How to come to terms with the inevitability of your own death? Memento mori: how the inevitability of death affects human consciousness and behavior They understand that death is inevitable and

A few years ago, the Cambridge Meditation Center invited Tara Tulku Rinpoche to speak. Before the performance, he touched his rosary and said some words three times. I decided that this was some kind of special mantra. Finally I asked him what he was saying, and he explained that he was just repeating the phrase “I’m going to die anyway” three times. This helps him overcome excessive conceit and not consider himself a brilliant preacher. After all, in the end, all our knowledge and abilities turn to dust.

And I made it a rule to surround myself with various objects reminiscent of death - the skull of a deceased lama, a rosary made from his bones. The bones were left after the so-called sky burial, when the body of the deceased, out of compassion, is given to vultures to feed on. The rosary that Tara Tulku Rinpoche fingered was also made from human bones. Rosary beads made from human or animal bones serve as a reminder of the inevitable end.

I am often asked: why constantly remind yourself of this sad fact? Anusaya in Pali language it means our secret feelings. One of them is the fear of death. It lives in our subconscious and manifests itself in the form of other, less significant fears. He is making our lives miserable. This is a form of chronic anxiety.

Anusaya constantly fueled by daily impressions: someone close to us dies, we see a dead animal on the street, we suddenly learn that our friend is seriously ill, or after a long separation we discover that he has grown very old. The task of spiritual practice is to drive away these fears: figuratively speaking, open the doors and windows and let in fresh air, stop talking about them in a whisper, suppressing and hushing them up. It is very difficult to live like this - suppressing fear requires a lot of energy, which, in essence, is wasted.

If we try to delve deeper into this issue, we will understand that we are actually afraid not of death, but of the idea of death. At first glance, the difference is small, but very important.

The moment of death is no different from any other. This is another life experience that needs to be met while awake. Our body and our consciousness are changing at this time. But if we try to look ahead, then our ideas will most likely have no relation to reality.

This happens often in life - a real event turns out to be completely different from what we imagined. When we think about death, we try to go beyond thinking, because it is thinking that creates all kinds of problems. Nobody knows what awaits us after death. Death is the great unknown, and thought, which is the expression of the known, cannot know that which is unknown. It is a fact. We call death unknown because we know nothing about it.

I am not against feeling fear at the thought of death, because this feeling is close to us. But chaotic thoughts that arise spontaneously during fears bring little benefit. When we think about death, we do not try to go beyond what we know. We are simply trying to appreciate what is around us. Death is present with us now.

Death is a topic to which many philosophical discussions lead. The main tenets of Buddhism are related to the changes and impermanence of our existence. Aging and illness are one expression of impermanence. These are natural processes. Death is also a natural process. Sooner or later our body wears out and stops functioning.

But, despite the inevitability of death, a person does not always want to think about this topic. There are difficult moments in life, periods of depression, when such thoughts are not very appropriate. (Be considerate of your friends and loved ones - if they are seriously ill or dying, you should not recommend this activity to them, especially if they have little experience in spiritual practice.)

If you already have such experience and especially if you have reached a certain degree samadhi, this makes things easier. Moreover, I know from myself that even people who have not achieved samadhi, are able to concentrate on a simple thought like “I must die” because this topic is quite interesting. Concentration will not work if the thought instills fear in us that we cannot overcome. However, it is not at all necessary to be experienced in meditation.

For someone who feels prepared, the practice of contemplating death can be invaluable. In this way, we expel fears outward in order to get to know them better. This invariably reveals the fickle nature of fear. No matter how unpleasant it may seem at first glance, its existence is short-lived: fear arises and goes away after a while. The energy of fear is present, but it is not ours - it is not our “I”.

Once you understand this, you can extract a lot of energy from fear. Now fears will not hide in our subconscious. They lived out their allotted time. They may come back, but we already have confidence that we can handle them. We have seen that fear can be observed, which means it can be worked with.

Thus, fear teaches us to appreciate life. It allows us to see life in all its glory - because we understand that it will end sooner or later. We voluntarily entered the abode of death. And we realized that we lived in deception and ignorance. We pretended that life would last forever. This means that we did not realize its fullness and splendor.

Intellectually we understand that we will die. But you need to know it with your heart. It needs to get down to the marrow of your bones. Then we will understand how to live.

To accomplish this, you must constantly think about death. All our Dharma practice is preparation for such deep understanding. The first step is to develop an ethical position. The second step is to develop proper breathing. This may take quite a long time - you need to get into a calm, concentrated state. It is also necessary to work with sensations, with small and larger fears, and develop a conscious approach to the events of everyday life. These steps help us strengthen our consciousness so that we can face the fear of death. Sometimes, before observing fear, we need to assess our resistance to it. We realize how much we hate this fear.

Without this preliminary work, a person will not be able to calmly face death. There may be a few exceptional individuals who are able to do this. They come to earth unusually mature spiritually or have gone through trials that made them mature. It is necessary to develop a certain calmness in relation to events in order to be able to analyze them and obtain information from them. Communicating with fear provides insight that has the power of liberation.

As a rule, our awareness is spontaneous. We see a message on TV about some tragedy and experience pain or even a heart attack, and then we change the channel and everything goes away. These are the laws of modern life - a person’s attention quickly dissipates.

Spiritual practice is of a different nature. Samadhi, which we achieve is not an absolute concentration to the exclusion of everything else. Consciousness that has reached samadhi, is strong and flexible, very lively. This state resembles tenderness. My heart feels like it's melting. You see the true sadness of life and the true beauty of life. You don't see one without the other. Practice gives us the opportunity to see them together.

Our heart becomes tender and sensitive, and any event touches us so much that we awaken: we penetrate deeply into the nature of things. Everything acquires greater significance - both people and events around us. A person has a desire to make meditation more intense.

Under practice I don't mean leaving your job or your family to meditate in a cave. I interpret this concept in a broader sense: whatever we do, we are in a state of spiritual wakefulness. Practice becomes an integral part of our life. Having learned to work with ordinary events, we gradually move on to exceptional ones - such as death.

I learned a lot from the Zen master Suzuki Shosan, who not only meditated, but was a samurai and lived for a time as a hermit. He was skilled in martial arts and taught how to take a conscious approach to death, or "death energy" as he called it, in order to improve spiritual practice. In difficult cases, he used the energy of death to change his attitude towards the situation, and this helped him a lot.

“A person who dies with joy becomes a Buddha,” he said. “To be a Buddha means to die with a light heart.” And then he continued frankly: “Since I am a human being and do not want to die, I practice to learn how to die easily - easily and without thinking about exposing my neck to the executioner.”

The executioner in this case is a symbol of death. The master means that the time will come when he will accept death with dignity. “I have trained myself in various ways,” he said, “and I know how terrible it is not to be able to die easily. My method is Buddhism for cowards.” In this sense, we are all cowards and we all need some training.

Knowledge of death is not abstract knowledge - we acquire it naturally, for example, when one of our loved ones dies. But only those who think deeply about what happened can learn a lesson from it. If you are open to experience, then anyone who has passed away can become your teacher.

The last gift I received from my father was that it made me think about death. I remembered that I am no exception to the general rule. Once upon a time I could not imagine that my father could die - he was always bigger and stronger than me, he was an example for me. But he died and will not return. Ashes will not become wood again. And I, too, will someday turn to ashes.

FORMAL PRACTICE

From thinking about the father, let's move on to formal spiritual practice related to death. For example, I use a nine-part meditation that I discovered in the sermons of Atisha (980-1055), the great Indian Buddhist sage. I adjusted this meditation using the advice of my teachers - Tara Tulku Rinpoche and Ajaan Suwata. All this formed the basis of the meditation on death that I teach to my students.

My meditation is divided into three main parts: thoughts about the inevitability of death, thoughts about the unforeseenness of death, and thoughts that only Dharma can help us at the moment of death. Each part consists of three statements.

Typically I start with breathing. I do this until my brain calms down. Having achieved calm, I begin to think about one of the statements - for example: “We are all going to die.”

