DEATH ACCORDING TO THE PRINCIPLES OF MARAṆASSATI IN BUDDHISM

Abstract

Death according to the principles of death consciousness in Buddhism. By consideration of dearth was a way to learn the reality of life in five aspects: oldness, pain, death, separation, and action. When the action had the authority over the life of human beings and animals, they could not be free from those aspects. To practice the contemplation on death caused the mental development without mindfulness while a person was dying. On the contrary, the common people were actually different from the self-control whilethey were dying. After losing the self-control, they died without mindfulness in the last breath or the state of depressed mind, hopeless, unhappy and anxious. The ended mind without mindfulness did not assure a person that he went to the happy existence. To face the death according to the principle of contemplation on death was a way to prepare mind before its appearance. It was a way to be conscious of death coming to oneself and the other people. It was a factor to instruct mind free from delusion, carelessness in making merit, to make mind stable in moral action, and to live with mindfulness and wisdom. Here, mind was powerful to take out all anxiety and fear. It was free from defilement, pure from all enemies, able to cease all defilement, full of mindfulness and consciousness, courageous to face the death, and finally, able to make a person full of happiness in the daily life.