Contemplation on Impermanence

wisdomeye SG

by Ven. Shangpa Rinpoche

13^th April 2007 8 pm

Karma Kagyud Buddhist Centre Singapore

Guru Devotion is very important to our practice as it overcomes our pride and ego which we always had. Renunciation is next in importance. We need both of these to be able to follow the right course towards enlightenment. Many masters have said that the preliminaries can be more profound than the actual practice of dharma. If we do not develop proper renunciation through contemplation on the preliminaries, our practice will not be fruitful.

Even if we know that the human body is so difficult to obtain and it is very precious and useful to us, we cannot avoid the fact that it is impermanent. Once there is birth, there will be death, but no one knows when death will come. Shantideva has mentioned, “Tomorrow and Death, which will come first, nobody knows. Tomorrow may not come, but the coming of death is certain.” Therefore we should not strive for tomorrow but make proper preparation for death. To do this we need to contemplate on how to avoid suffering during death which is very real and unavoidable. Even though we feel sad or uncomfortable when thinking about death, we need to face this fact that we will all die one day and try to overcome the sufferings it brings. We need to contemplate positively and prepare ourselves for death.

The Kadampa masters have provided 5 short sentences on contemplation of impermanence. Firstly we must contemplate that everything will not remain as it is but will keep changing moment by moment. Not only ourselves, but even the greater phenomena of the universe is impermanent. The Abhidharma states that the formation of universe takes trillions of years and the universe can be sustained for nearly the same amount of time. Then the destruction of the universe, Up to the realm of form will inevitably come albeit taking a long time to be completely destroyed. We should also reflect on the passing of time. Last year is already past and in the present year, day by day, week by week, month by month, everything is changing and moving on. All beings in the universe, even great masters are also impermanent. We just have to look at ourselves and how we have changed, from a small child to a teenager then to becoming an adult. We do not know how many years we will live on, but moment by moment we are progressing towards death. We should contemplate and ask ourselves, “What should we do from now?”

Secondly we must contemplate on others who have died. Whether young or old, rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, many we have known have died. We have also heard of countless more who have died through the news or people we know. Even if we do not talk of death, we have seen much changes in fortunes, people in high and important positions have fallen from grace, people in low positions have risen to places of importance, poor people have become millionaires, the rich have become poor. All things are constantly changing and do not remain constant. We should realize that we still have some time left before dying and should make full use of it fully by practicing Dharma diligently. This is the result of our contemplation on the second point.

Thirdly we must contemplate on the causes of death. There are very few causes for living but many causes of death. Natural disasters such as landslides, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis can cause death. Although not common in Singapore, in Nepal, many have died from lightning strikes. Man made disasters such as wars can also cause death. We hear many of such incidents from the news and we even see some with our own eyes. What kind of death we will encounter or when it will happen is unknown. However the fact that we will die is certain. Some Bodhisattva Sutras mention that people can die as well from food poisoning, overeating, improper digestion, not being able to pass motion, not observing the advice of doctors and nurses or attack from negative forces. Without being careful, we perform rugged activities or do things in the extreme and cause harm to our bodies. As there are many causes of death, we must observe the law of cause and effect and take good care of our precious human body thus sustaining our lives for as long as we can. With the time bought from remaining in good health, we should practice diligently.

Milarepa is one of our lineage masters and also Tibet’s greatest yogi. After he had gone through difficulties and much suffering before finally obtaining all teachings from his teacher Marpa, he obtained permission to return to his hometown. Marpa said that in his hometown he will see the true example of impermanence and this will be good for him. When he returned, he saw that his house has already collapsed and his mother’s skeleton was lying on the ground, the threads that bind the dharma texts have been nibbled through by rats and grass was growing through the text in between. He spent a whole night in his house and from there, truly realized impermanence and how frightening it is if he did not make full use of his time for practice. He then made a great resolve towards obtaining liberation and practiced the dharma by meditating in the caves. It is not difficult to know about impermanence, but to be thoroughly convinced and motivated by contemplating on impermanence is extremely difficult. If we are not convinced, we will continue to lead our worldly lives and not make much effort towards our practice. If we are convinced, we would make the greatest effort towards obtaining enlightenment. Therefore it is good to spend some time everyday to contemplate on impermanence and convince ourselves how important it is to practice and thus speed up our progress towards enlightenment.

Fourthly we should contemplate on what will happen during death. Sometimes we ask people, “Are you afraid of dying?” and many will say no. If one is a great practitioner, then this would probably be true. For them, death is liberation. For an ordinary person, they are probably not thinking deeply and just answering casually due to their ego, to show off that they are not cowards. Who actually wishes to die? Everyone actually want to live for as long as possible. Dying is quite frightening and terrible but it will happen eventually. During death, the physical body and mind separate. Only tragic circumstances or great trauma will bring this about. Especially for those who have accumulated bad karma, due to the manifestation of the bad karma, their mind becomes confused and they see the hell-beings and the tortures of hell and they become very disturbed.

When Rinpoche was in Nepal, he heard that a butcher who makes a living from killing buffaloes fell sick. When the butcher was about to die, he developed great fear as he saw buffaloes charging towards him with their sharp horns and asked the people around to save him as the buffaloes will kill him. Even before death, the manifestations of karma have begun. Likewise for great practitioners, during the moment of death, they will see the Buddhas and Dakinis welcoming them and their mind remains in great peace. There was an old lama in Nepal who recently died. Before he passed away, he spoke to those around of seeing Red Chenrezig and Karmapa arriving to welcome him. He was the only one there who could see this. So this is the great difference at the time of death between those who have accumulated much bad karma and those who have accumulated great merits.

