The Truth of Death

What is the difference between cardiac death and brain death? Why can one still blink at the instant the head is severed from the body? Why does one still feel that one has limbs and a torso at the moment the head and body are separated, only that the body feels unresponsive? Why does everyone consider the brain to be the most important part of the body, instinctively covering the head when in danger?

Cardiac death is when the heart and pulse stop beating, blood is no longer delivered, and breathing ceases. Brain death is when the central nervous system of the brain has no reflex activity; the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body show no response whatsoever; there is no neural activity; the pupils of the eyes are dilated and unresponsive to light; examinations of the ears, nose, and tongue show no response; the body's muscles are limp and inelastic, and bowel and bladder control is lost. These phenomena indicate that the supreme faculty of the brain has completely lost its function. In cardiac death, the brain does not necessarily die, because qi and blood may still be supplied to the brain, the six sense objects can still be transmitted into the supreme faculty, and faint six consciousnesses may still exist. But in brain death, cardiac death has certainly occurred. Brain death is the true death. However, if the examination for brain death is not thorough enough, it may be misjudged — a person who is not dead may be considered dead.

At the instant the head is severed from the body, qi and blood still supply the supreme faculty of the brain, the six sense objects can still be transmitted to the supreme faculty of the brain, and the manas can still control the central nervous system, directing the five faculties and six consciousnesses. Therefore, one can still blink at this time. Since the information of the six sense objects still remains in the supreme faculty, and the body's information is also in the supreme faculty, the manas and mind consciousness habitually assume that the body still exists. The manas still wants to control bodily activities, and only when it feels that it cannot control them does it realize that the body has separated from the head (itself). The manas knows many things; part of this is the manas's original function, but most of it is purely experience — having experienced too much, it knows innately. Yet He cannot express this knowledge, so the mind consciousness does not understand it. As for ignorance, is there more in the manas or in the mind consciousness?

If it is not a natural death, then what way of dying is the most refreshing, the shortest in time, and the least painful? It is direct decapitation. The qi and blood needed for brain activity are only those in the supreme faculty; once they are consumed, death occurs — very quickly. When qi and blood are gone, the six sense objects are no longer transmitted into the supreme faculty, the six consciousnesses disappear, pain ceases, and the person dies. If other parts of the body are cut, the farther from the brain, heart, and internal organs, the longer qi and blood continue to supply the brain, and the slower the death. The most cruel and painful death is death by lingchi (dismemberment by a thousand cuts) — cutting one slice at a time away from vital areas; since the six consciousnesses are not extinguished, pain is felt continuously.

What is the most comfortable way to die? A death supported by wholesome karma and meritorious karma that leads to rebirth in the heavenly realm is very comfortable and blissful. The body and mind become soft, the countenance becomes magnificent, surpassing one's appearance in life. The heavenly realm appears before one, heavenly music welcomes one, heavenly fragrance fills the room. The moment the mind rejoices, the breath ceases, and the consciousness appears in the heavens. An even more comfortable death is when the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas come to welcome one; the intermediate state body rides on a lotus and, in a snap of the fingers, is reborn in sukhāvatī (the land of bliss) or another Buddha-land. However, this requires even more and greater wholesome karma and meritorious karma to support it, which ordinary people cannot cultivate.