Obviously, thinking about it requires a certain concentration of consciousness. After all, death is what we would most like to avoid. Naturally, we have a great aversion to death. If we do not concentrate enough, we will not be able to fully understand the significance of this statement. In a calm state, our thinking becomes sharp and flexible. We can focus our attention precisely and keep it in a continuous state. We have strong support samadhi, which maintains our emotional and mental interest in the subject of contemplation.

By looking at a statement from different points of view, we will understand the richness of meaning contained in it. By being attentive to our experience, we will understand the truth of this statement. We will feel it not only with our minds, but with our whole being. Atisha's Nine Meditations are an exercise in yonisomanasikara– wise attention or careful concentration. Any simple statements, if you approach them thoroughly, contain much more meaning than it seems at first glance. Deep insight into their essence will help us understand the operation of the natural law of Dharma within our body and mind.

When practicing meditation, you should first focus on one of the nine parts, then briefly go through all the others so as not to forget them. You can do one part a day, or all three. If the meditation on this section proves fruitful, you should continue to do it for several days. All reflections are designed to comprehend the same simple truth, and therefore, when practicing them, you should not adhere to too strict rules - rely on your common sense.

For greater clarity, here are a few examples.

THE INEVITABILITY OF DEATH

EACH OF US WILL DIE

The first and most categorical of these statements is that all living things are subject to death. No one is an exception to the universal law. Death is a natural consequence of our birth, and our entire life from the moment of birth is the path to death. There are no exceptions. Wealth, education, physical health, fame, moral character and even spiritual maturity do not matter. If you don't want to die, it's better not to be born.

Buddhaghosa's "Visuddhimagga" turns out to be very useful in this case. She invites you to compare yourself with other famous historical figures. Buddha died. Jesus Christ and Socrates died. Famous athletes died - strong and healthy men and women who accomplished athletic feats.

In such a situation, I often think of Krishnamurti. It's good when you know a person personally. Krishnamurti had incredible inner strength, clarity of consciousness and a huge love of life, which never failed him. He taught until the last days of his life, and died at the age of 90. And yet he died.

And among ordinary people there are cheerful and energetic natures - each of us has such acquaintances. They, like everyone else, also face death.

Sometimes new ideas for meditation come to mind on their own. Several years ago, after giving a lecture on a conscious attitude towards death, I returned home. Naturally, my head was still full of the previous performance. I wanted to relax. I really love old films. That evening, a 1938 film starring Clark Gable and Carole Lombard was shown on television. A passionate film fan, I knew everyone who participated in the creation of the film - the screenwriter, director, producer. And suddenly I realized that all of them were no longer alive.

Once these people were full of life and charm, incredibly attractive, and now all of them - even those who played in the orchestra and sold popcorn in the halls - are dead. Even surprising. The film seemed so alive, and the people who made it were dead.

Buddha said this about it:

Young and old
Foolish and wise
Poor and rich - everyone dies.
Like clay pots - big and small,
Burnt and unburned - they eventually break,
So life leads to death.*

* Mahaparinibbana Sutta, Digha Nikaya 16.

Someday it will be the turn of each of us to die. Man is the only species on Earth that is capable of realizing this simple and immutable fact. And this awareness can change our behavior now - and in a way that, at first glance, has nothing to do with the inevitability of death

Translation for – Seva Bardin

About 10 minutes after reading this article, your thoughts will probably revolve around the topic of death in one way or another. And most likely at this time, dreams of fame will become stronger, you will be more willing to support a charismatic leader, and you will feel more interested in continuing your lineage. It is also very likely that you will be less approving of the idea of breastfeeding and more lenient of war. At least this is evidenced by the results of scientific research.

Why is this happening?

According to researchers in the field of Death Anxiety Management Theory, all these changes in our consciousness help us accept the fact of our mortality. A person subconsciously uses every opportunity to push the thought of inevitable death to the back of his mind.

“In order not to lose our composure in this world, we humans need to believe in the existence of some kind of meaning; that we are not just beings who will one day be wiped off the face of the Earth without a trace,” says University of Arizona psychologist Jeff Greenberg.

Greenberg is one of the co-authors of the Death Anxiety Management Theory. The main idea of this theory is that a person tries to cope with the fear of death with the help of self-esteem, which consists of a sense of the correctness of his worldview and the correctness of his values. Which, in turn, leaves a serious imprint on various areas of his behavior.

The authors began developing Death Anxiety Management Theory in 1986 after reading anthropologist Ernest Becker's book Death Denial, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974. In this book, Becker argues that human behavior is determined by the search for immortality - both literally (the belief in an afterlife) and figuratively (the desire to leave behind some noticeable trace).

“We found his arguments very convincing,” Greenberg recalls.

Psychology of death

Becker argued that a person combats the fear of death by increasing self-esteem - convincing himself that his life is meaningful in a world where everything matters. One way to increase self-esteem is to indicate that you belong to something significant. For example, to your culture or a certain worldview.

To test this assumption, Greenberg and his colleagues conducted an experiment in which they invited a group of municipal court judges to participate. Some of them were asked to describe their feelings about their own death. Immediately after this, all judges were asked to consider a hypothetical case of a woman arrested for prostitution.

It turned out that thinking about death greatly influenced the judges' decisions.

The judges in the group that did not write the death essay gave the defendant an average fine of $50. The decisions of the group contemplating their own death were about ten times harsher, with an average fine of $455. Psychologists believe that this happened because the latter's verdict was more consistent with their personal beliefs. That is, a “law and order” worldview.

Subsequent experiments showed that this effect is associated ONLY with thoughts about death. In cases with thoughts about pain or various kinds of failures and suffering, nothing like this happens.

People try to cope with the fear of death with the help of things that have nothing to do with death.

Take breastfeeding for example. A 2007 study found that after thinking about death, people were significantly more negative about breastfeeding in public and less accepting of breastfeeding women in the same room as them. Scientists believe that the sight of a woman breastfeeding reminds people of their animal nature.

On the other hand, reminders of death encourage people to think about procreation. In fact, a 2011 study published in the Journal of Research in Personality found that after thinking about death, people became more interested in naming their children their own names.

In addition, according to research by Greenberg and his colleagues, thinking about death awakens in people a desire for fame, and they are much more enthusiastic about the idea of naming a star after themselves.

Vicious circle

But perhaps the most surprising effect of thinking about death is the tendency towards isolation.

Greenberg explains this effect this way. In the early stages of life, children are absolutely dependent on their parents. But they quickly begin to understand that in order to maintain their parents' love and protection, they need to behave in a certain way and accept certain rules. As we age, we become more and more aware of the dangers of the world around us, while the role of protective parents gradually weakens.

“In such a situation, a transfer occurs in our minds - the role of psychological protectors shifts from parents to larger structures or concepts,” says Greenberg. It could be God, country, the concept of freedom or democracy.

Therefore, in the face of the threat of death, we strive to hold even tighter to our chosen values. The result is a curious effect.

A 2011 study found that when reminded of death, people tend to sympathize more with a charismatic leader who shares their view of the world.

In 2006, a study was conducted that examined the effect of the work of Iranian preachers among Iranian students. In the control condition, most students supported the peace preacher. However, after contemplating death, many more students went over to the side of someone who advocated terrorist attacks against Americans.

And Americans (according to the results of a 2011 study) who were reminded of the terrorist attack of 9/11 before the survey were much more willing to speak out in favor of war against Iraq, and even in favor of launching a nuclear strike on this country.

However, not everything in Death Fear Management Theory is so pessimistic. The memory of death can encourage people to do more charity work. In this way, many wealthy people strive to “leave their mark on Earth.”

“It all depends on the nature of your worldview,” says Greenberg. If you believe a person's contribution should be positive, then thinking about death will motivate you to do good. If you have the opposite value system, then when you think about death, you will seek the glory of the villain or join the terrorists.”

Without awareness of death, any Dharma practice will be superficial.

Milarepa

I am subject to death. Death is inevitable

Several years ago, the Cambridge Meditation Center invited Tara Tulku Rinpo-che to speak. Before the performance, he touched his rosary and said some words three times. I decided that this was some kind of special mantra. Finally I asked him what he was saying, and he explained that he was just repeating the phrase “I’m going to die anyway” three times. This helps him overcome excessive conceit and not consider himself a brilliant preacher. After all, in the end, all our knowledge and abilities turn to dust.

