The Truth of Death

What is the difference between cardiac death and brain death? Why can a person still blink their eyes at the instant of being decapitated? Why, at the moment the head is separated from the body, does one still feel that one has limbs and a body, only that the sensations no longer obey one's command? Why does everyone feel that the most important part of the body is the brain, and instinctively cover the head when in danger?

Cardiac death means the heart and pulse stop beating, blood is no longer circulated, and breathing ceases. Brain death means the brain's central nervous system no longer has reflex activity: the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body show no reaction whatsoever, there is no neural activity, the pupils of the eyes dilate and do not respond to light, examination of the ears, nose, and tongue reveals no reaction at all, the body's muscles are limp and without elasticity, and there is no control over urination and defecation. These phenomena indicate that the brain's supreme faculty (rūpa-prasāda) has completely ceased to function. In cardiac death, the brain is not necessarily dead, because the brain may still have a supply of qi and blood, the six sense objects can still be transmitted into the supreme faculty, and faint six consciousnesses may still exist; whereas in brain death, cardiac death must have occurred. Brain death is true death, but if the examination for brain death is not thorough, there may also be misjudgment—a person not yet dead being declared dead.

At the instant of decapitation, there is still a supply of qi and blood to the brain's supreme faculty, the six sense objects can still be transmitted into the brain's supreme faculty, and the manas can still control the activity of the central nervous system and direct the five faculties and the six consciousnesses, which is why one can still blink at that moment. Since at this time the information of the six sense objects still remains in the supreme faculty, and the information of the body is also in the supreme faculty, the manas and the mind consciousness habitually assume that the body still exists, and the manas still wants to control the body's movements. Only when it feels unable to control them does it realize that the body has separated from the head (oneself). The manas knows many things—part of this is the manas's inherent function, but most of it is purely experience; having experienced so much, it knows things innately. Yet He cannot express this knowing, so the mind consciousness is unaware of it. As for ignorance (avidyā), does the manas have more of it, or the mind consciousness?

If the death is not a natural one, then what manner of death is the swiftest, taking extremely little time, with the least pain? It is beheading directly. The qi and blood needed for the brain's activity exist only within the supreme faculty, and once they are consumed, death follows very quickly. When the qi and blood are gone, the six sense objects are no longer transmitted into the supreme faculty, the six consciousnesses vanish, the pain stops, and the person dies. If some other part of the body is cut, the farther it is from the brain and the heart and internal organs, the longer the supply of qi and blood to the brain lasts, and the slower the death. The cruelest and most painful death is death by slow slicing (lingchi): cutting one knife after another in non-vital areas, the six consciousnesses do not perish, and so pain is felt in an endless stream.

What is the most comfortable way to die? A death supported by wholesome karma and meritorious karma (puṇya), ascending to the heavenly realm, is very comfortable and joyful: body and mind are soft and supple, the countenance is radiant and more beautiful than in life, the heavenly realm appears before one, heavenly music comes to greet one, heavenly fragrance fills the room, and the moment the mind rejoices, the breath ceases and the consciousness appears in the heavens. An even more comfortable death is being greeted by all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, with the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava) riding on a lotus flower and, in the snap of a finger, being reborn in the land of bliss (Sukhāvatī) or other Buddha lands. But this requires the support of far greater wholesome karma and merit, which ordinary people cannot cultivate.