the positive seeds from actions we've done that are based on compassion and wisdom and kindness and love and of course it's super much more nuanced than that it's so it's so subtle the different kinds of seeds and no one's running this thing it's a natural law so so okay so in so this this life this life we you know okay the time of our past death not more than a few weeks before our mummy and daddy hopped into bed or whatever happened at the time of our death we can deduce wherever whether even if we're born as even if we were animal as somebody says that we must have had a fairly peaceful death and you know and this is the logic of this again is if your mind's fairly peaceful or certain conditions like we could have been a cat in let's say and we had a buddhist owner and maybe that buddhist owner allowed us to die peacefully we know we've got a deluded mind we're a cat for god's sake we can't crack create virtue but maybe by hearing the buddha's prayers or the buddhist mantras that's a very powerful thing for the ear consciousness we'll discuss all this when we do this course it would have had left a deep impression in my mind and that could have made my mind very peaceful and that could have triggered that miracle could have triggered one of my many good positive virtuous non-killing karmic seeds so the cause in the past life the cause of how the cause of our getting a human mummy the cause of our mind going to human mummy as opposed to a dog mummy in the backyard was the triggering at the time of that death and the conditions that we died in might have been what i said and this is how we can help people and our animals die well there's different ways to do this that could have triggered and i've got in as a cat we've got all these virtuous calming seeds sitting in our bank vaults we've got we've had countless past lives so like a miracle although it's not a miracle it's logical one of those virtuous karmic seeds was triggered which produced which caused us at that moment that already even before we stopped breathing that already programmed our mind to go to our present mother's human womb six or seven weeks later when she hopped into bed with our daddy that's already programmed right there so next the other ways the the other karmic seeds that also would be triggered then will be those that produce your personality would be that let's say in my case or your case a wish to practice ethics all your good tendencies to not kill to not steal to want to practice a spiritual path they're all your tendencies they would have been triggered at the same time the next lot of karmic seeds that are going to produce the kind of family you have and you're rich or poor or ugly or beautiful or born in a war zone or all your environmental karma and all the way you're seen and treated by others there are four ways that our experiences four ways that our karmic seeds ripen a type of body our mind the kind of mind in that body our experiences and even the environmental all of that is programmed so that can always trigger at the time before we stop breathing in the past life so a cat clearly cannot create any to answer your question a cat cannot create virtue when you look at the buddhist there may be some but you look at the buddhist view of the mind you know the buddhist view of the mind that we've got negative states positive states and neutral states and i like to call those the mechanics this this this covers the entire universe including all the animals all the hell beings all the spirits all the gods so an animal with certainty cannot create any virtuous karma in that life whatsoever so that's very pertinent to your question you're thinking of a human being they spent their life completely driven by delusions completely driven by ego grasping completely driven by fear so then the question is well then your question how can a virtuous seed be triggered because there are virtuous seeds in the mind there are virtual seeds in that cat's bank vault there are virtuous seeds in the bank vault of a person like you know like your indication of your question a person who doesn't live a virtuous life but that at the time they die somehow a virtuous kid can be triggered it's not a contradiction it's fortunate it's very fortunate and it's a rare thing it's like winning the lottery so for a cat just to hear the buddha's name that could be enough to nourish one of its karmic seeds from 50 000 lives ago to get a human body so it's like that it's kind of it's it's not like good luck and bad luck it's not you know punitive or anything it is but it is not impossible in other words are you with me here that's the first point are you with me yeah so they said what was the second point what you asked the same point so second point was and the the karmic account of this life if it was non-virtuous or virtuous would also ripen in your next or whatever life it's much more complex than that every if every merely second of what we think and do and say does drop into these four bank vaults you know the the different karmic seeds will drop into these will stay in our mind and then just but they don't most of them what we do in this life might not i mean if you if you've practiced this whole life being as a little buddhist let's say and since your child you listened you learned you heard you've studied all the dharma you've lived in vows then it's pretty likely that's going to nourish first of all you're going to create millions of new seeds and they could very well be the ones that are predominant that will determine your next life but you know you could have spent like i just said you've got to spend your life as a cat but all your other virtuous companies from a thousand lifetimes ago will be the ones so they don't always just follow linear sense next life next life there's billions of seeds and there's millions of different quality of seeds it's highly complex they say but it is all knowable to us as we get more spiritually advanced we can understand it but that's why the key thing is given that we've got millions of seeds in our mind if at least we recognize impermanence and then make the most of this precious life by nourishing the virtuous seeds we've planted in the past by being virtuous now and by being virtuous now sowing more seeds in the mind then it is karma takes care llama yes he says it's a logical law that if you sow all the right seeds and nourish all the right seeds you can guarantee you'll get a decent human body you can guarantee that the comics that what you want to get in the future will come i mean we understand this in our ordinary life that you know you make a plan and when you make that plan it'll happen we're not surprised when you get a garden after 15 years because you understand botany we're not surprised you're going to