People Keep On Dying

Rich and poor, men and women, young and old, keep on dying. It’s a verse in the Canon. We keep on dying and then coming back for more again, and again, and again.

When you see or hear of someone who’s passed away, you have to remind yourself: This body, too, is of that nature. The question is, are you prepared to go?

Most people are not prepared at all. But it is possible to prepare by developing good qualities in your mind—developing mindfulness, concentration, discernment. These qualities will see you through. There are choices that you have to make in the process of dying, and you want to be alert, you want to be mindful, and not just go for whatever appears to you. So practice and develop these qualities as much as you can.

Of course, when you see someone who’s passed away, you also wonder: Where have they gone? You want to make sure they have some sustenance for their travel. This is why we make merit and dedicate it to them. Because it is possible that—as we develop merit in our minds, through being generous, through being virtuous, through developing thoughts of goodwill for all beings—the currents that come out of our mind are good. And those who are sensitive and can pick up those currents, they’ll benefit from them. This is an aspect of the mind that gets overlooked a lot in the West. But it’s there. xx

So develop good qualities in your mind for your own sake and for the sake of the people who passed away. Because we’re all in this together until we leave, leave for good. And it’s going to be a long time before we leave for good, so let’s look after one another.

Because we can go from lifetime to lifetime. As the Buddha said, it’d be hard to find someone who hasn’t been your mother, hasn’t been your father, your sister, your brother, your son, your daughter. The relationships keep changing around and around, but the relationships are always there. So try to make them good. Remember that the relationship doesn’t last only in this lifetime; it goes into future lifetimes as well.

So for your own sake and for that of others, try to develop as many good qualities as you can in the mind. If we were to compile a list of all the good qualities that the Buddha mentions, it would go on, on, and on.

But look at them in terms of what he calls the acts of merit. That’s your beginning point:

Being generous—in other words, sharing not only your material things, but also your knowledge, your time, your energy, your forgiveness.

Be virtuous. Be harmless in your actions—not only in what you do, but also what you get other people to do.

Then have lots of goodwill for everybody.

If you have ill will for anybody, no matter how bad they’ve been, it’s going to pull you down. So you want to make sure that your goodwill is solid. The Buddha says to look after it the same way that a mother would look after her only child. Think especially back in the days of the Buddha, when there was no social safety net. Mothers were totally dependent on their children. If you had only one child, you’d really look after that child very well.

So try to maintain your goodwill in the same way. Look after your goodwill because you have to depend on it. If your goodwill leaves you, you’re really in serious trouble. So no matter how badly people treat you, have a lot of goodwill for them. This way, you develop good qualities in your mind and make sure the currents that go out of your mind are good as well. Those who can pick up on them will be happy to receive them.

So when you meditate, you’re not doing it just for yourself. You’re doing it for everybody with whom you’re connected—and the connections are very, very complicated. Make sure that they’re as good as you can make them.