"Well, with regard to the ejection of consciousness: yes, you want to contact, as soon as possible, the greatest teacher with whom especially the person who passed was connected."
"Well, the tradition is this: As soon as the dying person has actually died, has stopped breathing, then they would bring a lama in to perform the ejection of consciousness as quickly as possible."
"Rinpoche says that the weight of the Buddha’s tradition seems to be one hundred percent against euthanasia with either humans or animals."
"Consciousness is what in other religions is called a person’s soul. It’s mind, and it’s what goes from life to life. So it’s what in relative terms we would call the person, him or herself, after their death. The spirit is the imprint of the person that remains, usually with the person’s bones, so with their body, if the body is all together, or with the ashes."
Any questions?
Q: We’ve talked about when people go through death and what we can do to help them, and I was wondering if it’s appropriate to ask if there’s something we can do if we come across an animal, or an insect, who has just died, that could help them?
A: With any animal, what’s recommended is to recite the names of buddhas, mantras such as Om Mani Peme Hum, supplications such as Karmapa Cheno, and so on. What you do is recite it so that were they living, they would be able to hear it, and then you blow on them. This is of great benefit.
You can also do this with human beings, but you should be careful. For example, if the person, the human being that you’re doing this for, was not Buddhist, and especially if they were resistant to Buddhism, then you should not do it until they’re really dead, because it might make them upset or angry, which is a problem. And even if the person has passed away, if there’s anyone around, relatives of theirs or other people, who are antithetical to Buddhism, then you should be discreet about it.
Q: Is the consciousness of an animal extracted prior to that?
A: Well, it’s hard to know, and the books say that the time that the consciousness abides within the body of anyone, human or animal, after death can vary. Sometimes it’ll go quickly and sometimes it stays. For human beings, they say generally it remains in the body, in the heart, for two and a half days after death, and then at some point it leaves. For animals, they don’t really give a specific duration, but presumably it leaves at some point after the animal has died.
Q: At what point in the dying process do you begin to do your meditation, because, at least my experience has been, people are in coma sometimes for quite a long time, just depending on the disease, and so from your last moments of consciousness-- -so when do I begin the meditation from that point on, and then-
Translator Yeshe: Which meditation are you talking about?
--the samadhi, or getting into a meditative state. Or, is it just because you’ve had all the experience of meditation that at the moment that you die that that begins?
A: Well, first of all, the samadhi or meditation which we’re talking about doesn’t start until the person’s dead. So, it doesn’t seem to make much difference whether they were conscious going into it or not. It’s happened in both cases, under both sets of circumstances.
Q: Rinpoche, could you comment on the use of pain medication? I guess maybe that’s been answered, because would it matter if a practitioner was given a lot of pain medication as they were dying? Would it be better for them not to have that?
A: Pain medication is probably much more help than harm in this case, because whatever dulling the pain medication does is not going to be as much of a disturbance to meditation as the pain.
Q: I have a second half to that question: Rinpoche, would you comment on what kind of meditative skill that the 16th Karmapa had? We saw on the tape that he did not need pain medication and didn’t feel pain. What state that is?
A: If I were to attempt to appraise or describe someone like the Karmapa, who eons ago reached the state of the Great Exhaustion of Dharmata, the state of perfect buddhahood, then I’d just be, uh, kidding. [Laughter.]
Q: You’d mentioned earlier being shaken out of samadhi, that that can happen. So how long then does somebody need to stay in a restful place to avoid having that happen?
A: Well first of all, for the greatest of practitioners, it doesn’t matter if you disturb them, because you won’t be able to shake them out it, although it’s customary to leave them in quiet, in peace. With a lesser practitioner, (and at that point, when Rinpoche said that, I said, “Well first of all a lesser practitioner is not going to be able to remain in that,” and he said, “Well I’m talking about a lesser great practitioner”) [laughter] Anyway, a lesser great practitioner will be susceptible to disturbance, so therefore until their samadhi is over, you should leave them alone. There’s no definite time. It can last for any number of days, and you can’t measure it by time. You measure it by sign. They’ll look as though they’re still alive, even though they’re not. They won’t have that caved in, pale grey appearance of a corpse. And the special sign that you can use, that’s almost unmistakable, is that normally when you pinch the skin or you take a certain amount of skin of a dead body and you pinch it, it’ll stay pinched, it won’t snap back. But the elasticity of the skin of someone who is in samadhi will be like a living person and will return to its original state.
