Death and Dying

Interview with Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche

By Kathy Wesley and Pastoral Care group

Translated by Lama Lodro

Transcribed by Michael Erlewine.

[Transcriber Notes: Removed most extraneous sounds, ahs, uhhs, etc. There are some words that need to be checked, most marked with ??. I tried to have the interview make as much clear sense as possible. A rough general edit has been done, but a more thorough editing should be undertaken. Still, it is readable. September 6, 2012]

Kathy Wesley: We have been studying the books about death and dying and as you know, everyone here has either completed the Amitabha accumulations and have started doing Phowa or they are still doing the Amitabha accumulations. So they are working on it very well, and that is the beginning. The only person missing is Cathy Jackson, and she is working on a chaplain program at a hospital right now. So as you can imagine, because we are sort of new, doing the Amitabha phowa, we have some questions. Also, since it appears that we may be able to train people well enough, and if they achieve the signs of accomplishment, they may be helping others. We are trying to make a list of the proper things for people to be able to do at the bedsides of the dying.

KK Rinpoche: Just as an overview, after your stating your intentions for the study, Rinpoche said, if you are dealing with someone who is a practitioner, then of course you ask them to do the Amitabha mantra and to do the visualization and say the mantra as much as they can and pray to Amitabha, and so on. But if you are dealing with a dying person who is not a practitioner, a non-Buddhist practitioner, then instead of asking them to do the practice, you need to do the practice yourself. And the way to do it is to kind of do it quietly, so it doesn’t irritate them. And then you can even start the process of Phowa, before they actually die. And the way to do it is to mentally, which is that you go through the procedure of phowa, but everything is done mentally, including the Hic. You do not explain the Hic. You can do it mentally, and do the visualization with their consciousness only going up to the crown. Because it is not going to exit, yet. And then you can repeat that, over and over. But you do it mentally, and then of course a very important thing is also to visualize all of the syllables blocking the other undesired exits and doors. And then you do the phowa until the person stops breathing. And when the person is confirmed dead, then you can actually redo the phowa again, this time verbally and shouting the Hic and everything, with consciousness going to Amitabha’s heart and right up to the crown. So that is the difference. And then of course the visualization all this time is done on the dying person and not on yourself. Because now you are doing it as a practice, doing it all on yourself. You are doing yourself, the consciousness, and everything. But when we are doing it for a dying person or a dead person, everything is happening on them and within them. And you do not necessarily need to visualize yourself as Chenresik, particularly, but you do need to visualize the dying person or the deceased as Chenresik, and so on.

Kathy Wesley: So, then that helps us a little bit, because that is a good general outline of it, and then we have a few specific questions about the phowa itself, and also about the death process. And so I think it is of interest to us to know about this, and it is interesting that Rinpoche talked about the practices that people who are dying should do, because we will meet people who are Buddhist and non-Buddhist, and so for the person who is Buddhist, Rinpoche is saying that the best practice for us to have them do is Amitabha practice. And for the person who is not Buddhist, it is just going to depend, isn’t it? Does he have any recommendations of things we can suggest for non-Buddhist people to do?

KK Rinpoche: It will be good, for example, to tell a non-Buddhist person that although their body may be facing death, their mind is not facing death. Their mind will continue, therefore they need not fear, and therefore they need to prepare their mind for a good place for their mind to go. And that the mind is going to look for another body, another body to dwell in, so they should have good thoughts, and things like that. Also you can tell a non-Buddhist that in order to have a better rebirth, whether they believe or not… in order for them to have a better death, maybe, that it is very important for them to concentrate on their crown, focus on the crown. Also tell them that they should let go of all their fixation and attachment to everything that they own in this world, because they are going to a place where there will be better things waiting for them. So, just let go of what you are attached to and look forward to a better future. Better things are waiting for you, better and higher, and everything.

Kathy Wesley: What about a situation…sometimes in hospitals, what we will see is that a person is brought into an emergency situation, like an emergency room, and the doctors and nurses are incredibly busy trying to save the person’s life, giving them CPR, trying to get their heart started, and things like this. For us, if we are brought into that situation, what is the best practice for us to do with all of this chaos going on, and the families being upset, and all of that. What practice should we do, because the person might be dying in front of our eyes, but there is no way for us to know.

KK Rinpoche: Then at that time, it is best if you can do Amitabha practice yourself.

Kathy Wesley: To sort of visualize Amitabha above the head of the person or just do the mantra?

KK Rinpoche: The thing to do is to have compassion and with the intention to help the dying person, you can say the Amitabha mantra, just like when there is something unfortunate happening to somebody, you automatically say “Om Mani Padme, Hum.” So in this case you say Amitabha’s mantra, with the intention to help the person, to be of benefit to the person. Whether you visualize anything at all is secondary, and it is actually difficult to visualize. If you can, you can visualize Amitabha on top of the dying person, but the most important thing is to have compassion and have the intent to help.

