The Truth of Death

What is the difference between cardiac death and brain death? Why can one still blink one's eyes at the instant of being decapitated? Why, at the instant the head is separated from the body, does one still feel that one has limbs and a torso, only that the sensations no longer obey one's commands? 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 have stopped beating, blood is no longer being circulated, and breathing has ceased. 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 react to light, examination of the ears, nose, and tongue shows no response at all, the body's muscles are limp and without elasticity, and one can no longer control urination and defecation. These phenomena indicate that the brain's supreme faculty (indriya) 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 has certainly occurred. Brain death is true death, but if the examination for brain death is not thorough, there may also be misjudgment—someone not yet dead being considered already 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, directing the five faculties and the six consciousnesses; therefore, at this moment one can still blink one's eyes. Because 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 mind consciousness habitually believe the body still exists, and the manas still wants to control the body's movements; only when it feels it cannot 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 knowledge, so the mind consciousness is unaware of it. Of ignorance, does the manas have more, or does the mind consciousness have more?

If the death is not a natural one, then what manner of death is the quickest, taking extremely little time, with the least suffering? That is direct decapitation. The qi and blood needed for the brain's activity are only those in the supreme faculty; once they are used up, death occurs, very quickly. When the qi and blood are gone, the six sense objects are no longer transmitted into the supreme faculty, the six consciousnesses cease, the pain stops, and the person dies. If another part of the body is cut, the farther from the brain, 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 stroke at a time in non-vital areas; the six consciousnesses do not cease, and one will feel pain continuously and without end.

What is the most comfortable way to die? A death supported by wholesome karma and meritorious karma, ascending to the heavenly realm, is very comfortable and joyful: body and mind are soft and supple, the countenance is radiant, surpassing that of when alive; 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, where the antarā-bhava rides on a lotus flower and, in the snap of a finger, is reborn in the land of bliss (sukhāvatī) or another Buddha-land; but this requires the support of much greater wholesome karma and meritorious karma, which ordinary people cannot cultivate.