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By Root 899 0

Buddha said death—not some human teacher—was his primary guru. He said we should all keep the reality of death in the forefront of our consciousness so we can better prioritize our daily activities and thus better direct our attention to that which is most significant and meaningful. People sometimes find Buddhism pessimistic, saying there is too much talk about death. It’s essential to understand that Buddhists don’t contemplate death because they are morbid or depressed; they focus on death, mortality, and human frailty as a means of better understanding and appreciating life. After all, the Buddha lived and taught tirelessly for forty-five years after his enlightenment, enjoying his full term of life as a vibrant spiritual teacher in the society of his times.

About death, we say in the West, “Nobody returns to tell the tale.” However, the reincarnated Tibetan lamas think otherwise. When I was twenty-one, my teacher Kalu Rinpoche told me that I should always prepare myself for the moment of death. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I thought, this is just old monk’s talk. What’s he saying? I’m a young person! I’m like Zorba, the Buddha! I want to live; I don’t want to think about death.

I wanted to “follow my bliss” as Joseph Campbell said. That was my way of thinking then, but my kind, patient, and elderly Rinpoche helped me realize that illness, pain, and death are inevitable. This teaching helped me be more present in my life now. When we are able to prioritize our activities in the light of the tenuousness of life and the indisputable certainty of death, we are freed from a lot of procrastination, vacillation, and attachment. This has helped me stop building sandcastles that are just washed away with the changing tides of time. It helped me stop investing in fool’s gold and impelled me to seek deeper riches. Everything is impermanent and washes away. This is a hard lesson to learn and accept. We are surrounded by death even if our gaze is averted.

Donna, a single mother I know, has two boys, Joseph and Fred, ages six and eight. Donna and her boys say grace every night before dinner. A few years ago, Donna’s sister died suddenly. When they said their nightly grace, Donna, Joey, and Freddie added a little prayer for Aunt Pattie. Then Daisy, the family dog, died; they added a prayer for Daisy. Then a friend’s dog, Paddington, also died so they added a prayer for him. Then a playmate’s father died, so they added a prayer for him. Freddie and Joey became quite worried: If this kept on throughout their lives, with all the people they would have to pray for they would never get around to eating.

The point is that everybody dies. Kalu Rinpoche himself died; the Buddha died; kings, queens, doctors, scientists, artists, and the greatest and richest people in the world have died. We all die. Everything that is compounded or fabricated dies. All those who come together are separated; everything that is built falls apart. It’s a fact of life.

When Kalu Rinpoche breathed out his last breath in 1989, although he was clinically dead, he sat up for two days meditating with his eyes open and a rosy complexion. He was in what Tibetans call Clear Light Meditation. Instead of wandering through the intermediate stages after death, known in Tibet as the bardo—he was resting in inner luminosity. This is what is known as Dharmakaya, absolute reality, the true nature of the heart-mind. Then, after two days in the undifferentiated light of pure being, or Rigpa, Kalu Rinpoche finally slumped over and was gone.

Tibetan Buddhism tells us that the clear light of Rigpa—innate awareness, spontaneous wakefulness—dawns momentarily for everyone at the moment of death. Anybody who is sufficiently aware can merge consciously with this transcendent pure light at that crucial moment of transition. Herbert Guenther, one of the foremost Buddhist scholars of our time, defines Rigpa as ecstatic presence or ecstatic radiance. Think about this a little bit: ecstatic, not static. Rigpa, innate awareness, is ecstatic radiance. I think this is a very important