Description
The first of the eight Visuddhimagga death contemplations is the contemplation that death is always with us. Traditionally, one imagines that death is like a murderer with a knife, stalking a victim. In my renderings, I have left the visualization of death more open. You can visualize a murderer if you’d like, but could also visualize death in a different way. Regardless, the core meaning of this contemplation remains: every being and every thing that was born will die, that what comes up must come down – that death comes naturally with being alive.
In brief, imagine death as some kind of being following you as you imagine going about your life. Understand it is there with you always. Continue by perceiving this for others. Try to feel that we’re all living with death whether we’re aware of it or not.
How to use
As with all of the eight contemplations, I encourage you to start with either a series – in this case the first series – or with a short or long version of this contemplation. Once you’re familiar with it, you can do it on your own and use the brief version in your daily life.
Brief version
The brief version is useful once you’re familiar with the contemplation and want to use it in your daily life. For this contemplation, at different transitional times – say when leaving your house for the day, falling asleep, waking up, leaving work, or saying goodbye to friends or family, consider that death is there with you. If you’re a visual person, imagine the being you’ve visualized in your formal practice as there with you. If you prefer words, say something simple to yourself like, “Death is with me as I ___”
You can also do this for others.
Discussion: indications, side effects, and results
This contemplation is the most accessible formal death contemplation of the Visuddhimagga. It also evokes the Buddhist truth of impermanence in general – that everything that has a beginning has an end, and that everything changes. The most basic effect is to create awareness of the pairing of birth and death – that what is born dies, that what goes up must come down. This can evoke samvega, spiritual urgency – the sense that one shouldn’t waste time. Because of the usefulness of this contemplation, I’ve tried to make the visualization open-ended and accessible so it can be useful to everyone. In particular, it is well-suited to people who struggle with the day-to-day reality of death (most human beings) and allows opening into the other more complicated elements of maranasati (mindfulness of death) in a natural way. That is to say, if you spend a lot of time doing this death contemplation, you’re likely to suddenly be aware that you don’t know when you’ll die, or how you’ll die, or come to the reality that everyone’s in the same boat regarding death, and that a lot of what people do is pointless – so that when you progress to the later death contemplations, these pieces of reality feel more obvious.
Regarding climate change, this contemplation is useful for everyone in that it’s a good basis for awareness of mortality, both one’s own and the planet’s. Applied in a brief way, this contemplation can bring up compassion and motivation to help with the crisis, and is thus good for activists.
As for side effects, many people have emotional reactions to this contemplation. It can evoke unsettled feelings of fear or being pursued, disgust, anger, joy, grief, or comfort. The basic advice is to neither fight with nor indulge in the reactions. Instead, allow them to come and go with mindfulness. If you have a strong reaction, consider doing more grounding practice, such as loving-kindness or mindfulness of the body (or breath, the elements, etc.)
Some people have peculiar reactions to this contemplation as well. For instance, if you feel like you’re actually being stalked or followed by some being, or begin to struggle with fear of the dark or of the unknown, this is a sign that you’re holding this contemplation too tightly. Relax. It would also be helpful to journal or seek counseling. These kinds of fears are about something your mind can’t deal with directly, not about actually being stalked or followed. You will probably need to deal with that psychological fear before you can work with death. Also, on the psychological level, the form that death takes in this contemplation can be an interesting starting place for psychotherapy or self-inquiry. For instance, if death appears to you like a silver butterfly – why a silver butterfly and not a red-eyed squid or a growling coyote? The meaning of the form of death and related inquiry can be very productive.