STOP DANCING WITH THE CORPSE | 停止与尸身共舞
（译文请往下阅读）
(By Tsem Rinpoche)
STOP DANCING WITH THE CORPSE
When my time has come to leave this world, may I have spent my life cultivating my kindness, compassion, love and tolerance and have done works to have benefited others. These deeds can be taken with me in the form of good karma within my mind to benefit myself in future births. May I have purified my karma and therefore not take anymore negative minded misguided rebirths. If I have to take birth again, may I take birth in places where Lord Buddha’s teachings shine brightly and I live in a family and environment that gives me support and genuine good direction and encourages the growth of compassion. May I practice the dharma and continue the cultivation of the mind until supreme enlightenment in this and future lives. When I close my eyes for the last time in this life which will be soon, nothing that will be done to my body thereafter ( eg. washing, cleaning, dressing, make up, nice casket, elaborate funeral, food offerings, many friends mourning, large funeral plot of land, mausoleums, rituals, holidays, nice eulogies, awards, praises, etc) will benefit me as my mind has left the body. Doing anything elaborately or continuously for the body once dead is a waste of time and resources because the body is dead and the mind cannot feel it anymore. So why waste time on my corpse after I have left it. I should be concerned with my mind which is separate from my body and continues to exist.
With the same logic, doing so much for my body now beyond the basics is also a waste of time as it’s a living corpse. It’s nature and the eventual end is death. Why bother so much with it. Whatever I do and spend precious time on should benefit the mind as I am leaving with my mind and not body. Use time on what is lasting and not what will be discarded. The mind is lasting and the body is to be discarded. This is the truth and not morbidity. Therefore samsara (wordly) only offers methods to help the body and not the mind. Some more the ‘help’ is so short lived. So indulging in samsara for our body wastes time on a body we don’t own and we will discard at death soon. Better to work on the mind using dharma because we don’t discard the mind at all even at death. So logically, when we have left our bodies and our bodies start to rot, it is a waste of time to dress it, clean it, adorn it, fight for it, take it on long vacations, indulge it as it is dead. Well, by the same logic, it would be a waste of time to do so much of that now for our bodies because the inherent nature of our body is it will be a corpse and soon. So we are working super hard, indulging super hard and using all of our energies to take care of a corpse to be. We cannot keep this corpse. It is borrowed. So wasting time on samsaric activities that bring some comfort and pleasure to the body is a waste of time ultimately while cultivating the mind especially with dharma, dharma activities and dharma goals is what will benefit us and others now and at the time of death. We are our mind and that comes with us. The body is borrowed and left behind. Why spend more time ‘indulging’ something borrowed and has no lasting value? Cultivating the mind with dharma and Dharma goals is the best use of the limited time we have left. Each day we are not cultivating dharma in our minds and being in an environment for this, we have wasted our precious time. We need to stop dancing with the corpse.
Tsem Rinpoche
停止与尸身共舞
当我必须离开这世上的那一天到来时，但愿我已用我一生培养仁慈、慈悲、爱和包容之心，也做过利益他人之事。这些行为将以善业的形式伴随我到我的来世去利益我自己。但愿我已净化我的业障，不再引生错误的投生，成为怀有负面心智之人。若我必须再次投生，但愿我投生到佛陀教法炬光照十方的地方，并且出生在引导、支持我向善和慈悲的家庭和环境中。但愿我实修佛陀教法，继续修心直至这一世及来世达致无上证悟为止。很快地，我就要面临此生最后一次合上双眼的那一刻。在那一刻，为我肉身所做的任何举动和准备——如清洗和装扮我的肉身；为我的肉身造了偌大的棺材，举办了盛大的葬礼，准备了丰盛的食物供养；或是多少亲友前来哀悼，葬礼的场地或坟墓有多大，仪式有多隆重，悼词有多优美；甚至生前到过什么地方度假、享过什么荣誉和赞赏这等事与物——都将无有一丝的益处，因为我的心续经已离开肉身。一旦肉身死去，无论人们多么精心或持续地为那肉身做些什么，那都只会徒劳无功，因为肉身已死，心续也无法再对死去的肉身有任何感觉。 故此，为何还要在我离去后将时间耗费在我的尸身上呢？我应该重视我的心续，因为心续与我即将死去的肉身是分开的，心续会继续存在。
