Life in Relation to Death
Life in Relation to Death (2nd ed.)
by Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche
Padma Publishing, Junction City, CA ©2000 (Death & Dying) 51 pp.
This very accessible booklet by Tibetan Buddhist Chagdud Tulku
Rinpoche offers practical instructions for preparing for death. Suggestions are provided for meditation and
prayer practices, as well as putting one’s priorities and affairs in order
(appendices even include legal forms for the latter). He describes the physical/mental dying
process, and includes notes on opportunities for enlightenment to the true
nature of reality.
Rinpoche makes this analogy to death: It is like someone who travels in a foreign country and pays his way in
the country’s currency. Then he gets to the border and is surprised to learn
that the country’s currency can’t be exchanged or carried across. As my father used to say, “You can’t take
it with you”.
This implies that useful words about death must come out of
the moment now in which we live and cannot escape. From this perspective, we
cannot take our possessions or achievements even into the next moment, much
less the next life.
-- reviewed by Wesley Lachman