I am often asked: why constantly remind yourself of this sad fact? Anusaya in Pali language means our secret feelings. One of them is the fear of death. It lives in our subconscious and manifests itself in the form of other, less significant fears. He is making our lives miserable. This is a form of chronic anxiety.

Anusaya is constantly fed by daily impressions: someone close to us dies, we see a dead animal on the street, we suddenly learn that our friend is seriously ill, or after a long separation we discover that he has grown very old. The task of spiritual practice is to drive away these fears: figuratively speaking, open the doors and windows and let in fresh air, stop talking about them in a whisper, suppressing and hushing them up. It is very difficult to live like this - suppressing fear requires a lot of energy, which, in essence, is wasted.

If we try to delve deeper into this issue, we will understand that we are actually afraid not of death, but of the idea of death. At first glance, the difference is small, but very important.

I am not against feeling fear at the thought of death, because this feeling is close to us. But chaotic thoughts that arise spontaneously but at times out of fear bring little benefit. When we think about death, we do not try to go beyond what we know. We are simply trying to appreciate what is around us. Death is present with us now.

If you already have this experience and especially if you have achieved a certain degree of samadhi, this makes things easier. In addition, I know from myself that even people who have not achieved samadhi are able to concentrate on a simple thought like “I must die,” because this topic is quite interesting. Concentration will not work if the thought instills fear in us that we cannot overcome. However, it is not at all necessary to be experienced in meditation.

Intellectually we understand that we will die. But you need to know it with your heart. It needs to get down to the marrow of your bones. Then we will understand how to live.

Without this preliminary work, a person will not be able to calmly face death. There may be a few exceptional individuals who are able to do this. They come to earth unusually mature spiritually

or have gone through such trials that made them mature. It is necessary to develop a certain calmness in relation to events in order to be able to analyze them and obtain information from them. Communicating with fear provides insight that has the power of liberation.

Spiritual practice is of a different nature. The Samadhi we achieve is not an absolute concentration to the exclusion of everything else. Consciousness that has achieved samadhi is strong and flexible, very alive. This state resembles tenderness. My heart feels like it's melting. You see the true sadness of life and the true beauty of life. You don't see one without the other. Practice gives us the opportunity to see them together.

By practice I mean not leaving work or family to meditate in a cave. I interpret this concept in a broader sense: whatever we do, we are in a state of spiritual wakefulness. Practice becomes an integral part of our life. Having learned to work with ordinary events, we gradually move on to exceptional ones - such as death.

“A person who dies with joy becomes a Buddha,” he said. “To be a Buddha means to die with a light heart.” And then he continued frankly: “Since I am a man and do not want to die, I practice to learn how to die easily - easily and without hesitation, expose my neck to the executioner.”

Formal practice

My meditation is divided into three main parts: thoughts about the inevitability of death, thoughts about the unforeseenness of death, and thoughts that only the Dharma can help us at the moment of death. Each part consists of three statements.

Typically I start with breathing. I do this until my brain calms down. Having achieved calm, I begin to think about one of the statements - for example: “We are all going to die.”

Obviously, thinking about it requires a certain concentration of consciousness. After all, death is what we would most like to avoid. Naturally, we have a great aversion to death. If we do not concentrate enough, we will not be able to fully understand the significance of this statement. In a calm state, our thinking becomes sharp and flexible. We can focus our attention precisely and keep it in a continuous state. We are strongly supported by samadhi, which maintains our emotional and mental interest in the subject of contemplation.

By looking at a statement from different points of view, we will understand the richness of meaning contained in it. By being attentive to our experience, we will understand the truth of this statement. We will feel it not only with our minds, but with our whole being. Atisha's Nine Meditations are an exercise in yoniso manasikara - wise attention or careful concentration. Any simple statements, if you approach them thoroughly, contain much more meaning than it seems at first glance. Deep insight into their essence will help us understand the operation of the natural law of Dharma within our body and mind.

For greater clarity, here are a few examples.

The inevitability of death

1. Each of us will die

And among ordinary people there are cheerful and energetic natures - each of us has such acquaintances. They, like everyone else, also face death.

Buddha said this about it:

Young and old

Foolish and wise

Poor and rich - everyone dies.

Like clay pots - big and small,

Burnt and unburned - in the end they break,

So life leads to death.

2. We have less and less time to live

The movement towards death is inexorable. It never stops. We begin to die from the moment we are born. Death comes closer with every tick of the clock. The great Indian master Atisha, while meditating on this topic, listened to the sound of dripping water.

The best way to meditate on this topic is to pay attention to your breathing. During our lives we take a huge number of inhalations and exhalations. We are not given the opportunity to know their exact number, but every inhalation and every exhalation brings us closer to death.

This is a deep thought. We think we are observing a simple physical process, but the longer we do it, the more we understand the deeper meaning hidden in it. After all, every breath is a tiny piece of life that brings air into the lungs, gives oxygen to the body and allows us to live. Each exhalation is a relaxation, a way out. And there will come a moment when we exhale the air, but we won’t breathe it in again. Our life will end.

As you exhale, imagine that this is your last exhalation and there will be no new inhalation. After a while, the breathing becomes deep, and between inhalation and exhalation there is a long pause - a reason for the tripod. Sometimes we have to force our breath to make sure we are still breathing. But the longer we sit, the more calmly we perceive the pause between exhalation and inhalation - we no longer care when the next breath comes.

From the outside, this practice may seem terrible. The meditator experiences serious fear - he is afraid of losing the ability to breathe. Against the background of this fear, other, smaller ones arise. Whatever we experience - fear, horror, hysteria - we will have to practice with this. We observe fear and allow it to exist in parallel with the breathing process. We understand that fear is not permanent and can be overcome.

Fear in this case is akin to physical pain. If we turn away from it or avoid it, it can grow to dangerous proportions. But if we start to analyze it, we will understand that it is not as terrible as it seemed. We will see that sooner or later fear comes to an end. And at this moment our attitude towards it - and towards breathing - must change. The brain calms down.

Of course, sometimes it happens that we sit and wait for fear to arise, waiting for some kind of acute reaction - and nothing happens. And sometimes fear appears for a short time, and then passes. We cannot control such things and we do not know in advance when our emotions will turn on. We don't want to force anything or force anything. Our task is simply to contemplate what we are experiencing at the moment.

The second commandment reminds us that our days on this earth remain less and less. Imagine that we are falling from a tall tree in the dark. Sooner or later we will hit the ground - we just don’t know exactly when.

The 7th Dalai Lama wrote poems about this.

After birth, we will not have a single free minute.

We strive into the arms of Lord Death,

Like a running athlete.

3. Death will come whether we practice dharma or not

Contemplation of death serves as a good incentive for spiritual practice. Maybe I'm exaggerating her role in this case, but after all, I am a meditation teacher. Maybe another person in my place, looking death in the face, would quit his job and indulge in all kinds of pleasures - sex, drugs, rock and roll. Who knows?

Reflecting on these words helps us understand how precious time is and how little of it we have. We all spend a lot of time sleeping, eating, and just being idle. Of course, we cannot do without this, but let's ask ourselves: how would we like to spend the little time that remains at our disposal after this?

Probably each of us asked the question: what would I do if I only had a year to live? The question is interesting, and everyone, of course, would like to live longer, but sooner or later they will have to die. So what should we spend our short life on? What should I dedicate it to? This is a question worth thinking about.

As a Dharma teacher, I often meet people who think something like this: “I’ll get my degree and then I’ll start spiritual practice,” “I’ll finish another novel and then...”, “I’ll make another deal and...”, “That’s when the children will grow..." Guntang Rinpoche described this state as follows:

"I spent twenty years not wanting to practice the Dharma. The next twenty years I was going to practice the Dharma. Another twenty years I was doing other things and regretting that I did not practice the Dharma. This is the story of my empty life."

In this case, it is necessary to change priorities. There are always some circumstances that make practice difficult. My students often complain and say that they would like to devote more time to sitting practice, to practice more often all day long, and to increase the time of retreat. All this is certainly important and necessary. But first of all, we should ask ourselves: “Are we ready to practice right now?” After all, our whole life is excellent material for practice. Can I use it? Meditation in solitude is a wonderful thing. But can we do the same when we are raising children, driving to school or work, writing a novel, driving a car or taking a bath? If you think that you can only practice at certain times and under certain conditions, then you are very mistaken. You can practice anywhere and anytime. The main thing is to want to do it.

