Ajahn Suchart
“You cannot control your mind at the last minute of
your death.”
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Question: How should we prepare someone who is going
to die within his last breath? What is the correct mental state to be when
we’re in our last minute or seconds to our death?
Than Ajahn: You cannot control your mind at the last
minute of your death. It is because the kamma that you’ve done during your life
time will be the ones that take over your mind at the last moment of your life.
So, what you should do when you are still alive is trying to create a lot of
good kamma and avoid doing bad kamma. Then, the sum total of the kamma will be
on the positive side, on the good side. This good and positive kamma will calm
the mind. It will send the mind to a good state of existence.
If you are a meditator, you can use mindfulness to
calm your mind. When you are sick, when you know that you’re going to die soon,
you use mindfulness to calm your mind by reciting a mantra or by watching your
breath.
If you are on the level of Dhamma or vipassanā, you
can contemplate the impermanent nature of the body. You let go of the body.
Don’t cling to the body. Let the body die. You are the mind. You don’t die with
the body. Your mind will feel bad if you cling to the body because your mind
doesn’t want your body to die.
If you want your mind to be peaceful and calm, then
you will have to look at the body as impermanent. Look at it as the 4 elements.
The body is not yourself. You are not the body. You are the mind. You have to
separate the mind from the body by letting the body be. If the body is going to
stop breathing, let it stop breathing. If the body is going to be in pain, let
it be in pain. Don’t try to do anything to the body. If the doctor can fix the
body with some medication, fix it. But if the doctor cannot fix it, you’ll just
have to let it happen. Let it be. Then, your mind will be peaceful and calm.
Youtube: “Dhamma in English, Nov 9, 2018.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com
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