Impermanence and Death

My most dear, most kind, wish-granting one,
I am so, so sorry for what happened regarding your son’s death. Of course, even today in the world many hundreds or thousands of others have died in the same way, not only your son.

I want to tell you, he was born to you in this life because he had a connection with you from the past, from beginningless rebirths. He was born to you numberless times and you were born to him numberless times from beginningless time.

Most people in the world don’t remember their past lives, but there are many children who do remember, not only Tibetan lamas. I have a book in Nepal about that. One Western professor did research and found many cases of children remembering their past lives. In Buddhist countries people believing in past lives is very normal, it is well-known.

In Western society nowadays many people talk about karma—action and result, that something happens because it has a cause. Negative actions should be stopped so that there won’t be a suffering result. Positive actions should be done because there will be the result, happiness.

I am a recognized lama. I don’t remember my past life, however, I have the name “reincarnate lama” because in my past life I created so much merit and made many prayers to be able to help sentient beings. My own faith comes because although I do not remember my past life, when I meditate, some words and certain ways of thinking come, so that’s why I believe I did meditation in my past life.

Now, you see, you and your son have a connection in this life from the past. As long as you have this connection in samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth, you will meet him again endlessly, but of course in a different form. So, you don’t need to worry at all.

It’s not like the Western way of thinking—that when you die, you go totally out of existence, even the mind. It is not like that. Death is like changing a dress. There are three realms in which to reincarnate—the desire realm and the form and formless realms. After death there is no intermediate state before entering the formless realm, but there is an intermediate state for the desire and form realms.

I want to say, if there were no past life, there would not be any logical reason why we experience suffering in the womb and during birth, or why we experience happiness and suffering in our life. There would be no logical reason why all these experiences happen. Of course, for anything we don’t realize, we can make up our own reasons why these things happen. We believe it and teach it in society. But through meditation we can gain clairvoyance and we can see the past and future, even if it is only ordinary clairvoyance. As we achieve calm abiding and then higher and higher meditation, we know exactly, for example, we can see hundreds or thousands of past and future lives. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable.

There are five paths and ten bhumis to achieve enlightenment. When we achieve the eighth, ninth and tenth bhumi, we can count every single atom of the earth with such a clear mind, because it is purified of obscurations. We are also able to read numberless sentient beings’ minds, their intelligence, their merit, all the methods, what they need to be free from—suffering and obscurations—and how to bring them to enlightenment.

Of course, when we achieve omniscience, or enlightenment, we can see numberless sentient beings’ minds. We don’t make the slightest mistake and we can see everything directly, every sentient being’s needs. Until that happens we can’t benefit others perfectly. Benefiting sentient beings perfectly without mistake only happens when we achieve enlightenment.

There are the experiences of those who have actualized the path and attained the omniscient mind. Then, without meditation, devas—suras and asuras—when they die and are experiencing the five signs of death, some distant and some near ones, they can remember their past life and see their future life by karma, not meditation. Also, intermediate state beings have a certain clairvoyance after death, according to karma.

It is very normal for a mother and child—because your child was born from you in this life—to have so much attachment. That is similar even for the animals that we see, also insects and the animals that live in the ocean and on the ground. When they give birth, there is so much attachment to their offspring.

Except for turtles, according to His Holiness. They come from thousands of miles away to a certain beach to lay their eggs and after they lay the eggs they leave. They don’t take care of the eggs. When the baby turtles hatch, they go down to the ocean by themselves.

I also heard there is a bird which puts its own eggs in another bird’s nest and takes away the eggs that are there, so the mother bird takes care of the other bird’s eggs. It is karma.

Not only your son, but all other sentient beings have been born to you in past lives and you have also been born to them numberless times in past lives. Not only have they been your friend, they have also been your enemy numberless times and they have been a stranger numberless times. Similarly, you have been their friend, enemy and stranger numberless times.

In Mahayana Buddhism, we have to realize that all our past, present and future happiness up to enlightenment is received from every hell being, hungry ghost, animal—every mosquito, the tiny flies in the grass that escape away when we walk, every rat, scorpion—and the numberless suras and asuras, the worldly gods. There is logic to prove this, but maybe I’ll explain that next time.

By taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, we won’t be reborn in the hell, hungry ghost or animal realm. We will receive a higher rebirth, as a deva or with a human body. By taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha we can become free from samsara, which is in the nature of suffering—the suffering of pain (rebirth, sickness, old age, death and so forth), dissatisfaction, and the suffering of change, which is all the samsaric pleasure. This pleasure is temporary, thus we can’t continue or develop it, whereas Dharma happiness we can continue and develop. We can become free from samsara and achieve the blissful state of peace forever.