Kathy Wesley: This is very helpful, because some of our people will eventually work in hospitals and this will be important for them to know. There is another question that is going to come up a lot, when we work with people in hospitals, and that is about the donation of organs. That is something we wanted to ask Rinpoche, before we get into the actual questions about the death process and the phowa practice. We are still working in that direction, but we haven’t got there yet. But people frequently ask what the Buddhist view is of organ donation, but I figure that before we ask Rinpoche this question, I should probably let him know that there are three types. The first type of organ donation is where the body is kept alive, actually. The heart is kept beating so that the blood continues to flow through the heart and the lungs. They are kept alive and are not dead yet. Their brain may not be functioning, but their heart is still going and their lungs are still going. They may actually be on a ventilator and remain there. And then the organs will be taken in a surgery, while the person is still alive. And so the surgery will essentially kill them. That is the first type of organ donation, and this is for the heart and the lungs. That is the first type and it is a little bit, sort of daunting to think about that.

Lama Lodro: You can donate the heart and lungs to somebody else?

Person: But there is only two ways you can do that. One is to be kept artificially alive, with fluids and blood, breathing machine, until the body is taken to the operating room where they actually remove the heart.

Kathy Wesley: The other way is if you decide to donate your heart. Let’s say you are on a breathing machine. They take you to the operating room. They remove the breathing machine. They wait for you to die. They wait five minutes and then they quickly open you up and take your heart and lungs out. That is a directed cardiac donation. That is the only way that the heart and the lungs can be used. The second is after the person is already dead. The second and third types of donations are after a person has already died, which is when other organs of the body can be taken, a few hours after death, and even the skin and the bones can be taken even more hours, like even a day or so after death. So there is one that happens after a person is removed from the respirator and they are allowed to die or another when they are actually taken into an operating room and the heart is removed. People will ask us, wow, this is all pretty serious. What is the Buddhist view, because my loved on is a Buddhist or I am a Buddhist and I don’t know how to think about this donation of organs.

Person: I don’t know if Rinpoche knows, but in our society there is a lot of pressure to be organ donors and it considered very virtuous and generous thing to do.

KK Rinpoche: To reply to questions about this, you can tell whomever asks the question as to whether they should donate their organs that they should decide for themselves. If they have the desire with their own body, then go ahead, because usually it is only a bodhisattva that would give their body before they even die. And so, if they are willing to do that, then it is fine. But, if they want to donate their organs just because of pressure or just because someone else is doing it, then it is not so good. They have to really want to do it themselves. It is not that somebody else can tell them to do or not to do it.

Kathy Wesley: And I remember something that Rinpoche said a few years ago, I don’t know if it was at the 10-day teaching, but he was at that time, I thought I heard him say, that if a person has some ability to rest their mind in its nature, that it would be unwise for them to be an organ donor, for the reason that they may be disturbed. Is that correct?

KK Rinpoche: For a genuine practitioner, it is best that they don’t donate their organs, because there is a possibility that after they die they will have the ability to remain in tukdam. And during that period of time when they are remaining in tukdam, it is very important they their body not be disturbed. And for that reason, Lama Ganga chose not to die in America, because in America, before you even die, they are doing all sorts of things that disturb your mind. You just can’t be moved when you mind is clear. You are conscious and they are doing all these things that you can’t say anything about. So that disturbs the meditation, potentially. And then after they die, they take care of the body right away, and all of that, and you can’t resist. So he said, “I don’t want to die in America. I could die in India, but I want to die in Tibet.” So he did go to Tibet before he died, knowing that he would die soon. So he died in Tibet. So yes, for a genuine practitioner, it is best if they opt not to donate their organs.

Kathy Wesley: And I think that satisfies the questions, because that is very helpful to us. This also leads to the question of disturbing a body after a person has died. Because families come to us and there are phone calls. We have even gotten phone calls at the Columbus KTC saying how long should I be with my loved one’s body undisturbed. In some places, like a hospital for example, you can only leave the body undisturbed for about two hours, which is probably why Lama Ganga went to Tibet. But there are options of taking a person’s body and putting it into cold storage, or there are even places where you can leave the body in the home if it is packed in ice for days. You can do that. Some people ask us how many days should that be, so we don’t know. I don’t know if Rinpoche has any thoughts about this for practitioners. Some people have even asked, you know, like my mother has died. Should I leave her body undisturbed. I don’t know what to say.

