Mindfulness of death

[ground]

Continuous mindfulness of death leads to letting go, leads to mindfulness according to Satipatthana, leads to liberation ...

It is the most simple of all practices. You don't need suttas and sutras, treatises or whatever ... you just have to be aware of an undeniable fact moment to moment, breath-in or breath-out ... I may be dying in this very moment

What do you think?

[Hanzze]

That it could be very very frustrating for somebody who is not even aware that he needs to go to the toilet, nothing else.
Of cause its a very effective practice, but I guess not the best in a normal householder life. *smile*

Some may fear and have not enough mindfulness to realize its just fear and some would even believe that they live for ever as it wouldn't and wouldn't happened in the kind they await.

I guess some dynamic meditation is quite better for the most. We don't need to forget that we live in Osho's times. But that is just the half of a cent, an old copper.

We wouldn't come out of the natural "carpe diem" vs. "memento mori" game of wandering on as long as there is not enough pain. *smile*

[ground]

Obviously I don't lead "a normal householder life"

[Hanzze]

Everybody can see that this householder life is not normal, but maybe there are some who do. *smile* Or maybe we need to think about what householder life actually means (aside of thought constructions). It's all about binding and "task".

How ever, its a great meditation. Maybe you can provide some situations of its effects in not normal householder life. I don't know, such situations when the post man rings on the door, or the neighbor claims that water drops down from your flat into his living room. Or the internet provider urges for a extension of the contract. *smile*

[ground]

Maybe you can provide some situations of its effects in not normal householder life.

I just can say that my householder life has become non-normal

[santamonicacj]

I think it is important to not just see it as simply a re-statement of the christian idea that we should not do what we want in this life because it won't go over so well in the great hereafter. There does exist the idea of karmic consequences in Buddhism, but there is more to it than that. I think Steve Jobs was closer to the correct buddhist position/understanding when he said:

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." 

[Hanzze]

Autsch! I guess that is a trap, we might misunderstand our heart with our belly. *smile*

But if the understand this (speak we are really a little aware) there is no problem with the sentence of Steve Bob.

The King of Death

We live like a chicken who doesn't know what's going on. In the morning it takes its baby chicks out to scratch for food. In the evening, it goes back to sleep in the coop. The next morning it goes out to look for food again. Its owner scatters rice for it to eat every day, but it doesn't know why its owner is feeding it. The chicken and its owner are thinking in very different ways.

The owner is thinking, "How much does the chicken weigh?" The chicken, though, is engrossed in the food. When the owner picks it up to heft its weight, it thinks the owner is showing affection.

We too don't know what's going on: where we come from, how many more years we'll live, where we'll go, who will take us there. We don't know this at all.

The King of Death is like the owner of the chicken. We don't know when he'll catch up with us, for we're engrossed — engrossed in sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas. We have no sense that we're growing older. We have no sense of enough.

[santamonicacj]

We live like a chicken who doesn't know what's going on. In the morning it takes its baby chicks out to scratch for food. In the evening, it goes back to sleep in the coop. The next morning it goes out to look for food again. Its owner scatters rice for it to eat every day, but it doesn't know why its owner is feeding it. The chicken and its owner are thinking in very different ways.

The owner is thinking, "How much does the chicken weigh?" The chicken, though, is engrossed in the food. When the owner picks it up to heft its weight, it thinks the owner is showing affection.

We too don't know what's going on: where we come from, how many more years we'll live, where we'll go, who will take us there. We don't know this at all.

The King of Death is like the owner of the chicken. We don't know when he'll catch up with us, for we're engrossed — engrossed in sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas. We have no sense that we're growing older. We have no sense of enough.

Yeah, that idea too. 

[Hanzze]

To the OP. I am not sure if that "Mindfulness of death" is said rightly. We might be able to visualize something we believe as death, we might speculate with a thought of death, but is that really "mindfulness of death" observing of death? *smile*

I guess it's better to really observe death around in in us all the time, as to illustrate something we can not be aware right now, but we can be mindful on the stream death of all phenomenas all the time. Physically and in mind.