When a person has the right mindset and practices daily, he sees the benefits of the practice and becomes more and more interested in it. When he begins to understand that sitting is the basis of practice, he surprisingly quickly has time to sit and practice. Everything happens as if by itself.

So, it all depends not on how busy you are, but on the desire to practice. If there is a desire, there is time. We must ask ourselves directly: what do we want to do with the remaining days of our short lives?

Timing uncertainty

4. We don't know when we'll die

A cemetery, especially an old one, is a great place to think about this statement. Take a walk, look at the graves, pay attention to the age of the dead. True, an old cemetery sometimes creates a false sense of security - a person may decide that the achievements of modern medicine - antibiotics, vaccinations, and so on - significantly prolong life. This is true - the average life expectancy has increased. But people at any age are still susceptible to death. Read the newspapers, watch the news on TV, talk to your neighbors - and you will find out the real situation.

This statement only reflects the law of fragility of everything earthly. The corollary of this law is that change happens suddenly. It would be one thing if the course of events were predictable. Then patterns would help us deal with difficulties. But the hard truth is that life can pull the rug out from under us. The floor may cave in, the roof may collapse. And we don't know when this will happen.

Uncertainty is characteristic not only of death, but also of life. We all want something permanent - a permanent job, a partner, a family, a home, an income, friends, a place to meditate, good weather. If possible, we strive to ensure this constancy; we make every effort, but nothing works. There is nothing permanent in the world. It would be much wiser to contemplate and study the law of impermanence, instead of trying to refute it. If we learned to come to terms with it, we would make our lives much easier.

All this reminds me of a story about a famous sage. When asked where he gets his wisdom, he replied: “When I get out of bed in the morning, I spend the day as if I don’t know if I’ll live until the evening.” The listeners were puzzled. “But no one knows that,” they objected. “Yes, but not everyone follows my rule,” answered the sage.

The law of impermanence in itself is neither good nor bad. This is simply a fact, the most obvious fact of earthly life. We live as if we do not believe in its truth or know that there are exceptions to it. The law of impermanence is like the law of gravity, which affects us whether we recognize it or not.

And again I will quote the verses of the 7th Dalai Lama. He describes the men who went into battle:

In the morning the souls of the men were full of hope,

As they discussed how they would defeat the enemy and protect the land,

And with the onset of night, their bodies became prey for birds and dogs.

Who would have thought that he would die today?

While I was giving the lectures from which this book later grew, a Zen master I knew died of a heart attack during the interview. He was in his early fifties. A friend who helped me write this book was renovating his home. He did not move to a new house because he was used to his neighbors - they had a very good relationship. When the renovation was in full swing, he, everyone’s favorite, whom neighbors jokingly called “the mayor of the street,” became seriously ill. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor and died a few months later.

Everyone knows such cases - just read the obituaries in the newspapers. Among the dead there were many elderly people and many sick people, but how many of them knew exactly when he would die? When others die, we think that this will not happen to us, and we are mistaken. Death always comes unexpectedly.

5. There are many reasons for death

Our problem is that we consider ourselves omnipotent, we think that we can find a cure for any disease and solve any problem. We defeated smallpox and polio. Fewer and fewer people are suffering from tuberculosis. Our goal is to get rid of all diseases in general. Enormous efforts and funds are spent on treating AIDS and various forms of cancer, and rightly so. But one should not think that a person can cure any disease and defeat death. As a rule, one disease is replaced by another. We defeated consumption, but AIDS took its place. We have learned to treat some forms of cancer, but are powerless against others - after remission, the disease returns again. In addition, many diseases that have been eradicated in our country continue to exist on other continents, and their inhabitants still die from ailments that we learned to treat a hundred years ago. Thus, most people in the world die from malaria.

For now we are talking only about diseases. But there are also wars, famines, murders, suicides, accidents, accidents, hurricanes, avalanches, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes - this list goes on and on. If we cure all current diseases, others will take their place - apparently, our planet can only feed a certain number of people and takes care of maintaining balance. Sooner or later, the Earth will also end its existence, because it is not eternal.

So, to live means to be exposed to various phenomena and circumstances that arise unexpectedly and have unexpected consequences. To consider yourself protected from them is to remain blissfully unaware. If we're alive, it won't be for long.

As Nagarjuna said:

"We live surrounded by a thousand mortal dangers. Our life is like a candle in the wind. The wind of death, blowing from everywhere, can extinguish it at any moment."

Usually, after such reflections, a person begins to feel the meaninglessness of life and understands that just a little more - and he will begin to experience depression, which can end in suicide. Therefore, it is necessary to make a reservation: of course, such a view of life is too dreary; undoubtedly, there is a lot of good in it. The transience and fragility of life does not mean its worthlessness. On the contrary, this makes it even more precious to us. Every second of it seems like a precious gift to us.

The purpose of these reflections is to correct the disturbed balance. We often live as if we are unaware of the transience of life. Thinking about death is meant to wake us up. They awaken us in order to reveal to us the joy and beauty of a life free from desires and attachments, a life free from the illusions of eternal youth and health.

6. Our body is very fragile

I had an uncle who died at the age of twenty-two. He was cutting vegetables with a rusty knife and accidentally cut himself. A few days later he died.

President Warren Harding's son died from blood poisoning through an abscess. This summer in North Carolina, a healthy and tall football player - the team's star and class president - overheated, despite numerous warnings from his coaches. His body temperature reached 41 degrees, and the ambulance was unable to save him. The athlete died in hospital.

On the one hand, our body has great resistance. We have all heard stories about people who managed to withstand terrible trials during wars or disasters, about weak and sickly old people who, despite everything, do not die. On the other hand, our body is terribly vulnerable. One small bacillus can kill him. A strong blow to a vulnerable organ or injury to a large artery are equally dangerous. Death comes very quickly.

The purpose of these reflections is not to scare the reader, but to make him take life more seriously. We all have a certain stereotype about our lives. We imagine youth, middle age, a period of growing up, a serene old age, at the end of which a peaceful decline awaits us.

But these are just figments of our imagination. Death awaits us not only at the end of the road - it is with us at any moment. Our life is short-lived and fragile, our fate is unclear. The purpose of contemplation is to remind us of how things really are. Use as a subject for reflection the statement that makes the greatest impression on you.

Only dharma practice can help us at the moment of death

7. Wealth will not help us

The previous statements are extremely helpful for Dharma practitioners. They were absorbed by the fourth commandment of the Buddha (see Introduction): “I will become different, free from everything that is dear and pleasant to me.” Reflecting on this is difficult, but necessary.

I invite you to imagine yourself on your deathbed. Start meditating, try to achieve a state of samadhi, and then visualize the picture: you are in your room, your mind is clear, you are waiting for death. What are you thinking and feeling at this moment?

The word wealth in the above statement should not be taken literally. It is simply a synonym for material wealth. Not all of us are rich - although compared to how people lived in the past and how they live in some countries now, we can be said to be basking in luxury. We all have things that are dear to us, that we have spent our whole lives acquiring: a library, a collection of CDs or records, a favorite musical instrument, a car, clothes, a home. Think about how much effort we put into acquiring them.

I'm not saying it's bad. It’s just that things won’t save us from death and we won’t take them with us to the grave. A favorite book, a musical instrument, a dress or suit, a statue of Buddha - all this will remain here in earthly life. Favorite things cannot save us from death or make it easier to come.

This is the harsh reality. And if Dharma practice can help us - and I am sure it can - wouldn't it be better to devote more time to this practice, rather than accumulating things that we will eventually have to part with?

Tara Tulku Rinpoche once remarked that Americans who consider themselves shrewd and successful businessmen are actually bad businessmen. They forget about the end result. They invest all their energy into something ephemeral and short-lived. Even a good name, an unblemished reputation, acquired knowledge, prizes, awards and high position cannot be taken with you to the grave. So why spend so much time purchasing them?