KK Rinpoche: In general, what is practiced in Tibet is that you let the body remain undisturbed for three days, because usually the consciousness does leave the body on the fourth day. So, until the consciousness leaves the body, you let the body stay undisturbed. That is the general situation. But there are also exceptions. For example, you wait until there is a lama that arrives that can perform phowa. And as soon as the phowa is successfully done, then you are free to move the body, because phowa has been done and the consciousness has been ejected. So then, at that point, it is OK to move the body. And in the Bardo Thodol, the liberation through hearing, in the bardo it says that there are people whose consciousness leaves the body right away if they go to the hell realms or if they go to the pure lands. Then it leaves right away. Or, some people’s consciousness stays in the body longer than three days. It is also possible. But in general, it is three days. The fourth day the consciousness leaves. In other words, mainly if there is a lama available, usually you leave the body until the phowa ends. Rinpoche didn’t say this was only for practitioners. It is for anybody, because of the consciousness.

Kathy Wesley: Does that satisfy our question about how long to leave the body undisturbed? Basically, it is saying three days, if it can be arranged. But sometimes, of course, it can’t be, like in a hospital, for example. It would be extremely difficult to arrange. That brings us to the question of the moment of death, because we have been studying two main books to learn about death, and one is Khenpo Rinpoche’s book “Bardo,” and the other one is “Journey of the Mind,” which is Thrangu Rinpoche’s commentary on “Mirror of Mindfulness” by Tsele Natsok Rangdrol. Anyway, Thrangu’s presentation and Rinpoche’s presentation. What we tried to do is draw a map with the dissolution of the outer elements, then the dissolution of the inner elements, and there is the moment of death. Our question surrounds this actual moment of death, because we have been told that you can only do the phowa after the heart has stopped or the pulse has stopped. And so what we are trying to determine is on this description of the dissolution stages of the person, the very last stage of dissolution is this white, red, and black, and so we were given to understand that the moment of death occurs at the end of this black, and then the person cannot be returned from the black attainment stage. But yet some people’s hearts are restarted. What happens to them. I guess that is the first question. Is that the moment of death, the moment of the black attainment where all of the essences have been gathered at the heart. Is that when the heart stops or not? This is what we are a little confused about.

KK Rinpoche: There is the white, red, and black light. When the black light appears, that is when the heart has already stopped; the heart is no longer beating. For some people, the heart may stop beating for a while, and then it starts beating again. That is an indication that the person has not reached the black light yet. Once you reach the black light, there is no return. There is no possibility for the heart to once again start beating. When the heart has already completely stopped beating, there is no possibility of reviving it again, only until then will the black light start to appear. And once the black/dark light begins to appear, what follows is the luminosity. And so the dark light, when that appears, everything external stops appearing. All appearances, and not just appearances, but sight, sounds, smell, taste, and touch….everything ceases to appear for the person. That is when the black light appears.

Kathy Wesley: This is very helpful. What brings about the appearance of the black light. Is it the essences of the body coming together at the heart?

KK Rinpoche: Yes, you can read the book about the dissolution of the white and red elements, you know, the Bodhicitta. You know, the white coming down and gathering at the heart, and the red coming up, gathering at the heart. And when they dissolve into the heart, that’s when the lights will begin to appear, the white element and the red element being in the central channel. When they begin to dissolve into the heart chakra, within the central channel, then when they actually dissolve into the heart chakra, within the Uma or central channel, then that’s when the white and red Bodhicitta dissolve. At the moment when they dissolve into the heart chakra, that’s when the white, red, and black is already done. That’s when the luminosity appears. But that is something that cannot be seen by the eye, because it is wisdom.

Kathy Wesley: This is very helpful, because one of the texts and it was either in Khenpo Rinpoche’s text or in Thrangu Rinpoche’s text, it said that the best time to do the phowa is at the time of red increase, but that would not be known by the practitioner, or how would that be known? Does that mean for the person themselves to do phowa, that the best time is during the red increase… because the practitioner from the outside will not know. The phowa person for someone else will not know.

KK Rinpoche: Yes, exactly, because the person doing phowa for someone else would not know when the red light is appearing, so all you can go by is to see if the pulse at the throat has already stopped. In other words, when the pulse stops, that is also when the heart stops beating, so they usually use the pulse rather than trying to feel the heart. They usually feel the pulse. You have probably seen someone who has died, so you can tell, when a person dies, the physical complexion actually changes, so you can be sure that they are already dead.

Kathy Wesley: In fact I experienced this when the Korean woman, Ume’s mother, when she died. Almost instantaneously the color disappeared from her body and her hands became rigid. Almost, within not even two minutes.

KK Rinpoche: Yes, another sign of actual death is that you can see that the body kind of sinks down into the bed. There is no support anymore, there is no support for the body anymore. It just kind of lumps down. It is best to ask all your questions, because you are all here this time. It is hard to get you all together.

