You must assume that you will die and should think, I’ll will die today.” For, if you assume that you will not die and think, I’ll probably will not die today,” you will continually make preparations to stay in this life and will not prepare for your next life. Then when you die, you will then die in sorrow. If you prepare for death every day, you will accomplish many goals for your next life. Hence, even if you do not die today, you will have done well. If you do die, it is even more meaningful in that you will have done what you needed to do.
~ No matter what kind of body you assume at birth, death comes.
If all the buddhas, and their
Pratyekabuddha and srtivaka disciples left their bodies,
What can be said about ordinary beings?
No matter where you stay, death comes.
Somewhere to live that is unharmed by death-
Such a place does not exist.
The Descent into the Womb Sutra says:
Currently, if we protect our bodies well in order to live comfortably,
we will live, at the longest, one hundred years or a little more.
Few of us reach the expected life span of one hundred years, for much of our life span seems to be finished already, and what remains cannot be extended even for a moment.
Contemplate this with many examples. When weaving cloth, weavers use no more than one piece of thread on each pass, yet they quickly finish weaving the cloth. When animals such as sheep are led to slaughter, they move closer to death with every step they take.
Even if you could live long, it would be wrong to think that you have time. Much of your life has already been wasted in meaningless things, half of what is left will be spent in sleep plus other distractions. Further, as youth fades, the time of aging arrives. Your physical and mental strength deteriorate such that even if you want to practice religion, you lack the capacity to do so.
Chay-ga-wa said that if you subtract from sixty years the time you lose to food and clothing, sleep, and sickness, not more than five years are left to devote to the teachings.
This being the case, the wonders of this life will be mere memories at the time of death, like waking up and remembering the pleasurable experiences in a single dream. Think, “If the enemy, death, is surely approaching and cannot be stopped, why should I delight in the delusions of this life?” Then decide that you must practice the teaching and make many heartfelt pledges to do so.
Because this is a time when impurities are rapidly spreading, there are extremely few persons who accumulate the great power of virtuous deeds that enables a long life. Also, since the medicinal power of our food and such is weak, we have little resistance
to disease. The provisions we do use are not easy to digest and thus have diminished power for enhancing the body’s great elements. Further, since you have done little to amass the collection of merit and your wrongdoing is very potent, practices such as mantra recitation have little efficacy. All of this makes it extremely difficult to prolong your life.
Furthermore, there are no causes of staying alive that do not become causes of death. In other words, you seek such things as food and drink, shelter, and friends in order not to die, but even these can become causes of death. For instance, you may consume the wrong food and drink, or consume too much or too little. Your shelter could crumble, or your friends could deceive you. Thus, it is clear that there are no causes of staying alive that cannot become causes of death.