Here it is appropriate to recall the New Testament parable about the rich young man. The young man asked Jesus what he should do to have eternal life. And Jesus answered: “Go, sell what you have and give to the poor... come and follow Me.” When the young man heard this word, he went away sad, because he had much property.” The young man could not bring himself to part with his wealth, but sooner or later he - and all of us - will have to do it. It's only a matter of time. We are too attached to everything earthly. Krishnamurti spoke quite clearly:

“Death is hard for you because all your life you have been accumulating wealth and being tied to this world. Do you want to know what it means to die? Choose the thing that is most precious to you and part with it. This is death.”

Avoid empty activities

And look for the path to spiritual joy.

The joys of earthly life quickly pass,

Cultivate that which brings eternal benefit.

Dul Zhug Lin

8. Our loved ones cannot help us.

For many people, this is the hardest thing to realize. It can be assumed that our favorite books, music and other objects are almost animate beings for us, and this misleads us to a certain extent. In this case, what can we say about real people - our spouses, parents, children, brothers and sisters, close friends, spiritual teachers. It would be natural to expect even more help from them.

This is partly true. But it is also true that friends will not help us when we are dying. They may be nearby (or they may not be - you never know how everything will happen). They can comfort us in a fatal moment, but sooner or later parting with them is inevitable. Everyone dies alone. As Shantideva said:

And over my deathbed in vain

Friends and family will bow down.

Death and death throes

I'll have to go through it alone.

When Yama's messengers seize me,

Where will friends and family be then?

Only my merit can protect me,

But I never relied on her.

I don't know of a visualization that gives us a real idea of death. Imagine that you are lying on your deathbed. Imagine that the person you love most in the world comes to visit you. You tell him: "Goodbye forever!" This is the reality of death. And for most people it is very difficult to come to terms with it.

It is natural for a person to turn to those he loves at the moment of death. But, despite the support of loved ones, each of us dies alone. Strong attachments only worsen the situation - leaving life becomes even more painful. Attachment and peace are incompatible. We come into the world alone and leave it also alone.

9. The body cannot help us

We are at the last line. We just said goodbye! to the person closest and dearest to us. Now we must say goodbye to our body.

The body has been a faithful companion throughout our lives. At times it seemed that we and our body were one whole. We spent a lot of time caring for him - washing, combing his hair, applying creams, in a word, taking care of him in every possible way. We fed him and gave him rest. We alternately loved and hated him. And now the faithful companion with whom we went through fire, water and copper pipes will no longer accompany us. Our body will no longer inhale oxygen, maintain blood circulation. Once full of life, it will become a lifeless corpse.

The 1st Panchen Lama said very well on this matter: “The body that we have cherished for so long betrays us just when we need it most.”

Obviously, other changes await the body. If it is not cremated, the body will begin to decompose. Buddhists consciously observe the various stages of decomposition and change in the body in order to more fully understand the reality of death.

Buddhist monks sometimes specifically go to crypts to contemplate the remains and thus see how our lives end. There is a whole cycle of meditations in the crypts. In the Mahasatipatthana Sutra, the Buddha, speaking about objects of meditation, gives advice on how to meditate on dead bodies in various stages of decomposition. But for our purposes, a simple visualization of each of these stages is sufficient.

As in the previous cases, you first need to calm your mind by concentrating on your breathing. Then, using words and visualization, imagine each stage and begin to reflect on it. It is important to see the connection between the image that has arisen and our body. One of the traditional formulations says: “Truly, my body has the same nature as the image that I represent. It cannot go beyond the limits of this nature. It is subject to the same laws.”

Our bodies do not belong to us, but to nature. There is nothing permanent in nature.

Such reflections help us come to terms with the nature of the body. We begin to treat it wiser, realizing that it cannot be changed. If we have fear or rejection, we also treat them calmly, observing their coming and going.

Ajaan Suwat taught me a variation of this practice that was very helpful. According to his method, one should first imagine some internal organ of the body, and then imagine what will happen to it after death, as the body decomposes. Once you reach the ninth stage (see below), when the remains turn to ashes and dust, perceive this process as the body returning to its original state. Finally - and this is the main thing - focus on the consciousness that has absorbed all these pictures. Make sure it exists as if separate from you. This will help you not to get depressed after such meditation.

My parents bequeathed that I cremate their bodies after death. The father died first. I placed his photograph and the urn containing his ashes on my home altar and meditate in front of it every day. Practicing vipashyana every day, I find the opportunity during a meditation session to look at his photograph and remember that in the urn is everything that remains of my father, and the same thing awaits me in the end. Such reflections make me especially acutely aware of the frailty of my existence.

Now, as I write these lines, there is another urn on the altar - with the ashes of my mother. I meditate while looking at her, with equally fruitful results. This is the last gift that my incredibly generous parents gave me when they passed away.

Meditation in the Crypt (from the Mahasatipatthana Sutra)

I see my body, dead for several days, bloated, blue, and festering.

I see my body - it is swarming with worms and flies.

I see that all that remains of my body is a skeleton with remnants of flesh.

I see that there is no flesh left on my skeleton, but only blood stains and tendons.

All that remains of my body is a skeleton supported by tendons.

All that was left of my body were scattered bones. In one corner lie the bones of the legs, in the other - the bones of the arms. Femurs, pelvis, spine, jaws, teeth and skull are scattered around. All that was left of me was bare bones.

All that was left of me were whitened bones.

A year has passed, and I see that all that remains of my body is a pile of old bones.

These bones rotted and became dust. The wind scattered them, and now there is nothing left of them.

Many people say: yes, I know all this. I know that one day I will die. I know I can't take anything with me to my grave. I know that my body will become dust.

And as often happens with many things, we both know and don’t know them at the same time. We know them with our minds, but we don’t know them with our hearts. We are not imbued with them to the core. If we did this, we would live completely differently. Our whole life would have gone differently. Even our planet would look different.

If we could really face death - and this is the task of meditation - our lives would become easier and more joyful. The awareness of death should not make us depressed. On the contrary, it should make our lives more fulfilling.

If we truly understood the reality of death, we would treat each other differently. Carlos Castaneda was once asked how to make his life more spiritual. To this he replied: “You just have to remember that everyone you saw today will die someday.” And he's absolutely right. Awareness of this fact radically changes our attitude towards the people around us.

When practicing death awareness with my Cambridge students, I asked them to walk around the city after lunch with the idea that everyone they saw would eventually die. All these people are our brothers and sisters in death. Carrying out such a task is very useful, especially if we have meditated on death for some time before, as a result our attitude towards people radically changes.

Life is a great teacher. Death is also a great teacher. Death surrounds us everywhere. For the most part, as is typical in our culture, we try to avoid it. But by opening our hearts to her, we will receive enormous benefits - we will learn to live.

What awaits us next?

The arguments presented in this chapter contain a certain amount of irony. On the one hand, the theme of death is the most important in my book. This is the topic to which the study of other issues leads us, and, in fact, the culmination of our spiritual practice. But there is one “but” here: we have no real experience in this area, because we have not died yet.

But we are constantly aging and getting sick from time to time - illnesses provide us with material for meditation. In the case of death, we have to deal only with thoughts and visualizations. We will have the opportunity to practice with real death only once in our lives - it will be the first and the last.

There is a tradition in Buddhism - Buddhists try to die sitting. And I would prefer to die this way. But our wishes are not always taken into account. Nobody knows under what circumstances he will have to die. Perhaps we will be so weakened by illness that we will not even be able to raise our heads, let alone sit. Or maybe, out of the blue, we'll get hit or hit by a truck. We may spend our last moments surrounded by friends and family who will support us. Or maybe we will have to die alone, experiencing terrible pain. But under any circumstances there is an opportunity for practice. You can always practice. The main thing is not to forget about this.

The strength of our practice - even in the last moments of life - will largely depend on how we practiced before. If our consciousness is strong, if we can calmly concentrate our attention on what is happening, death, despite all its severity, can also become a subject for practice.

Sometimes meditators engage in extreme practices: sitting without moving for many hours at a time, sitting all night, sitting in severe pain. This practice helps prepare for serious illness and death. If you get used to practicing in difficult physical conditions, you will be prepared for any challenge.

