The Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying: A Spiritual Classic from One of the Foremost Interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism to the West

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I also hate that in some of these religions it always seems like there’s some secret knowledge or practices that us mere mortals don’t have. Buddhists believe that we have all been trapped in this cycle of misery since the beginning of time and will remain trapped forever unless we do something about it. The final changes were composed in July 1992, during the three-month retreat which Rinpoche conducted at his European retreat centre, Lerab Ling, in France. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is widely regarded as one of the most complete and authoritative presentations of the Tibetan Buddhist teachings.

This is justice that feels right: it is absolutely fair that the good are rewarded and the bad get their comeuppance – and that it is what you yourself have done that recoils on you rather than that you are punished by some higher being. The first section of the book deals with how to live well while the second part of the book deals with how to die well.This section revolves around the concept of death and questions the human nature to be overly afraid of an effortless transition – from one state of beingness to the other. But when was the last time your grand father or his father or generations encountered a person coming down from heaven in a chariot on fire? Devote it in meditation to the task of freeing itself from illusion, and we will find that, with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity. I tend to think of death as being like changing your clothes when they are old and worn out, rather than as some final end.

I spent about 3 months studying this text and it greatly helped to transform the way I viewed death and convinced me of the absolute need to not only accept death, but to--in a sense--embrace it by making it your friend, your constant companion, your ultimate destination. After university studies in Delhi and Cambridge, England, he acted as translator and aide to several leading Tibetan masters, and began teaching in the West in 1974. More Hamburger icon An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon. The translation was done by Kazi Dawa Samdup (1868–1922), the headmaster of a boarding school in the Sikkimese capital of Gangtok and a one-time interpreter for the British Raj. The practitioner discovers–and this is a revolutionary insight, whose subtlety and power cannot be overestimated–that not only do violent emotions not necessarily sweep you away and drag you back into the whirlpools of your own neuroses, they can actually be used to deepen, embolden, invigorate, and strengthen the Rigpa.As a community, we have of course also been confronted by the deaths of siblings, friends, partners, children. It’s important to understand here that we’re all dying, so when Sogyal speaks of dying people he could actually mean that all of us can spread vile.

The fact that you react to arisings such as these with habitual tendencies of attachment and aversion is a sign not only that you are distracted, but also that you do not have the recognition and have lost the ground of Rigpa. Bliss and beauty are certainly part of a committed spiritual practice but so are sobering, repetitive hard work, and painful sacrifices.Not to mention the use of donation money to fund his lifestyle while being praised as having a “modest lifestyle” by other teachers that knew him. So now that we’ve covered what’s going on today, lets twist the plot a bit and focus on how we can prepare for death with artful living.