同理，此时为我的肉身做奢侈的“照料”也是徒然耗费精力，因为此时的肉身不过是一具还活着的尸体。这具还活着的尸体之本质和其最终的结果正是死亡。我还在为它烦恼什么呢？我所做的每件事、我所耗掉的每一刻宝贵时间都应该能够利益我的心续，因为会跟随我离开这世上的是心续而非这副肉身。善用时间在能恒久的事物之上，而非即将被丢弃的东西上。心续是恒久的，肉身是即将被丢弃的。这就是生命的真相而非病态。娑婆（世俗）世界仅仅能提供帮助我们肉身的方法，从未提供帮助我们心续的方法。更何况世俗所能提供的帮助也是短暂的，因此，为了我们的肉身而沉溺在娑婆中只是在浪费时间，因为我们不拥有这副肉身，而且当步步趋近的死亡来临时，我们还是必须舍弃这副肉身。因此，善用佛法来修心是更好的选择，因为即使在死亡面前，我们还能保有自己的心续。于是，按逻辑来说，既然我们一旦离开自己的肉身它便开始腐坏，我们一心装扮和清洗自己的肉身，甚至为自己肉身的舒适而跟别人起冲突，带着自己的肉身放长假去，或是留恋和沉溺于肉身的享受，这么做根本就是在浪费时间，因为它已经死了。再按照相同的逻辑往下推，当下若我们还用自己的肉身去做以上所述的事，我们简直是虚度光阴，因为我们肉身固有的本质就是它终究会变成一具尸体，而这一天更是日日向我们逼近。当下的我们正非常努力、沉溺地用尽全力去照料这副即将变成尸体的肉身，但我们终究无法留下这具尸体，它是借来的。究竟而言，沉溺在带来舒适和欢愉的世俗活动之中只是在浪费时间；反之以佛法、佛法活动和佛法目标来修心，是能在当下和死亡之时利益我们和其他人的事。我们即是自己的心续，心续将永远跟随我们；肉身是借来的，我们终究必须舍弃。既然如此，为何要将更多时间沉溺在借来且没有恒久价值的事物上呢？以佛法和佛法目标来修心，是善用我们仅存时间的最佳途径。不在心续中深植佛法及不在佛法环境中度过的每一天，都是挥霍我们宝贵生命的一天。我们必须停止与自己的尸身共舞。
詹杜固仁波切
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Thank you Rinpoche for this precious teaching. It is so true that we can bring nothing tangible with us when we die, only our mind will continue to live on. Our mind can take rebirth in one of the 3 realms. What we are doing now determine where we will go. All the good virtues and bad habits we have developed are part of our mind that will continue on.
It is not difficult to know where we will go after we die if we look at how we are and what we are doing now. It is important to have a healthy body but it is more important to have a healthier mind. Instead of spending the time to satisfy our 5 sensories, we should develop good virtues such as compassion, kindness, love and care. Positive attracts positive, if we want to have good things happening to us, it is important to develop good qualities in us.
Spiritual practice is how we can develop good qualities. It is not an easy path because we are so accustomed to the rules in samsara. Most of the things that we deem right in Samsara are not that right in Dharma sense. It is logical because if the rules in Samsara are right, there is no need to practice Dharma. There will be a lot of internal battles as we are trying to develop the good attitude and qualities because we are changing our belief. But once we truly believe and accept karma and reincarnation, it will be very easy to change.
May people including myself like to put our priority to beautify our physical appearance. Appearance and body shape is just a temporary physical form which will change and it brings no value to us. Ultimately we should transform our mind to be better as the mind will bring us to a better rebirth in the future. Nothing will help us in the time of death but a mind that is calm and merits will help. Therefore, we should appreciate the time we have and do more dharma work to benefit others. Thank you Rinpoche for this teaching.
好喜欢我们的上师尊贵的詹杜固仁波切比喻我们的身体其实就像活着的尸体，它是借来的，而不是永恒的。
仁波切无时无刻地用不同的方法让我们明白无论花费那么多时间与金钱在我们的肉身上，这不受控制的肉身终有一天会老去和死去。仁波切让我们明白只有心续是恒久的，心续会继续的存在，并且会对我们的来世有所影响。
从今天开始，我们要善用仅存时间与财力修习佛法以及参与佛法活动。如果时间允许的话，可以成为志工来利益其他人。除此，我们不只是单纯修习佛法，并要学会善用佛法来面对一切事与物。这样即使面临死亡时，我们还能保存自己的心续，并带着所有一切佛法的印记永远跟随我们。
Thank you Rinpoche for this very important teaching. Learn and practice Dharma,work for Dharma before its too late.Try not waste our precious time. Be with like-minded friends and company. Everything will change. Nothing is permanent. We will get sick and we will die. This is an article that we all should contemplate on._/\_
Thank you Rinpoche for the fantastic imagery of us dancing on a corpse, and the contemplation on death. So we focus on what, we will spend on for many many lifetimes and not just short term or just this life.
