Death Can Come Quickly

In case you're not sure how quickly death can come to you, or in what form.  Even a monster truck tire can get you.

Death Meditation, Pt 1 by Geshe Michael Roach

This death awareness meditation was originally given by Geshe Michael Roach during the Death and The End of Death Meditation Daily Practice Course.  Reading materials, quizzes, and more can be found here.

DEATH AWARENESS MEDITATION:

Imagine that you’re in a place where there’s a castle, made of earth and brick, and it stands on a small island.  In the center is an open courtyard.  A moat surrounds the place. On the far side of the moat, on that bank is an empty clearing and then a forest. 

Imagine that you are struggling through this wild thick forest and carrying a heavy backpack and like a soldier in Private Ryan, things hanging from your belt, a sleeping roll, heavy canteen, and you’re trying to get through the wood.  You get to the clearing.  You’re standing there hot, sweating, have all these things hanging from you and they’re heavy and you’re tired.

Then there’s a bridge crossing the bridge into the buduling.  Just in fron t of the bridge are tables covered with food and drink.  Big mass of people milling around.  You’re thirsty hungry hot and tired and you’re trying to reach this but it’s crowded, you have to push people out of the way to reach these things.  Think about living a life of a person who doesn’t remember death and has no death awareness, just grabbing at the small things and hurting other people while they do it.  And they’re doing the same, trying to grab things from you, the things you think you need, they’re trying to take.  You’re all collecting bad karma while they’re doing it.


This is the first part, the problems of not remembering death and just grasping at things you think will feel good in the moment, regardless of whether or not it hurts others.

The junk on your back is all the unnecessary hoarding you’ve got going on, and the unnecessary relationships with people you don’t even like, just weighing you down. Activities you’re engaged in that don’t make you happy, they just fill up time. Identify the possessions. The backpack is your mortgage.  You think you have to have it, but ask yourself why.  The canteen, the leaky canteen, is the relationship with someone who demeans you or complain about everything but you feel obligated to keep it going because, posterity and such. Connect the things you’re carrying to the things that are weighing you down that you refuse to identify in real life.

Think about how good it would be to have a good death meditation.  Break out of the crowd, cross the bridge, tired of that scene and living like that, the crowd thins and you make it to the bridge.

These are the benefits of having a good death meditation.  Remove one by one the things on your belt and back and around your neck and cast them off into the water.  Represents getting rid of unnecessary possessions and activities that you work for and spend your time on. Please put the tv in there. Feel lighter and lighter as your cross the bridge. Give each object a meaning in your own life as you toss it off.  Feel how much lighter it is without those things weighing on you.  Imagine it.

You are coming to the end of the bridge light but still dirty and scratched from the forest and still tired.  Imagine at the end of the bridge, there are some people, menacing like a gauntlet.  You’re going to have to get through them and there’s a big rough guys with knives, you start running and get through them. That represents the third point which is what is a good death meditation.

We get through the wrong one which is to be afraid of death in the way of someone reduced to a knee jerk reaction, fearful for their lives, no atheist in a foxhole kind of fear. Or a person who just got a terminal cancer diagnosis. That fear and panic is not something to cultivate.  Overcome that fear and drive past, that’s the breaking through the gauntlet. They don’t touch you.

Suddenly it’s as if you took a bath.  You’re clean and smelling fresh, you feel light, strong, happy, and you’re covered in light cloths.  There’s a grassy section in front of the castle.  Like a meadow.  You’re dancing across it.  Represents a good death meditation.  It’s an unencumbered feeling, every moment living as if it’s your last.  Unweighed by things you don’t need.

You’re standing in front of a door. (To be continued)

3 steps: 1) coming out of the forest weighed down, struggling with the people at the table, hurting some of them.  This is what happens when you don’t believe you’re going to die, when you have no death awareness. 2) Crossing the bridge, getting lighter and lighter is the benefits of divesting yourself of useless habits and people. Feeling lighter and lighter, being happy.  3) People with the knives and the meadow together.  It’s a good meditation, not worrying about them but the meadow, feeling joyful and vibrant that you’re not wasting your time.  The wrong and the right state of mind.