Q: Two things that sounded like they might be very effective from my readings, I just wanted to ask. I heard that you can call a master, and the master can do the powa, for the student? And the other was the name burning, can you comment on that?
A: Well, with regard to the ejection of consciousness: yes, you want to contact, as soon as possible, the greatest teacher with whom especially the person who passed was connected. Distance is irrelevant, especially since the invention of the telephone, because, Rinpoche said, there was a famous instance where a European disciple of Tengo Rinpoche passed away, and Tengo Rinpoche performed the powa. He was in Nepal, the body of the disciple was in Europe, but there was considerable evidence that the ejection was successfully achieved.
With regard to the name burning: name burning is what we were talking about when we said the Name Inscription practice. That’s the same thing. Not the little lamp on the shrine. That’s not the same thing. Well they do burn it at the end. Yes, that’s what Rinpoche said is sometimes called the Purification Ritual or sometimes called the Inscription Ritual, the Placement Transmission. That’s the same thing.
Q: Could Rinpoche describe in an ordinary Tibetan home, I would assume that most people in Tibet still die at home, what would be around the room, what would be the atmosphere of the family, or friends when they came in the room, their interactions, would they say prayers, or would they be silent, or, and what kind of setting would it be?
A: Well, the tradition is this: As soon as the dying person has actually died, has stopped breathing, then they would bring a lama in to perform the ejection of consciousness as quickly as possible. And they would also try to keep the family and other survivors up toward the person’s head, so not by their feet or at their sides but up toward their head. And get them if they want to touch the person, to touch them at the top of the head, to attract their consciousness there. Also, another thing that would sometimes be done is, there are substances that can assist. They’re actually not uncommon substances, that could actually assist the ejection of consciousness from the top of the head, so the person would be anointed with those and other blessing things that would be placed on their head. Theoretically, one attempt in these situations is to avoid loud exclamations of grief, because it’s held to be very distressing to the person who has died. But families being families, that custom wasn’t always followed. The most important thing was to summon a lama as soon as possible and get them to perform the ejection of consciousness. Then the body would be kept in place for a few days, and the family would offer as many butterlamps as they could on the family shrine, and whenever possible, they or someone sponsored by them would recite the Great Liberation Through Hearing in the Bardo.
Q: If a bumpy ride would disrupt samadhi then I’m assuming embalming would disrupt samadhi.
A: Well, it depends again on the person’s achievement. In the best cases, then nothing done to the corpse could affect the samadhi. I mean the corpse would be irrelevant. In the case of lesser great practitioners then yes, embalming would.
Q: So embalming was not done in Tibet even in ordinary people, is that correct? The body was just left?
A: No embalming was not done. The only thing done in Tibet was in the case of an eminent teacher, their body would be washed with scented water and so on, and then the sambhogakaya crown, the vajra and bell and so on, would be placed on them and they’d be seated upright. But there was no embalming done. Then, after the samadhi was over when they would perform the Fulfillment of Wishes or Intentions ceremonies, then the body would be preserved, with salt until it was either burnt or preserved in a stupa. But there was no embalming in the sense of, say, “six feet under.”
Q: Or replacing the fluids with something…
A: No, the salt would dry the fluids out, and the salt would become inundated with fluids.
Q: What if it’s an ordinary person and it’s in the summer and it’s hot, and it’s in Tibet, then what? Still leave the body for three days or whatever, what happens then?
A: Yes.
Q: It probably decays then, right?
A: A little. You know we have to accept the fact that different climates are going to require some adjustments.
Q: You talked a little bit about lamas dying in hospitals. Has the moving into more Westernized medicine countries made a difference in any of these practices around death and dying?
A: It’s more like the experience of caring for dying great lamas has made differences in the Western medical approach to death and dying. [Laughter] Especially the parinirvana of the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa caused the entire medical staff of the hospital in Zion, Illinois to alter their view of reality.