Kathy Wesley: This was a question that Cathy Jackson asked. She wanted to know how we could tell for ourselves or for others that death is immanent, other than the medical signs that we were discussing. We were just discussing about how you can tell that the body has died by how it is. But is there any indication of the signs of approaching death for a person?

KK Rinpoche: It is very difficult for oneself or for someone else to know if we are dying soon. Unless, you have reached the state where the white, red, and black lights have appeared, you wouldn’t know, necessarily, that you are just about dying. But for a certain yogi, through their experience they could tell if someone is dying soon or if they are themselves dying soon. They could tell. Other than that, it is very difficult for anybody just to know from looking at a person. And there are also signs that you can tell by feeling the pulse, and the way they breathe. Some experienced people could tell that there are not many more days that are left. Other than that, it is very difficult for us to know a few days ahead of time if we are dying soon. One way you can tell if a person will die soon, maybe not that soon, maybe there is a year left or somewhere around there is that the person’s personality all of a sudden changes. For example, a happy-going person becomes the other way around, or a generous person becomes very stingy, or a peaceful one becomes angry, and completely changes for no apparent reason. That may also be a sign that a person does not have much life left. In other words, you know, the person’s personality all of a sudden changes completely, in certain aspects of their personality. That may also be a sign. In general, if a situation becomes difficult for a person, for example, their resources become exhausted and things like that, the personality could change, because they are in a difficult spot. But without those conditions, if for no apparent reason the person changes, that may be an indication of not much time left… that their lifespan will be exhausted soon.

Kathy Wesley: I appreciate what Rinpoche had to say about the appearance of the white and the red lights because that fits in with the idea that for oneself to do phowa, the red increase is the best. I think that fits in with what he was saying, doesn’t it, because a practitioner would know when the red increase was happening, so that would fit with the description that the time of the red light appearing would be the best time to do phowa for oneself.

Lama Lodro: But only a good practitioner would know that was happening. I think that is what he said. No, I was wrong.

KK Rinpoche: Everybody sees the white and red lights. Well, let’s put it this way. Everybody experiences the white light and red light, whether they know what it means or not. They may think it is a little strange, but they don’t know what it is. So that is with the white and red. As far as the black, it is not something that you actually see with your eyes. It is something that you experience. So everybody does experience that, but then only practitioners could recognize what it is. And as far as luminosity, of course everybody experiences it, but not everybody recognizes what it is.

Kathy Wesley: This is useful. I guess the things now to ask about are a couple things about phowa itself. Because in Thrangu Rinpoche’s book, for example, he says that there is a phowa empowerment and that people need to receive it. I haven’t heard of such a thing. What is Rinpoche’s view about this.

KK Rinpoche: The so-called phowa empowerment is not the kind of empowerment we are familiar with. It is like the lama would, for example, with a group of students would gather together, and the lama would actually perform the phowa, demonstrate it. And that is considered a phowa empowerment. You need to be initiated into it, and then you can start to do the practice yourself. In other words, you can’t just read a text or read something from a book and start doing phowa by yourself. You need to be initiated.

Kathy Wesley: So what we did during the first phowa retreat, when we came up here was a phowa empowerment?

KK Rinpoche: Yes, that was considered a phowa wang. For example, someone who just comes across a phowa text in a book that describes how you do phowa and they just kind of do it themselves. No, you can’t do it that way, because you have to be taught how to do it.

Kathy Wesley: In fact, one of the things that is mentioned in Thrangu Rinpoche’s book is that when a person is learning the phowa, they need to learn how to properly key their visualization of the phowa with their breathing, and they should actually be holding their breath. I don’t know if that was the way we learned it. I don’t know if he is referring to the idea of bar-lung [??], and that bar-lung should be held at the time that the ejection is practiced. I don’t know what he means. Can Rinpoche comment on that idea?

KK Rinpoche: Well, when you are practicing the phowa for yourself, in the six dharma’s phowa, you do hold vase breaths. But in these we are discussing, it is not the vase breath you should be holding, but the intermediate breath.

Kathy Wesley: What about the Namcho (?) phowa. What’s the relationship to bar-lung to that?

KK Rinpoche: Namcho phowa also, if you can, you should also hold the breath.

Kathy Wesley: Would that mean too that a person should be attempting to hold the vase breath, the bar-lung?

KK Rinpoche: Ok

Kathy Wesley: So, the vase breath. Well, that is something that I have not made part of the instructions that we have done so far. But if that would be helpful, we will add it. I don’t remember it being taught in the phowa retreat here.

KK Rinpoche: The reason Rinpoche didn’t mention holding the breath is because everybody was a beginner. They didn’t even know what the vase breath was.