To close the meditation:

Think of that holy being in front of you.  Beg them to come into your heart.  They rub off on you if you carry them around in your heart all day.  They get smaller and smaller, start to rise up, they land on your head lightly, turn and face the same direction, very small, ask them to come into your heart they get even smaller until they reach the level of your heart, behind it, make a beautiful place for them, like a little quiet capsule, they’re sitting on a huge rose and a mattress made of golden light, surrounded by the most amazing fragrance. They are radiating strength into you.  The effect of their holy mind is with you all day.  Just think about them during the day and they’re there.

What's Up With The Panchen Lama?

You've heard of him. The post has been around over 600 years.  What does he do?  Who is he to the Dalai Lama?  What is the current controversy over him? This interview covers it all. 

Tibetans Reject China's Panchen Lama

APRIL 14, 2006

MICHELE NORRIS, host: 

Yesterday, the young man picked by the Chinese government as the second-most-important leader of Tibetan Buddhism made his debut on the international stage. The 16-year-old Panchen Lama spoke at the World Buddhist Forum in China. 

According to the official translation, his remarks focused on Buddhism's need to work toward Chinese national unity. Now, there's a great deal of controversy surrounding this Panchen Lama, and to explore that, we're joined by Donald Lopez. He's a professor of Buddhist and Tibetan studies at the University of Michigan. 

Professor Lopez, thanks so much for being with us. 

Professor DONALD LOPEZ (Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan studies, University of Michigan): Thank you. 

NORRIS: Now, the young man who gave that speech yesterday, he's, as I understand, not the only one tapped to be the Panchen Lama, there's another. Could you explain this for us? 

Professor LOPEZ: Yes. Tibetan Buddhism is unique in having the institution of the incarnate lama. The idea is that great masters come back in a next lifetime and, in fact, can be identified at birth and then educated as children to then succeed themselves, in a sense. 

In old Tibet there were three to 4,000 of such incarnate lamas, the most powerful of whom was the Dalai Lama. The second most powerful was the Panchen Lama. Now, once the Chinese came into Tibet in 1950, the Dalai Lama fled in 1959, the Panchen Lama stayed behind in Tibet. He died in 1989, and according to tradition the Dalai Lama would then choose his successor, would identify the child who would be the next Panchen Lama. 

The Dalai Lama did that in 1995, and he identified a little boy, six years old, called Gedhun Choekyi Nyima. Immediately after the Dalai Lama's announcement, the child and his family disappeared. They were presumably placed under house arrest by Chinese authorities and have not been seen since then. 

The Chinese, very shortly thereafter, identified another child whose name is Gyaltsen Norbu, and called him the true Panchen Lama, and it was this child, this boy, now 16 years old, who addressed the forum in China yesterday. 

NORRIS: And now that he's appeared publicly, I guess there's more curiosity and speculation about what happened to the Panchen Lama that the Dalai Lama originally named. So nothing's been heard of him? This is a big mystery? 

Professor LOPEZ: It's a big mystery. Foreign delegations, human rights groups annually make requests to the Chinese authorities to be allowed to at least see and meet with the child. All of those requests have been denied. The Chinese continue to insist that he is fine and is living someplace in China. People speculate he's in Beijing, but he has literally not been seen since 1995. 

NORRIS: I'd like to ask you about that 10-minute speech that was given yesterday. What do you make of it? 

Professor LOPEZ: Well, the Chinese choice of the Panchen Lama has not been seen much in public. His installation ceremony was so controversial it was held in secret, and he's been educated not in Tibet, mostly in Beijing by Tibetan scholars, monk scholars who have become his tutors, and the Chinese report that he's become quite a good scholar of Buddhism himself. 

So this was, in a certain sense, his debut on the world stage. And his remarks seem to be, you know, fairly innocuous, sort of claim toward the importance of Buddhism for world peace and that kind of thing. 

But, of course, the symbolism is that if you're having a world Buddhist forum, one would typically have as the keynote speaker the most famous Buddhist in the world, that's the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama was not invited, and the Panchen Lama is speaking symbolically in his stead, from the Chinese perspective. 