Wonderful analogy, it cuts right thru, exposing our bodily attachments to Samsara. Thank you.
Thank you Rinpoche for this very important teaching. It is simple logic; working on our mind will last us in our future life (long term investment) while focusing on our body only last us as far as this lifetime (short term investment and often time without return), if the body does not already give way part by part, prematurely. Therefore, utilise our precious time on earth to invest in our mind. Every pleasure that derives through this body is short-lived anyway.
Learn and practice Dharma,work for Dharma before its too late.Try not waste our precious time ,as we won’t know what will happens next. So wasting time on samsaric activities that bring comfort and pleasure to the body is of no use .what will benefit us now and at the time of death is to cultivate our mind with dharma and dharma activities. Stay healthy have a healthy body , mind and have Dharma close to us .
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this powerful teachings.
Transforming our mind for dharma is more appropriate then ‘looking good’ with our body which is for others to see or admire in the samsara. When our mind is transformed and when we learn and practice dharma, our mind is perpetually being carried on with dharma imprint. Dharma that we have learned & practiced will help us at the time of death.
Thank you Rinpoche for the sharing
With folded hands
Cultivating a healthy body enough to do and absorb dharma would be good but indulging in our senses as Rinpoche writes above at the expense of dharma, makes no sense and would be a formula and cause to remain in samsara for sure.
We have the choice but it would not be easy if we do not maintain a consistent practice. Momentum is key. Loss of momentum will make it very difficult to restart. Be with like-minded friends and company. It would make it easier to maintain this momentum.
Doing enough to have a healthy body in order to be able to continue to absorb and practise dharma is good enough, but not to the extent of indulging like Rinpoche writes above. Otherwise there would be little dharma and a lot of indulgence which would be a formula and the cause to remain in samsara.
The moment we took rebirth on the planet earth, we are destined to go thru illnesses, old age and death, and then restart the cycle again taking rebirth elsewhere. There is never an end to it, until Buddha Shakyamuni found the truth of getting out of samsara and became enlighten. Cherishing once body and have lots of indulgent will only resulted in never ending attachment and desire. Realising this, we should used the body to generate positive karma and good merits. The day we passed away, we are not able to take anything with us, we leave our family and loves one behind, most importantly, we are leaving our body behind. What we are taking with us at that moment is our karma and merits. Where we are taking rebirth and our next life’s conditions is determined by our karma and merits. So the wise one will use their human body building up good karma and merit bank for their future’s life.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you Rinpoche for the direct and profound teaching about stopping to indulge with our bodies and removing our high expectation with our bodies as well. Based on my understanding from what I have learnt in this teaching, all of our time, effort and energies invested onto our bodies will be eventually ended to ground zero as we have to leave our bodies at the point of our death whether we like it or not. The value we have put onto our physical bodies will not give us any credits or any merits to help us in our next lifetime but it is merely our own delusion and ignorance that make us to think we need to feel good and confident with our bodies. We may not even aware that every second is ticking away is equivalent to every second we are closer to our own death with or without notification.
As such, we should not waste our precious time, energy and effort for just focusing on our bodies but we should treasure the time and energy we have now to invest more into our spiritual practice that can help and prepare our mind for good rebirths at the time of our death. Only our mind will travel to our next rebirth and leaving our dead bodies alone during our death.
May all people able to learn and practice Dharma until the samsara ends.
Thank you with folded hands,
kin hoe
Dear brother, i hear a pessimist sound. May i say you, you sent me a bracelet(4 in fact) and one for my doctor who took care of my back(every month needles and products and elecxttricity in it to cure the car accident). We are super good friends now. I laugh a little bit though it hears cruel. Feeling the body being better is fantastic. That machine, we must take care of as long as we can use it. The same for you. And we here, all of us, do not want you to leave now. The world needs good teachers like you. I will not be no more in this life, a very healthed person but look at me now, and we did a good job. En avant marche dear brother.
At point of death, may I have cultivated a mind of kindness, love, compassion, and tolerance. May I have spent my time working on benefiting others. This cultivation of virtues and performing of good deeds will leave imprints of positive karma that will bring us good future rebirths. May I have also purified negative karma that would have led to cultivation of negative imprints and to misguided rebirths in lower realms.
