It was the wish of the great 16th Karmapa, the lineage holder of the Karma Kagyu lineage, that I should receive the transmission of a unique practice from Ayang Tulku—the meditation of Conscious Dying (Tib. Phowa). At the request of the 14th Shamar Rinpoche, I passed this unusually powerful method on to approximately 120,000 of my students who sat three hundred courses over the course of twenty-seven years, starting in 1987. Thus, they have gained the ability to send their mind into a liberated state when the time comes for them to die. At the same time, they obtained the ability to liberate people close to them who have recently died from the cycle of suffering. This is called the hook of compassion.
In the meantime, I have had to give up teaching this hard and exhausting phowa. At the request of my teachers, and with insight into and in consideration of my health, my main task has become to spread Mahamudra. Phowa simply consumed too much energy. Nevertheless, none of my students have lost anything.
Because the love of the Buddha of Limitless Light (Skt. Amitabha, Tib. Opame) is inseparable from all-pervading space, our transmission lineage offers an equally efficient but less spectacular path. This Buddha made the wish that all beings who trust him and use his methods will gain liberation after their death.
Whether one has already meditated a lot or only a little, one takes refuge as always and meditates on the athletic and attractive Buddha of Limitless Light, who sits above one’s head, transparent like a hologram. At the same time, one concentrates on the strong wish to reach the perfect realm of highest bliss. Aiming for that while repeating at least five hundred thousand om ami dewa shri mantras will give us access to his pure essence. Soon, many people feel that “something” is building up above their heads, which wishes them everything good, and which is a place where they want to go. In order to provide mind with even more meaning and richness in everyday life, we consciously offer familiar and trusted things like a good meal, a precious meeting, or our freedoms to the Buddha of Limitless Light and his power fields.
By repeating this meditation regularly, mind gets used to focusing on the meaningful richness above one’s head. Thus, at the moment of death, consciousness recognizes the direction it has practiced and automatically goes to the Pure Land of the Red Buddha. In that way one receives a profound certainty in terms of one’s own dying and an impression of the many beautiful experiences that await us after death. Because these mainly appear in the moment when one forgets to have or to be something, they are especially convincing. Beyond all imaginings, beyond holding on or pushing away, the images appear in front of the experiencer, are recognized as being dreamlike and as possibilities of mind—and liberate themselves into space as naked knowledge without causing expectation or fear.
Such experiences of freedom remain stored and develop even more effectively the more one practices. In short moments, the radiant awareness that dwells between and behind the thoughts and recognizes them is thus experienced. Although the habitual world returns again afterwards, it has more “space” in it, shifts more fluently from the narrow either/or to the both/and. Having finally arrived in one’s center and having one’s full strength, one can say—like the Tibetan yogi Rechungpa after a blessing from Milarepa more than eight hundred years ago—“Now I don’t need anything from anybody!”
In that way, the roughest veils fall away, and one more frequently has experiences that are beyond words. The basic insight here is that the experiencer timelessly encompasses both death and birth and increasing confidence grows out of it.
This practice can be done at any time and at any place. My capable and experienced students teach this meditation in each of my Buddhist centers around the world, and guide this and other Diamond Way meditations.
