Nothing is more certain than death, yet nothing in the world can be more uncertain than the exact time, Â place, or circumstances of our death.
If my prediction is right, more than half of you in this room won’t be here in 15 years. Yes, one dies,– finishes, is over with,– gone!!!!!!!– like they like to say!
But who are “they”? Â “They” are the “sentient beings.” You don’t want to die like them.
You do not want to die like ignorant people.
If I have my way, friends, each of us should die like a real Buddha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The truth is, when one has realized emptiness, death is no longer an unwelcome thing. In fact, all Buddhist saints celebrate the days of their passing. Only sentient beings celebrate birthdays. Why do they celebrate birthdays? Because out of wrong perception,sentient beings grasp at the self,– pretty much mistaking the self to have true existence.
Why do the realized masters celebrate their deaths? Because they know what it is to die.
They say: enough is enough. Enough births and deaths for suffering! Why all that fuzz unto eternity???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They make sure that they are ready: like turning off the light before one exits the room. They must make sure that they “die” before the actual shutting down of their bodily functions, –die to future births and deaths.
To the sentient beings it seems weird that they celebrate their deaths. When you are ignorant and stupid, with a mind shut like a clam in fear, anything can come upon you as weird,– anything!
In the last sutra one has been instructed in a subtle way as to how one may die like a real Buddha.
As I said before, Xin in Chinese may mean “the heart” in the past but it actually means ” the mind” here. Xin can be understood in its two aspects: i.e. the conceptual mind, and the inexpressible mind. Â InContemplation of Thought, most of the conceptual mind’s attributes are listed. According to this sutra, thought is immaterial, invisible, non-resisting, inconceivable, unsupported and homeless. A thought is like a magical illusion, like the stream, without staying power. A thought is like a flame, like lightening. Thought is like a bad friend, a fish hook, a thief, and an enemy. Thought is defilement, and like a fly that attends to the stinking stuffs. Finally, thought has no origin, and no end. It disappears as soon as it appears, and it is without a home.Thought is also timeless. Thought is its own object, and it cannot review itself. Thought ranges far, bodiless, easily changing, agitated by the object of sense, with the 6 sense-fields for its sphere, connected with one thing after another.
On the other hand, the Xin that cannot be expressed is calm, characterized by its non-distraction, its undistraughtness, and its immobility and its one-pointedness. That is also called mindfulness.
The instruction from this sutra cannot be clearer:
One must turn off the light ( the conceptual mind ) before one exits this life