“Time Waits for No One:” The importance of meditating on death and impermanence and the Buddhist practice of Maraṇasati (mindfulness of death)

In this new video reel I briefly speak on the subject of Death and Impermanence and why it is considered an essential preliminary and daily meditation by Buddhists. Such contemplation on death is not some morbid or negative thing though, and is intended to remind us how precious and fragile our lives are, and we often think we have time, when we do not.  We have all known people who spent years working and saving and planning, to wake up and be told they have a few months left to live, or who suddenly die of sickness or an accident.  Planning ahead is essential and necessary at times, but not if it means we never live beneficially and meaningfully now. There has to be a good balance maintained being living fully and meaningfully and planning.

As a young and idealistic philosophy postgraduate student at one of the best universities in London, I remember reading a short novel by Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich called the about a man, Ivan who gets very sick and on his deathbed realises that his life, and even close friends and family have not been loving, meaningful or beneficial, and he experiences a sense of deep regret about it and about how they never really loved him either: “What tormented Ivan Ilych most was the deception, the lie, which for some reason they all accepted, that he was not dying but was simply ill, and that he only need keep quiet and undergo a treatment and then something very good would result.”  As Dostoevsky wrote in The Idiot: “It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise.”

Meditating on death and impermanence also reminds us of the urgent situation we are all in, the suffering of samsaric hedonism, but also that we will all get old, sick and dies, and how we need to be striving constantly to attain liberation from it. It is often compared to being in a house on fire. You don’t think why is it on fire, but just aim to get you and others out of there as quickly as possible.

Maraṇasati (mindfulness of death, death awareness)

“Maraṇasati (mindfulness of death, death awareness) is a Buddhist meditation practice of remembering (frequently keeping in mind) that death can strike at any time (AN 6.20).”

The Shakyamuni Buddha himself, decided to leave his worldly, royal life behind and become a wandering celibate mendicant in the forests, after meditating on sickness, old age and death and the inevitable suffering they bring.

In the Earliest discourses of the Buddha, the term Maraṇasati is said to be only explicitly defined twice, in two suttas AN 6.19 and AN 6.20.  Later Buddhist schools have expanded the meaning of Maraṇasati to include various visualization and contemplation techniques to meditate on the nature of death.  The cultivation of Maraṇasati is said to be conducive to Right Effort and also helps in developing a sense of Spiritual Urgency (Samvega) and Renunciation (Nekkhamma).

Buddhist monastics and yogis are often encouraged by their teachers to engage in meditating in cremation grounds or forests to contemplate death and impermanence. The problem is ‘you think you have time’.

Tibetan Sky ‘burial’

In Tibet, there is a tradition of “sky burial,” where a corpse is cut up and fed to vultures, with the remains being pounded into dust,Tibet the practice is known as jhator, which means “giving alms to the birds.” Sky burial it is said became traditional in Tibet, where the ground is too rocky for burial to be practical, and where a lack of wood makes cremation unfeasible.  This kind of burial is a kind of meditation in itself.

There’s long been a tradition in Buddhism of using corpses in order to reflect on impermanence and to reduce attachment to the human form. Monastics and yogis are even taught to meditate in cremation grounds, to remind them of the “disgusting” conditional and decaying nature of the bodies of sentient beings.

No Time to Waste or Long-Life ceremonies?

As the 3rd Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (1284-1339 wrote in his short text, There is No Time to Waste! (which I translated here a few years ago, with the commentary by the 13th Karmapa.

Although, this important Buddhist practice seems to be very far removed from the many regular long-life ceremonies for the 14th Dalai Lama  (and other elderly Tibetan Buddhist teachers). Such long-life rituals were certainly not a prevalent aspect of original Buddhism, with the Shakyamuni Buddha himself manifested passing away in his 80s, as a lesson in death and impermanence of the human body. One can only wonder at the actual spiritual benefit of the 14th Dalai Lama remaining alive past one hundred years, or is it more likely a political purpose?

Buddha Nature to counter morbidity and depression

However, to prevent the contemplation becoming too depressing though, one should balance  it with also thinking about teachings on our innate qualities of love, compassion, bliss, wisdom and joy (Buddha Nature) and how Buddha taught there is a way of liberating ourselves and others from the endless cycle of samsaric suffering, sickness, old age and death.

One of my favourite German philosophers, Schopenhauer wrote several philosophical classics, but was an unknown while he was alive. He was very influenced by Asian philosophy such as the Upanishads and Buddhism.who was very influenced by “Eastern” philosophical ideas on suffering and death, was unable to see a way beyond suffering, and thus became somewhat pessimistic. Schopenhauer understood the first noble truth of suffering, but lacked the understanding of the important noble truth of the path of liberation from suffering.

In sum, such a meditation on death and impermanence is considered to be one of the main preliminary practices, or one of the lam-rim stages. In fact, they say it is beneficial to think about one’s death and impermanence at least once per day, to keep one very much grounded in the reality of having a compounded body and being in samsara.

There is a meditation one can do before one goes to sleep at night and when arising in the morning, to think and even imagine, how tomorrow I may not wake up or die, and review the day’s activities to see how much time and effort you have focused on Dharma practice and activities.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold and “Hours are like diamonds”

I finish this short article, with an excerpt from a novel that explores regrets and travelling back in time, Before the Coffee Gets Cold (2015) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi:

“Don’t leave anything for later.
Later, the coffee gets cold.
Later, you lose interest.
Later, the day turns into night.
Later, people grow up.
Later, people grow old.
Later, life goes by.
Later, you regret not doing something…
When you had the chance.

Life is a fleeting dance, a delicate balance of moments that unfold before us, never to return in quite the same way again. Regret is a bitter pill to swallow, a weight that bears down upon the soul with the burden of missed chances and unspoken words.

So, let us not leave anything for later. Let us seize the moments as they come, with hearts open and arms outstretched to embrace the possibilities that lie before us. For in the end, it is not the things we did that we regret, but the things we left undone, the words left unspoken, the dreams left unfulfilled.”

Also, see my recently composed contemplative poetry video called The Infinite Womb of Love and Loss, exploring mortality, loss, love and life.

As the Rolling Stones sang:

Music?  Time Waits for No One by the Rolling Stones,   Love Sick and Not Dark Yet by Bob Dylan, All Things Must Pass  and Be Here Now by George Harrison.