Why is mindfulness of death for a moment better than a day?

Discussion
,
1

In AN 6.19, the Buddha tells monks that mindfulness of death for one in and out breath or while eating one morsel of food is better than mindfulness for a day or a day and night. The exact words were:

‘When this was said, the Blessed One addressed the monks. "Whoever develops mindfulness of death, thinking, ‘O, that I might live for a day & night… for a day… for the interval that it takes to eat a meal… for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up four morsels of food, that I might attend to the Blessed One’s instructions. I would have accomplished a great deal’ — they are said to dwell heedlessly. They develop mindfulness of death slowly for the sake of ending the effluents.

"But whoever develops mindfulness of death, thinking, ‘O, that I might live for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up one morsel of food… for the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out, that I might attend to the Blessed One’s instructions. I would have accomplished a great deal’ — they are said to dwell heedfully. They develop mindfulness of death acutely for the sake of ending the effluents.”

Is the reason for that the “imminence of death,” that for instance one moment before death is more perilous than expecting death in a day? So therefore it’s more urgent and earnest?

I have another idea of why it’s better. Although intuitively doing something good for a day is better than doing it for a second, there is also the idea of being in the moment.

For example, thinking ahead or behind for a day in general is not the immediacy of “now.” In the same way Zen masters instruct, “be here now” perhaps being mindful of death and impermanence in the direct immediate is superior to, “just for today,” because even looking ahead half a day is not “in the now.”

Is this correct?

2 Likes
2

Yes, that’s how I would see it too. If death is always one day ahead, then it is never really close. That is the illusion, right? I will die, but not now. But now is the only time we have.

2 Likes
3

I think it is so. One day is quite long, one has enough time to write the last will, to say goodbye to friends and so on, some personal things may seem to be important, while with the span of life just a few seconds absolutely nothing matters anymore.

Not sure whether it is conclusion which can be derived from the Sutta, but there’s absolutely no harm to interpret it this way since Suttas MN 131 - 134 are of great importance*. And actually it comes to the same, it means to die to the past and future, past and future simply don’t count any more.

It’s good to remember that sakkayaditthi is self-identification with things which have duration. Arahat describes his experience as follows:

‘I was’ is not for me, not for me is ‘I shall be’;

Determinations will un-be: therein what place for sighs?

Pure arising of things, pure series of determinants –

For one who sees this as it is, chieftain, there is no fear.

Theragāthā 715, 716

*“Let not a person revive the past
Or on the future build his hopes;
For the past has been left behind
And the future has not been reached.
Instead with insight let him see
Each presently arisen state;
Let him know that and be sure of it,
Invincibly, unshakeably.
Today the effort must be made;
Tomorrow Death may come, who knows?
No bargain with Mortality
Can keep him and his hordes away,
But one who dwells thus ardently,
Relentlessly, by day, by night—
It is he, the Peaceful Sage has said,
Who has had a single fortunate attachment.

Or

“And how is living alone perfected in detail? Here, Thera, what is past is left behind, what is future is renounced, and lust and desire for the selfhood acquired in the present is quite put away. That is how living alone is perfected in detail.”
So the Blessed One said. The Sublime One having said this, the Master said further:
A sagely all-transcender, an all-knower,
Unsullied in all things, renouncing all,
By craving’s ceasing freed: him do I call
A man who lives alone and to perfection.
S. 21:10

M: What makes you believe that you are a separate individual?
Q: I behave as an individual. I function on my own. I consider myself primarily, and others only in relation to myself. In short, I am busy with myself.

M: Well, go on being busy with yourself. On what business have you come here?

Q: On my old business of making myself safe and happy. I confess I have not been too successful. I am neither safe nor happy. Therefore, you find me here. This place is new to me, but my reason for coming here is old: the search for safe happiness, happy safety. So far I did not find it. Can you help me?

M: What was never lost can never be found. Your very search for safety and joy keeps you away from them. Stop searching, cease losing. The disease is simple and the remedy equally simple. It is your mind only that makes you insecure and unhappy. Anticipation makes you insecure, memory — unhappy. Stop misusing your mind and all will be well with you. You need not set it right — it will set itself right, as soon as you give up all concern with the past and the future and live entirely in the now.

Q: But the now has no dimension. I shall become a nobody, a nothing !

M: Exactly. As nothing and nobody you are safe and happy. You can have the experience for the asking. Just try.

M - Nisargadatta Maharaj

2 Likes
4

mindfulness of death for a moment

Simply you are confusing how long you are doing the meditation with how soon you are contemplating you might die. It’s just the difference of contemplating “I might die today” vs “I might die while I’m taking this breath.”

After all, the mindfulness of death practice is all about urgency. For an ordinary person, even constantly having the thought “I might die today” would stir up urgency. But not nearly so much as “I might die in this moment.”

And it has nothing to do with the importance of the last moment before death. That’s not an EBT thing, btw.

6 Likes
6

I can appreciate that, though if one is aware of the contingency that one might die in the next breath, they are also planning for the possibility that they will not be meditating after the next breath, because they would be dead.

You’re right though that in practice, a person still is possibly alive after many thousands of these breaths, but it still means if it’s taken seriously, they are not necessarily promising themselves that they will be alive.

It doesn’t actually change the duration of their life probably, and may even extend it because they have less future-oriented tension.

So in some ways it’s both. They are planning to meditate for at least one breath, and possibly much more, but also contemplating that life might end after the next breath.

As opposed to the one where they expect death in a day and think, “OK, I’ll definitely sit down for an hour to meditate.”

7

I notice that one of the key differences between the two contrasting examples the Buddha gives is that one is “heedless” (pamāda) and the other “heedful” (appamāda). Your exploration of this passage may be further deepened by looking at how those terms relate to experiences developed in meditation/practice. There was a long thread discussing it a while back that could be of use.

The gist, I would say, seems to be that in the pamāda experience of mindfulness of death, the practitioner may intellectually grasp the idea that death could occur at any moment, but the full gravity of that has not really hit (maybe the longer time scale is given as a clue to this, even though it also includes the momentary time-scale). In the appamāda experience, the imminence of death has much more gravity for the practitioner, it is sobering. So maybe the imminent time-scale of the second example and the use of the term appamāda to describe the practitioner there are meant to indicate a less abstract, more grounded in immediate experience type of understanding when it comes to mindfulness of death.

1 Like