Kathy Wesley: Understood, so it wasn’t that we missed something.

KK Rinpoche: You can’t use it if you haven’t even practiced it. You have to first know how to hold the breath and know how to practice it. Then you can use it to do phowa.

Kathy Wesley: Because I didn’t teach that to this group, but when it was mentioned in the Thrangu Rinpoche book, it was thought that maybe I had left something out of the instruction, and then I was trying to remember, and I couldn’t remember hearing it in the instructions, so I thought that maybe I had not heard it. What would Rinpoche like for us to do?

KK Rinpoche: For the vase breath to be effective you have to have someone who has done the retreat and who has done the six dharmas of Naropa. Otherwise, if you just start using the vase breath, only when you are doing the phowa practice, it is not going to be very effective. So you have to have that basis.

Kathy Wesley: Understood. This explains it, thank you. When people read things like this, then the question comes to me about that, so thank you for clarifying. So now, we go back to phowa again. There are another one or two questions about that. This is an interesting question. Will there be signs that indicated a person’s rebirth in DewaChen? There are signs that the phowa has been effective. There is moisture and things like this, but are there any other signs but those to show that a person has been reborn in Dewachen?

KK Rinpoche: It is very difficult, extremely difficult to know if a person has taken rebirth in Dewachen, even if there are signs of phowa. At some point, Rinpoche seems to have said if the person you are doing phowa for is a practitioner, and there are signs of success, then it is likely the person has taken rebirth in Dewachen, but even then it is hard to say. All we can be sure of is that the person has taken a good rebirth. Whether the person has gone to Dewachen or not, we don’t know, unless the person performing phowa has supercognition. Otherwise, it is very hard to say. We don’t know. Then Rinpoche spent some time explaining the signs of phowa again. As you know, in Tibet because it is very cold, so sometimes the lama performing phowa will put their finger on the aperture at the crown, and as soon as the phowa is done, and the lama can feel something with their fingers, you know, the heat coming up. Then he would know that it has been successful. Or sometimes if the weather is warm and you can’t really feel the heat, you can also see if there is puss or blood coming out of the crown. And sometimes the hair of the crown would just pop out. I said, Oh, do you pull and it just pulls out. No, he said, you don’t even have to pull; it just pops out. Sometimes the lama is so good that air just kind of flies out around. It just kind of shoots out. In general, it is very difficult for the phowa to be successful, even if the lama that performs to phowa is good. I asked Rinpoche why it is difficult to succeed if you are doing it for someone else; it is because everybody has different karma. Some have very, very bad karma, so no matter how good you are, it just doesn’t work, because their karma is so heavy. And some, as soon as they die have already taken rebirth. Consciousness has already left, so then it will not succeed. And so on. Anyway, there are so many different variables that prevent phowa to be successful. Something that Rinpoche said earlier, you can tell when the phowa has been successful, and at least that the consciousness has left also, by looking at the body. Because if the consciousness has left, sometimes immediately the body changes. Before phowa, the body looked fine. It is kind of good looking. But as soon as the consciousness leaves, the body looks bad, because there is no consciousness residing in the body, so it looks bad.

Kathy Wesley: This takes us to the question of doing phowa for others. Now this is not something we will be doing right away, but I wanted to at least get it clear in my mind how to use the bardo kit. For example, even though we may not be doing phowa for others right away, we will maybe be asked to use the bardo kit and to do things like that. And so my understanding of that is that when you arrive at the bedside of the dying person, if there is time and they have not died yet, you can set up a shrine and do whatever prayers they wish, and encourage them to do prayers if they are still conscious, and this sort of thing. And also counsel their family members that if they are practitioners to do whatever prayers they like. But I am wondering if the very next thing we would do would be to give the relic pill and then to begin to do our quiet recitations. Would that be the next thing to do, to close the gates of the dying person and then do our own recitation. Like, do the relic pill first, and then the recitation?

KK Rinpoche: The first thing to do actually is to put the relic pill in the person’s mouth, because you should do that before they die. Then you can instruct the family not to touch the person’s lower part of the body. They want to touch the head part. And you, yourself can also put your fingers at the crown and tell the person to focus there. You instruct the family, if they are Buddhists, to either say Buddha’s names or to recite mantra, and things like that. Refrain from speech and just concentrate on their prayers. And you, yourself, can also begin your own visualization and recitation. And you also have to have a very stable mind, because you are dealing with families who are very sad, who are probably crying, who are probably yelling, and shouting “Don’t go!,” and things like that. And then you are dealing with someone who is dying, you know, and so they are pulling you all sorts of ways, so it is very hard to be stable and calm, and focused. You need to be trained in that respect, so that you can help the person. Otherwise, if your mind is distracted, it is very hard for the phowa to be successful. If the person is Buddhist, you need to tell them that with your hand touching their crown, you need to raise your consciousness upward, and focus on the crown, and think that you will definitely go to Amitabha’s pure land. And that you will take an excellent rebirth. You need to remind the person with words like this.

