When death comes, nothing can be taken away except the merits of Buddhism
2023-10-24
Lectures by Master Jing Jie
You think: When you die, except for the merits of the Dharma, nothing else can be taken away with you, and nothing else will be helpful. That is to say, when death comes, all our blessings will be destroyed by death.
Nothing can be taken away, only karma remains with us. At this time, it is about our life plan. The life plan of most of us only plans for this life. It means that we have set our ambitions since we were young when we were studying. What do we want to do: I will study well for a few years, work well for a few years, and plan my retirement well. But we rarely plan for the next life. You don't think about what you do in the next life.
The question is, since we do have next life, why don't we make plans for the next life and why don't we accumulate resources for the next life? A person should not waste all his mental energy in this life, otherwise you will be terrified when dying, because you have used all your mental energy to manage the happiness of this life, and when death comes, you will find that "all the Vipāka of this life are complete destroyed", there is no support in the heart and no good deeds to rely on.
So it is understandable that we have to spend half of our time managing this life; but you have to spend half of your time accumulating resources for the next life, because you have to face death, and sooner or later you have to face the next life.
So, at this time, through the observation of death, we know that "our current life is only a temporary pratītya-samutpāda-aṅga." We are about to face a new life, and whether the new life is happiness or pain is related to our practice in this life. So, at this time we will start to think about accumulating good karma, because when death comes, after all the Vipāka in this life is over, the good karma in our hearts will not be destroyed by death and can be brought from this life to the next life.
So, we use the thought of Anitya to counteract the love for blessings in this life, because we also need to accumulate resources for the next life. This is the first one.