Not only that, by taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, we can purify even the subtle obscurations and achieve buddhahood, that which is the cessation of all the obscurations and the completion of all the realizations.

Even Buddha, Dharma and Sangha came from every sentient being, including our enemies and strangers. Therefore, every sentient being is most precious, most kind, most dear, wish-fulfilling for us.

So, in Mahayana practice, just as you cherish your son, you cherish every sentient being the most. At the moment, we cherish the I most, more than numberless buddhas, Dharma, Sangha, more than numberless suffering sentient beings in each realm. All the undesirable things come from that self-cherishing. Also, it causes suffering to numberless sentient beings, directly and indirectly.

Letting go of the I and cherishing others is the source of all the happiness, temporary and ultimate, even the peerless happiness of buddhahood. But we are not cherishing all sentient beings. Even cherishing one sentient being becomes the cause of all the happiness—temporary and up to buddhahood. This is the heart of Mahayana Buddhist practice. This is what we are trying to do. This is the essence of Mahayana Buddhism, which came from Buddha and the Indian pandits from Nalanda Monastery.

That is why in our conduct, the practice is to not harm others and on top of that to benefit others. This includes the entire Buddhist path that Buddha has taught, which has three levels. There are the Lesser Vehicle teachings and the Great Vehicle teachings—Mahayana Sutra and Mahayana tantra.

Not only that, we have to realize that all sentient beings have been our mother and have been kind since beginningless rebirths. This is so amazing to realize. That leads to great loving kindness, compassion, bodhicitta, the precious thought to achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings. That leads us to enlightenment, buddhahood.

Then we can free numberless sentient beings from the ocean of samsaric suffering and its cause. Not only that, we can bring every sentient being to full enlightenment, buddhahood, peerless happiness—the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations. The final thing, the whole aim of Mahayana Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, is to benefit sentient beings and the greatest benefit is to bring them to buddhahood. That is why we practice Mahayana Buddhism.

Finally, if you want to have a son, I can be your son. My body is small and my age is big, but by thinking of those who are 90, 100, or 2,000 years old, I am young in comparison.

Thank you very much. I have done prayers for him and I will do more again.

I want to suggest to you how to pray for your son. Because of the blood connection, if a mother is praying for her child or children are praying for their parents, the prayers are very powerful. If a guru is praying for their disciple and the disciple is praying for their guru, through the Dharma connection that is very powerful. Also, for people sharing a house or materials, through that material connection the prayers for each other are very powerful.

Pray like this:

Due to all the past, present and future merits collected by me, the three times merits collected by sentient beings and the three times merits collected by the buddhas, may my son never be born in the lower realms, as a hell, hungry ghost or animal being. May he be reborn in a pure land where he can become enlightened. At least may he receive a perfect human body and meet the Mahayana teachings, meet a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru revealing the unmistaken path to enlightenment, and by pleasing the virtuous friend may he achieve enlightenment quickly.

I am so sorry I took a lot of your time by reading this letter. Now you may have to go on vacation to Tahiti or the Bahamas.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Regarding your question about death, that is due to imprints from a past life, so there is an imprint about death on your mental continuum and from that big fear arises. The same thing happened in my life when I saw death for the first time. It happened in Rolwaling, down below my alphabet teacher’s house. At that time he was a monk and there was one ngagpa [tantric practitioner] whose wife had died. They were taking the body into the forest to burn and before the cremation they had a fire mandala printed to put inside instead of drawing it. Then they put her body on that and maybe did an offering [practice] like the fire puja deity, I think.

Her body was covered by bedding but then they took the whole body out, naked. That was the first time in my life I saw a dead body. I was standing watching that and then I was so afraid for three days. I was so scared for three days. But the fear didn’t happen after that; it was just that time.

Generally, I think it’s good to be afraid of death, because it reminds us of our own death. If we don’t want to die, if we don’t want the suffering of death, then there is no other solution than Dharma practice. We need to study emptiness and to realize emptiness—the other antidote is bodhicitta—in order to abandon death, to be free from death and achieve enlightenment.

By realizing emptiness we can be free from death. By direct perception of emptiness we can remove the cause of suffering—delusion and karma—then we can be free from the oceans of samsaric sufferings forever. We not only purify the disturbing-thought obscurations by developing the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness,  we also cease the subtle obscurations to knowledge and then we achieve enlightenment.

