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Guided Meditation: The Last Breath

Good morning everyone. Good day.

We're coming now to the very end of this series on Satipaṭṭhāna. There is a practice offered by the Buddha for the purposes of ending sorrow, lamentation, suffering, and distress; for the purification of beings; and for the attainment of Nibbāna^[1], or liberation. It is designed to address some of the most fundamental existential issues that humans can have. While mindfulness is sometimes taught in the modern world for stress reduction, this Satipaṭṭhāna discourse is really being taught here for the highest realization of the end of suffering. Traditionally, this practice of Satipaṭṭhāna is considered to be the best practice to have as a person is dying.

To learn this practice well, to have it close at hand, and then, just as we're dying, to have this available—to know it, to value it, to be able to do it with some ease, not as a forceful practice, but almost as a natural expression of life as we're dying. There's a teaching the Buddha gave to his son where he said that if someone cultivates mindfulness—in this case, he was talking about mindfulness of breathing—that a person will know their last inhale and last exhale as it ceases, as it ends.

The tradition says that this means the person will die calmly, but I believe it's deeper than that. There's something about being calmly present, really present for one's last breath, without being afraid, without being angry, without being distressed. It is a phenomenal opportunity, a phenomenally wonderful and important way to die.

And so the question for this meditation for you is: what is it about being present for the end of—especially the exhale, but the end of the inhale, the end into the exhale—as if it's one's last exhale, one's last inhale, and that one follows it all the way out calmly? What's available there in terms of letting go, in terms of peace? What is it? That's kind of the question I'd like to leave you with here for this meditation. As you settle down and are present, what might be there with riding, tracking the ending of the inhale, the ending of the exhale, that is invaluable at the time of dying? The ceasing, the letting go, the releasing.

Perhaps during this sitting, with all that we've done now these months on Satipaṭṭhāna and being present for experience, maybe there can be this question that you engage with in every exhale, every inhale: What is it? What is it about that exhale? What happens there? What's available there? What's the possibility there? What is it that is so important, so valuable, that the Buddha is pointing to?

I suggest that if you take this up as a way of being present today, this question, that you don't answer it analytically. You don't answer it cognitively so much—that might come as a byproduct—but rather, the answer is in the stillness of the mind. The answer is in the stillness, the silence, and the peacefulness. But have a question and see what comes.

And then we'll just sit here today quietly. You have had lots of instructions and guidance, and today you're left here with yourself and your own breathing.

Sitting here as if each exhale will be your last exhale ever.

Being there fully for the exhale.

And the letting go.

And then as we come to the end of the sitting, what place of quiet stillness is available for you at the end of the exhale, or any place at all, that would be a valuable way to sit next to someone who's dying? To be present for them with care, value, and kindness. With love.

And as they're about to take their last breath... to use the analogy of the last breath maybe highlights the preciousness of life, the ever-present value of showing up and being present for what is here for the people in our lives. Not distracted, not caught in the hindrances^[2].

Maybe not caught up in judgments and projections, but to be able to be present, really present, with a quiet heart, quiet mind. At times, it is one of the best, deepest ways to find our deep connection to each other. Whether we know it or not, we are in fact deeply connected.

And perhaps this Satipaṭṭhāna practice can help us to sit freely, peacefully, intimately with that connection, free of clinging.

And with care. May we care for everyone. All the people suffering, all the people going through this human life.

May it be that they are happy. May it be that they find safety. May it be that they find peace. May it be that they find freedom.

May we live for the welfare, benefit, and care of everyone we encounter.

Dharmette: Satipaṭṭhāna (70) Aware at the Time of Death

Good morning, and we're coming to the penultimate talk on Satipaṭṭhāna. After over four months of going through it slowly, we're coming to the end. And we'll all come to an end at some point. This Satipaṭṭhāna practice is considered to be one of the greatest practices to do as we're dying.

If we wait until we're dying to begin our practice, we won't have developed our practice. It won't be there as a strong resource for us at those times.

What I've learned through this Satipaṭṭhāna practice—having been doing this practice for many decades now—it generally gives me a very positive feeling about dying. My relationship to my death is: if I'm lucky to die consciously, without dementia, and without too much pain, I anticipate it being one of the great things to be present for. This letting go that undoubtedly happens as we're dying is one of the best things going, a really wonderful thing to do. The experience that I've had of letting go deeply—I now kind of associate that also with dying.

So I don't feel that dying is so much an end as it is a releasing and letting go. Letting go into... I don't know. It doesn't matter so much to me what we're letting go into. Maybe nothing. But just the letting go is so wonderful, so peaceful, such happiness, so freeing.

So, to consider this practice we've been doing all these months, one of the purposes for it is to come to terms with, find our peace, find our center and our freedom in relationship to some of the deepest and most challenging aspects of human life. This is represented by how the text begins and how it ends. It goes: "So it was with reference to this that it has been said: This is a direct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of pain and grief, for the attainment of the way, for the realization of Nibbāna—namely, the four foundations for awareness."

In some Theravada^[3] countries or temples, there's often a practice of reciting this as someone is dying or after they've died because of this close association with the practice of Satipaṭṭhāna as we're dying. One of the ways to appreciate this is that as we're dying, all kinds of things are no longer that important. In our last breaths, we're not concerned about whether or not we need to buy more socks, or what we're going to have for supper. To be able to let go of concerns and thoughts which are not relevant at that time, to be able to let go of fears, desires, distress—to really not have that get in the way of the fullness of the moment, the opportunity of the moment.

This practice teaches us that we have something better to do than be distressed. Something better to do than being afraid. Something better to do than being lost in fantasy, thoughts, projections, and ideas. Not that we can necessarily put all those things aside, but our interest, our energy, our attention doesn't go there anymore. We can let go of it and focus on this practice of Satipaṭṭhāna, this practice of being aware, awake, and present. That is the better alternative than so many of the ways our minds can go.

To practice Satipaṭṭhāna, this practice of mindfulness, helps us to see over and over again in a deeper, clearer way how it's the better alternative. This is where life is found, freedom is found, peace is found, more often than the other things the mind is doing.

The compulsion of certain thoughts, feelings, and attitudes—as much as they might seem important to us, through this practice we see that there's something better to do. There's something much more freeing, more peaceful, more alive, more satisfying to do than thinking about our resentments, thinking about how other people are wrong, or thinking about regrets we have over our lifetime. Those things can have a place in life, but to realize that they're not the best alternative. They're not the most valuable place to be. We do not need to invest so much in things that are to our detriment, that diminish us, that are a wind drag for ourselves.

To know what's the best alternative, to see that being awake, being aware, being present is the best alternative going—even at the very end. For this last breath that we have, what's the best thing to do at that point? Would you know that? Do you really feel this is how you want that last breath to be? I hope it's not wondering who's going to get your socks when you die. I hope that there's really something there, and then maybe there's a letting go of the world around you and the relationships for that breath. Maybe there's a letting go into being awake, into being aware, letting go into release. Letting go.

So that all these months we've been doing Satipaṭṭhāna, it comes to this: that it's really about some of the most essential, deepest aspects of our life. Death represents that, but there's all kinds of suffering that human beings have. The human realm is filled with suffering and challenges. How do we meet it? How do we address it? How do we find our way through it? For the Buddha, this is the unified way. This is the direct way. This is the way. I think of it as the simplest, most uncomplicated way all the way through to freedom, to liberation.

Well, thank you. We'll do our last talk tomorrow, and I look forward to our time. Thank you.