Kathy Wesley: Is it necessary for the person who is going to do phowa to do the short Amitabha sadhanas before they undertake the phowa or…. I remember that previously that Rinpoche and I had spoken about this, but he had mentioned about reciting the guru yoga of the four sessions and the prayers to the ??? five Buddhas and the chanting the names of the Budhha. But what I wasn’t sure of is whether we needed to do this short Amitabha.

KK Rinpoche: It is not necessary.

Kathy Wesley: And then the question happens that after the person has stopped breathing and so forth. I think I understand that from previously talking with Rinpoche. But after the person’s breath has stopped, I remember him saying that the consciousness should be visualized going to the crown of the head, and I assume that means staying within the uma.

KK Rinpoche: Yes, the consciousness is always visualized as within the central channel, the uma, and even though it is sitting on a lotus and all that, but it’s still within the central channel. Even when you are just doing the visualizations before the actual phowa. That visualization also has the consciousness sitting in the middle of the heart chakra and within the central channel. So, with that visualization of the dying person’s consciousness in the central channel at the heart, and going upward, you chant all those prayers.

Kathy Wesley: And then after the person’s heart as stopped and we begin to do the phowa in reality, then there is the blessed sand that comes with the bardo kit. And we should place that before doing the phowa?

KK Rinpoche: Yes, you only apply the sand just before you do the actual phowa, not the visualizations… the actual phowa.

Kathy Wesley: That’s what I thought. OK, that was somehow I thought that, so that’s good. In terms of the … there are two pieces of cloth, one is the small mandala and one is the large coverlet. And when should those be placed?

KK Rinpoche: After the person has died. You can place the smaller one at the heart area and the larger one covering the whole body.

Kathy Wesley: Should those be placed before doing phowa?

KK Rinpoche: Yes, that would be good.

Kathy Wesley: I encountered a situation where the family was disturbed by the large coverlet, so I placed only the small one. I hope that was not a fault.

KK Rinpoche: If the family does not understand the benefit of it then it is really creates a very difficult situation. Whether it is large or small mandala, it is cremated with the body.

Kathy Wesley: I was thinking that there might be a way around it. I think what it is….that covering the face of the deceased is upsetting to some of the family. I think that’s it.

KK Rinpoche: I asked him if it is alright not to cover the face. It is really hard to say, because you are dealing with people who don’t understand it and it is just very hard.

Kathy Wesley: Yeah.

KK Rinpoche: Because what they know is that it is customary to put makeup on a body and all that, to make it look good, you know. But those things do nothing good, whatsoever, in terms of helping them. You can’t blame them because they don’t know any better. All they know is to make a body look nice.

Kathy Wesley: There is a CD of the liberation through hearing in the bardo. When should that be played? When is the best time to play that?

KK Rinpoche: After the breathing has stopped.

Kathy Wesley: And it can be playing in the background.

KK Rinpoche: There are two situations. One is that if there is a lama around. In that case, you wait until the phowa is done and then you play it, because otherwise… And if there is no lama around they can play it before the person dies.

Kathy Wesley: We will ask one more question and then we will leave Rinpoche to dinner.

KK Rinpoche: He would prefer to finish them now.

Kathy Wesley: Some people have come to us saying “I am not a Buddhist, but I want you to help me at the time of my death.” This is kind of a fascinating situation and it has just started happening. Sometimes people will say, well, can you give me refuge? And for the people who are not lamas, I don’t think that is possible, but what can we do. What can we do if they are not lamas and people say, well can I become a Buddhist before I die? How do they handle that situation.

KK Rinpoche: What they can do if they are not a lama, rather than giving them the vow, the refuge vow, they can ask the person to repeat the refuge prayer after them. You can find the prayer in the refuge book, as well.

Kathy Wesley: That would be wonderful. That can help because I think it gives some comfort to the mind of the person, that they can have that blessing. What remain are miscellaneous questions. This is a question about people who are not liberated at the time they die and they don’t go to Dewachen. In the presentations in Rinpoche’s book, it talks about the place where the consciousness leaves the body, it is related to the realm of their rebirth. However, in the bardo of becoming, the consciousness is presented with opportunities to be reborn in different realms, or is the case that their only option for rebirth is in the realm that is related to the exit of the body, or can they actually chose to be born in a realm other than that one?