Q: For an ordinary person, after they die and their loved ones want to do what they can to help them, say they want to be cremated, is there a period of time that one should wait to be cremated, to facilitate powa and other activities?
A: If you can wait a couple of days, two or three days, it would be good. If possible.
Q: So the other things that funeral homes do, just try to tell them to wait three days?
A: There are Western religions that forbid embalming, and I know that they have visitation, because I’ve been there. And I didn’t smell anything, so there must be a way… [Someone suggested “refrigeration.”] No, but I’ve been at viewings where the person was pretty well always in the viewing room, and…
Q: Should embalming be avoided?
A: That’s an issue of the country in which it’s happening. It’s hard to answer that. Rinpoche said it’s hard to have an opinion on that when you come from a culture where the question never arose.
Q: In Tibet, there are, in my understanding, several ways of doing something with the body, one being cremation. Another one is the sky burial. Then I think there’s something with a river, but… When is somebody treated differently? When does a sky burial happen versus a cremation?
A: Well anyone could be cremated. Basically there were three things that could happen in Tibet, with a possible fourth. Generally speaking, the two most common were cremation and sky burial. The cremation was with a high lama, a great teacher. Invariably they were either cremated or preserved, which is not quite the same thing as embalmed. They would be preserved, and then their body would be kept, for example in a stupa. One of those two things was done. With an ordinary person, they would either be cremated or fed to the birds, what you call sky burial. And the only other thing that was ever done that Rinpoche knows of is, in cases where someone died of an illness that was considered so contagious that if they were cremated the smoke could carry the disease, then they would be buried.
Q: In the West we have a lot of pressure on us to donate our organs. Would that be contraindicated here?
A: As long as you are totally dead, when they take the organs, it’s good because it’s an act of generosity. The window that exists for the taking of most organs is one where some health professionals report physical reactions on the part of the body, which they consider to be brain dead, which seem to be a pain response. So what he said is, as long as you’re really dead.
Q: It seems that many cases where they want to harvest organs are where there is a traumatic death, such as a car crash or highway accident. Would it be the case in a traumatic death, where a person is taken quickly, has not had time to prepare for death, this trauma would be carried into the next life, and that this trauma might actually affect the organs, the organs would have a residual consciousness of the trauma?
A: Rinpoche says that it all depends on the person’s mind. It’s possible that the trauma of violent death could lead to a state of pronounced hallucinations in the Bardo, but it’s not 100 percent certain that’s it’s going to. And it also depends upon the person’s state of mind in general. As far as the trauma of violent death somehow being transmitted through the donated organs, Rinpoche says he doesn’t see any reason why it would, although, you know, he’s not a doctor, so he doesn’t know but he doesn’t see any reason why it would.
Q: Often with the traumatic deaths, when they declare the person dead, it’s the declaration of brain death rather than the heart stopping. So when they actually harvest an organ to transplant, the patient’s heart may still be beating. I’m not sure how that translates into death…
A: In that case, is there any possibility of the brain dead person being revived?
Q: No.
A: Then, no problem. If it’s 100 percent certain that the person can not be revived, then it would seem to be okay. It would be better to benefit somebody who can use the organs. But if you take the organs out of somebody who could be revived, that’s a whole different story. [Laughter]
Q: In the hospitals here in the Twin Cities, there’s a real wish to accommodate people’s cultural practices when someone dies. If you were talking to a hospital administrator or nursing, a floor unit manager, what recommendations could be made regarding Tibetan practices?
A: The main thing would be to summon a lama to do powa, and to leave the body for three days, if possible.
Q: And if they are unwilling to agree to that, because there are a lot of Tibetans in our community I’m just wondering if they must have negotiated that somehow…
A: It’s basically up to the family, you know. Different families from the same culture may have slightly different…
Q: I’ve heard that in powa training, if the training is successful there’s a sign at the top of the head?
