Can One Attain Enlightenment at the Moment of Death?

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

Answer: If the gap when the five aggregates disintegrate and the four great elements separate, before the intermediate-state body has arisen, were the true suchness, then at that time there should be nothing but the true suchness—no manas, no six consciousnesses, no material body, only the 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, of studying the principle of the Four Noble Truths, of eradicating the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) and 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 entirely meaningless? Clearly, this is a very grave error.

In the gap after death when the intermediate-state body has not yet arisen, the material body and the six consciousnesses have all ceased, but the manas certainly cannot cease—otherwise, how could the intermediate-state body appear a moment later? How could there be the five aggregates and the world of a future life? It is because the manas needs the intermediate-state body that the eighth consciousness gives rise to the intermediate-state body to satisfy the manas's need. Since the manas of ordinary beings and of those before the third fruit (anāgāmin) cannot cease, then in this gap the seventh and eighth consciousnesses both exist. How can it be said to be just the true suchness?

To go to the extreme and suppose that at this time there is only the true suchness, that it is just the true suchness, that it is the realm of nirvāṇa without remainder—then who is it that becomes enlightened? With no sixth and seventh consciousnesses, who would realize it? Could it be that the true suchness enlightens itself? Clearly not.

Since in this gap after death the manas still exists, with the seventh and eighth consciousnesses coexisting, neither able to be apart from the other, can enlightenment occur? If enlightenment were to occur, it would have to be the manas realizing it alone, without the assistance of the mind consciousness, without the mind consciousness leading the manas by saying "this is the true suchness." Does the manas, entirely on its own, possess such great wisdom as to discern the true suchness? Clearly it cannot. 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, whether this person is enlightened or not—judge for yourself; I need not say it explicitly.