From the time of the Buddha, Buddhists have spent time contemplating impermanence – often by deliberately meditating on their own mortality and eventual death. This practice isn’t for everyone, but it can help motivate us stay motivated to practice, focus on our deepest aspirations, take responsibility for our karma, maintain equanimity, and remember the preciousness of this moment. It can also lead to profound insights about the nature of the self.
Quicklinks to Article Content:
Contemplating Impermanence
Squandering Our Lives
Contemplation of Death and Impermanence as Skillful Means
The Ultimate Impermanence: Buddha’s Nine Cemetery Contemplations
The Buddha’s Five Contemplations
Dogen and Impermanence: The Fortunes of Life Are Like a Dart of Lightning
Contemplating Impermanence
Recently, I was backpacking and had the opportunity to sit and watch the sun set on small alpine lake with a large, snow-capped mountain in the background. At one point, direct sunlight was limited to the tops of some of the trees on the eastern part of the lake. I momentarily felt wistful about the passing of the light… and then it occurred to me that this feeling was akin to what I will feel someday, watching my life draw to a close. It was a feeling of appreciation tinged with sadness, but also without resentment because I understood that this was the natural way of things.
I heard another Buddhist practitioner quote someone recently, I don’t know who, as saying, “We will die soon.” How true this is! No matter how long our life ends up being, we will feel like the time of death has arrived for us quite soon.
In Zen and Buddhism, reminding ourselves of the fact of our eventual death has been used as a tool of practice since the Buddha’s time. For me, one of the most poignant examples of this is an ancient gatha sometimes chanted in Zen monasteries. I was first exposed to this at Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York around the year 2000. I don’t know if they still do this, but when I was there someone sang it in Zendo every night, after zazen, right before the beginning of the Noble silence (when you don’t speak a word unless it is absolutely necessary) and bed. I’ve chanted it on the podcast before, but I’ll do it again to set the tone for this episode:
“Let me respectfully remind you, Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. . . . . . awaken, Take heed. Do not squander your life.”
Squandering Our Lives
If you thoughtfully, honestly contemplate how you want to have lived your life when you look back on it, I suspect you usually aren’t prioritizing your deepest aspirations the way you could be. I know this is the case for me. As we think about how often we fall short of the admonition to “take heed” and to avoid “squandering our life,” it isn’t helpful to get caught up in ideas about how we should be living, or in comparisons with some ideal or with other people. Instead, reflecting on our deepest aspirations should involve reminding ourselves of what we ourselves sincerely want. When you’re looking back at your life, when the last of the sunlight is receding from the trees, how do you want to have lived?
Why don’t we prioritize our deepest aspirations more? Many things get in the way: Fears, anxieties, resentments, habit energy, short-term desires, laziness (defined as the failure to apply what we know to be wholesome). We generally do not live as if we will die soon.
It’s probably adaptive for us to glibly go about our lives assuming we have all the time in the world! Natural selection led to whatever maximized our survival and reproduction; it probably wasn’t advantageous in that limited sense to spend time pondering the ephemeral nature of our lives. After all, some of the people who did this ran off and became celibate monks and nuns. Still, thankfully, we do have the capacity for contemplating impermanence, and for reflecting on our lives and how we want to spend them. Human beings are much more complex than can be explained by maximizing survival and reproduction alone.
Fortunately, it doesn’t really matter why we ended up with a strong tendency to live as if we have all the time in the world. What matters is what we can do about it.
Contemplating Impermanence and Death as Skillful Means
As I’ve said before on the podcast, “practice” means to live deliberately. Instead of letting our lives unfold by chance, or be shaped by habit energy, aversion, delusion, or grasping, we clarify our aspirations into vows (or intentions, if you like a less formal word) that can help direct our lives toward those aspirations. As I discussed in Episode 124 – The Buddhist Practice of Vow: Giving Shape to Our Lives, living by vow can be hard work and it doesn’t magically transform us into perfect people, but can improve our lives and give them deeper meaning.
If we want to take full advantage of our human life, it’s good to live as if we will die soon – depending, of course, on what exactly is meant by that. It’s good to live with consciousness of our mortality when it helps motivate us to practice, to prioritize the many competing demands or possibilities in our lives, and to remember the preciousness of this moment.