Milarepa said:

Afraid of death, I fled to the mountains, where I realized the nature of the primordial mind.
Now even if death comes to me, I have no fear.

So according to your situation, have no fear, like that. To realize that we need to meditate on impermanence and death from the lamrim, from the gradual path of the lower capable being. This is the most important meditation so that you remember Dharma all the time and are able to practice with courage, to continue your Dharma practice and then have realizations of renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness. Even before that you don’t need to be scared. But you need to practice, so meditate on the lamrim, the lower path and you don’t need to be scared of death.

Numberless meditators did this in order to overcome their attachment to this life, as well as ignorance, hatred and so forth. Therefore meditate on impermanence and death very often, then later when you die you don’t have to be scared because you will have freedom. This will be the best death, so happy, because you can be reborn in a pure land where you will be unbelievably happy. The next benefit is that your mind is totally happy because it is certain that you will be reborn in the higher realms, as a human being and so forth. The last benefit is that you will have no fear.

There are different explanations from some lamas about directly perceiving emptiness and ceasing or being free from death by ceasing delusion and karma, the cause of suffering. Next is realizing emptiness but not directly, then bodhicitta is the next one, then next is having no fear of death, and lastly being reborn as a deva or human.

Milarepa said:

By meditating on impermanence you become victorious over the mara of laziness.
By actualizing emptiness whatever you have done becomes holy Dharma.

It is a great teaching. Therefore, meditate on impermanence and death. This is so important to make the life most meaningful and to actualize the lamrim from beginning to end, beginning with correctly following the virtuous friend up to omniscience.

With much love and prayers ...

You can plan, but the most important practice is the awareness of impermanence and death; knowing that death can happen at any time.

If you don't become familiar with the awareness of impermanence and death, it causes huge problems and worry when you die, because you have all the attachment and difficulty in separating from [the objects of attachment].

This is without thinking about going to the lower realms, just even thinking about this life. I'm not saying you are going to the lower realms; that is not what I mean. First think about the separation from the objects of attachment of this life; that’s a big thing. So, every day you need to be fully aware of that.

Scientists don't know Dharma yet, but even scientifically there is more understanding of the importance of having less attachment, less clinging to the body, relatives, etc.

To begin with, we are so frightened when there is separation. Even without accepting reincarnation, even now psychologists know how important it is to understand impermanence and death. It is not just nonsense, something crazy; it is psychology, a method, so that when we die we do not have attachment or we have less attachment to our family and friends. Then we will have more peace and happiness.

If we have attachment, when we die or get sick we can't do anything, we can't help, and we just become worried, especially if we don't accept Dharma.

Scientifically there may even be more Dharma understanding; that may happen as science develops more and more.

So this is not fooling us, Buddhism is not fooling us. It’s not like saying that this is gold but it is not gold, or that it is kaka but it is not kaka. So it is not that. Buddhism only gives rise to correct wisdom, being able to discriminate what is right or wrong.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your kind letter. I am sorry we did not get to meet.

Regarding your baby dying after his birth, this is not the first time—we have died numberless times during birth from beginningless rebirths and so has he. You have been born to him and he has been born to you numberless times; it is not only this time, but numberless times. This time he died, but numberless times he was born and lived, and numberless times he has also died. Numberless times he was born alive and will be in the future, for as long as you and he are in samsara.

Because he was born to you, that happened due to a past connection, and that means he will be born to you again numberless times and you will be born to him numberless times. This is not the last time. This is what happens for as long as you are in samsara. This is not the first time you saw him, met him; it has happened numberless times and you will meet him again, so there is nothing to worry about.

Of course if you are worrying and sad because he is in samsara—where he has to suffer and experience the suffering of pain, the suffering of change and pervasive compounded suffering—if this is why you are worrying, then that is OK, that is worthwhile. (If you do not know about these three types of suffering in samsara, then you can ask Geshe-la to explain more about this.)

That is a means to generate compassion—wishing to free him from the sufferings of samsara, and as well as him, for all sentient beings to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering. That is very worthwhile and from that compassion arises. That causes you to generate bodhicitta and from that to achieve enlightenment and to be able to perfectly help others.

Regarding your first question, according to my observation it looks difficult to have a child, it did not come out.

Regarding question two, according to my observation it seems better to adopt. But if you do that, you have to think how to make the child’s life beneficial to others, to the world, to numberless sentient beings. How to make the child’s life beneficial to others is the main point to concentrate on—how to help the child have a good heart, loving kindness, compassion, bodhicitta, the ultimate good heart, to live life with that. Then their life can be beneficial for all sentient beings. So to learn that and live the life in that way, to actualize that. The child should live life with that, and try to do everything with the good heart as much as possible, the ultimate good heart, bodhicitta.