A: Yes, it comes off and it has to be sewn back on. [Loud laughter] It’s nasty, but you get used to it. [After some discussion with Rinpoche:] Well, in the best cases, a little bit of the brain actually herniates through the skull, and pokes out. “No, I’m joking.” [Loud laughter] That was funny right? We’re a barrel of laughs. The signs consist of, initially, a swelling a little bit like when you have a kind of a swelling that’s underneath most of the skin. So it’s like it comes up almost from under the skin. Not a cyst but more like if you had something coming out. But it’s not really ready to come out so it just pushes all the layers of skin out. It’s like that. And then if it opens, it itches, and then you actually get lymph and stuff. And it’s supposed to be thick enough that you could actually stick a reed into it and it would stand up.
Q: When a sangha member dies, aside from calling the lama, what would be the most helpful practices that the sangha could do.
A: Is this in Iowa, or outside of… [laughter] Really any of the practices that you know. You would recite something that you know how to do like Chenrezig, and/or Amitabha. Something like that. He says the one thing is, you don’t do longevity practices for somebody who’s died. [Loud laughter]
Q: This question is to the topic of euthanasia. Relative to animals in our society, it’s considered quite compassionate to effect their death and we call it putting them to sleep. When applied to humans it becomes a very emotional issue, a very complex legal issue. How should we understand it? Is it right or wrong?
A: There are two things and, except in Oregon, I think, they’re legally different: one is active euthanasia where you give someone something that will kill them, like a lot of pain medication, too much pain medication, and they die, and the other is where you turn off life support, and that’s legal. So you’re asking about actual euthanasia where you give them something?
Rinpoche says that the weight of the Buddha’s tradition seems to be one hundred percent against euthanasia with either humans or animals. The reason is that natural death is the natural conclusion to that person’s karma, that being, that animal’s karma for this life, and by going through the natural death then they are finished with that karma and don’t have to carry on the experience of it into the interval. If they are prematurely terminated, killed – and he said, as you mentioned in your question we say ‘put to sleep’ and so on, but it’s killing, I mean it’s basically lethal injection – he said if they’re put to sleep, whether animal or human, it causes them to pass from this life before the karma of this life has been completely experienced, and as a result, it intrudes into their experience of the interval.
This does not mean that they can’t be given pain medication. It’s not that they have to experience the full agony of dying when it could be prevented. In the case of either human being or an animal, pain medication is fine. That won’t cause them to experience the pain in the Bardo that they would otherwise have experienced while dying. But if you terminate the dying experience prematurely, through active intervention, euthanasia, then it causes that to enter the Bardo, which is a hardship for them.
The second problem is that the person who does it accumulates the karma of killing. And so it’s recommended by the Buddhist tradition not to euthanize humans or animals.
Q: Rinpoche, is there any tradition in Tibet of remembering anniversaries of deaths for many years? Not just the first anniversary but remembering the second, the third, the fourth?
A: Yes, there is, especially with great teachers. When teachers have passed away, the anniversary of their passing is actually, it’s hard to say ‘celebrated’ but it is actually celebrated by their disciples, sometimes in perpetuity. For example, many of the great traditions hold special ceremonies on the days of the passing of the founders. For example, you know at KTD we always commemorate the day of the parinirvana of the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa. You can find the days of the parinirvanas of many teachers in the calendars.
Q: What would be typical? Well, two questions: one is, would you do that with a regular family member or only with high lamas? And what would be a typical way to celebrate that? What would you typically do on that day? If there is a ‘typical’
.A: Well, there isn’t a custom in Tibetan Buddhism of doing the anniversary commemoration of the deaths of family members in that way. In India there is a custom of praying for deceased family members on the anniversary of their deaths, but it’s not the same thing. It’s not like an offering ceremony. You’re not venerating them. You’re praying for them. The ceremonies done in commemoration of the death of a guru are actually an act of veneration to that guru. Typically, the first choice for what to do on that day is if there is a guru sadhana specific to that guru, that will be done. If there is not, then you would do some other guru sadhana like Guru Rinpoche practice, or Marpa, Milarepa, Gampopa - something like that.
Q: What if we just said specifically for the KTC’s and the KKSG’s. What would be a good thing for us to be doing? What guru sadhana would be good for us to be doing, for instance on the anniversary of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa’s parinirvana?