get to italy if you decide to go to italy because we know how to do it well that's all this is getting hold of the law of karma knowing we are in charge of it not just leaving it to someone else and crossing our fingers you know that's the whole approach you're with me it's very good thank you so much what else people geog can you unmute yourself a jio i've seen your picture talk to me uh do you hear me i do hear you okay thank you vanderbilt i think i heard what wonderful uh opportunity to be part of your uh tara retreat in uh a few years back for nine days so my i have a two questions which have been uh uh which has come after listening to yesterday now the whole idea that the buddhist the whole core is really to train the mind it's really the mind training i think that is not trained i think the best the buddhism is not really there last phrase what did you just say i said that unless until that mind is not trained yeah the biggest practice should not be a buddhist practice it's true the essence of the essence of buddhist practice is working and everything we do supports that job to stop the difference i think the virtues yes then okay so the my question is uh now there are different ways of uh looking at where is the mind in the body i mean some they are saying that it's really in the brain because the brain thinks yes and the way of saying is that no it is in the heart because the heart can think in the field so what is the buddhist way of understanding is their location of the brain i really feel that unless until one is having a kind of a clear voice can one really say that one has become a cl uh one has become a therapist because listen really see what is their defilements in me i can't really handle that exactly your points are so good and you're the second point you make actually you're right but maybe from the second point of view the second point just briefly we'll go more into it it's all a question of degree we've got to start somewhere i mean you know it's only you could even argue idea it's only finally when you're actually a buddha that you're the best therapist so it's it's gradual it's a degree it's a it's a question of degree and that and that gives us more confidence you know to the degr we have to just keep growing our potential to know our own mind purify our own mind develop our own mind so to the point where we can see the minds of others it's true the stages that are crucial you're absolutely right about that point but we've got to keep going you know do the best we can it's not it's a it's an incremental gradual process and we know that with any body of knowledge you know you can even if you've just passed grade one mathematics and this is the point now you've still got some mathematical knowledge you can still help somebody do some maths you don't wait till you're the best mathematician on the planet before you start to help others or before you think that you're making progress so it's a gradual thing and that gives us confidence now the first point is very interesting but as we know you know buddhism in tibet all the hinayana teachings went to tibet all the mahayana sutra teachings went to tibet and the vajrayana so the complete set of all lord buddha's teachings at different levels of you know of subtlety and and sophistication all are still even now extent not in tibet hardly i'm sorry but in among tibetan buddhists holy the dalai lama all the holy beings in exile in india so the buddhist all that's all the buddhists the tibetan buddhist teachings you can see it um uh uh within the framework of the vajrayana it includes the hinayana it includes the mahayana you've gotta you've got that's why the whole lam rim you've got to have junior school high school university and postgraduate vajrayana's postgraduate well the best way the simplest way in ironically the simplest to describe the what where the mind is in the body is to take the vajrayana model and this is the this is the teachings of the of the death process this is the basis of all the practices in the vajrayana this is this is the this is said to be the actual way things are you know in the vagina point of view and this is coming from you amazing indians before you great indian yogis you know so basically and also interestingly as holiness said i know when in when i was editing lamishi's book on mahamudra which is this marvelous meditation technique of meditating on the nature of your mind so you can eventually realize the emptiness of your mind it's he said it's not that easy to have an experience of your mind because it's not physical you can learn where it what it is and how and the negative the positive you can recognize the indications of these you know but to actually have a direct experience of your own mind is pretty advanced so that's given all that now the vajrayana model is very clear we've got and this is relating to the death process as well so we've got what they call for now the first i say first point about the mind as we discussed in its nature itself it is not physical so therefore in its nature itself it isn't the brain you wouldn't even say but you could argue that the physical the physical body and the brain they're all they're all the nervous system it's obvious that they are good indicators of what is happening in the mind so we've got to take the view that consciousness or mind and these are synonymous uh in their nature not physical but they but at the first level we've got gross consciousness which is the sensory consciousness and then we have the gross body which indeed is the brain the nervous system the genes the dna all the stop all this the substance of all the you know the neuro all the neuroscience and things that's not contradicted but it wouldn't contradict that and that's why these marvelous talks this last 30 40 years with his holiness inviting all these conversations with the best brains in the west and they're now learning as a result of his his holiness as amazing openness they're now learning about the buddha's view of what consciousness is what the mind is you know and they're really questioning their assumptions which is fantastic so the given here is the gross consciousness which is your sensory consciousness by definition consciousness is not physical so for example you could are you could say it this way your eye consciousness you know if i pick up this thing here and i my eye consciousness will cognize two things shape and color so that's what appears to my eye consciousness so my eye consciousness is that part of my mind which is not physical which exists in dependence upon the eyeball and the nerves and the brain that's the way to put it so our mind at the gross level absolutely utterly depends upon the existence of a decent working brain etc etc etc but the way to say it without