KK Rinpoche: Well, maybe other people have their own experience or theory… otherwise it is certain that whichever exit their consciousness goes out of, they are certain to be reborn in that realm as related to that realm, as related to that gate. And whoever says this is not so, maybe they see the consciousness goes out a certain door and sees the person is not in that realm. We don’t know. Or perhaps they don’t have faith in what the Buddha taught and they think that it is not necessary, so that there are other opportunities rather than that fixed realm that we have to go to.

Kathy Wesley: The books I think present us with some idea of what happens in the bardo state, but I think each person will experience it in their own way. 

KK Rinpoche: Until you experience the bardo, you really don’t understand what it is like, no matter what you think. And it’s simply exactly because we don’t know what bardo is like. The Buddha has taught about the bardo.

Kathy Wesley: What can we say about people who don’t want to die. Up to the moment of their death they think they can beat their illness or be able to cheat death. There are two questions from meeting and working with people who have this attitude. Number one: Is it better for the person to give up trying to beat their illness and just prepare for death, or should they maintain this attitude of fighting. And the second question is how do we as spiritual helpers assist people are experiencing this powerful resistance.

KK Rinpoche: It is best not to contradict the dying person, because if you do they might get upset or be angry and that will be a cause for hell. So, don’t tell them, you know, “Stop thinking that you are not dying. You are going to die.” If you say something like that, they are going to be very upset. People who think they are not going to die, they reject it and are very stubborn. They will not accept other people’s opinion, as far as their own death. So if you try to convince them, they will be upset. So it’s better to say “yeah, yeah, yeah,” you know, “It’s OK, you know…” – whatever. You just go along with it. And in fact, whatever they think, they are going to die anyway, so it doesn’t matter what they think. The main thing is to have compassion.

Kathy Wesley: Does this satisfy your question? OK. There was another unusual phenomenon that people bring to us when they talk about their lives, and one of them is that they express that they have had a near death experience, where they have left their body, and they have had trouble maybe getting back into it. They had that experience of leaving their body. Since the body and the mind don’t really separate until the moment of death, what is happening to these people. What is their experience coming from?

KK Rinpoche: Yes, people who experience (seemingly) the separation of body and mind. It is not actually the case that body and mind have separated, because when that happens the person definitely dies. What really happens is the separation of their body and their La. The La goes out and they think that the La is their mind, but it is just their La. Or they think that is them, going out of the body, but it is their La, not their consciousness.

Kathy Wesley: The La is a separate being.

KK Rinpoche: Yes, it is a separate being. That’s why the La remains after the body has died, and hangs around the body. Rinpoche has also experienced himself the La going out of the body when he was sleeping and he could see himself breathing and all of that. And thinking, I need to go back in. But that’s not his consciousness; that’s just his La. Yes, the La definitely exists and it is also sometimes possible for the La to leave the body, and to be stolen or taken away by spirits. And when that happens the person would appear to be very down, low, and kind of sickly and lose weight, you know. Lacking in energy and things like that. Once the La returns, then the person resumes his original energy, ego, and all that. It does happen. Rinpoche has told us of stories before, when spirits take the La of a person and perform like a tsok offering, using the La, because the La to them is not just some sort of formless thing. To them it can become like flesh and blood. They can actually cook and eat it. And if that happens, the person definitely dies, because there is no return of the La, so even though at the time that the La is stolen, the person is still living, but once its cooked, the person definitely later will die. At this time in Taiwan, in one of the centers, Rinpoche performed a ritual called La-kuk?, summoning the La. It is for people…and lots of people participate. They kind of gave their clothes, a piece of their clothes, and Rinpoche blesses the clothes and they perform a ritual where he would summon the lost or stolen La back into the person. And there were signs you could tell whether the La has been summoned back. And Rinpoche, of course, did well. It came back.

Kathy Wesley: My understanding is the La begins its association with us individually when we are conceived or is it when we are born. Which is it?

KK Rinpoche: Well, we don’t know when it actually started, but if someone has a fixation on a self, then there will be a La.

Kathy Wesley: I see. So when a person reaches the first bhumi of awakening, the La disappears?

KK Rinpoche: That we don’t know.

Kathy Wesley: But it continues its association long after we die?

KK Rinpoche: Yes, it sticks around wherever the corpse is. Even if the corpse is cremated, it will stick around the ashes. Therefore, if you scatter the ashes in the water, then the La would go into the water and experience a lot of suffering. And sometimes they scatter the ashes in the wind. And the wind just kind of carries it off, and that causes the La to have no place of dwelling. They don’t know where to go, because it is all scattered. They also experience a lot of suffering, so because of the suffering, then their relatives will also be harmed by that fact. In other words, when the La is happy, then their family will also be good, and vice versa. They protect the family. There are people who claim to be able to speak to the deceased, speak to their spirit or whatever. But actually what they are speaking to is just the La.

