Remembering Death
by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Reflecting on impermanence and death in itself is not really a big deal,
but thinking about it because
of what follows after the death is important. If there is negative karma,
then there are the lower
realms of unimaginable sufferings, and this is something that can be stopped
immediately.
We cannot be liberated from samsara within this hour,today, this week or
even this year, but we can
purify negative karma now, this hour today, and therefore stop being reborn
in the lower realms if we
die now, this hour, today. This is possible.
By remembering impermanence and death, karma and the lower realms of suffering,
the mind is
persuaded to use the solution of Dharma practice. Immediately the mind
prepares for death.
Immediately it purifies the heavy negative karmas that cause one to remain
in the lower realms,
where there are unimaginable sufferings and no possibility to practice
Dharma.
Whenever there are problmes in our lives it is always good to remember
the lower realms of
suffering. We can't stand the problems we have now, but the lower realms
of suffering are a zillion,
zillion, zillion times greater, like the sky. If we put together all the
energy of fire, no matter how hot,
it is cool compared to one tiny fire spark of hell. All the energy of this
human world's fire put
together is cool compared to one tiny fire spark of the hell realm. Like
this, it's always good to make
a comparison.
Beings possessing a human body who haven't met Dharma, no matter how much
wealth they have,
no matter how may friends they have, no matter how much they appear to
be enjoying their lives, in
reality are only living with hallucination; they are living with wrong
concepts, so many piles of wrong
concepts. They are not aware of what is happening to them, they are not
aware of their own life.
They are not aware of the powers of their hallucination, the piles of wrong
concepts that compel
them to create the causess of samsara and the causes of the lower realms.
They don't have the
opportunity to plant the seed to be free from samsara, to cut the root
of samsaric ignorance,
because there is no understanding of emptiness, no opportunity to meditate
on emptiness.
If a person has a good heart, a sincere mind, and gives some help to others
without expecting any
results, then maybe they create some pure Dharma -- and that's very rare;
otherwise not. Usually
people live the life only with a worldly mind, particularly attachment,
clinging to this life. They use
the whole human life, the precious human body and all their education just
to create additional
causes to go to the lower realms.
This is what is happening in every day life. For the entire life people
act like a moth attracted to the
flame, completely hallucinated, completely deceived, not knowing the flame
will burn, that it is
completely other than what it appears. Even though they get burned, while
they still have the power
to fly they will continue to go towards the flame.
It is exactly the same with a fish and a baited hook. The fish does not
know that there is a hook that
cheats, leading to death and unbelievable suffering. Having no idea of
the danger, it is constatnly
being drawn with strong desire toward the hook baited with a piece of meat.
The result that the fish
experiences is completely other than what it expected. Once caught, there
is no way to get away
alive.
Following the dissatisfied mind, desire, the worldly mind, brings exactly
the same result.
Once sunk in the quagmire of the activities of this life, it is difficult
to escape the
hundreds of different problems, emotional pains of the mind and of the
body that come
from this one root, the dissatisfied mind, desire, attachment, clinging
to this life. All we
are doing is making samsara longer by creating karma; we are making a donation,
a
contribution to samsaric suffering, making it longer and longer. And then,
of course, there are the
sufferings of the lower realms, which are difficult to get out of.
It's the same with the way in which an elephant can be caught. A female
elephant is used as a lure,
the male elephant becomes crazy with disire and as a result, becomes trapped
inside a cage. What
was expected in the beginning was happiness, but what was received in the
end was something else,
something completely frightening.
All these examples show us the way in which samsara and the samsaric perfections
cheat us, that
they are not to be trusted. Therefore always remembering impermanence and
death becomes so
essential. Reflecting on impermanence and death makes life highly meaningful,
and so quickly and
so powerfully destroys the delusions and seed imprint. It is very easy
to meditate on and one can
cease the delusions. It leads one to begin to practice Dharma, and to continue
and complete the
practice.
source: http://www.fpmt.org/
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