insulting neuroscientists is the brain is an indicator of what is going on in the mind that's the first point now we get to the interesting bit we've now got subtle consciousness and that is inextricably linked with what they call our subtle body or these subtle physical components and this is straight from the straight from the amazing indian yogis you know and that's um we've got this subtle nervous system of 72 000 channels going throughout our entire body it's subtle physical but you can't see it with a microscope throughout all those channels are causing all these all these different wind energies prana this is you know for the great yogi's that completely familiar with all this the tibetan medical doc system is based upon this they study these wind energies 12 14 years and this is the basis of health and everything so this is of course this is not the neuroscientific model so these wind energies are coursing through all these channels and this is the point now our subtle mind which means our mental states our love our compassion our attachment all the hundreds of thousands of mental states we have at the grocery level conceptual levels of mind that's subtle consciousness and they all these states of mind are inextricably linked to their own wind energies going through these channels okay so this is described in great detail and you know that like like that you go to your tibetan doctor she will feel your pulses and she will feel the imbalance of certain wind energies in your in your in your subtle nervous system and she will know that's related to your attachment energy your mind and that's why you're having anxiety or panic attacks so but the so the mind and the winds are literally linked together you can't have one without the other in the same way you can't have a an eye consciousness without an eyeball so mind and body are intimately linked so mind answering your question exists throughout your entire body coursing through all these different channels linked to their own wind energies that's how we live day-to-day life so when you die this process you kind of you deconstruct first the gross consciousness ceases their various senses and then the physical energies that they depend upon like your eyeball and your nerves they cease then your subtle consciousness you go through this gradual process of deconstruction all the different states of mind cease to function because the wind energies are all moving towards the heart chakra ev by the time you get to the very subtle consciousness which is called the clear-like consciousness which it it too is inextricably linked to a very subtle level of prana very subtle wind and these two as his holiness says these are in inseparable the entire universe consists of trillions of minds and all minds have their own set of the wind energies this is just the way it is this is reality called vagina so how we act and the actions we do determine the body we get determine the experiences we get determine the physical elements because the elements are out there and here so our mind drives all those elements so mind is throughout your body coursing through these 72 000 subtle channels linked to the different wind energies that's the buddhist that's the bhajana answer thank you vanderbilt thank you okay good any other question smita it's me doji can you unmute yourself dear go on then people thank you venerable for your teachings uh during the last moments of death what is the projecting karma is it based on how the person has lived his life or it could be anything you know how is the projecting karma selected like yes it's that also would be because that person in a coma this is a very good point because we think in our culture i think we very much think if a person is in a coma or you put them on their drugs and then oh they look so peaceful but this is really not true the point is so first of all the best way to die is not in a coma the best way to die is to be conscious so you can hear the prayers and be encouraged and keep kind of and be supported to navigate this process so your mind can stay peaceful and conscious that's the best way to die now of course we can't guarantee that so a person in a coma whether it's a baby whether it's an old person doesn't matter and even you know is it all it still depends upon what's in their mind i mean this is the point because when that person in the coma starts to die their mind is working all their subtle mind you see the subtle mind is we really only vividly experience that when we dream we're dreaming the dream mind is your subtle mind so you know very well you know this is my point about we drug people out of their brains thinking oh they're so peaceful but it's just not true or we think they're in a coma or they don't know what's going on that is not true and i'll describe so you know yourself you could be sleeping next to your husband if you have one of them i don't know if you've got one but let's pretend you're sleeping and you look peaceful but you can wake up in the morning and tell them you had this terrible nightmare but you you look peaceful right so this is the point and that's one of the key points in this pro in this approach to death you know drugs can medicate physical pain but they cannot medicate mental anguish you know so it's so that's why it's so important to to help the person if you've got the luxury of weeks and months before to literally prepare them to be happy to be virtuous to be in a very pleasant environment to let them hear prayers every day depending on the person so they're they're ready for it they're ready for it then and then if so then even if they do go into a coma this is why the subtle mind even though the senses aren't working the subtle mind has the ability to see and hear things that's where people describe out of body experiences you know that kind of experiences that that's very that's very vivid i mean i remember yeah i mean when your mind can be in a dream you can be hearing things in the outside so this is why even when you're in a dream or in a coma one of the most powerful ways to help a person m their mind be peaceful and virtuous and therefore trigger a virtuous karmic seed when the death process starts is to have mantras playing or prayers because you know i mean i remember vividly i mentioned this i might have mentioned this in one of the other teachings but a friend of mine in sydney was in in the icu in a deep coma she knew some llamas and she didn't really practice herself but she knew these particular llamas so i asked their students to ask the llamas to pray for judy well i'd see her every night in the hospital completely in the deepest coma they didn't think she'd come out she's in a coma okay she's not really a buddhist she's at different things but but she wasn't practicing