Upvote:2
Death is something that should be understood....
Death happens whether we are ready or not, and even if we are ready that does not make any difference because death is death and there is no escape.
So what about death?
Understand that death is inevitable and realize that like all that there is on the universe your body has an expiry date too. What is made of 4 elements has few common characteristics....
They decay,change and die.
So death is to be understood and in your understanding you become a one who is prepared to continue the path.
What we are all about?
Buddhism is all about preparing to end dying and birth. As Lord Buddha once said
"The greatest threat to beings is the lower realm, They have been born so many time there it is correct to say that the lower realms are like home to living beings..."
This is the danger that we run away from not petty pains and threats like a war or a flu.
About the meditation you are asking details for.....
This meditation was done in the form that you are trying to do in the age of kings and the practice was changed with time and monks adapted to change.
You can Continue the practice of this meditation in the new way and note that the older way is limited to a country or two now.
The new way...
Here is a audio link you are going to need
First you need to find some good pictures and print it into your mind (Looking at it with calmness in mind would help).
Then practice with the audio that i link to the answer and once you are ready do it without the Audio.
Here are some Images that i use...
There are also other Meditations that can help you...
Audio link 2 Meditation_on_Elements
Audio link 3 Meditation_of_Foulness
Audio link 4 Asuba_Aanaapaana_sathi
Upvote:2
In my opinion, meditation on death is good for reducing the naive infatuation with sensual pleasures and the overall heedlessness coming from "intoxication with youth" and "intoxication with health". However, it does not address the more subtle root of suffering, what OP called "attachment to the body's continued existence".
According to Mahayana explanations, although attachment to body as "me, mine" seems obvious and well-based, it is in fact pretty arbitrary. In traditional Lam-Rim literature there are descriptions of hellish states caused by confused identification with other arbitrary objects. Imagine the pain someone experiences when they think they are a door, craving the peace but constantly getting slammed instead.
From Mahayana perspective, our confused identification with a living organism comes from our egotism. We have this deep habit of chasing our personal goals and contrasting them with the goals of other beings. (This works similar to the Stockholm Syndrome, when the hostage temporary aligning with the captor's goals leads to the hostage identifying (bonding) with the captor. In this case the captor is our body or more broadly our social persona). Instead, the Mahayana solution to the identification problem is deconstructing one's ego, first and foremost through the practice of altruism. Indeed, taking an active interest in other people's well-being assists in switching one's focus from "self" to "all" - which reduces and eventually eliminates attachment to an individual organism.
The Mahayana Buddhist term for this is "bodhi-citta", the mind of the Buddha. A simple explanation of bodhicitta is when we make the entire world our business, no longer restricting our sense of care to just ourselves and our close circle.
Coming back to the self-identification, the Buddha explained it like this (in my interpretation):
The multiple ways to break this chain are either: to stop the egocentric activity, or to give up craving, or to stop objectification (via analytical deconstruction of the mind-made models to see their emptiness), or to stop constructing/interpreting the world (by non-maintaining the narratives, non-abiding), or to gain a direct insight into how things work.
Something like this. This may be a little rough around the edges - please don't get hung up on the details -- but it should give you an idea of the overall approach.
Upvote:6
In preparation for death you should:
In order to achieve 1, best is to contemplate that everyone must die and it is inevitable.
In preparation for 3, 2 will be helpful contemplation and meditation as each breath you take might very well be you last.
When you die your mind must be equanimous. This is the target of preparation to die. This can only achived through wisdom by realising the arising and passing away nature of things and realising any worldly phenomena experienced is unsatisfactory and not under one's control to make satisfactory hence let go and be equanimous no matter what your your experience is.
Meditating on a corpse is partly to realise that death is common to all and imminent, but another is to counteract the perception of beauty by seeing it rot. If the body is preserved it does not serve the latter purpose.
What you have to realise is beauty results when someone takes a certain shape and form here is beauty this might bring pleasure - attractive, displeasure - attractive, neutral - average or no special looks. When you analyse the anatomical parts separately this perception of beauty do not arise. Only when they are compounded and take a particular shape this perception of beauty happen. Likewise we take beauty or looks to be a constant than transitory. By looking at a old corpse you realize this, even perhaps even a old person. When it rots you see shape and form is subjected to decay, especially in a young corpse, and you see the transitory nature of beauty, i.e., something that was perceive so beautiful has suddenly become so repulsive. Since the subject is repulsive there is a change your mind may develop aversion towards the object or even the body itself. This is not the objective of repulsive meditation. You have to maintain absolute equanimity throughout, though initially if you are lustful some repulsion can be used to counteract it. If your mind is feeling disgusted at the subject or your body or someone else's body then this is not the type of meditation for your and can become dangerous as your mind is left unbalanced due to the meditation.
Also knowledge that whatever happened to the beauty of this person will also happen to me. The knowledge un un attempt to both beauty of oneself and others should happen.
You should meditate on how your mind constructs beauty and the sensation that follow and the attractions or aversions (you may just not like how someone looks) that result from this perceived beauty. Look at the sensation arising and passing regarding the subject of the meditation and realise the unsatisfactoriness in it (pleasantness when your mind perceives the attraction due to looks, unpleasantness when you perceive repulsiveness of looks and the subject, neutrality towards looks and the subject) and the non self nature. Though this develop revulsion and let go of the attachment to your body and mind or the 5 aggregates or the sense faculties or the world itself.