The karmic condition for the flow of birth and death is craving and love

At the time of death, if the mind is dominated by craving—whether craving for family members and relatives, craving for worldly life, craving for wealth or affection—one will take rebirth in the ghost realm. If the final thought at death is a thought of anger, no matter at whom or what the anger is directed, if it is relatively severe, one may well take rebirth in hell.

Therefore, to place all one's hopes on the final moment, believing that at death one will be able to recollect the Buddha and keep the mind pure, is extremely unreliable—who has guaranteed this for you? Anything might happen at the moment of death, and one cannot know what one's state of mind will be. If you cannot even control your ordinary, everyday thoughts, then at death, when the four great elements dissolve and karmic obstructions manifest, there is almost a one-hundred-percent certainty that, driven by karmic conditions and the arising of mental activity, you will fall into the three evil destinies. There is no guarantee of escaping the three evil destinies. The only reliable guarantees are to strive as much as possible to eliminate self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) and to see one's true mind, or to accomplish the third contemplation of the Contemplation of the Infinite Life Sutra—the contemplation of the ground. Even recollecting the Buddha and knowing the time of one's death in advance is not reliable: if at that time the mind is not single-pointed in recollecting the Buddha, and sincerity is insufficient, the Buddha will not come to receive you.

Ninety percent or more of Buddhist practitioners go to the three evil destinies at death to take rebirth, and most of them go to the ghost realm, because one hundred percent of people have craving and have not eliminated craving desire. The situation in which craving desire is eliminated is this: after eliminating self-view, one attains the meditative concentration of the first dhyāna, and within that samādhi eliminates craving desire and ill will. Apart from this, everyone still has the mind of craving desire. However, even if a stream-enterer (Srotaāpanna) or a once-returner (Sakṛdāgāmin) still has craving desire, because they have severed the three fetters, they will no longer take rebirth in the ghost realm; they can only take rebirth in the desire-realm heavens or among humans, where they continue to crave, and then gradually eliminate craving.

Such is the mercilessness of the six realms of saṃsāra—it shows no favoritism. Without genuine practice and realization, at the end of life one is swept away to transmigrate according to one's karmic obstructions, reborn following one's craving thoughts, with no room for choice. Because one has not trained in daily life, or has not succeeded in that training. Only those who have eliminated self-view are those whose training has succeeded.

But those with false elimination of self-view and false awakening to the true mind still count as not having succeeded in training; they still have not severed the three fetters, and they will still follow their craving thoughts to take rebirth in the ghost realm—this is unavoidable.

Countless Buddhist practitioners remain unaware of this, still craving fine food, fine clothing, and fine lodging every day, fond of enjoyment, fond of so-called freedom and ease, fond of glamour, fond of comfort. These fondnesses are the knots and fetters of affliction, binding oneself within the six realms; they are diseases of the mind, and they are the karmic conditions of future lives. In each person's lifetime, all that was meant to be enjoyed has been enjoyed—but what about future lives? Which is more important: enjoying the present, or being free from the suffering of the three evil destinies in future lives?

There are also some lofty-sounding methods of practice, saying that when eating meat one should not conceive of it as eating meat. As for those who truly do not conceive of it as eating meat when eating it—those whose minds have already been transformed—Master Jigong counts as one such person; how many others can manage it? Since one is no longer interested in meat, why must one insist on eating it? Would it not be better to let one fewer animal die? At the time of death, when the owner of that meat comes to collect the debt, will you have the ability not to repay it?