7.3.6 What Will Happen to Me As I Die


What Will Happen to Me As I Die?

A Tibetan Buddhist Perspective [1]

Your state of mind as you die has an enormous effect on whether you will experience happiness or suffering in your next life. So it is important to learn from the masters what will happen as we die.

When ordinary people die they are out of control. Because they have not trained themselves during life, they are overwhelmed by the experience of death and bewildered as their bodily elements go out of balance and cease functioning harmoniously.

It seems to them that they are in the middle of a violent earthquake and it is therefore very difficult, if not impossible, for them to remain calmly aware of what is happening. Yet for someone who is prepared, those same visions that cause panic in others can bring an extraordinary peace.

The process of dying is a complex and interdependent one, in which groups of related aspects of our body and mind disintegrate simultaneously. The result is that each stage of the dissolution has its physical and psychological effect on the dying person, and is reflected by external, physical signs as well as inner experiences.

From Lama Thubten Yeshe and Sogyal Rinpoche

[1] Contents by Len Warren of Pure Land of the Indestructible Buddha, Hayagriva Buddhist Centre, 64 Banksia Terrace, Kensington 6151 Western Australia, July 2017.
Quotes from: The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche edited by Patrick Gaffney and Andrew Harvey Rider, 1992, pages 247-256

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