We don’t know when we are going to die. Every breath we take
could be our last breath: we don’t know. When we wake up in the
morning we should say, “How amazing that I didn’t die during the
night,” and when we go to sleep at night, we should say, “How
amazing that I lasted this whole day and I haven’t died yet.” Who
knows when we’ll die?
We honestly don’t know. All these people killed in accidents on
the road – did they think they were going to die? Death comes
without respect for age or success or beauty or health. When we go,
we go. So we have to live each day as if it were our last. If we
really thought, “Tomorrow, I’m going to die,” what would we do with
today? Surely we would really start to re-evaluate our whole
situation.
Once when I ( authour Tenzin Palmo ) was in my cave, there was a
raging blizzard and I was snowed in. The blizzard blew seven days
and seven nights non-stop and the cave was completely covered. When
I opened the window, there was just a sheet of ice; when I opened
the door there was a sheet of ice. I thought, “This is it,”,
because the cave was very small and I would surely run out of
oxygen and die. So I got myself all ready. I got out these little
pills you’re supposed to take at the time of death ( although I
have to say, those little pills are rock hard! ), and I went
through my life. I regretted the things I had done wrong, and I
rejoiced in the things I had done right. It was very salutary
because I really believed that I only had a day or two left at the
most. It really put things into perspective -what was important and
what was not important; what was important for me to think and what
was totally irrelevant for me to think.
Normally our minds are filled with non-stop chatter, the running
commentary of totally useless soap-opera dialogue that we present
to ourselves. But when we believe we’ve got a limited amount of
time to keep thinking, we become very discriminating in our
thoughts, and much more conscious of how we’re using our time and
of what we’re doing with our mind.
If we live thinking that each day is our last, it helps us
appreciate each moment. This is not being fatalistic or gloomy. If
this was our last day on earth, we would be careful of our time. We
wouldn’t create more problems; we would try to solve the problems
we already have. We’d be nice to people. If we’re not going to see
them again, why not be nice to them? Wouldn’t we be kind to our
family, our children, our partners, and the people that we’re
leaving, if we thought we were never going to see them again?
Because who knows? We might not. One day, we won’t.
Why not be ready?