at that time but this is the point her mind would have been completely chaotic like our minds are when we're dreaming but listen to this i s would say present her ear and every now and again i'd say judy his holiness suck your twins and is praying for you judy his holiness i said song say rinpoche is praying for you and she came out of that coma eventually and she was completely fine and she told me she remembered nothing except those words she thought it was a blue lady coming through the window and she heard this husky voice she didn't know it was mine and saying exactly those words now that's the power of the buddhas and that's the power of the holy beings so that's where you can help a person who's in a coma not just let them be in a coma but by having prayers close to their ear animals as well this can be the one thing that you can do because of the power of holy beings to hook their mind and that then will enable a virtuous calming seed to be triggered it could have been from a thousand lifestyles ago you've got these are the practices that are so important to do if you have faith in the buddhist paths even when the mind's in a coma even when the mind the person's senile just saying a mantra can make their mind peaceful and this is the point also make their mind peaceful but when the mind's peaceful that enables a virtuous calming seed to be treated that's the point you're with me there's so much we can do and with you can't tell a person to do something you can't tell them to be virtuous but you can give them the conditions that will enable a virtuous calming seat to be triggered and then the mind because it's so subtle when you're in a coma this could have a profound effect and because she had a karmic connection with those two llamas that was the only thing she found in her mind after weeks of being in a coma that's pretty powerful you're with me yup thank you so much wendell good what else people meter you had a second question go for it you still have 50 minutes good yes oh thank you okay i'm here yeah so venerable from my personal experience when my father was bedridden and he was close to in in weeks preceding his death i did have multiple occasions on which i felt that he could read my mind like he could he knew what was going on in my mind why did you think that what was the indication for usage because he asked me something that i thought i was thinking about like he he verbalized it okay he verbalized what was in my mind are these phenomena do they even happen okay this is really good point again this is your subtle mind so you know anybody we know in the world some people have very vivid dreams lots of people have clairvoyant experiences in dreams they know they see the future they see what's happening and the zombie yeshi talks so clearly described so clearly in the mahamudra book that this is one of the results of getting shamata i mean this has been around for thousands of years because you genius indians invented it when you've got your mind to get vagina when you have completely controlled your grosser level of consciousness your senses and the conceptuality and you've triggered a more subtle level of your mind one of the natural consequences of that is you get clairvoyance it's not complicated it's not unusual so you can say and this is exactly what's happening as you're dying this is why lamazover says when you're dying you can tell by the way the person behaves as they go through the process which seed has been triggered if a negative scene has been triggered which occurs about before you stop breathing then they're going to freak out completely and they're looking like they're having hallucinations and visions but because their minds getting more subtle they're moving towards this more subtle mind they're literally seeing their future life that's clairvoyance because the subtle mind is capable of that so as your daddy was obviously close to death his grosser consciousness was ceasing which enabled his subtler mind to be to be to be present so it's not impossible that's completely fits thank you so much vanderbilt all right what else people catherine catherine has a very good question about donating organs catherine are you happy to donating one's organs catherine are we happy to to ask it directly because yeah i can ask it um so i've heard before that it may not be a good idea to be an organ donor because at the moment of death you may not be completely dead and you may still feel some pain when they operate on you honestly okay okay so when you feel pain um you may get angry and so some negative karmic seeds and sometimes it's kind of a hard concept to accept because you know i no longer need my body and can share part of it to save a life so can you kind of get some light on that thank you absolutely absolutely yes in in the book and the last stages of it once you love one in the book once the person has stopped breathing then all the chapters are related to the difference what to do in the different scenarios in which your loved one dies or the cat or the mouse whatever so the first one is what if your loved one dies at home that's the best scenario because you've got three days if your loved one dies in hospital or an institution if your loved one dies suddenly and the other one is if your loved one dies if they give the organs so this is a very interesting topic well first of all all the llamas i've ever heard about and heard the teachings and llamas oprah included praise this practice as the most special practice that anybody who wants to sacrifice to give their own organs that such compassion their death that will be such a powerful motivation that that will trigger a virtuous karmic seed at the time of death and they'll get a really good rebirth but all the llamas i think just assumed and i certainly assumed until i worked on this book that you know you die peacefully they leave you and then eventually they take your organs but we know that's not how it happens they from the second you show brain death they wire you up and they keep your brain working they keep your mind your heart beating and you look like a real living being now this is the big point this is this is what is called death in the modern world okay isn't it but as far as it's very clear according to this model the vajrayana model islamazopa says you're not dead yet by the time in this process of eight stages of death the fourth one is when you stop breathing you're not now your subtle mind is still there and that could be you could be experiencing things like you would in a dream just the same you could be very conscious you'd be very vividly aware but you don't there's no sensory consciousness that has ceased and then the death is a slow process and it could take up to three days by the time you get to the