A: Anything that you know, that you’re familiar with and know how to conduct.
Q: Okay, any puja we know.
A: Yes, that would be sufficient.
Q: And this is in honor of, and in veneration of his lifetime, is that correct? Because now he’s taken rebirth.
A: Yes, it’s called the Veneration of the Deceased Guru, and yes, you could do any practice except the long life practice. You wouldn’t do that.
Q: Some people will say that a person knows maybe six months ahead of time before they die, whether they tell anybody or not.
A: You’re saying in Western culture this is common?
Q: Yes, in Western culture. I wondered if, with some of the high lamas or people in Tibet, do they know that there is this timeframe where they’ll be dead by summer or winter, or whatever?
A: Well, there are lots of gurus who know when they’re going to die. The problem is that mostly, they don’t tell anybody. But you find out afterward that they knew, because for example the Karmapa will write his final testament just prior to his death and secretly give it to one of his disciples, as the 16th Karmapa did with Situ Rinpoche. But, not telling anyone, you know, “I’m going to die at such and such a time, here’s something for you.” So, there are lots of people who know, but they’re kind of discreet about it. Most of them, after they pass away, you remember things they said to you apparently in jest that turn out to have been darkly humorous predictions of their own death.
Q: You talked about the Bardo of Meditation and the Bardo of Sleep, and some of us were wondering if you’re in a coma, is that like the Bardo of Sleep? Could someone potentially be in meditation?
A: No, that’s kind of like the Bardo of Sleep.
Q: What is a ‘dur’?
A: ‘Dur’? ‘Dur’ is a Scotch word. [Loud laughter] “You’re a dur lassie…” [Laughter] Well, what Rinpoche said about this is, he said, “That word doesn’t mean anything,” and I said, “Yes, it’s the first word of ‘dur trun’ or ‘charnel ground’ and yours is a mono-syllabic language so every syllable means something.” He says, “Dur doesn’t mean anything, you have to give me a second word. So either ‘dur trun’, in which case it’s a charnel ground, or ‘dur sa’ in which case it’s a place you put bodies.” Probably what that means is it’s an old word for dead things that is no longer used by itself. Well, there’s a word that’s spelled slightly differently, Rinpoche says, that means a ceremony where you’re attempting to actually summon the person’s consciousness into the body. It’s also done for the living. What you’re summoning is the person’s spirit, not their consciousness.
Q: I don’t remember the exact context, I’ll have to try and find it before the next time you come back. It was about a ceremony, and I just didn’t recognize the word at all.
A: Then it’s probably what he was talking about, the ceremony that’s summoning the person’s spirit, but you do it when someone’s sick.
Lama Yeshe: So this will be the last question.
Q: It’s a short one. Could you differentiate for us, please, the difference between spirit and consciousness?
A: Consciousness is what in other religions is called a person’s soul. It’s mind, and it’s what goes from life to life. So it’s what in relative terms we would call the person, him or herself, after their death. The spirit is the imprint of the person that remains, usually with the person’s bones, so with their body, if the body is all together, or with the ashes. And the issue is that in some traditions, according to Buddhism, the spirit and soul are confused. So for example, the Bon attention to the deceased was actually merely attending to their spirit. And the only reason that any attention is paid to the spirit is that there is a tradition that if the body is placed in a geomantically sound environment, it nourishes the spirit, which causes the family of the deceased person to flourish. But nevertheless it’s not the person – the person goes on to take rebirth or whatever – but the spirit of the person remains with their body.
Q: Could it also be called the body consciousness?
A: No, it’s not the body. It’s not a consciousness. It’s a very funny thing to pin down.
Q: Would it be one of the bindus?
A: No. For example, someone once asked Khenpo Rinpoche, when this came up during the Mountain Dharma teachings, he said, “Well if it’s not you, but it remains with the body, is it a different sentient being?” And he said it’s hard to say that, that it is or isn’t. It’s almost like an imprint.
Q: A template?
A: I wouldn’t go that far. Maybe imprint is even going too far.
Q: Hologram?
A: No, not it. Like a shadow isn’t part of your body but is inseparable, spirit is like a shadow of mind.
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