Otherwise having a child is just suffering, attachment, just from the self-cherishing thought, just service to attachment, to the self-cherishing thought, just suffering. If you can’t make your child’s life beneficial for other sentient beings, then it is only suffering. If you are able to make the child’s life beneficial for sentient beings then whatever hardships you bore, it’s worthwhile.

Regarding your third question, when you miss your child who died, you can think:

By my experiencing this grief, may all mother sentient beings be free from all grief, as well as from sickness, spirit harm and negative karmas collected from beginningless rebirths, and may they immediately achieve enlightenment.

Then recite OM MANI PADME HUM. Recite this whole verse and OM MANI PADME HUM over and over, doing a mala or more.

If you do this, you are making your grief and your experience for the benefit of all sentient beings. Then it is so worthwhile. It causes you to achieve enlightenment quickly, in order to be able to perfectly benefit sentient beings—for them to be free from the oceans of samsara sufferings and to bring them to enlightenment.

I want to tell you one thing—you and all sentient beings have been born to each of us numberless times from beginningless rebirths and that will happen again endlessly. If we don’t practice Dharma in this life; if we don’t actualize the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, which ceases the cause [of suffering]—delusion and karma —then we will have to be born again in samsara, to sentient beings. This is including your child who died. This has been happening from beginningless rebirths, again and again, the same thing. Without practicing Dharma then it goes on endlessly, we get reborn.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
I want to tell you something from my heart to your heart. Since we were born, we have been under the control of delusion and karma, but we didn’t get to actualize the path and we didn’t get to generate renunciation to samsara, aversion to samsara. We haven’t realized that samsara is in the nature of suffering and we didn’t get to realize the path to liberation from samsara. We didn’t do that; it didn’t get done.

We didn’t actualize the ultimate wisdom directly perceiving emptiness and without that there is nothing, there is no method to directly cease the seed of delusion and karma, the cause of samsara. That means we have to be endlessly in samsara until we actualize the ultimate wisdom directly seeing emptiness. That means we will have to suffer in samsara continuously in the six realms, one after another, always like that, experiencing unbelievable suffering without end. Not only that, we have experienced the unbelievable suffering of the six realms from beginningless rebirth up to now. Therefore, we have to die under the control of karma and delusion.

However, if we actualize that path, then we can be free from death and rebirth, sickness, old age and so forth. We can be free from all the sufferings, such as the suffering of pain, and the suffering of meeting the undesirable object or being separated from the desirable object. We cannot find satisfaction even if we find the desirable object. This unbelievable suffering is what millionaires, billionaires, zillionaires and trillionaires have, if they don’t know Dharma and don’t practice Dharma.

Death can happen anytime. We think we might live for a long time, but death can happen suddenly one day, even in five minutes, in a car accident, an airplane crash or a heart attack. We may think we are going to live for a long time, for many years; we don’t think we are going to die. This concept of permanence cheats us, it totally deceives us. It doesn’t let us practice Dharma in our life, so we always delay, delay, just as we delay doing such-and-such retreat.

For example, even today, children born from their mother’s womb died. Children who have just come out of their mother’s womb died, middle-aged people  died and old people died, even today in this world. Age doesn’t define anything, and it is [not] definite that we are going to live to an old age.

Suddenly a doctor says we have cancer or suddenly we come to know we are going to die. Then we first have the suffering of being separated from our family and our possessions—from our money in the bank or from our house—then we are separated even from our own body that we have cherished more than numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas and numberless sentient beings. We have cherished our own body the most, but we even have to leave that. We must separate from that, there is no choice, so first the worry and fear of that is unbelievable.

Then the next thing is that we are going somewhere very heavy after this life. Even if we don’t believe in reincarnation, we naturally feel something very heavy is going to happen, we naturally feel that. Some people have this feeling, even if intellectually they don’t believe in reincarnation they feel that naturally, from the heart. Then in the next life due to nonvirtue we will be reborn in the lower realms. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable. For humans this is the heaviest problem, but it’s a great peace compared to even a small suffering in the hells.

Of course, people in the world do not know this, they only believe in just one life. It is very difficult for people to hear the right teaching, to learn the right explanation from people, and it is also very difficult for people to believe that. Western scientists do not know yet about reincarnation and karma and those things. They have not discovered this yet. It would take an unbelievable, unbelievable length of time to discover everything that has to do with the mind.