Maybe it's worthy for a deeper research what the sutta is meant. *smile*

[Spiny le Norman]

Continuous mindfulness of death leads to letting go, leads to mindfulness according to Satipatthana, leads to liberation ...

It is the most simple of all practices. You don't need suttas and sutras, treatises or whatever ... you just have to be aware of an undeniable fact moment to moment, breath-in or breath-out ... I may be dying in this very moment

What do you think?

I would find continuous mindfulness of death very difficult to maintain.  But I do try to be aware of impermanence ( anicca ) as described in the 4th tetrad of the Anapanasati Sutta.

Spiny

[ground]

Continuous mindfulness of death leads to letting go, leads to mindfulness according to Satipatthana, leads to liberation ...

It is the most simple of all practices. You don't need suttas and sutras, treatises or whatever ... you just have to be aware of an undeniable fact moment to moment, breath-in or breath-out ... I may be dying in this very moment

What do you think?

I would find continuous mindfulness of death very difficult to maintain.  But I do try to be aware of impermanence ( anicca ) as described in the 4th tetrad of the Anapanasati Sutta.

Spiny

It is a practice. Practice means cultivating whenever there is remembrance and even cultivating this remenbrance.
From my perspetive it is like this:
When there is practice of mindfulness according to Satipatthana Sutta then mindfulness of death is covered by either the Satipatthana of the corpse or the Satipatthana of the aggregates and the sense bases.
"Corpse" directly conceptualizes decay of the body and applies this visualization to one's own body.
"aggregates and the sense bases" entail "letting go of everything". "Letting go of everything" is exactly the effect of mindfulness of death too.

[Hanzze]

mindfulness of death is covered by either the Satipatthana of the corpse or the Satipatthana of the aggregates and the sense bases

Its just that it needs the self to connect this things and make it to something imaginary which one could observe. So its more a kind of esoteric perspective of mindfulness I guess. *smile*

Maybe you might compare this argumentation now with the argumentation you had in the "anicca observing tread" of Spiny, which is a similar approach as your idea here I guess.

I don't think that there is something to be observed or being mindful of it, which comes from an idea or an metal construct. How would we come deeper if we just maintain mindfulness to do not lose our ideas of what things actually are? Just the vision would become our reality, but visions would no fade away to see what it is real.

[ground]

mindfulness of death is covered by either the Satipatthana of the corpse or the Satipatthana of the aggregates and the sense bases

Its just that it needs the self to connect this things and make it to something imaginary which one could observe. So its more a kind of esoteric perspective of mindfulness I guess. *smile*

"self to connect this things " may be true for Satipatthana of the corpse but not for Satipatthana of the aggregates and the sense bases which is in conformity with the teachings of Tripitaka Dharma Master

Maybe you might compare this argumentation now with the argumentation you had in the "anicca observing tread" of Spiny, which is a similar approach as your idea here I guess.

There are no arguments I am applying. I am suggesting methods so that you may come to know on your own. It is you who is arguing.

I don't think that there is something to be observed or being mindful of it, ...

I agree that there is nothing. But how to experience that there is nothing to experience? I am just pointing

[Hanzze]

But how to experience that there is nothing to experience?

I guess first of all to come down form ideas *smile* and simply observe.

So maybe you explain it in more details what you meant by mindfulness of death? What could you observe beside an idea of what it actually is?
You talk about the imagination "I could die?", so what you might be able to observe is the reaction of such an image (what ever the creativity had made out of it) "Uhh!" or "Hmmm" or "Aiii!" or "there is no me I can not die..." So what do you really observe?

Or did you mean something similar to the anicca recitation to recall some mindfulness. You can be mindfull observing a corpse and you can mindful observe the aggregates but that what is meant by death in the OP is a connection on both that might decay on moment, so it needs the "I" to be observed to be "real". *smile*

[ground]

But how to experience that there is nothing to experience?

I guess first of all to come down form ideas *smile* and simply observe.

Nothing to observe. Just be like a dead one in a living corpse.

So maybe you explain it in more details what you meant by mindfulness of death?

Explanation is already over. Either you got it or you didn't.

You are just habitually fabricating as always. Monkey mind.