However, a practice is considered “skillful means” in Buddhism (see Episode 40 – Being Beneficial Instead of Right: The Buddhist Concept of Skillful Means) when it is beneficial – that is, when it relieves suffering, and increases wisdom and compassion (even if the practice is uncomfortable at first). If contemplation of your impermanence instead fills you with fear or despair, or if you are depressed and it makes your depression worse, then such contemplation should be done carefully, if at all. You probably have issues around death that would be helpful to face and understand, like almost any person alive, but contemplation of death primarily as a way to motivate yourself to practice may not be the right approach for you at this time.
Whether reflecting on your own imminent death is useful to you or not, it’s important to remember that Buddhist practice is entirely voluntary. Whatever practice you take up should be your choice, and your efforts should be sincere. Sure, there are times when it’s good to give a new practice a fair trial in order to understand what it’s all about, but it’s usually not very effective to adopt something just because you think you should, or because other people are doing it. In the case of contemplation of our own mortality, don’t think Buddhism is telling you, “You’re enjoying your life? Bad Buddhist! You should be working hard, grimly contemplating death!” If we sometimes contemplate death, it’s because doing so can be unexpectedly beneficial.
The Ultimate Impermanence: Buddha’s Nine Cemetery Contemplations
With that disclaimer about skillful means out of the way, then, I’ll share with you what is probably the earliest Buddhist teaching about meditating on our own mortality. In the Satipatthana, or Frames of Reference Sutta (a.k.a. Four Foundations of Mindfulness Sutta), the Buddha recommended Nine Cemetery Contemplations (this translation from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, from Access to Insight):[1]
“…if [a practitioner] were to see a corpse cast away in a charnel ground — one day, two days, three days dead — bloated, livid, & festering, he applies it to this very body, ‘This body, too: Such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate’…
“Or again, as if (s)he were to see a corpse cast away in a charnel ground, picked at by crows, vultures, & hawks, by dogs, hyenas, & various other creatures… a skeleton smeared with flesh & blood, connected with tendons… a fleshless skeleton smeared with blood, connected with tendons… a skeleton without flesh or blood, connected with tendons… bones detached from their tendons, scattered in all directions — here a hand bone, there a foot bone, here a shin bone, there a thigh bone, here a hip bone, there a back bone, here a rib, there a breast bone, here a shoulder bone, there a neck bone, here a jaw bone, there a tooth, here a skull… the bones whitened, somewhat like the color of shells… piled up, more than a year old… decomposed into a powder: (S)he applies it to this very body, ‘This body, too: Such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate.’” [2]
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness sutta is a very popular one within Theravadin Buddhism, the modern Vipassana movement, and to some extent even the modern mindfulness movement. However, I suspect that its passages on mindfulness of breathing or bodily sensations are shared much more often than these Nine Cemetery Contemplations! It’s understandable, I can imagine people in a mindfulness class having some negative reactions to them, thinking them morbid, depressing, anxiety-inducing, or as encouraging hatred of the body. These negative effects are possible of course, depending on how we approach this kind of practice.
The idea, confirmed by countless Buddhist practitioners over the millennia, is that a deep, visceral, personal recognition of our very own mortality is a beneficial thing. How? For one thing, we treat things very differently when we know they are temporary, when we are aware they will be gone soon. We pay more attention to them. We don’t take them for granted. We appreciate them more. We take care of them.
When we fully comprehend the ephemeral nature of our body, we also hopefully recognize it as not-self – that is, we recognize the body is not the permanent, enduring, independent self we assume exists. We also recognize that the body can’t belong to a permanent, enduring, independent self – at least not one that has any meaningful level of control, seeing as it can’t prevent the disintegration of the very body on which it depends. So, meditation on the death and deterioration of the human body can lead to profound spiritual insights.
The Buddha’s Five Contemplations
Another famous suggestion for contemplating impermanence was offered by the Buddha as a motivation for our practice – as a way to light a fire under ourselves and try to live more as if we are going to die soon. In the “Upajjhatthana Sutta: Subjects for Contemplation” (this translation from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, from Access to Insight), the Buddha says:[3]
“There are these five facts that one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained. Which five?
“‘I am subject to aging, have not gone beyond aging.’ This is the first fact that one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained.
