Every individual is a composite of body and mind. The body is like a hotel where the mind—the consciousness—resides and functions as long as conditions allow.
When the last moments of life arrive, the mind departs from the body and starts transmigrating from rebirth to rebirth, just as travellers move from one hotel to another. The body, however, dissolves into the earth and disappears forever.
Our identity—who we are—is our mind, not (1) the belongings that we have collected every minute of our waking life, (2) the loved ones in whom we have invested our energy, or even (3) the body that we have cherished. The mind leaves behind all of that at the time of death.
But our karma—the healthy and unhealthy deeds and their associated mental habits that we have stored as seeds in our mind-stream during our lifetime—will produce as its fruition a (1) pleasant or unpleasant world around us and (2) joyful or painful experiences in us.
The effects of (1) loving thoughts, (2) pure perceptions, and (3) devotional energies today will produce (1) pure lands and (2) peace and (3) joy tomorrow. Therefore, heartfelt meditations and prayers, even if they are simple in form, will change the qualities and habits of our minds now and will produce ultimate peace and joy in the future.
So imagine the image and presence of Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light; imagine the light of all-knowing wisdom and unconditional love. Open your heart to him with devotion, joy, and trust and pray for his blessings for all. Receive the blessings in the form of wisdom light of unconditional love and share them with all. Purify and transform the whole universe into a world of blessing light of (1) unconditional love, (2) omniscient wisdom, and (3) ultimate peace.
When our minds are fully open to and deeply enjoying the qualities of the Buddha, the Buddha presence has awakened in our own hearts. Then, the whole universe will appear to us as the pure land. That is where we will take rebirth and from where we will serve many.
We pay great attention to the details of our daily life, but spare no thought for the life that comes after death, though it will be our never-ending future. Abu Patrul Rinpoche lamented,
Whoever I look at, they are all about to die.
Whoever I think about, they are all counting on living forever.
Having seen such heart-rending phenomena,
My mind has rushed to the mountain solitude [to meditate].
Tulku Thondup Rinpoche, The Buddhayana Foundation, USA.
Source: Based on Thondup, Tulku, “Afterword”, in Rinpoche, Anyen, Dying with Confidence: A Tibetan Buddhist Guide to Preparing for Death. Translated by Allison Choying Zangmo. Edited by Eileen Canon. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2014.
We pay great attention to the details of our daily life, but spare no thought for the life that comes after death, though it will be our never-ending future.
(Tulku Thondup in Dying with Confidence)