Mind of Clear Light
And Living a Better Life
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Publisher Description
"Everyone dies, but no one is dead," goes the Tibetan saying. It is with these words that Advice on Dying takes flight. Using a seventeenth-century poem written by a prominent scholar-practitioner, His Holiness the Dalai Lama draws from a wide range of traditions and beliefs to explore the stages we all go through when we die, which are the very same stages we experience in life when we go to sleep, faint, or reach orgasm (Shakespeare's "little death").
The stages are described so vividly that we can imagine the process of traveling deeper into the mind, on the ultimate journey of transformation. In this way, His Holiness shows us how to prepare for that time and, in doing so, how to enrich our time on earth, die without fear or upset, and influence the stage between this life and the next so that we may gain the best possible incarnation. As always, the ultimate goal is to advance along the path to enlightenment. Advice on Dying is an essential tool for attaining that eternal bliss.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Buddhist scholar and professor Hopkins studied intimately with the 14th Dalai Lama to complete this volume on spiritual preparation for death and dying. The book draws upon the 17th-century poem by the First Panchen Lama, which focused on Buddhist techniques for mastering the fear of death and finding spiritual enlightenment through the"stages of dying." The 17 eloquent stanzas begin with ideas about awareness of life's cycle ("May we extract the meaningful essence of this life-support/Without being distracted by the senseless affairs of this life"), and move through each level of consciousness in anticipation of death, or rebirth ("May we be reborn with the supreme life-support of a Tantra practitioner using the sky"). The Dalai Lama elaborates upon the verse with Indian and Tibetan textual and oral traditions; the rather esoteric poem thus leads to more concrete advice, such as"You have to practice morality, concentrated meditation, and wisdom on a daily basis." Fear disappears when practitioners learn to embrace awareness of death, the Dalai Lama says, and through such insight, they are able to more fully take advantage of the given life.