The actual moment of death is very important. Even if a person has accumulated much merit in his life, at the moment of death, if he is confused due to the rising of anger or other negative emotions, this would affect his next rebirth which may be in lower realms. If a practitioner can internalize the teachings and have a very good practice, at the time of death, he will be able to sustain peace and calm in his mind and this would be the gate towards liberation. We should contemplate therefore on this difference between good and mediocre practitioners and strive towards a good experience during death by practicing diligently now.

Fifthly we should contemplate on what happens after death. As we know, after death, even the King of the universe cannot bring along with him a single piece of clothing or even the lowliest of servants. He has to leave all his belongings behind. The body becomes a corpse with just a piece of clothing to shroud the corpse. Nobody will feel that the body is majestic or wonderful. After a few days the corpse will rot and become smelly, nobody would want it. The mind is separate from the body. Mind has no control over itself, it is being controlled by the karmic forces. It is like a small feather in the air being pushed along by whichever wind is stronger. Just like this, the mind experiences the bardo stage. Our final destination is unknown to us. There is no guidance whatsoever. Mind wanders, looking for help but not finding it. The positive and negative karmic forces will control us. Whatever sins we have accumulated cannot be removed, it is already deeply imprinted in our conscience. If we have not accumulated merits, we cannot borrow any or accumulate new merit at this stage. It is therefore very frightening. To a good practitioner, every moment in the bardo is a moment leading towards liberation. For those who have not accumulated merits however, they will be led to rebirth into the lower realms. If we do not start accumulating merits now, no one will be able to guide or lead us after death. So now, when we can still make the effort towards accumulating great merit, we should do so.

After all this, we start to feel that we do not have much time and must start practicing and learning the Dharma. Dharma needs to be applied and we should make Dharma inseparable from ourselves. Everything we learn from Dharma we should apply accordingly, every experience taught in the Dharma, we should experience for ourselves, every realization possible from the Dharma, we should realize for ourselves. You may be able to learn a lot about Dharma, but it is only intellectual. If you do not try to apply and internalize it, then you are just an ordinary being without any achievement or accumulations. We must make Dharma inseparable from us. We have already used up half of our lives, perhaps occasionally doing good deeds but more often than not accumulating very bad karma. We have already wasted a lot of time and not much time is left for practice. So we should not be distracted by the pursuit of fame, wealth, enjoyment and other such worldly attainments, which will not benefit us during or after death. Instead of working to fulfill the ego, we should focus on the path of practice wholeheartedly with our body, speech and mind. This is the final conclusion we must reach after contemplation. If we see someone mindlessly seeking enjoyment for themselves, we should arouse great pity and compassion for them as they are wasting their precious time. We should then aspire ourselves to make full use of our time in the world to practice and aim towards escaping rebirth in the 3 lower realms. Even if we cannot be liberated in this life, we should at least make the aspiration to practice the Dharma life after life till liberation may be attained.

There are many Kadampa masters who are very great and contemplate every moment on impermanence. One such master was meditating in a cave where a thorn bush grows outside the entrance. Everyday when he walks past the thorn bush to get water from the outside, his clothes get caught on the thorns and he will think, “This bush is such a nuisance, I should cut it down.” The next moment however, he will reflect that he may not live long enough to make it back into the cave for practice and brush off the thought. When he returns with the water, again his clothes get caught on the thorns and he thinks of cutting it down. Immediately he however contemplates that he may not live long enough to get out of the cave again and once again brushes off the thought. This went on for many years until he became enlightened and came out of the cave to teach others. We should follow his example. Thoughts on impermanence should not be reflected just once in a while, we should think about impermanence all the time. In the Tibetan custom, it is an unlucky omen to place a cup upside down as this signifies death. The Kadampa masters however purposely turn their cup upside down each night before they sleep so that if they die during their sleep, no one needs to help to turn the cup upside down. If we contemplate about death every moment, then we will not do anything bad. Reflection on impermanence is therefore very important. It is a whip motivating us towards practice and a teacher telling us that we should be doing more for our own practice. We should therefore make effort in our practice through reflection on impermanence.

In particular when we do the four foundations, we should spend at least fifteen minutes everyday to reflect on the four ordinary foundations, which are the precious human body with its 8 leisures and 10 achievements, 5 from ourselves and 5 from others; impermanence; karmic cause and effect as well as the sufferings of samsara. In a retreat, a practitioner has to spend 7 full days on such contemplation.

With the short time we have in our lives, we must develop the motivation, “I must achieve spiritual attainments.” Therefore we should not be casual in our practice and should be extremely focused and careful in performing the contemplations and other steps in the practice. Karmic cause and effect is always there with us. By constantly contemplating on the Karmic causes and effects, we will be able to prevent ourselves from doing any negative actions and accumulating bad karma. We must be very firm in our practice. We listen to the Dharma in order to make something happen in our lives, it is not for fun. We must spend at least fifteen minutes everyday thinking of this and slowly we will start to transform. The process of renunciation will then begin. Renunciation does not mean putting on monk’s robes and leaving your family, that is just changing of clothes. Renunciation has to come from within.

This teaching is a reminder for all those who are already practicing the foundations and hopefully a motivation for those who are going to start the practice. We are all very new to the practice and even high practitioners need to reflect frequently on the four ordinary foundations. It is therefore important for us to emulate them.