By Tulku Thondup Rinpoche

Tulku Thondup Rinpoche, esteemed Tibetan teacher and Buddhist scholar, tells AltMed how contemplating death can teach us to live more consciously.

Tibetan Buddhism often focuses on death and dying. That is a difficult concept for Westerners, who have a fear of death and a preoccupation with it at the same time. Why does Buddhism focus so much on death? Death is a difficult topic, but thinking about it is so worthwhile. Understanding death will transform how we live. We will instinctively know what’s important and what’s not. We will want to cultivate qualities that will make us blossom spiritually and radiate peace and joy for all—and not just in this life, but also in the infinite future.

Buddhism aims to improve life. But for Buddhists, life isn’t just this one life that we now see. “Life” includes our future lives too, for Buddhists believe in reincarnation. So for us, death is a part of life. It is the unavoidable transition that joins this life to the next.

When I lived in my monastery in Eastern Tibet, we used to contemplate our mortality and the changeable nature of the world every morning. The purpose was to keep us on track and anchored in reality. There’s nothing like the unavoidability of death to focus the mind on what is truly important in life—spiritual values.

So, how can contemplating death change the way a person lives his life?

When we understand our mortality and the speed with which life passes—not just intellectually, but from the heart—we will innately know what to do with our time here. We will automatically want to deepen our spiritual qualities, for we leave everything else behind at death.

Death makes us realize the preciousness of every moment. We start to critically examine everything we do in this light: “Will this activity further my spiritual evolution and the evolution of all beings?” If it will, we will spend more time on it. If it won’t, we will waste less time on it and perhaps even eliminate it altogether.

Many people feel afraid or even stressed when they think about death. What’s your advice for them?

You might think that meditating on death and rebirth would be stressful. However, stress—the bad kind anyway—usually occurs when we feel scared and helpless.

We tend to fear what we don’t know, but Buddhism gives us all the information we need about death. Enlightened Buddhist masters going back to the Buddha have described death and after-death in detail. Even today, clairvoyant Tibetan adepts—including my own teacher—can remember their past lives and see where others take rebirth.

As for feeling helpless, Buddhism’s core message is that we can handle death and our journey beyond. There’s no reason to feel helpless. No matter how negative our life may be now, Buddhism shows us how we can dispel the nightmare of our confusion and usher in the dawn of peace and joy when we die.

It seems like meditating on death too much could cause a person to lose sight of the present moment.

Meditations on death and rebirth do not remove us from living fully in the present. The most important principle of living fully is not to be aware of every detail in our surroundings. Rather, we live fully through awareness of the peaceful, joyful, devotional, and compassionate qualities