Ayampi Kho Kayo

When we have a ceremony like this, reflecting on the death of those we’ve known, those we’ve loved, do it also as you reflect on the fact that someday somebody’s going to be doing this ceremony for you—if you’re lucky. You might just die with nobody doing any ceremonies, nobody thinking about you, nobody dedicating merit.

I listened to a Dhamma talk one time. The monk was talking about how, in Hinduism, they’ll have chants that you say when you go to a funeral to protect yourself from being polluted by the corpse, whereas in Buddhism, we don’t have the fear of being polluted by a corpse. What we do have is the fear of heedlessness.

So the Buddha has you reflect, when you see somebody who’s passed away: “Ayampi kho kāyo, evaṁ-dhammo, evaṁ-bhāvī, evaṁ-anatīto”—This body, too—my body, too—is of such a nature, such a state, such its unavoidable fate.)

The question is, when you know that you’re going to die, how do you prepare? You practice the Dhamma. That’s your preparation, as when you’re meditating right here, right now. At the moment of death, your mind is going to be scattered all over the place, desperate to find a new place to go. You can’t stay in this body anymore. You’re being pushed out. The body seizes up, doesn’t work. You’re out.

If you have some mindfulness and powers of concentration, you’ll be able to get some control over your mind. If you have discernment, you’ll be able to choose which options are best at that point. At that point, all the other knowledge of the world isn’t going to help you. These qualities of mind that you build into the mind: Those are the things that are going to help you.

So, if you’re heedful, you work on these things right now. When the Buddha talks about the importance of focusing on the present moment, it’s never to say that this is the only moment there is or that this is a wonderful moment. It’s because there are qualities that need to be developed in the mind. You have to prepare for the future. And when do you do that? Well, the best time to do it is to do it right now, because you don’t know how much more time you have.

This is what it means to be heedful. You see that the mind has these tendencies to go flowing out. You’re flowing out like a river or like a fire that’s latched on to the wind. That’s the Buddha’s image for what happens at death. One house is burning, and all of a sudden the wind picks it up. The fire latches on to the wind, and then the wind carries it someplace else. So you have to be careful about what things you latch on to.

You’re going to require mindfulness, alertness, and ardency in the ability to gather your strength to do this well. All too many people, when they die, just give up, go with whatever the flow is. Well, sometimes the flow can be pretty bad, but you can have some strength in you and say, “Okay, I’m going to choose the best thing and then do whatever effort is required, whatever effort I can make to stick with the best alternative.” That’s when you’re prepared.

So these are things we develop as we meditate. You’re sitting here with the breath, and your mind goes wandering off. It’s pretty innocent right now, but if your mind goes wandering off when you die, who knows what’s going to happen. So you have to see the importance of bringing the mind back, bringing the mind back again and again, until it gets used to being here. Then your mindfulness gets stronger; your alertness gets stronger; your ardency gets stronger.

That’s how you prepare. That’s how you’re heedful: right here, right now.