Kathy Wesley: We will complete by asking one more question. Many of the texts that speak about the duration of the clear light experience say that it last for several meditation days and we are trying to make sure that we understand what that is. My memory of it is that it is the length of time one can rest in the nature of their mind. I don’t think it is the length of time that a person can rest in non-conceptual Shamata. I think its recognition of the nature. Is that right?

KK Rinpoche: Yes, we are talking about Mahamudra here. It is definitely not like non-conceptual Shamata, because what you are experiencing is based on your practice in life where you have recognized the nature of the mind, and when that nature appears for you at the moment of death, then you recognize it and then you are able to rest in that nature for however long you wish to stay. So you need to make a wish before you die, how many days you want to stay in that meditation.

Kathy Wesley: That’s something I never heard of.

KK Rinpoche: If you don’t know if you are going to be able to stay, and therefore you didn’t make a wish, what happens is that… I don’t know. And if you don’t make a wish, who knows if you can stay in tukdam. Usually people who stay there already know that they will. So he doesn’t know, in that case.

Kathy Wesley: We appreciate the time you have spent answering our questions. We are going to keep studying, and we are hopefully going to continue our studies into the fall and winter, but studying a little bit about how to help people with dharma, and then we might graduate at Losar in 2013. We will have to talk to Rinpoche. He may have to examine us first.

KK Rinpoche: There is certainly an end to study. You can study just so much and you can end. But that is only part of this whole process of caring for the dying. The other part, which is the main part, is your own practice. Because, without the basis of your own practice, you cannot help others very well. So that has to be the main practice, the main part of you concern. Because, for example, if your practice is not stable enough or deep enough, in the midst of the dying situation of the family, and the death, and the doctors, and all that, then you yourself could be shaken at that moment. So how are you going to be able to help someone when your self is unstable. So, you need to have a very strong practice in yourself in order to be a successful pastoral care person.

Kathy Wesley: Then we will come back to see Rinpoche for an examination, before we talk about graduation date.

KK Rinpoche: It is not necessary for him to examine you. You can examine yourself. There are two main things you can examine yourself to determine whether you are good or not, and one is: whether you have compassion. The other is if you are able to maintain composure and peace of mind and have a strong stable mind in the midst of everybody crying and yelling, and all sorts of things happening in that situation, whether you can maintain peacefulness and calm to be able to do what you need to do. Based on that you can…

Kathy Wesley: Thank you.

KK Rinpoche: Don’t know about the U.S., for the West, but in Tibet there is a very, very common situation surrounding a dying person. The family will just grab the dying, crying and yelling and screaming, and it is just horrific. There are even people who say “Don’t die, don’t die, we will give you everything, all your belongings. You can take it.” And they even grab lama and say “Don’t do it”

Kathy Wesley: That’s so hard. That is really hard.

KK Rinpoche: In the West, Rinpoche doesn’t know if it is common. One time in California, Rinpoche is taking care of or performing prayers for a dying person and the daughter kept grabbing her father and saying “Don’t die,” and disrupting what rinpoche was trying to do. And the father was already very sick, the eyes were almost popping out. He was very sick. The father was like that and had a very red face, and the daughter was just trying to get him back to life. Saying “I don’t want my dad to die,” and almost hitting Rinpoche. She wanted so much for him to come back to life. And two or three hours later, her father died. People with a very heavy negative karma when they die, there is a horrific scene. They are very hard to look at. How frightful they become.

Kathy Wesley: We are hoping that all goes well and we will keep watching.

KK Rinpoche: So if you don’t have great compassion, it is very hard to do the job.

[end]

Tape 1 hour, 52 minutes.

From Patricia Myerson:

Ani Lodro, I wrote up notes from two follow up questions I asked during my interview in August at Karme-Ling. Lama Kathy asked me to include them as an addendum to these transcripts. They were not recorded, I scribbled reminder notes during the interview and then expanded them afterwards from memory. If you want to review these 2 questions for edits and accuracy as well, that would be great:

1. Rinpoche talked about the Lha needing the body to be in one place after death so it would have a place to rest; saying that the Lha would suffer terribly if the ashes of a corpse were scattered in the wind or water because it would have no place to be. I'm wondering about the sky burials in Tibet and what happened to the Lha then?

Rinpoche: The place of the sky burial is always well chosen, and although the body is eaten by birds and scattered by them, it is said that the location is where the blood is spilled. Because the blood was spilled there, and because it was a very well chosen spot, the Lha identifies with that spot as where it belongs.

2. Does it matter then if somebody is cremated or buried as long as the remains are kept in one place? Is there an importance for Buddhists about cremation?

Rinpoche: Yes, keep the remains in one place. If you bury, make sure the spot is well chosen for geomancy, etc. Consult with a feng shui expert.

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