NORRIS: Why would the Chinese government do this, make this switch, choose their own Panchen Lama and put him out before the public at this point? 

Professor LOPEZ: Well, the question is, who controls Tibet or who controls Tibetan Buddhism? The Dalai Lama was the ruler of Tibet until his, his flight into exile, and he was the leading figure in Tibetan Buddhism. 

The Chinese now feel that Tibet is, is a part of China and that the control of religious institutions should be in their hands. And so it's a bit of a power struggle, in a sense, over who chooses the religious leaders of this country. And, of course, the greater crisis will come with the eventual passing of the current Dalai Lama, and the question of who chooses the next Dalai Lama. 

NORRIS: And for now, for practicing Buddhists, which is the real Lama? 

Professor LOPEZ: For practicing Tibetan Buddhists, both Tibetans in Tibet, Tibetans in exile and the various international followers of Tibetan Buddhism, the child who is held under house arrest is the true Panchen Lama. 

NORRIS: So, looking ahead, when the Dalai Lama passes, what's likely to happen? It sounds like there could be quite a bit of controversy then. 

Professor LOPEZ: There can be a huge controversy because the Panchen Lama traditionally chooses the Dalai Lama. And the Chinese, of course, will want their choice for the Panchen Lama to make that decision. 

The Dalai Lama, however, in order to circumvent that particular process, has declared that he will be reborn outside of Tibet, he'll be reborn in exile. And so when he passes away there will be a massive search by the Chinese and a massive search by the exile community held simultaneously to find a new Dalai Lama. 

NORRIS: Donald Lopez is a professor of Buddhist and Tibetan studies at the University of Michigan. 

Professor Lopez, thanks so much.Professor LOPEZ: You're welcome.

Copyright 2006 NPR

Homework Thrills

Go here for the skinny on how to do your homework electronically.

Once you've completed it, share with Marie the Grader @ mahasukhagrader@gmail.com

Master Vasubandhu

http://www.iep.utm.edu/wp-content/media/Vasubandhu-284x300.jpg

MEDITATION PRELIMINARIES

Meditation Preliminaries

1.) Clean and tidy up and tidy the room. This becomes the cause to help create a paradise later. Also helps to wake up and get the day going and to slow down the mind. 

2.) Offerings - Set up the altar. Water bowl offerings to the five senses - Fill and empty bowls from the left. Empty bowls at night to signify ready to die now. Wipe bowls before filling. If you are inclined, do three prostrations before sitting.

3.) Take a proper seat.

4.) Go for refuge and generate bodhicitta.

5.) Visualize merit field (the lamas of the spiritual or personal lineage). Start simply, by visualizing the silhouette of the root lama, and then begin to add features, color, and details later. See as young and vibrant without physical defects. 

6.) Purify obstacles. Gather goodness by opening yourself.  Purify broken vows or anything that
you’ve done in the last 24 hours that is not in keeping with who you know you really are. 

7.) Rejoice. Be glad about the good things which you and others have done. It is more powerful to rejoice about your own goodness than that of others. It multiplies your virtue and potential exponentially to be very happy about your own good deeds.

8.) Turn the Wheel of Dharma by requesting the holy beings to teach. 

9.) Ask the holy beings to stay and not to break your relationship or to die.

10.) Dedication 

11.) Request the potential to gain high spiritual goals - to enable your ability in every path from simplest beginning to the highest one. After requesting, absorb the being through your crown into your heart. 

More info at acidharma.org Formal Studies Course 3

WELCOME TO COURSE 8

Middle Way Center's 

ACI Course 8: Death and the Realms of Existence

Very happy to have you!

Any changes to the schedule/homework assignments will be noted on this page.

For ACI Course 8 formal notes, homework, quizzes, final, original audio, and more, go here.

ACI, DCI, and Lama Marut Info
For more about Asian Classic Institute Formal Study Courses, go here.

For Lama Marut's retreat teaching schedule, go here.

For Geshe Michael's schedule, go here, Diamond Cutter Institute (DCI) go here.