I want to tell you this advice, heart-to-heart, my dear friend. It’s good if you can do this motivation every morning, The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment.) This would be your best meditation, this would be everything, and also it will bring all the success up to enlightenment. If you can, do this morning motivation. Please do it as much as possible.

Also recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra sometimes. Do meditation on Shakyamuni Medicine Buddha and recite the mantra, and if you can, do this morning motivation. It is so important, so important. Please do this every day, because even death happens suddenly. Then you have no need to worry, your past negative karma is purified every day by generating bodhicitta and by reading the Diamond Cutter Sutra, which is the Buddha’s teachings on emptiness. This is very powerful for purification. Then you can die with a great happy mind, and when you die you will meet the Dharma again, you will meet the Mahayana teachings again and you will also meet a perfectly qualified guru. So you will achieve enlightenment quickly.

Please at least do this motivation, The Method to Transform .... That is my main request to you.

You don’t have to keep the cards that I am sending you. You may not have a place to keep them all, so you can send some to a friend or to friends in the water, to the sharks or the eagles flying to Tibet. Anyway, I’m joking.

I wrote two mantras for you. The one on the popsicle is the six-syllable clairvoyance mantra. In Lawudo we have carved this mantra on big rocks so much in the past. By seeing this mantra, each time we see it, then after fifteen days all our past heavy negative karma gets purified. So please put this where everyone can see it, but don’t put it on the altar, because it seems no-one looks there. 

The other card with the horses has OM MANI PADME HUM, the mantra of Chenrezig, the Compassion Buddha. Each time we recite this mantra it collects more merit than the number of sand grains under the ocean. It’s also good luck and merit, more than the drops of water in the ocean. Recite this mantra with bodhicitta, thinking to free the sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and to bring them to buddhahood, the peerless happiness, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations. For that reason we need to achieve the omniscient mind.

If we recite this mantra even one time with bodhicitta motivation we collect more than skies of merits, good luck, and therefore we collect the most merits and it is the greatest purification of all the defilements and negative karma collected from beginningless rebirth. Also it makes it so easy to go to the pure land of Buddha, like Amitabha’s pure land, the blissful pure land. From there we never ever get reborn in the lower realms, we are free forever. Then it is so easy to achieve enlightenment, because we generate compassion for every sentient being.

So please recite this mantra and generate strong bodhicitta, then there is quick enlightenment. Then each time just by seeing you, it even purifies the negative karma of having killed one’s father, mother or an arhat who is free from samsara or having drawn blood from a buddha or caused disunity among the Sangha. It purifies these karmas that cause rebirth in the lowest hell, the inexhaustible hell, where the length of life is one intermediate eon and there is so much inconceivable suffering. Just by looking at this mantra even one time, this karma is purified and especially if we recite this mantra.

If you can do either half a mala or one mala, that is very good.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear one,
How are you? Are you getting bored or blissing out up there? Because you like the house so much and really don’t want to leave, I checked and it comes out negative for you to continue to stay there too long. I don’t know when you are planning to move out, but according to my observation after some time something negative comes if you stay there. I don’t know what. Maybe you don’t have enough merit.

However, you have to remember impermanence and death. This is the very basis of Buddhist philosophy, what the Buddha taught, the very basic thing is that every day you could die. Also this is what Lama Tsongkhapa mentioned in the Lamrim Chenmo. If you think, “I will die today,” then that means you will practice Dharma today. Then if you die, it is very good, because you did the practice and made preparation for death. Thinking this way benefits both sides —this is a very basic thing.

If you don’t think that, then the very foundation of Buddhism doesn’t happen. You live life with the wrong concept, then it’s hard for any activity to become Dharma, even meditation or any daily life actions, such as eating, walking, sleeping, sitting, and so forth. These actions don’t become Dharma.

In your life, since Lama passed away I’m only one, I know you think that in your heart. We didn’t happen to talk much, but you know my heart and I know your heart, in an ordinary way.

I’m trying to finish my retreat, but I am just making noise, some mantras, which are called retreat, but it is not retreat. I thought I would send you some cards, and tell you something so you don’t get bored, and I hope to see you soon.

I heard that you forgot to offer even a drink of water to students and friends who worked so hard for you at your place. You must help people, because they are working very hard. This is besides bringing sentient beings to enlightenment.

I am thinking to offer the best lunch for the people, Tibetan food, on the day of the puja. I’m not sure how many people will come, but perhaps I may also need to use your kitchen. I may need two kitchens, one may not be enough. I can’t say, maybe a lot of people will come.

With much love and prayers...