Wishing for “happily ever after” is nothing more than a desire for permanence in disguise. Fabricating concepts such as “eternal love,” “everlasting happiness,” and “salvation” generates more evidence of impermanence. Our intention and the result are at odds. We intend to establish ourselves and our world, but we forget that the corrosion begins as soon as creation begins. What we aim for is not decay, but what we do leads directly to decay.
For however many months or years we are together, we cling to it, believing we are always going to be together like this. But at the end of the meeting is the separation. That is the shortcoming of samsara. And again the consciousness has to leave the body. The consciousness has to migrate to all sorts of realms. There’s a family here, but after some time the consciousness leaves to a different realm, after having just spent a short time together. That is the nature of samsara.
[𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵’𝘴 𝘜𝘵𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘕𝘦𝘦𝘥 by Pabongka Rinpoche] is the very heart advice or practice from deep inside the heart. This advice about death is something to think about seriously from the bottom of our heart. We are not just doing research on death, like for a university thesis. Here we are seriously thinking about our own death from the bottom of our heart.
We are looking at our own death, mainly to persuade us to practice Dharma; so that we don’t put off our practice for many months or many years or leave it for future lives. We think, “First I will do this (the works for this life), then I will do that later.” In this way, we put off Dharma practice for many months or years.
It persuades us to practice immediately, so in that way, we do the practice and don’t waste our life. Otherwise, there’s the risk that not only will we waste our life, but death might come first, before the practice. There’s the danger that even though we’re wishing and planning to practice, death might come before the practice. If we don’t hurry up, death might come before the practice, and then we will miss out. I think that’s the main point.
Also, it is very useful to see other people dying, especially family members, friends or people that we know. It’s a great teaching, a great reminder to practice Dharma. Practicing Dharma is not so much chanting mantras or doing other external things. Here, seeing the death of people we know, of family members or even people we live with, really makes us look at our life seriously. Our entire life up until now has passed in distraction.
Of course, we recited prayers, chanted mantras and this and that; but the real practice of renunciation didn’t happen. The cutting of desire, of clinging to this life, didn’t happen. The actual practice of Dharma didn’t happen. Here it reminds us to look at our own life up to now, at how we spent it. We have done many activities, but we haven’t really given up the desire clinging to this life. Here it reminds us of that.
When we see even the deaths of others, of family members or people that we know, it brings our attention to the fact that in the past we haven’t seriously practiced. It reminds us that now we have to give up all that distraction or desire, which has no meaning at all. Now we really have to dedicate our life to serious practice, freeing ourselves from desire.
We should practice this continuously, day and night. Other than this, nothing else in life is meaningful. There’s nothing there that will be useful at the time of death. So, it reminds us to really pay attention to our life and to practice seriously. Here seriously has mainly to do with our mind, with the purity of our mind, with its being free from the desire clinging to this life.
So, it’s very useful to see others’ deaths, and, of course, to visualize our own death. Pabongka says that the most effective one is to visualize ourselves as dead, on the bed, and then visualize all the things that usually happen when someone dies. The members of our family will come and cry. Our body will then be put in a coffin and taken to the cemetery. Before that, our breathing will change, and we will know that we’re dying and that everything will have to be left: our family, all our possessions and even our body. Everything will have to be left, and our consciousness alone will go to the next life.
This is like the tantric practice of meditating on the three kayas, in which we meditate on the dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya that we’re going to achieve in the future as having happened now. In that way, we purify ordinary death, intermediate state and rebirth, and then use them to achieve enlightenment, the result-time three kayas. So, this effective meditation on impermanence and death is a little like that. We visualize that the whole process that is going to happen later is happening now, and then see what happens to our mind.
However, the main point is to persuade us to practice Dharma.
Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
There was a certain merchant who was deeply impressed by the lofty virtue of the Zen monk Hakuin. He used to present the monk with gifts of money and goods from time to time.
As it happened, the daughter of the merchant had a love affair with a family servant, resulting in the birth of a child. When the irate merchant demanded an explanation, his daughter said she had been impregnated by the monk Hakuin.
The merchant was furious: “To think that I gave alms to an evil shavepate like that for ten years!” Picking the baby up in his arms, the merchant took it right over to Hakuin. Laying it in the Zen master’s lap, the merchant gave him a tongue-lashing and left in a huff.
Hakuin didn’t argue. He began to take care of the baby as if it were his own. People who saw him also believed he had fathered the child.
One winter day, when Hakuin was out begging for alms from house to house in the falling snow, carrying the infant with him as he went, the merchant’s daughter saw them and was filled with remorse. In tears, she went to her father and confessed the truth.
Mortified, the merchant was totally at a loss. He rushed over to throw himself to the ground at the feet of Zen master Hakuin, begging his forgiveness.
Hakuin simply smiled and said, “The child has another father?”
“If you learn not to react to the conditions, you will find that the conditions will change by themselves. But if you react to conditioning, by the very reaction, you’re causing the condition to inflate.
Because by reacting you say, ‘I want more of that’.”
Instead of allowing ourselves to be led and trapped by our feelings, we should let them disappear as soon as they form, like letters drawn on water with a finger.
If there is beauty, there must be ugliness; If there is right, there must be wrong. Wisdom and ignorance are complementary, And illusion and enlightenment cannot be separated. This is an old truth, don’t think it was discovered recently. “I want this, I want that” Is nothing but foolishness. I’ll tell you a secret – All things are impermanent!– Ryokan
from the book “One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poetry of Ryokan”
Sadhguru reminds us that time is running out for all of us, and that what really matters at the end of our life is whether we lived an enhanced life. This is why it is important that we invest the time to know and live a life beyond thought and emotion.
Nothing that passes through your mind, not even your mind itself, will stay as it is forever. Things might last for the duration of your experience of this existence, or even into the next generation; but then again, they may dissolve sooner than you expect. Either way, eventual change is inevitable. There is no degree of probability or chance involved. If you feel hopeless, remember this and you will no longer have a reason to be hopeless, because whatever is causing you to despair will also change. Everything must change.
Zen Flash 
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