very subtle consciousness or the clear light consciousness and when that leaves the body that's when you're dead and there are ways of checking this it's really helpful this is all in the book so the the interesting point is the dilemma is this and it was while i'm working on this book i read a book by an american medical journalist called nick teresi and it's called the undead it's not about zombies he's a very funny fellow he's an atheist but he's reported in depth about the problems and contradictions and difficulties now in the certainly in the united states about exactly when death is happening and it's all related to the business of getting taking organs because you know all we know from centuries every culture reports people who quote unquote come back to life and we cut in the medical profession which is the materialist view we can't explain it so we leave it we just leave it there we don't know what to do with it but this is a very real problem now people showing they're coming back to life you're about to cut some guy's liver out and they or something and they discover he's not dead yet this is a really not uncommon problem so this is forcing the medical profession to question their assumptions about what death is then he had a whole himself he was very funny about it he had a whole chapter of people about people who experience what they call out of body experiences while they're having their operation well technically many people experience this i've had this many people have this experience in different times but you technically your mind doesn't leave the body but your subtle mind and has the ability to be to it has ability to go places you can be somewhere i remember a guy in toshita this is years ago in like 92 or something this this brazilian guy an australian brazilian he would come to the class every morning exhausted because he just spent the spent the night running around the world going to africa going to his his girlfriend's room in melbourne that subtle mind he doesn't actually astral travel as we call it but that's the ability of subtle mind and that's what clairvoyance is but you think you're you're leaving so all these experiences of people watching they're watching their operation they have the experience of floating above the body and they tell the doctors later what you said what instruments you use so of course they come they don't want to believe all this you don't actually leave your body that's your subtle mind and it's his capability so obviously he had must have had past life experiences of meditation but i remember he was so out of his mind he just he was born he thought he was some holy being he thought he thought the boring practice of watching his attachment every day was just boring he wanted to fly around the world you know it was very funny anyway the point is in this book nobody believes these experiences of these people who report these experiences which is their subtle mind observing you're fast asleep you're under anesthetic you couldn't possibly feel pain but they vividly describe everything but this is what's interesting so he had one woman he joked about it who had have who had to have such a radical procedure that they had to virtually make her dead every organ had to be completely stopped to do this particular complicated procedure so from the medical people's point of view there was no way she could be conscious of anything but he's joked and said she reported the most vivid out of body experience and so you just can't argue with these things they don't know what to do with it so it's quite shocking to them which is marvelous because it's forcing them to question their assumptions about what consciousness is you understand my point so far so one doctor quoted in the book who's in this business of cutting out organs he said i can now say with certainty that consciousness is not a function of the brain i don't know what it is but this i can say so i think it's brilliant that people have been forced although but he was quite cynical about the whole profession because he said the all these elitist doctors very arrogant kind of manipulating people they're manipulating politics they're manipulating governments to change laws in many european countries now they've they forced the law to be that when you die they will take your organs only and they won't only if you said not to not the other way around so it's very wicked he was quite cynical about it although of course it is an incredible thing to do and so riverchake talks about this now that this is the point now now this is the point that i found so powerful and i told rubichi this in this book he quoted this one nurse who monitors the heartbeat when they do the job of taking out the organs you know so there's this woman who's giving her organs and she's died and there she is on the operating table and she they don't put her on anesthetic so your point about feeling pain now that doesn't happen because unless of course she came back to life at that moment if her senses come back at that moment which is possible i mean there's the stories i mean in england i heard in the victorian times people would put a bell in a coffin in case you woke up so then if you woke up during the operation on the operating table and that's a possibility then your senses would suddenly come back to life because they haven't put you on anaesthetic right because they don't give you anesthetic because your senses have ceased but of course as far as they're concerned you're dead but what happened was this particular woman the nurse monitoring the heartbeat said that as soon as they got the circular saw ready to cut her open she noticed the heart went from 100 to 200 beats a minute and the author made a joke and said i wonder what a dead person has to be worried about but i could deduce it seems to me logical to deduce she's one of those people who is reporting an out of body experience because she's she's just like in a coma i mean her senses can't rely they can't survive on their own but her subtle mind is still there and she not everybody has an operation would see their body no most people don't have out-of-body experiences during this their dreams either but it's possible so then obviously she's observing what they're doing she's completely freaking out because don't they know i'm not dead yet and they she sees them about to cut her open so what could happen then because of that would then disturb her mind freak her out and that could then change the karma from a virtuous calming seed which would have been triggered before she stopped breathing and that could now be replaced by a negative karmic seed when she actually does leave her body so that's the danger that is the danger but not quite the way you said it but that's literally the danger