Practice Tip: what to do as you die (Ken McLeod, September 2025)
More than a few people have asked me what practice to do if or when they know they are dying. My teacher’s [Kalu Rinpoche’s] spiritual heir was Bokar Rinpoche, a lovely person whom I came to know when I was in India in 1970-1. When asked just this question, his answer was unequivocal: follow the instructions that [Jamgon] Kongtrul gives in The Great Path of Awakening.
These instructions involve two practices, taking and sending (tonglen) and resting in direct knowing (mahamudra).
Virtuous Seeds
First, put your affairs in order. You cannot take anything with you when you die. Thus, while you are alive, give away everything you can, or make arrangements for it to go to others when you die. If you choose to donate your organs, make those arrangements, too. Because you know you cannot take anything with you, you are able to give free of attachment or clinging. Such giving plants powerful seeds. You will know when the seeds are truly planted because when they are, a quiet joy and relaxation suffuses your being.
Aspiration
Prayers of aspiration are one way to express our hearts’ deepest spiritual yearnings. Find prayers that give expression to why you practice or what you want to come from or through your practice. If you cannot find prayers that express your own yearnings, then write your own. Hold these aspirations deeply in your heart. Again, a sign that you have taken these aspirations to heart is a quiet joy and peace.
Remorse
As we approach death, the memories of ways we have hurt or harmed others come to mind. In the light of death, we see our actions differently. If it is possible, make amends, apologize, or try to balance what you did with something good. If not, then acknowledge what you have done, acknowledge also the pain or blindness in you which led you to act that way, and let the feelings of regret and remorse become the firm intention not to act that way ever again, in this life and in future lives. When that intention takes hold, you feel a shift, in both body and mind. Amidst the remorse and regret, you may feel a pain that wants to be felt, and mind and body begin to relax in a different way.
Determination
Let yourself feel awakening mind, the union of compassion and emptiness, in your heart. This is a clear knowing that, while nothing at all, takes expression as compassion in everything that you do, how you sit, how you move, how you talk, how you walk. Touch the feeling of awakening mind and cultivate the determination to keep it with you no matter what happens, no matter what pain or fear you may meet as you die. When you feel a quiet joy inside you, then you know you are holding awakening mind. Don’t stop there, though. Keep going.
Familiarization
Practice going to sleep while doing taking and sending. The more you do this, the more it will become part of you, and that is what you want. When you do taking and sending, take in the struggles and suffering of others through your right nostril and send out your good fortune, joy, and well being through your left nostril. Again, do this so much that it just becomes part of you. When you join with taking and sending, the rhythm of breathing changes. It becomes long, deep, and peaceful. Don’t try to breathe that way, though. This shift comes by itself when you really rest in taking and sending. As the breath becomes longer and deeper, let the taking and sending go, and rest in awareness. Practice this every night if you can.