I would like to emphasize that, despite its exclusivity, the moment of death is just a part of our life. And the usual principles apply to it. Analyze what is happening in your body and mind. Be yourself. Look at everything with fresh eyes - because this has never happened to you.

I think that the main thing in this situation is to develop the so-called beginner’s approach to it, as Suzuki Roshi calls it, or, as Zen master Jun San likes to say, “the approach of the ignorant person” - a person who knows that he is nothing knows. Such a person is hampered by one thing - the traditional idea of what death is and what awaits us after it. Therefore, it is best to treat death and, in general, any events in our lives without special hopes and expectations.

My colleague, Vipashyana teacher Rodney Smith, who worked in hospice care for many years, told me that the people who die the hardest are those who thought death would be a spiritual experience for them. This does not mean that death is devoid of spirituality. It's simply best not to expect anything at all from death.

When I talk about the mind of a “newbie” or an “ignorant person,” I do not mean banal ignorance. I'm talking about awareness of one's limitations, about conscious resistance to the mind's desire to consider itself omniscient and proud of accumulated knowledge. This kind of open naivety is at the core of Dharma practice. It is both the end of the process and its beginning. It helps us feel truly alive.

An analogy can be drawn with another practice. In Japan, when a person prepares to become a samurai, he has to undergo rigorous training, similar to our spiritual practice. The future samurai must get his body into excellent fighting shape. He studies various techniques of wielding a sword and other types of weapons and prepares himself for possible psychological stress.

But when he finally finishes his training, masters all kinds of skills and is ready to fight at the highest level, he still has to learn... not to expect anything. Without expecting anything, the samurai goes into battle. Maybe during a fight with a mediocre opponent it makes sense to plan, to try to guess his intentions. But, if the enemy is strong, you shouldn’t make a guess. You need to keep your mind clean and clear, you need to be ready for anything. After all, you never know what a really strong enemy might do. Buddhism calls this state the ability to look in ten directions at once - a kind of heightened, universal mindfulness.

This doesn't mean that you can invite any guy off the street, ask him if he knows how to fight, and if he says no, then you should immediately send him into battle, because he is the real "don't know." Ignorance requires a certain technical skill. This is a kind of higher wisdom. This is the natural state of a pure, silent mind.

One can reach a state of "not knowing" by looking closely at a "knowing" person, or at least one who considers himself one, and trying to understand how he acquired his knowledge. The source of knowledge is primarily family and relatives. Often family upbringing turns out to be very strong and influences the perception of the world as a whole. Further, belonging to one or another ethnic group gives certain knowledge. There is knowledge that we receive due to belonging to a certain social stratum, to a certain environment. There is knowledge that depends on the country in which we live: from childhood we learn its customs, traditions and code of conduct.

Further, there is knowledge that we receive from books and classes, from the lips of teachers, knowledge of a particular discipline. And there is, of course, “street wisdom,” the knowledge that everyday life gives us. Living in Brooklyn, I many times heard statements like: “I didn’t graduate from university, but I went through a good school of life and I know what is not in books.” You have probably also met graduates of this “school”.

I'm sure you, like me, understand the limitations of such knowledge. Remember how, as a child, a friend invited you to visit him and at his home you discovered a whole new world for yourself. And if your friend was of a different nationality or belonged to a different social circle, then the world in which he lived seemed especially unusual to you. And if he was from another country, then it was completely exotic.

One evening two Mormon preachers came to my class in Cambridge. You've probably met people like this before. They are easily recognized by their white shirts, skinny ties and dark suits. When I finished my speech, they bombarded me with questions. They criticized my views and the philosophy of Buddhism in general, since Buddhists do not believe in God and do not recognize Jesus Christ. Buddhism, in their opinion, is simply an Asian worldview, devoid of any spirituality.

There was no point in answering their questions. They were simply trying to convert my students to their faith. Then I decided to approach the situation differently: I tried to prove to them that any religion or system of knowledge is always limited in its own way, despite all claims to universality. “Look,” I said, “I understand that your religion is right and mine is wrong. But you were born Mormons in Utah, and I am a Jew from Brooklyn. Do you think if we were switched at birth, we would continue defend your old views?

The Mormon preacher replied that God gave him the good fortune to be born in Utah. But I hope that my students understood what I wanted to say.

All knowledge is limited. But I don't mean provincial limitations. No matter how extensive it is, knowledge is still based on experience. It looks at things with the eyes of yesterday. Thinking, ahead of events, tries to interpret what is happening based on our past experience, and then returns to its original state. That's why we don't even notice that we've thought about something. We think we know what is happening to us. But we may be mistaken.

This is why the "don't know" mind gives us a new degree of freedom. The practice of mindful attitude helps us understand how thought comes out of its hiding place and interprets what is happening. We learn to distinguish between thought and actual reality. We give thoughts the opportunity to arise and go without clinging to them. We begin to understand what is really happening to us. The more we don't know, the more we understand.

This is the advantage of the "ignorant mind." The unknown implies deep silence, radiant purity of mind. But to achieve it, it is necessary to part with the known, to step from the known into the unknown. Fear of the unknown is often just a reluctance to part with the known, because the known is the material from which we create ourselves. It is familiar to us and gives us a sense of security, even if it is imaginary.

No matter what culture you grew up in or what religion you belong to, you have probably been taught something about death. Perhaps it was described to you as a state of non-existence, the denial of all things. And you think you know what death is. I do not intend to refute one theory and replace it with another.

But Buddhism is just another belief system, another kind of knowledge. I'm not sure that any one system of knowledge is enough to understand what death is. When we enter the realm of death, we leave behind all knowledge. We leave everything behind. We are no longer Buddhists, Christians or Jews. We no longer belong to a family, a people, or a country. We don't have a name anymore. We have nothing.

It must be admitted that, despite all attempts to debunk death, there is something deeply mysterious and mystical about it. Not so long ago I lost my parents and I can say that it is one thing to observe the changes that take place in a person when he approaches death, and quite another thing to realize that a person is dead, gone forever.

The birth of a person, his coming into this world, seems to us just as wonderful and mysterious. To go beyond life and death through liberation is the goal of our practice. But in life there are a lot of beautiful things, joys that you shouldn’t give up. Liberation does not force us to give them up.

Dogen said this beautifully: “Our life is worthy of respect. The body that supports this life is also worthy of respect. Don’t waste your life. Don’t neglect your body. Respect the body and love this life.”

When thinking about death, the question naturally arises of what awaits us next. Here I am afraid to disappoint my readers. Students come to me with questions about what happens after death. They hope to get a definitive answer and get rid of the disturbing uncertainty. I can only present the point of view of Buddhism. I can recommend books such as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which details possible events after death. But I can’t guarantee how true all this is. I can't give exact information. I've never died before.

I have always liked that Buddhism is not just a belief system, but a practical teaching. There are certain commandments here, but Buddha always urged not to take his word for it. He advised testing everything in practice and thus making sure that his teaching was correct.

Buddha left many discussions on the topic of death. Some commentators believe that these texts were created by other preachers, but I have read them and think that the Buddha had something to say on this matter. And since the Buddha's other commandments have been confirmed in practice, I am inclined to believe everything he said about death. I believe, but I cannot verify his correctness in practice. And there is a big difference between knowledge and faith.

There are different points of view on life after death. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, American Indian religions all view death differently. Each religion claims its own revelation of this great mystery. There are similarities and differences between them. And, of course, there are people who declare with all confidence that there is no life after death.

But faith, by definition, does not need to be confirmed by knowledge. Faith can be fanatical - people fight and go to war for it. But faith deals with the unknown, and the known, as I have already said, cannot know the unknown. Often people are afraid of the unknown, and faith helps them calm down. The fanaticism of their faith reflects the degree of fear they experience. As long as they believe, fear remains and prevents them from living a full life.

I choose to believe in rebirth, and that consoles me. If I experience fear, I try to deal with it immediately, get close to it and watch how it arises and dies. It's not that I haven't had revelations about what will happen to me after death - I'm just not sure that it's true. And I don’t want to lay claim to something I haven’t seen with my own eyes.