and i told rimmer say that story you know and so he said of course there are always practices you can do to help but the other thing that was in so that's the and all right they said was they have to be careful and of course they're not factoring this in because this is only the buddha's view so it's very fascinating and many people it won't disturb them they've died with a happy mind a virtuous calming seed was triggered they're completely not a conscious when they cut their organs out so they will be just fine but it's only the okay the difficulty if you do come back to birth to come back to life suddenly and there are so many stories of that or at the time of death you're floating above your body or you're not really leaving your body but the experience of that your subtle mind is observing what they're doing and you freak out because you know you're not dead yet they think you're dead and you're panicking of course you would panic so it's a difficult point this is not an easy one and of course it's an amazing thing to do but i mean this doctor was quite cynical about the way these you know they would manipulate people because it sounds like the most noble thing in the universe to give somebody your heart and it is noble but you know if you have the view of reincarnation you have a very different perspective on things you know so does that answer some of your questions carter yes it does thank you good so my thought and even many people i mean even in this book he was he's a very he was very level-headed he reported all the different things you know interviewed many people but he was quite cynical in many ways about the way i mean because egos get involved we all know ego's getting involved and it's like the most elite of all the medical professions in the medical profession you know so manipulating people forcing the parents to give the organs of the children and that kind of thing you know so it's not cool and the fact is if you are a buddhist i mean there's many ways you can have your body useful after you've died you know it needs to be needs to be you know you've got to think about it you need to think about really think about it carefully but nobody's chapter is quite helpful so what else but it's time to go home you have many many questions whenever robina the topic is arguing many questions right now of course it is it's a huge topic when is our course it's not until april is it no and we could be dying in between i know that exactly in between maybe we can go a little bit over time in a robina how many just tell me the how many questions what they are they can maybe similar five more okay fine let's say let's just let me hear them all you just let me know if they're similar see if they're similar content oh it's uh people raising their hands so i'm not sure if um ask the questions come on g modi yeah hello can you hear me venerable indeed yes yeah i'll keep it brief rather than discussing about that what is your advice for doctors who are caring for very sick and dying well you know i mean it's if your job the doctor's job is uh the body and of course as lamazoba says that's their job but our job is the mind so if there's a person who's a buddhist doctor you'd obviously factor in the mind as well you'd be immediately informing the things you do so you know i mean you'd you'd be conscious like if you if you if i were a nurse or a doctor whose job is to take care of the mind first of all no the body obviously i'm basing all my um skills on the medic on the medical view about the body so then but if i'm a buddhist i'll be aware that maybe if the person's in a coma i'll be very gentle i will whisper some prayers in their ear maybe not trying to be you know too controversial and i would make sure that's very quiet i mean that's one of the major things you know hospitals are probably about the worst place to die because there's so much other noise and other people and dramas and families and machines and that's why if we drug people out we all say oh look she looks very peaceful but they're not peaceful they're not peaceful so if you are a doctor or a nurse with also a buddhist view you would make sure the environment's peaceful i mean that would be a hard thing to do so that's a really huge point you'd make sure that you know if they're a christian you'd make sure they have christian prayers in their ear you you'd factor this information as well but of course sometimes it would be get out of it it would be it would be beyond the doctor or the nurses um expertise so but i think that you'd factor that in to make it quiet and peaceful to make and to be loving and kind to the person i mean one of the ways to help people in liberty is different chapters there's chapters on what to touch what to see what to hear what to talk about so if you're a doctor or a nurse or a helper in a hospital then you know if you go into the room or the ward and you talk to that person just don't be in person i mean that's natural good doctors anyway you'd be really loving and really kind and praise the person and thank the person for their wonder what a good person they are and what a kind mother they are what a good grandmother they've been to one of the practices to lit because we don't normally think good things about ourselves and there you are dying and everybody has anxiety about it so be kind to them and loving and calm their mind down this is the most precious thing you know do you understand my point they're all practical really yeah thank you thank you good thank you so much what else uh victor if somebody is from a different belief system um are you proselytizing if you start doing mantras yeah it makes complete sense victor that's where you know as amazon says you've got to know the person's mind know what's suitable to them so you wouldn't just barge in and start you know giving buddhist views to people but let's say if you're catholic mummy and you know she's catholic well you give her catholic things you say catholic prayers you talk about heaven you talk about god then you know for whatever but let's say um but on the other hand but not not you're not going to give teachings but the other hand you see i think any prayer that is about just a mantra is just some series of sanskrit sounds sung nicely i mean i don't think that's proselytizing that's even just a c even just a sound that's peaceful can be incredibly helpful for a person's mind so it also happens to be a sanskrit mantra i don't know if that's proselytizing it's helping the person become that's a that's a marvelous gift to somebody but if you start blurring on about buddhism that's a bit rude yeah i'd suggest that you sing the difference my point yes i mean i know one time in one old people's home i went to visit somebody's grandma with the grandchild