“‘I am subject to illness, have not gone beyond illness.’ …
“‘I am subject to death, have not gone beyond death.’ …
“‘I will grow different, separate from all that is dear and appealing to me.’ …
“‘I am the owner of my actions,[1] heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.’ …”[4]
Many Buddhist Sanghas recite the Five Contemplations regularly. Again, they might seem kind of grim, and indeed such contemplations can take on a grim tone if we take ourselves too seriously. However, when adopted as a way to remind ourselves to live deliberately, instead of by karma, these contemplations are an act of compassion for self and others. As the Buddha goes on to explain in the “Subjects for Contemplation” sutta, the Five Contemplations help weaken our intoxication with youth, health, life, and the things and people we love. It’s interesting that he uses the word “intoxication,” which accurately conveys how we get caught up in all of these things and forget our deepest aspirations – even to the extent that we may do things we later regret in order to hang on to youth, health, life, and the things and people we love.
Reminding ourselves of our imminent death reminds us that we don’t have much time for practice. We don’t expect to become saints before our death, and no one else expects us to. Instead, our aim is to do as much good as we can during this lifetime – to clean up as much of our twisted karma as we can, so we don’t inflict it on others or leave a residue when we finally pass on.
I’m sure you can think of people who have died who seemed to have left the world a better place than they found it. Such people are remembered fondly, with affection and gratitude, and are easily forgiven for their shortcomings. This contrasts with other people who were driven by their karma, or who stewed over their injuries and neglected to practice, or perhaps even generated more negative karma through selfish or destructive behaviors. When they die, a sort of spiritual residue lingers in the people and spaces around them, often perpetuating sadness, confusion, resentment, and further harmful behavior. As Buddhists, we aim to use our limited lifespan to practice, thereby decreasing suffering and increasing wisdom and compassion – in ourselves, and in the world around us.
Dogen and Contemplating Impermanence: The Fortunes of Life Are Like a Dart of Lightning
The third and final Buddhist teaching I’ll share about contemplating our impermanence comes from Zen master Dogen. In Fukanzazengi, he says:
“You have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form. Do not pass your days and nights in vain. You are taking care of the essential activity of the buddha way. Who would take wasteful delight in the spark from a flint stone? Form and substance are like dew on the grass, the fortunes of life are like a dart of lightning—emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash.”[5]
How often do you think of your life as a “pivotal opportunity of human form?” I think most of us are grateful to be alive, but we don’t often think of our life as pivotal opportunity to practice. Instead, we try to enjoy it as best we can, look after our responsibilities, and cope with challenges. These seem like natural activities, so what does it mean to pass your time in vain? I think each of us can answer this for ourselves. It’s not about someone else looking at our life and judging whether our activities are worthwhile. We ask ourselves: Are we living according to our deepest aspirations? Are we letting precious days, weeks, and months go by, intoxicated by life, instead of doing the things we’ve always meant to do?
The essential activity of the buddha way is to live in accord with reality. Reality is that we will die soon. Reality is that many of our self-centered ways of seeking satisfaction are distractions from the path of practice which can bring us true peace. Reality is that practice takes work and time, and liberation isn’t something we can count on achieving at the last minute.
When I hear Dogen’s phrase about taking “wasteful delight in the spark from a flint stone,” I get the image of a child who thinks the sparks are something she might be able to capture and keep, sparkly and permanently exciting, in a jar. Or that the sparks are going to lead to something great, which never comes. It’s just the sparks, brilliant but lasting only an instant. When we’re aware of our own impermanence, we realize the pleasures of our lives like these sparks.
Dogen offers us a couple more images of incredibly ephemeral phenomena to compare to our lives: Dew on the grass, and a dart of lightning. We don’t have to take his word for the accuracy of these comparisons. Almost universally, human beings look back at their lives at the time of death and conclude it was all over incredibly quickly. While we still have time, we can choose to contemplate our own impermanence in order to give us a perspective on our lives that’s more in line with reality. With this perspective, we are less likely to get obsessed with or upset about things, because they just don’t seem to matter as much when we recall that we are going to die soon.
Endnotes
[1] “Satipatthana Sutta: Frames of Reference” (MN 10), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.than.html
[2] “Satipatthana Sutta: Frames of Reference” (MN 10), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.than.html
[3] “Upajjhatthana Sutta: Subjects for Contemplation” (AN 5.57), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.057.than.html
[4] “Upajjhatthana Sutta: Subjects for Contemplation” (AN 5.57), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.057.than.html
[5] https://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/eng/practice/sutra/pdf/03/c01.pdf