When talking about rebirth, a metaphor is often used: life is the ocean, and we are the waves. Our wave is born, gains strength, grows, breaks and fades, but it remains a part and expression of the ocean. Our life is part of the universal life. I, like others, went into deep meditation and saw the absolute silence that lies beneath the waves of life. I, like others, have experienced visions of a past life during meditation. (It is said that Buddha saw all his past lives on the night he became enlightened.) But I am not one hundred percent sure that these were really my past lives. Maybe they were just visions.

I continue to be in the dark about this great mystery, but I believe that there are people who actually know something about it. When I started teaching about death consciousness and was seriously confronted with this problem, I decided to talk to my teacher, Vimala Thakar. I told him about my problem, that I would like to convey to my students the Buddha's teaching on death, but I could not verify his correctness from my own experience - the way I checked everything else. Vimala's answer amazed me:

“Knowledge makes life fresh and blooming. Repetition of previously accumulated knowledge makes life stale and stinking. Congratulations to you for having the strength and desire to learn and live in accordance with the knowledge you have acquired.”

Rebirth is a fact. The splashes on the surface of the ocean of creative energy are called birth and death. But in the depths of the ocean there is no movement, no waves. The meditating consciousness is free from the worries of birth and death. I saw the truth of birth and death, and the secret of immortal life."

I understood what Vimala was saying, but I did not completely agree with him. Maybe there will be people who will support me. Recognizing the limitations of my knowledge and not wanting my teaching to be "stale and stinking," I would like to give a brief overview of the Buddha's teaching on rebirth as I understand it.

We have to enter the realm of the last two commandments:

I will become different, free from everything that is dear and pleasant to me.

I am the master of my actions, the heir of my actions, born from my actions, bound by my actions and dependent on them. Whatever I do, good or bad, will all affect my destiny.

These commandments will be discussed in the next chapter - here we will touch upon them only briefly. The first four commandments point to sad truths. We grow old, our health weakens, we have to part with what is dear to us. And only the fifth commandment leaves any hope, although it seems somewhat mysterious. I think it was written by people who believed in the doctrine of rebirth. This commandment is based on the law of karma, according to which our actions determine our future life. The law of karma is closely related to rebirth.

It is necessary to distinguish between Hindu reincarnation and Buddhist rebirth. The theory of reincarnation implies the existence of an eternal soul that passes from body to body, purifying itself over many lives, until it finally reaches perfection and unites with God.

The theory of rebirth is different from reincarnation. The Buddha taught that no part of our being is eternal and unchanging - everything is subject to change. At the time of death this process continues. The body decomposes and changes its state (for more details, see “Meditation in the Crypt”). Our soul and consciousness are also changing - there is a continuous process of changing mentality. Under the right conditions, they move into a new body. It all depends on the coincidence of conditions. One of the conditions is mental continuity. When it is supported by other conditions, a new being arises. The image of a candle is often used to illustrate this process. Imagine that you have an almost burnt out candle in your hands. Before it goes out completely, you light a new candle from it, and its flame flares up with redoubled force. Is this the same flame or a new one? Neither one nor the other can be said with complete certainty. Here is an illustration of the theory of rebirth. We are not talking here about a single soul passing from body to body. We are dealing with a chain of continuous changes and connections between new bodies.

Once upon a time this woman was in her mother's womb. Then she was a baby. Now she is thirty years old. Is she the same creature as thirty years ago, or not? Neither statement will be absolutely true. (And yet, what happened to the child? He disappeared, but did not die.)

The same thing happens with rebirth. The spiritual process is not interrupted, and under certain conditions our “I” takes the form of a new body.

Sometimes students say to me: “I believe in the existence of the soul. Does Buddhism allow such a belief?” It all depends on the circumstances. If I look deep inside myself, I can probably discern some entity called "Larry Rosenberg-ness." But it does not remain unchanged. Like everything else, it is subject to continuous change. Therefore, if you ask whether, from the point of view of Buddhism, the human soul exists, then I will answer you: yes, it exists, but it is not eternal and unchanging.

To me, the teaching of rebirth is completely understandable and quite consistent with the rest of the Buddha's teaching. Many of the Buddha's commandments have been confirmed by practice. But has the doctrine of rebirth been proven correct? No, not proven. I just take it on faith because it looks convincing.

According to the fifth commandment, we owe the continuity of changes in the soul to our actions. This is the law of karma. All our actions lead to a certain result. Our present experiences are connected to past thoughts and actions, and everything we do and think now will have consequences in the future.

Again, I do not know exactly how the law of karma manifests itself in each of the repeated births, but I am quite sure that in our present life this law has wide application. Our thoughts and actions have an important impact on our current lives.

This is why I have no doubt about the truth of the doctrine of rebirth. A wrong action does not always cause suffering in the future life, but in the present life it will clearly have bad consequences. We begin to suffer already at the moment of its commission. In the same way, good deeds immediately have a positive effect on us. Therefore, why think about the future life - it is enough for me that I will feel good in this life. Of course, if the consequences of my good deeds will affect throughout all future lives, this is a big plus. Here, as they say, we do not lose anything, but only win.

In the same way, the path of awareness that I have chosen seems right to me, whether it leads to rebirth or not. Buddha talks about rebirth in great detail. In particular, he teaches that the quality of the subsequent birth largely depends on the state of our mind at the moment of death. It is best if our mind is in a calm, conscious state. But even if this is not so, I would like to approach everything consciously at the moment of death, because I know from experience that such a state is the best.

Moreover, suppose someone proves to me that Buddhism is a hoax, that Buddha did not exist, and his sermons were written many years later, that enlightenment does not exist, much less rebirth. Even in this case, I will continue to live as I live now. What is better - not to know about it? Have a distracted and unreliable mind? Not caring about your thoughts and actions? Lie, steal, give in to the insatiable desire for happiness? I live the way I do not because I follow this or that teaching, but because I consider this way of life to be the best.

Of course, it would be nice to be successfully born again, but it would be even better to go beyond birth and death altogether. The true goal of practice is not to achieve successful rebirths in the future, but to achieve liberation in the present.

Rebirths occur gradually as we continually create new selves. Real liberation is to observe this process, but not to depend on it, to remain free.

Now let's talk about the process of liberation, about the last messenger of the Buddha - the wandering monk. We have paid enough attention to the process of birth and death. Now our task is to become free from them.

Larry Rosenberg, Living in the Light of Death

Alexa 02.05.2015 18:37

Many questions were answered. The internal dialogue was de-energized for a long time so that it could be noticed and felt. A feeling of integrity and amazing clarity, “blindsightedness” - yes, but you can see it. Everything changes.

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Hello. This is the umpteenth time I'm on this site. most often in
as an observer. but I’m writing this myself for the third time. I'll outline mine
picture...I'm 24 years old. I work at a job that I love, but with
small salary I have parents, a brother, I, mom, dad live in the same room in
communal apartment. all my life. my brother used to live with us, but he got married and moved in with
wife. Let's look into resolving the housing issue. we want to buy an apartment in
mortgage but the only question that torments me is how then every month
pay a round sum? but live with idiotic neighbors
impossible anymore. you can probably imagine what it's like to be in one
room for adults. dad likes to think from the series “how bad everything is, oh”
what's going on, we are being deceived everywhere and it will get even worse." You know, me too
I thought so. I was in dark thoughts. but mainly due to some
relationships. but, as I remember now, at 16 I was already writing poems with meaning, like
They will carry me in a coffin and how bad it will all feel. at the age of 16 I cut
your hand with a blade. more indicative than with the intention to die. This
it was because of the guy. then she lived, at the very least. had fun, went to clubs, lived
at the parent's expense, and at the same time received a HSE. thank you mom for giving me
take your youth off. but then HE appeared. in 2006 we became acquainted.
We dated for 3 years. I won’t write about all the litigation of this relationship, because...
already wrote and more or less outlived them. broke up a year ago. also with
with their quirks. The result is that we don’t communicate at all. and I don't want to either. BUT! I every
I think about him every day, look at his page, look through old photos.
I understand that the person is already completely different. not the one I was with. And
I understand that I won’t build a family with him. For him, his mother’s opinion is more important and
Friends. In general, when I was on the verge this summer, a friend advised me
a book on esotericism. like how to think positively, how our thoughts affect
All! that they are material and that we are ruled by the Higher Mind. I'm so carried away
visualization of happiness and love! and you know, there were miracles!!! I flew. but after
The strength to change yourself and your loved ones has disappeared somewhere. now I have knowledge about
the power of thought and experience of “how not to do it” from relationships with m.ch. but like this
sadness is creeping in...today is a day off. I was waiting for him so much, but I’m sitting at home. with s8yu
by people. in three rubles. the head is heavy. I want to lose weight, but I'm still stuffed
stronger. I'm worried about the idea that everyone around me is creating a family and children, that
live separately and are successful at work. and I? you know, when I met my boyfriend
I cried every day, I even received treatment from a psychiatrist for about 2.5 years
pills that turned me into a zombie. and every day I dreamed of jumping
from a bridge or from a roof. hating everything around. but it seemed to have passed..and
Now I look back and understand that the friends have their own lives, everyone has their own. every
for myself. sometimes I think that I will still be with my parents without a husband. That's why
that with my hysterical character and absolute intolerance I don’t see
myself with my children and husband as a kind of family lady... and also, as I wrote completely
recently there was a young man here, it pains me to see a degenerating society. to me
It's scary to give birth to a child in it. send to kindergarten and wild school. and let in
on the street with crazy cars and stuff. don’t say “go to God and
etc. "I know that I am the mind, not the body. But I don’t believe in God.
such an old man in white. I believe that we live as if behind glass. and above
It’s just that someone is making a very cruel joke. What is life for? After all, I’m going to die.
Everyone who is nearby will die and there will be no trace left of all our efforts. I don't
I see meaning in life. because death is inevitable. so why wait? Why strive for something... work, eat, sleep if it disappears once and for all???
Support the site:

