‘You Can’t Really See What Is Going to Happen to You’ When he visited New York this past summer, Lama Zopa Rinpoche encountered a skeleton. To benefit the person whose the skeleton it had been, he offered blessings and mantras (see video below). The skeleton, he pointed out, should remind everyone of the inescapability of impermanence and death. “It’s not certain which will come first—tomorrow or the next life,” Rinpoche says in his book Kadampa Teachings, quoting from Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, explaining that, “rather than working for tomorrow, it is better to work for the next life.” He adds, “Tomorrow is uncertain, but our next life will definitely happen, and it could happen at any time. Therefore, we should work for the happiness of that future life. This is why it’s so important to practice Dharma.” “You can’t just relax, saying ‘I’m not going to die today,’” he comments, quoting again from A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. “You can’t sign a guarantee that you’re not going to die today. You can’t really see what is going to happen to you, not even in the next hour or the next minute. It’s totally dark. Since you can’t see what’s going to happen, how could you guarantee that you’re not going to die today? The thought that you’re going to live for a long time continues even to the day of your death … It’s not true, and it cheats you.” Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting mantras to the skeleton on YouTube: https://youtu.be/y1hKN9VioaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1hKN9VioaQ Read more from Kadampa Teachings on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: http://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/kadampa-teachings Get the e-book or a print copy of Kadampa Teachings from the Foundation Store and support FPMT International Office: http://shop.fpmt.org/Kadampa-Teachings–Hard-Copy_p_1283.html Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service. http://fpmt.org/lama-zopa-rinpoche-news-and-advice/lama-zopa-rinpoche-news/you-cant-really-see-what-is-going-to-happen-to-you/ Caption: Lama Zopa Rinpoche recites mantras to bless a skeleton, New York, USA, August 2016