It is important to reiterate that the hellish realms or pure lands in which we may travel after death or take birth are not external world systems situated somewhere else.
The experiences of enjoyment or suffering in different world systems after death are merely reflections of our own karmic tendencies. It is like a dream journey, fabricated by our own habitual mental impressions. Let us bear this point in mind whenever we read about karmic consequences.
The mind generates its own experiences of happiness and suffering after death as a result of tendencies gathered and reinforced through successive lifetimes. Produced by the mind, these experiences also take place in the mind, nowhere else.
It is equally important to know that as long as we are alive, it is possible to change and improve our future. Of course, we will always be subject to unavoidable limitations imposed by physical and environmental laws.
But when we die, our minds will be less restricted by external forces, so we will be driven by the ingrained mental tendencies that we fostered in the past.
This is precisely the reason why the best way to improve the quality of our life, death, and afterlife is to work on changing our conceptual and emotional habits from negative to positive.
So there are three choices open to us while we still have some time:
(1) We could continue to endure the pain and suffering of this life as we ordinarily do, without taking the opportunity to make any progress. The karma of (a) mental confusion, (b) afflicting emotions, and (c) external situations will control our future destination. Then there will be no chance for true happiness to arise.
(2) We could try to secure the happiest and healthiest state that an ordinary cyclic existence in samsara can provide. If we maintain a (a) peaceful, (b) joyful, (c) helpful, (d) loving life, then a happier and healthier future will be ensured as the result, at least for a while.
(3) Or, we could go beyond this momentary cyclic existence, the samsara of our life, and secure the everlasting state of ultimate peace and joy, called nirvana. Such an attainment can only come about through realisation of the absolute truth, reached through (a) meditation and (b) supported by the right ways of thinking, feeling, and serving others.
If we let our minds face the right direction, then whatever steps we take will lead us closer to our intended goal.
The meditations and practices described in the book, Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth, are mainly based on the liturgies of the Buddha of Infinite Light (in Sanskrit, Amitabha) and his Blissful Pure Land (Sukhavati). But there are other buddhas and pure lands whose liturgies may be used, and even the prayers of non-Buddhist belief systems with similar qualities will be effective.
The important thing is to prepare in advance by meditating regularly on a liturgy associated with a source of blessings.
In the book, Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth, the term source of blessings refers to any object of (1) prayer, (2) reverence, and (3) refuge that is a source of protection and blessing.
The source of blessings could be any higher, inner, or true source such as a (1) buddha, (2) bodhisattva, (3) saint, (4) sage, or (5) adept master.
Any mental object will be a powerful source of blessings if it has positive qualities and is appreciated by the mind as positive.
The dying and dead, as well as their helpers, must rely on sources of blessings as the support for their prayers, meditations, and rites.
The ultimate source of blessings is in ourselves, as we all possess the enlightened nature.
However, until we have realised our own potential, we must rely on an external source of blessings to awaken our own blessed nature and qualities.
In Tibetan Buddhism, repeating the prayers of a source of blessing, such as the name-prayer of the Buddha of Infinite Light, is one of the popular ways to reach and receive blessings from the Buddha.
The Buddha of Infinite Light vowed to liberate beings who invoke his name with devotion, just as a mother flies to her child’s side as soon as she hears him cry, “Mommy!”
A colleague of mine once asked Yukhog Chatralwa, a great meditation master, to give him some instructions on Dzogchen (the primary teaching and practice of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism).
Without saying a word about Dzogchen, Chatralwa replied:
“You should first try to say the name-prayer of the Buddha of Infinite Light one hundred times a day with strong devotion. Then try to increase it to two hundred, three hundred, and so forth.
If you could keep doing more and more, one day, a time might come for you that whatever you are doing, you will always be with the name of the Buddha in your breath and the feeling of his presence in your mind.
If that happens, then when you die, you will die with the name of the Buddha and the feelings of his presence.
If that happens, as soon as you die, because of the merits, the blessings of the Buddha and your devotional habits, all your perceptions will arise as the Blissful Pure Land of the Buddha of Infinite Light. Your future will be in peace and happiness. You will become a source of benefits for many others. Isn’t it wonderful!”
Though I didn’t realise it at the time, years later I started to understand how profound and meaningful his words were.
If we have trained in the mindfulness of seeing all as a buddha and his pure land, then even if we encounter negative images, sounds, or feelings in the bardo, they will be powerless to hurt us, and everything will turn into positive phenomena.
It is like having a nightmare: if we are able to recognise it as a dream and an illusion, we can immediately render it impotent, causing the attackers to vanish like mist in the sunlight.
In the same way, if we can recognise any frightening experience of the bardo as an illusion or as a pure land, it will become ineffective or will turn positive. The frightening Lords of the Dead will turn into enlightened angels of wisdom and love.
But we must begin to train now, before death arrives. If we practice every day or many times every day, we will not be at a loss when the crucial hour arrives.
Source: Thondup, Tulku. Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth: A Tibetan Buddhist Guidebook. Edited by Harold Talbott. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 2005.
It is … important to know that as long as we are alive, it is possible to change and improve our future. Of course, we will always be subject to unavoidable limitations imposed by physical and environmental laws.
But when we die, our minds will be less restricted by external forces, so we will be driven by the ingrained mental tendencies that we fostered in the past.
This is precisely the reason why the best way to improve the quality of our life, death, and afterlife is to work on changing our conceptual and emotional habits from negative to positive.…
But we must begin to train now, before death arrives.
(Tulku Thondup, Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth)