Student and Teacher

Together on the Path

In this excerpt from the Fall 2021 Retreat on Living in Joy, Dying in Peace, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche speaks to a student's difficulty with imagining dying.

Student: I have an aversion to looking at the death process. It's not because I'm afraid. What's hardest for me is imagining saying goodbye to my children and all my loved ones. The thought of that moment beyond which I will never see them again is very, very painful for me. Can you please share anything that might help me with this?

Rinpoche: Anytime when we love, it is a strong experience, especially with children. The idea that we won't see them, we won't be around once we're dead, the separation, of course is painful. But when you have a wonderful relationship and you're doing well and they're doing well, then we are lucky in those situations to recognize that loving them is one thing; not being able to see them, being dead is a different story.

What we really wish for is their well-being. I don't have to see them. I don't have to be around all the time. Of course it is hard. But at some point, that is what we need to feel. In any relationship, that is how we need to feel. If you really care about someone then their well-being is your well-being. Their happiness is your happiness. Their freedom is your freedom. Their joy is your joy. If they're happy that's what really matters.

If you are open to this idea, and you are able to feel that, then you separate your attachment from a real sense of love. Attachment is always painful, but the purer your love gets then it is not painful. A pure sense of love has so much space in it. That relationship doesn't require that you see them all the time. So their joy is your joy, their freedom is your freedom. If they're happy, that's what matters. At some point we have to go, and if they are okay, then that's what matters.