and this poor lady was out of her brain she was completely paranoid you know and in these awful depressing old people home sometimes where they have television on all day blaring noise and shout you know just out of drugged out of their brains it's such a terrible way to die but this old lady she was in her room and she was just demented you know demented and i was thinking well how can i help her so i just sang oh money put me home very quietly i mean instantaneously she became calm this is this is powerful and i don't think that's proselytizing i mean if you're a fundamentalist christian and you maybe see a buddhist nun who then says a prayer to you'll freak out so you wouldn't do that but i don't think it's proselytizing it's just helping their mind if nothing else helping their mind be peaceful and certainly all the animals you'd absolutely do this for all your animals you don't just go to the vet please and get the vet to kill your dog you let it die peacefully you get your very calm it down your dog he loves you it'll be very if it feels secure and you you play mantras next to your little dog or cat this is the miracle of what you can do for animals you know it's so powerful so beneficial are you seeing my point though it's not necessarily proselytizing you just have to be skillful though makes sense don't you think victor victor's called yes thank you so much good lord good victor what else content whenever robina we have a question from brazil uh when a bonandro arranged at the brazilian center is joining us as well um joel thank you wonderful yeah barbara she says her english is not so good and if i could please read the question for her she would like to thank you and for the opportunity to be live here with you uh she says i'm a beginner still learning to meditate reading my first books on buddhism i've never been on retreat does venom robina have a suggestion for a practice which i could start today to tomorrow something that would help me to contemplate this difficult idea of death i understand it would be important to contemplate this every day right yeah true so um well i mean if you have some english i don't know numbers not here who's the brazilian translator can you talk to me i think they're not here today i think i translated afterwards with a recording so then the first thing is if you can read english and if you got enough dollars you go to kindle or whatever it is and you buy this book and if you've got enough english it'll be something there for sure you can start or even before you get a book if you want to start tomorrow morning you would what the thing to do you when you wake up in the morning you you say you notice and you say to yourself my goodness i'm still alive i cannot believe it and i talk about a joke like this and i say my gas tank hasn't run out yet and what that means it and we should think that way because instead of thinking i'm permanent it's a miracle they're just still alive because your virtuous karma of non-killing is still ripening so then the first thing to think when you wake up in the morning well this is amazing i'm good and then you think i'm going to make the most of today and even if you know some little prayer or take refuge or just even just a mantra like old money pay me home or even just thinking of compassion i'm going to make the most of my today going to get out of bed and watch my body watch my speech and try and watch my mind there's already your practice barbara right there and if i do die today may i die with a happy mind that's it there's your practice right there all right thank you thank you darling and keep moving keep studying keep looking and if it is your path you will find out barbara don't shove it down your throat digest it think about it and go one step at a time sweetheart okay good he's not rosalba please unmute yourself there yes rosalba you're not mute good we've met many years ago in 2004 in japan oh good i'd like to ask about bardo i mean the stages of bardo are so deep had explained and although i have a guess i always wondered all these years where do these teachings or these explanations really come from i understand which one which book are you talking about in particular not not in particular i'm talking in general uh on bardo i mean of course the phrase was the book of uh of living living in that of a subject in but i mean in general okay so okay it's a good question so if you read a book giving detailed descriptions about cooking about how to make cakes your question is i wonder where this information came from that's what you're asking isn't it so what would be if the if this information is valid where would that information come from if the information in that cookbook is valid where would that information come from i'm asking you oh you're asking me yes tradition um right exactly so this person who wrote the book either they know the recipes themselves or they are honest and they will tell you that i'm giving you my mother's recipes so they've come from a person's mind that if any information whether it's cooking or the bardo if it is valid if it is valid it has to be the record of a person's experience now that also isn't enough because we all have experiences and some could be ridiculous experiences some could be misinterpretations so that's why you've got to check on the sources so the logic of all buddha's teachings which is why we must check every single word in buddhism whether it's hinayana mahayana or vajrayana it has to be if it's going to be valid you need to check and be confident that the sources are valid which means it's necessarily experiential so that's what a buddha is a buddha is a person okay i was quote this in new zealand years ago a one fellow asked the question and he was a scientist and he said who revealed these teachings to the buddha which is really another way of asking what you're asking where does this information come from now because we're so used to religious information coming from on high being mystical and can't be proved then that's why he asked his question and he was very shocked when i said would you ask einstein who revealed the teachings about relativity to him of course you wouldn't because we know it's his experience this is the point honey but don't just believe every that's the trouble in the modern world we're so arrogant we don't think religion is anything serious people go to a meditation course and have some kind of vision they think they're the buddha then they write a book about it and we will believe anything we read it's absolutely so irresponsible so you've got to check on the sources honey have some confidence that that scientific teaching that cooking teaching that buddhism teaching is coming from a valid source and a valid source is always direct experience of a mind