Can One Attain Enlightenment at the Very Moment of Death?

Question: Someone says that one can become enlightened after death. After death, when the five aggregates disperse and the four great elements separate, the gap before the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava) has not yet arisen is the true suchness (tathatā). I feel that the situation he describes is just like nirvāṇa without remainder. Master, please explain in detail: could this person be enlightened?

Answer: If the gap when the five aggregates have dispersed and the four great elements have separated, before the neutrino-body has arisen, were the true suchness, then at that time there should be nothing at all except true suchness—no manas, no six consciousnesses, no physical body, only true suchness. That would be the state of nirvāṇa without remainder, liberated from the suffering of birth and death within the three realms.

If everyone, after death, were in the state of nirvāṇa without remainder, then what would be the point of our painstaking cultivation and study of the contemplation of the four foundations of mindfulness, our study of the principle of the Four Noble Truths, and our elimination of self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) in seeking liberation? Would the Buddha's coming to this world to expound and transmit the Āgama sūtras, teaching sentient beings to attain liberation, likewise be utterly meaningless? Clearly this is extremely erroneous.

Regarding the gap after death when the neutrino-body has not yet arisen: the physical body and the six consciousnesses have all ceased, but the manas certainly cannot cease—otherwise, how could the neutrino-body appear a moment later? How could there be the five-aggregate world of future lives? It is because the manas needs the neutrino-body that the eighth consciousness gives rise to the neutrino-body to satisfy the manas's need. Since the manas of ordinary beings and of those before the third fruit (Anāgāmin) cannot cease, within this gap there exist the seventh and eighth consciousnesses. How can it be said that this is true suchness?

To take a step back, suppose that at this time there were only true suchness—that it were true suchness, that it were the state of nirvāṇa without remainder. Then who would be the one enlightened? With no sixth or seventh consciousness, who would there be to awaken? Could it be that true suchness awakens to itself? Obviously not.

Since within this gap after death the manas still exists, with the seventh and eighth consciousnesses coexisting, neither able to be apart from the other, could enlightenment occur? If enlightenment were to occur, it would have to be the manas awakening on its own, without the assistance of the mind consciousness, without the mind consciousness guiding the manas by saying, "This is true suchness." Could the manas, entirely on its own, possess such great wisdom as to discern true suchness? Obviously it could not. Otherwise, the probability of beings becoming enlightened after death would be enormously high, and many people would then hope to die early in order to attain sagehood. Based on the above contemplation and analysis, judge for yourself whether this person is enlightened or not; I need not say it explicitly.