Description
In this contemplation, one considers the five unknowns. Traditionally these are:
(1) the span – as in how long your lifespan will be,
(2) the sickness – as in, what the cause of your death will be,
(3) the time – as in the time of your death, or, interpreted more broadly, the circumstances you’ll die under (when/where/with whom),
(4) where the body will be laid – interpreted broadly, what will happen to your body after death, and
(5) the destiny – as in, where one is reborn, or, more broadly, where one’s consciousness goes after death.
I’ve interpreted these broadly in my rendering. You could also look at them more traditionally, interpreting the time as the time of day of death (morning, afternoon, night), and where the body will be laid as the location of death – most traditionally you could think of this as the location where your body finally collapses and you expire. Whatever way you interpret these, the point is that these things aren’t known until death comes about. Even a person with a terminal illness can’t say for sure whether that’ll kill them or whether they’ll slip on a banana peel on the way to the hospital.
To do this, consider each unknown in turn. You can focus on a single unknown in a session of contemplation or you can go through all five in a session. In my recordings, I invite people to cycle through all five, as well as to consider the broader sense of unknown around death not only for oneself, but of other people, beings, and even things.
How to use
As with all of the eight contemplations, I encourage you to start with either a series – in this case the third series – or with a short or long recorded 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. This contemplation especially lends itself to casual contemplation in daily life.
Brief version
While walking or waiting, think about the fact that you don’t know how long your life will be or one of the other unknowns. I have personally found it effective while waiting in lines or at the airport to cycle casually through all five, saying to myself in turn, “I don’t know how long I’ll live…” and considering that, then, “I don’t know how I’ll die…” and considering that, etc., until “I don’t know where I’ll go after death…” before I start over with “I don’t know how long I’ll live…”
Indications, side effects, and results
Contemplating Death as Signless is the first contemplation in the third series, which tends to focus on the internal, instinctive understanding of the reality of death beyond thoughts and conceptions. This contemplation specifically confronts our thoughts about death and what it will be like for us. Inevitably, each of us has notions about how long we’ll live, how we’ll die, and what will happen. The point here is that these notions and answers are just thoughts and, no matter how intensely we think something, it doesn’t mean it will happen that way. This refutes a core assumption that thinking makes or reflects reality, and exposes a core assumption about not knowing what will happen. Obviously, the application of thinking isn’t just to death, but to much of life. We are constantly constructing a reality of our thoughts around us and seeing the world through the lens of our assumption of how things are. While this is usually practical for most of us most of the time, it cuts us off from things that don’t reflect our wishes, fears, and past experience – in other words, it cuts us off from the reality beyond our thought-constructions. One of my teachers is fond of saying that many impossible things happen all the time but nobody notices because they conceive the things as impossible. Our thoughts become a set of blinders, in other words, that we wear because we’re afraid of the unknown.
In the case of this contemplation, we’re turning our thoughts to something unknowable. While much of life doesn’t signal back to us that we’re making things up as we go, death is a good mirror because there are no knowable answers to these questions. Thus, we can be sure that any answer we come up with is just a thought.
Many people find this contemplation boring as a result. If you find it boring, broaden your scope to consider all the things you don’t know. You don’t know for instance what will happen in 5 minutes, let alone when you die.
Others find this contemplation exhausting. If you do, try to relax. You’re not going to find the right answer, so try not to get tense about getting it right – you can’t.
Another response to this contemplation is thinking of exceptions. For instance, perhaps your relative said they would die at 72 and they did die at 72, so they knew, right? Don’t get lost in these exceptions. You don’t know when you’ll die, even if someone else seemed to. Even if you think you know, be aware that thinking you know is just another thought, even if in the end you happen to be right. In other words, they’re all just thoughts. Be aware of them as such.
At least one result of this practice is deep relaxation around not knowing. Neither this contemplation (nor any Buddhist practice I know of) will cause you to permanently stop thinking. It is important that you be able to think: Thinking is important to function and engage in human life. But you don’t have to be tense around your thoughts. Most of us aren’t aware how much tension we’re holding. Doing this contemplation can help you recognize thinking as just thinking, and find release instead of tension, not just around the signlessness of death, but around living.