In any possible future rebirth, may I be reborn where I will meet with the bright light of Lord Buddha’s teachings. May I be born into supportive families who will guide me toward the development of compassion. May I continue to practise the dharma and cultivate the mind until I attain full enlightenment.
We are our mind. When we die, our body will become an ugly corpse. Our minds will go with us to future lives.Hence whatever we do for the body in this life is a waste of precious time and our optimum human rebirth, unless it is to keep the body healthy for the practice of Dharma and for Dharma engagements. We should instead focus on the training of the mind and the development of qualities and on attainments that will lead to full enlightenment -full omniscience and total liberation.
Thank you Rinpoche for this beautiful and powerful teaching.
Rinpoche has again try to awaken our deeply embedded beliefs that this body is our property that we owned. Many of us would be troubled and a little enlightened by this discourse. However, it would not be long before we start again to adorned this untitled property with unimaginable pleasures, attention, paintings etc.. I just wonder what would it take to really, really hit home this teaching and to make us sit up and realise that we have spent too much time worrying about the way we look. Perhaps it is time that we stop fooling ourselves and look at this false reality that this property is ephemeral and project our attention to a renunciation of the self. Thank you Rinpoche for this delightful discourse on dancing with our own corpse. Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu
To every living being, death is inevitable, even for our Lord Budhha, but death is said to be not the end of Life for a buddhist practitioner. Like Rinpoche said, “When the time has come to leave the world, may we spent our life cultivating kindness, compassion, love and tolerance – and have done good works to benefit others! These deeds can be taken with us in the form of good karma within our mind to benefit ourselves in future rebirths. Whatever we do now and spend precious time on should benefit the “mind” as the mind is lasting and the body is to be discarded. This as said is “The truth and not morbidity”. Rinpoche also expressed that, better to work on the mind using Dharma, because we don’t discard the mind at all even at death! The mind with Dharma, Dharma activities and Dharma goals is what will benefit us and others now and at the time of death! Cultivating the mind with Dharma and Dharma goals is the best use of the limited time we have. “YES, TRULY WE SHOULD STOP DANCING WITH OUR OWN CORPSE!” Thank you heartily for the truth and great enlightening, Rinpoche!
A good constant reminder of the state of natural progression of time and how how time as a linear phenomena can wrought the bodies we so love with such devastating effect. Thank you Rinpoche for this teaching and one worth daily contemplation to instil upon our spiritual pathway…
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this article. I remember once Rinpoche said before, “We have 9 actual obvious orifices on our bodies besides the thousands of pores. The substances that come out of these orifices are putrid, smelly, toxic, dirty and filled with germs.” and yet, many of us spend longer time than usual to keep this living corpse clean and beautiful. Some even waste money and time to do plastic surgeries. At the last moment of our life, when our body is unable to move to keep us alive anymore, only our mind keeps us going. Where many people don’t know what will happen during the last moment and not even dare to think about it. Some even are scared to think about it. Only Buddha, Dharma, and Protector able to guide us and help us to keep our mind clear during our last moment. I hope more and more people understand the logic and start practicing Dharma. _/\_
Thank you Rinpoche for giving this teaching _/\_ It is very true that we should not waste so much time working on our body for example on diet just to look nice. Cannot deny that we have to take care of the body to do the Dharma but we don’t need to over do it. It is all waste of time. Better the time spend on Dharma is more beneficial to oneself for current and also future lives. The teaching on impermanence also reminds that nothing on our body will remain the same until we die. Everything will change. We will get sick and we will die. This is an article that we all should contemplate on.
With folded palms,
Vivian
Thanks Rinpoche for this profound and direct teaching on what should be our priority that I cannot agree more.
Samsara is for our physical body/corpse while Dharma is for our mind. The latter is what matters when we die, and dying is a process everyone will experience regardless who we are. We must recognise that one day everything will be gone including the body we have spent so much time in our life taking care of.
Last time, I used to realize that the chasing after material achievement such as luxurious cars, houses, branded items is a waste of time as we can’t bring any of those with us when we die, and the efforts of chasing after them will be all wasted which a lot of people spend the whole life doing it. With this beautiful teaching, it enhances my understanding that not only the material gains but even spending time for own pleasure drive us nowhere too.
We must prioritize our time well for important things not to waste our precious human life. Because we are not sure when would we get this chance to reborn as a human again in the future.
Thank you.