that's why you we know that when einstein gave his teachings he didn't get it out from revelation he wasn't speculating he didn't have a vision of it he's not making it up and he's not asking us to believe him that's the buddha's approach honey thank you so much good job good that's it [Music] holiday to a place and we can hardly hear you sorry your microphone can you adjust your microphone think a bit more clearly i can't quite articulate your words speak a bit more clearly yeah no no speak clearly go on what's the question okay related with life uh as a metaphor of going to uh place become a new country um the idea well and life is unexpected and and and places can appear and disappears and you want to visit different places i'm a bit confused yeah i want to understand you but i'm a little bit confused so perhaps you can simply ask me a question to state the question and we can communicate related with this sense of urgency of of life how you don't darling it's really helpful to say the question don't give me the background state a question and then we can discuss what's the question don't fall in anxiety with this sense of urgency okay of course it doesn't matter what the rest of society does it's more difficult yoko because everybody in society is believing in permanence and doesn't believe in anything as just living in la la land so it's true so that's why we have to have our own personal practice you have to read these ideas of the buddha if you like them and try to internalize them yourself so then it's easier obviously if everybody around you is thinking the same thing it makes it easier but everybody isn't thinking the same thing so this is why you must rely on your own daily practice and your own intelligence and thinking through and reading the teachings and contemplating them and then slowly you put that into practice and then but that's the only answer you can't rely on the outside world to try and do because they don't think this way and it can be we can be easily distracted that's our problem but just get this feeling of of impermanence get the feeling but also you need to have an optimistic view yeko that you've got all this good you've got this good potential you've got an intelligent mind i want to make the most of my life so you give yourself a little pep talk you know i want to make the most of this life of mine i want to do the best and that means i want to develop my own potential and i want to help others so you just think this way and you'll energize yourself i promise it's not easy but it's possible don't you worry okay good okay key it keeps growing from five yes how many more are there i was coming more of another i'm going to have to do one for and then i think we just have to pray that we don't live until april and then we can go into intense detail in april i promise in arizona happy that just up the road for me i'm in new mexico i was thinking i should come see you yes so i um am old i'm 80 going to be 85. and my children are quite attached to me um i i want them to um understand that um for me death is not a problem right should i prepare them i think you should kay in and and make it fun don't make it serious you've got to crack jokes about it and you know and and don't be nervous about that i mean this is why you know if we're all buddhist i mean you know if you're surrounded by a bunch of buddhists we do crack jokes about death we do say we're nearly dying and we all understand it so i think you'd be wise and you'd be skillful but you i think you do it in a fun way because then they've got you know well we're all in permanent what are you talking about you know that we're all impermanent but not to worry about we'll make the most of while we've got time together we'll make the most of this it's not to be afraid you you sort of educate them in a very fun easy going way like in in part of the conversation not like a serious meeting you understand what i'm saying right right yes and also by example by your example of welcoming death and being happy about impermanence that will help their minds loosen a bit yeah so i do kind of do that with my friends i try to you know um i tell them that the um the love of their husband is keeping them running like an energizer buddy that's right yes so but that's not really addressing death but i i understand and i will i am having a you know i i'm easy to cry and so um i have to work on that then yeah my feeling is even if you do cry as soon as you do it in a fun light way it's very very different you can talk about anything when you light about it and loving and kind and you know and it's like it's it's it's it's so good to do that and such a good example for people because if you had cancer and you were in the bed looking like you were dying they'd be forced to confront it so you've got to help them do that and that's and then for me and you can joke and say excuse me just i'm going to die but excuse me honey you'll be 80 before you know it you'll be dead so we could all get ready and what does that mean that means we're going to live our life well and make the most of it you can say things like that they're not even buddhists it's just logic you know right thank you so so much do our little dedication prayer we think all these thoughts we've had these last three days as many literally as many moments as there have been is as many seeds we've planted in our mind they won't go astray this is what's marvelous so then we think we're going to nourish these seeds from this moment by thinking about impermanence recognizing the reality of death making the most of our life be good and help and as well as helping others how incredible so that we can get another decent human rebirth so we can keep on moving on our spiritual path how amazing and junk food that's it everybody thank you darling so much thank you so much thank you so much [Music] thank you thank you thank you so much thank you thank you so much goodbye bye thank you very much for translating thank you very much see you tomorrow everybody four o'clock indian time we keep you on your toes we change times see you soon thank you you look good thank you great question thank you so much everybody have a great day a great evening a great morning wherever you are thank you see you tomorrow thank you thank you so much thank you thank you geschila hi to dang sola thank you really good i hope to see you soon let us back in yeah yeah okay all right bye bye bye bye namaste bye have a good evening yes you have a good day and we'll see you tomorrow yes thank you so much see you tomorrow bye mush

Channel: Tushita Meditation Centre Dharamkot

Views: 1,069

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: B5VfKHzd2g8

Length: 109min 42sec (6582 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021