Understanding Death and the Purpose of Life : หน้า 155/207

do not know when we are going to die. We must sooner or later be separated from all loved ones and treasured things. How can people think about death? 1. Thinking about death with the false view: Thinking that death is inevitable or just waiting for death to come, without cultivating merit or anything good, is a waste of a precious human life. 2. Thinking about death with the right view: Death is unavoidable, therefore, before dying, one must make the most of one's physical existence by cultivating the maximum number of good deeds in order that the accrued merit resulting from those deeds will be carried on to the next life. All life ends at death. Yet, death could never be the purpose of life. The purpose of life is to cultivate merit and purify oneself from defilements to attain Nibbana. Since defilements still remain, one should never stop doing good deeds until one's last day arrives. This is the best recommendation that we have to offer. Daily reflection on death and the separation from all loved ones and treasured things helps develop consciousness and progress in meditation. A person who performs this reflection will live his life with prudence and preparation. He tends not to seek any extra attachment to animate or inanimate things, focusing instead on performing good deeds. He is unafraid of any hardships. He realizes that death is creeping ever closer, like a shadow that has followed him from birth and is ready to attack him in moments of weakness. 3. Cultivating the utmost merit: The objective of life is to live with purpose or meaning. Doing something that cannot be carried over to the next life is not considered truly beneficial. The Lord Buddha realized that only the results of our deeds will follow us when we die. He taught, "We are owners of our actions, we are heirs to our kamma, whatever actions we perform, be they good or evil, we will receive their consequences." He taught three principle guidelines on how to live our lives and get the best out of them: 1. Avoid evil deeds: Cast off past bad habits and avoid starting new ones which can increase adverse consequences, to the extent that they will bring us to the unfortunate realms or cause us to miss the path to the heavenly realms and Nibbana. 2. Doing good deeds to the utmost extent: Attempt to perform any good deeds one has never performed and increase the effort devoted to those good deeds that one has already performed in order to gain passage to the heavenly realms and Nibbana while shutting the doorway of hell. The Warm Hearted Family 308 The Value of Life The Warm Hearted Family 309 The Value of Life