THE CONTEMPLATION THAT AT THE TIME OF DEATH NOTHING EXCEPT THE DHARMA WILL BE OF BENEFIT When you see that you must go to another life, although you may be surrounded by very loving and distressed friends or relatives at that time, you cannot take even one of them with you. Whatever heaps of marvellous riches you have gained, you cannot take along even a tiny particle of them. Indeed, if you have to leave behind even the flesh and bones you were born with, what need to talk of anything else? Now you should contemplate, “There will certainly come a time when all the wonderful things of this life leave me, just as I leave them, and I will proceed to another life. This may even happen today.” Repeatedly make the decision to practice the Dharma and avoid falling under the influence of your body, your friends, your possessions, and so forth. From: The Middle-Length Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, by Tsongkhapa. Translated by Philip Quarcoo and published by Wisdom Publications.
THE CONTEMPLATION THAT AT THE TIME OF DEATH NOTHING EXCEPT THE DHARMA WILL BE OF BENEFIT
When you see that you must go to another life, although you may be surrounded by very loving and distressed friends or relatives at that time, you cannot take even one of them with you. Whatever heaps of marvellous riches you have gained, you cannot take along even a tiny particle of them. Indeed, if you have to leave behind even the flesh and bones you were born with, what need to talk of anything else? Now you should contemplate, “There will certainly come a time when all the wonderful things of this life leave me, just as I leave them, and I will proceed to another life. This may even happen today.” Repeatedly make the decision to practice the Dharma and avoid falling under the influence of your body, your friends, your possessions, and so forth.
From: The Middle-Length Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, by Tsongkhapa. Translated by Philip Quarcoo and published by Wisdom Publications.