Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche 

 

Quote of the Week
December 23, 2011 

Sheer Delight at the Point of Death

 Why can we have sheer delight at the point of death? Because it is an extraordinary opportunity to realize the true nature of mind, which is clear light. What happens when you die is that all thoughts dissolve into clear light. If you meditate on the clear light nature of mind at that time, then it is like the uniting with your mind's own clear light nature because your thoughts naturally do that at the point of death. And then all thoughts of birth and death - for example: "I'm going to die, I'm going to die," those kinds of thoughts - are self-liberated in the expanse of dharmakaya. So, dead, and not dead, are just two notions that are dependent upon each other. If you have the idea, "I am not dead," it depends on some idea that "I am dead," and vice versa. For that reason they are just dependently existent; and to say that they are dependently existent is to say that they are nonexistent.

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Meditation on Emptiness, Nalandabodhi Publications 2001, Pp. 164-165. Translated by Ari Goldfield and Suzanne Schefczyk.