Chenrezig – The Practice of Compassion
A complete approach for generating and working with loving kindness and compassion in our every day lives, making ourselves, and the world, a better place.
How can the dying person help the family?
Is there something the dying person can do to help the family through? If a dying person can express their own needs it might be helpful, maybe this is also true that if there is something that the family members need to express or need to resolve with the person who is dying, maybe it…
How can the family help the dying person?
When it is known that a person is dying, what practical suggestions does Rinpoche have for the family who is caring for the person to make things easier? Now this, I think the most important thing is that the family members can make the person who is dying satisfied. I think to give an example,…
Creating a will
It would be good to make a Will so that you don’t have to be thinking about your belongings, property, or money or things like that. And also that would mean you don’t create an opportunity for people to fight afterwards. Everything is settled so that you don’t have to feel that these things are…
For how long can a person hear after they have died?
Actually, after the person dies, I don’t think they can hear. I think maybe the person can hear to some extent for a short while until the mind goes into the full depths of the dharmakaya and then afterwards when the mind rises out of the depth of the dharmakaya the person can hear once…
Instructions for the mortician
For the mortician, what should be conveyed if the body is not for autopsy, for example embalming, are there instructions? I think there are traditions, cultural ways of doing this in different parts of the world, the Tibetan and the Buddhist world also, but I think this is not that important. So I think this…
Organ donation
Then with organ donation, I think organ donation is very much a bodhisattva attitude, very much like a Buddhist thing. If somebody really wishes to, genuinely wishes to, if you do it because you have to, not like that but if you really wish to benefit someone by donating one of your organs, then I…
Touching the body after death
How important is the three-day lying in period for ordinary mortals like us? Usually, the instruction is not to disturb the body, not to touch it, just leave it for three days or something like that, that’s the general instruction. Usually in the teachings in Tibet, for instance, it is recommended that the body of…
Supporting people who have died
Is there a way to best support people who have died recently or in the distant past? There’s a general instruction and there’s a specific instruction. The general instruction is that whatever positive thing you do which is dedicated to that person who has died, is helping that person. So, therefore, you can ask for…
Instructions on Phowa
Instructions for phowa, of course there are different kinds of phowa. There is the Dharmakaya phowa, which means if you really can experience the nature of your mind, the experience of the Dharmakaya, and then you remain in that, that is called the Dharmakaya phowa and there is nothing to transfer, there is no way…
Allowing the consciousness to leave the body
After clinical death. How to proceed to allow the consciousness to leave the body as peacefully as possible? There are many instructions on the person who is dying. I think we already talked a little bit about that and most important is that the person who is dying should allow himself or herself to let…
How can we best prepare ourselves for death?
That’s the same way, actually. In a way, the way you prepare others for death and the way you prepare yourself for death is more or less similar. You have to see what would work and what would not work for yourself. It’s important that as a practitioner facing death you try to prepare yourself,…
Helping a practising Buddhist to face death
How to help someone who is dying if he or she is a practising Buddhist. Now, if somebody is a practising Buddhist, then the most important thing is to inspire that person to practise and to keep on practising what he or she is good at or has already learned. So therefore, one of the…
Prayer from the Tibetan Book of the Dead
Through your blessing, grace, and guidance, through the power of the light that streams from you
May all my negative karma, destructive emotions, obscurations, and blockages be purified and removed
An Aspiration Prayer by Shantideva
May I be a guard for those who are without protection.
A guide for those who journey on the road.
For those who wish to go across the water,
May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.