At the end of the day, what does the body do? It dies. We have taken so much care of it for a good number of years, and then what happens in the end? It completely betrays us and dies. It does not tell us when it is going to die, or how it is going to die. We cannot schedule it. It would be convenient to schedule death, wouldn’t it? You could finish all your projects and have visualisations of your dream death. Plan it. Have everything you want in front of you. Free yourself of everything you do not want. Then make sure the bed is very comfortable before you lie down to face death.

How much time and energy do we spend worrying, with attachment and anxiety over this body? From a Dharma viewpoint, the body is simply the basis for having a precious human life. We need to keep it clean and take care of it so we can practise the Dharma. That is all. We do not need to pamper it. We do not need to do ascetic trips. Just clean and take care of it so we can use it to practise the Dharma. When it is time to die, we let go with ease and a peaceful goodbye.

Lama Yeshe used to share this story that you want to be like a bird taking off from a ship in the middle of the ocean. You just take off like the bird does. The bird does not look back and think, “Oh god, can I fly off this ship?” It does not start to flap and look back saying, “Oh, this precious ship. Where do I go now?” The bird just goes. That is the way we want to be. We have some work to do on reducing the attachment to this body if we want to die peacefully.

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