The-Tibetan-Book-of-Living-and-Dying

THE PROCESS OF DYING 251
feast around his deathbed. He sat there in meditation posture
waiting for death, but nothing happened. After several hours
his guests began to get tired of waiting and said to each other,
"Let's start eating." They filled their plates, and then looked up
at the prospective corpse and said: "He's dying, he doesn't
need to eat." As time went by and still there was no sign of
death, the "dying" man became famished himself, and worried
that there would soon be nothing left to eat. He got down
from his deathbed and joined in the feast. His great deathbed
scene had turned into a humiliating fiasco.
Good practitioners can take care of themselves when they
die, but ordinary ones will need to have their teacher at their
bedside, if possible, or otherwise a spiritual friend who can
remind them of the essence of their practice and inspire them
to the View.
Whoever we are, it can be a great help to be familiar with
the process of dying. If we understand the stages of dying, we
will know that all the strange and unfamiliar experiences we
are passing through are part of a natural process. As this process
begins, it signals the coming of death, and reminds us to
alert ourselves. And for a practitioner each stage of dying will
be a signpost, reminding us of what is happening to us, and of
the practice to do at each point.
THE PROCESS OF DYING
The process of dying is explained in considerable detail in
the different Tibetan teachings. Essentially it consists of two
phases of dissolution: an outer dissolution, when the senses
and elements dissolve, and an inner dissolution of the gross
and subtle thought states and emotions. But first we need to
understand the components of our body and mind, which disintegrate
at death.
Our whole existence is determined by the elements: earth,
water, fire, air, and space. Through them our body is formed
and sustained, and when they dissolve, we die. We are familiar
with the outer elements, which condition the way in which we
live, but what is interesting is how these outer elements interact
with the inner elements within our own physical body. And the
potential and quality of these five elements also exist within our
mind. Mind's ability to serve as the ground for all experience is
the quality of earth; its continuity and adaptability is water; its
clarity and capacity to perceive is fire; its continuous movement
is air; and its unlimited emptiness is space.