Tag: philosophy

“I Will Not Die Today”…

Again, from Tsongkhapa:

Although we all have the thought that at the end of our life will come our death, each day we think, “I will not die today” and “Today too I will not die.” In this way, right up to when we are about to die, our mind holds on to the idea that we are not going to die.

If you do not take to heart an antidote to this, if your mind is obscured by such an idea and you think that you will remain in this life, then you will keep thinking about ways of achieving happiness and eliminating suffering in this life only, thinking, “I need such and such…”

Devoid of the perception of death, addicted to thinking that he will never die, the human being deprives himself of his essence, prevents the notion of the most important from blossoming within him. He is distracted by perishable futilities, wasting his time deluding his spirit. If for a moment he understands the true nature of death, he will no longer be able to live as before, no longer accept to get lost in worldly banalities, and will demand, even at the cost of his life, a reason that justifies his reality. Since there is death, since death annihilates the body, forces a final separation of possessions and relations, what is left? Is there anything left? Searching for answers, the being transforms his behavior and cancels the dangerous notion of “I will not die today”, moving on to the obsession: “If I die today… what then?”.

Ancient Eastern Texts and Modern Psychology

It is astonishing to compare the ancient eastern texts with modern psychology, noting the gap of more than twenty centuries and the diffuse notion that the latter has revolutionized the understanding of man. Modern psychology—scientific, materialistic—limits itself to analyzing a reduced dimension of man, and if we summarize its achievements, we will say that it was responsible for creating and disseminating the idea of an inferior human model. In the Eastern texts, so ancient—and who knows when the tradition dates back to?—the human psychology is presented in a complexity that escapes to modern psychology: man is painted with a much larger dimension. All this for a very simple reason: the ancient Eastern texts were written by wise men who took their masters as a model; modern psychology is written by psychologists and psychiatrists who take their patients as a model. This is why we find in the former a vocabulary full of purification techniques, and in the latter, full of mental diseases.

Nothing Clutters the Mind Like a Fit of Rage

Nothing clutters the mind like a fit of rage. A single and brief angry impulse and the spirit, transformed, completely loses control and concentration. Let it disconnect, cool down, shortcut the action… Buddhists say that a single moment of anger destroys everything that has been accumulated of virtue by a being throughout his multiple existences. In any case, what is certain is that full mental functioning requires calmness and the cold blood of a snake.

There Is No Higher Perception Than That of Impermanence

As it is said in the Mahaparinirvana sutra, there is no higher perception than that of impermanence. By contemplating death,—and near death,—the being drives the lowly dimension out of himself, isolates himself from worldly desires, and precludes the manifestation of pride. Becoming aware of the impermanence of everything on this earth, the ignorance characteristic of the lower human model becomes impossible. Death does not surprise the one who prepares for it and considers each day as the possible last. The perception of impermanence makes the futile unmistakable and prevents the being from moving away from the essential.