cat, age: 24/11/20/2010

Responses:

My opinion.
Kote, do you know what the problem is?
All this suffering and torment, ordeal, is 90% mental and moral in nature, practically unrelated to the physical body.
And in this case, giving up and waiting for years for the end of all this... will not work. It will be even worse...
And then... not believing in anything is an exaggeration.
Every day you believe in something.
You just got used to it. It’s natural for you and you haven’t noticed it for a long time.
P.S No, seriously, jokes aside, do you really know everything about the future?

Pilgrim, age: 45 / 11/21/2010

Hello Kote!
Throw away all the books on esotericism, please. Esoteric studies have never brought anyone any good: first they cause euphoria and a desire to act, and then - quite deep depression and devastation.
Read the materials on this site:
http://www.zagovor.ru/main/Privorot_story
It is indeed very difficult to live in a communal apartment. Maybe the parents' idea about the apartment isn't so bad? If everyone mobilizes and works, the loan can be repaid.
Don’t try to compare yourself with others: you are you, you have your own path and your own deadlines for the main events in a person’s life: marriage, the birth of children. If you don’t have something now, it means the time just hasn’t come yet. Regarding the “hysterical” character: emotionality and vulnerability smooth out over time, and by the age of 30 there will be almost no trace left of them. In addition, the birth of a child greatly changes a woman, and you will see that you will be able to give the child everything he needs - both materially and emotionally.
In modern society, as in any other, there are both good and bad people. There is no need to be afraid. Just believe in good things, help others, and like attracts like - there will only be good people around you.
All the best!

Hmm, how familiar this all is. And global questions, and the search for the meaning of life. You know, I understand you, because quite recently I also went through this path.
Fear and rejection of life, oneself and God come precisely from a distorted and false understanding of these things. How easy it is to say that there is no meaning in life when you didn’t even try to look for it, and if you tried, you looked in the wrong place.
There are many wonderful articles here on the site, many of them are probably familiar to you, for example, this one -
Read it.

A person feels oppressed, lonely and helpless precisely when his soul is torn away from the Creator. And this is not an “old man in white”, everything is not so primitive. You can understand God only through your personal spiritual experience. What I sincerely wish for you. As for the meaning of life, you must first try to look for it, and then claim that it does not exist. You tried? Did you do your best for this?
Life seems meaningless only when you see the end of everything with your death. But death is not the end. And suicide even more so.

Baby, age: 27 / 21.11.2010

What's in the future? Another job, family, children. Work-home-friends. Problems of home planning, education. Some kind of self-education, and “swallowing small problems.” Then, if the child is adequate, then his family and grandchildren. Then death. Or death much earlier. But if she is still at an advanced age, I will have to (my soul) experience the loss of loved ones. What is this all for? It's so banal and predictable. I don’t trust men after such a “lesson”. And I have an attitude towards society insofar as. Colleagues, acquaintances. Mask of joy. there's no point anyway. another 60 years and all my efforts will rot in a tree at a depth of 2-3 meters. WHY go out of your way seisas???

Julia, thank you for your response! But what do love spells and spells have to do with it??? esotericism is the same meaning - that how a person thinks is how he lives! What kind of devastation are we talking about after it? Explain if you can. THANK YOU!

Kote, age: 24 / 21.11.2010

On the website "zagovor.ru" there are stories of those who engaged in practices related to esotericism.
For example, this one:
http://www.zagovor.ru/main/magic?id=146
Esotericism is one of the alternative, and not universal, visions of the world. It inverts and distorts the picture of the world inherent in a person at the level of the unconscious, archetypal (experience and traits characteristic of a given people, their worldview, etc. - all this is transmitted as a phenomenon of the collective unconscious). There is information about people who were deeply involved in esoteric practices and subsequently received serious mental disorders. Therefore, it’s better not to...

Julia, age: 23 / 21.11.2010

Nobody drags you into marriage, forces you to have children, or go to work. This is all a conscious choice.
People do all this for joy :) I know people who raise several children and go to work. because they like it - they are glad that they bring benefits to people. And in general, work can be interesting, but it’s not necessary to shift papers in the office.
and then they come home and are also happy - they talk to the children, read books to them, play. They arrange delicious dinners, go on visits...
I already know older people who also feel happy - because they can help someone, because they love this world, admire the sky, grow all sorts of vegetables and flowers in the garden, go for mushrooms... But this is their choice.
You also have a choice. Do you think family is a routine? I can tell you that this is most likely because you don’t really love anyone and didn’t see happy, friendly families in your childhood.
But you can be perfectly fine being alone. and you can choose the job that Vakm likes. or you may not choose - but go somewhere far away. Go to a monastery and ask to go into seclusion there. Or, on the contrary, you can start helping people who need your help.
Understand - everything is in your hands!

YuliaA, age: 35 / 11/21/2010

Julia, I don’t do healing. I just try to keep my thoughts positive! and imagine pictures of the future! my dreams!

Kote, age: 24 / 21.11.2010

Kote, please tell me, has anyone in your life ever said “thank you” to you? Not just a mechanical “thank you for your order” in a store or a quick thank you in response to a request to pass the salt. And this is a real “thank you.” For a person to come to you and say “thank you, friend, you helped me out so much.” No? then make sure that someone can tell you this in the near future. Help someone. Make sure this permeates every area of your life. Give up your seat on the bus, help an elderly person carry his bag up the stairs, listen to someone's problems, write a letter of support to someone on this site, whatever, just do as many good deeds as possible, small and large. You can even get a notebook and make sure that every day there is at least one thing that you can write down there. And most importantly, when you do this, don’t for a moment ask yourself the question “why is this all for? We’re all going to die.” You can think about it later, but not when you are helping others. Be sure to smile at people. Even if you are not in the mood, still try to smile.

What about God? You know, I tried books about a positive attitude towards life, telling myself that I was happy, etc. This does not provide any solid foundation in life. This is quicksand. Today you put on positive glasses, and tomorrow fate hits you in the face and these glasses fly into pieces, so they cannot be collected. Therefore, it is better to wear not glasses, but a visor called “faith in God.” It's much harder to break.

P.S. and the old man with a white beard and on a cloud - these are truly fairy tales :)

Ksenia, age: 25/11/21/2010

You think too much or you have a lot of free time, in which you don’t know how to occupy yourself and so you pester yourself with such thoughts.
Death is a fact, but nevertheless, if you put in a lot of effort, you can leave your mark here) and there will be people in whose memory you will live. If you do nothing, nothing will change, you can talk, reason, argue endlessly, but words without action have no power.

SunshineLiarRF, age: 24/11/22/2010

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