Maraṇasati
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Maraṇasati (mindfulness of death, death awareness) is a
Buddhist meditation Buddhist meditation is the practice of meditation in Buddhism. The closest words for meditation in the classical languages of Buddhism are '' bhāvanā'' ("mental development") and '' jhāna/dhyāna'' (mental training resulting in a calm and ...
practice of remembering (frequently keeping in mind) that death can strike at anytime ( AN 6.20), and we should practice assiduously appamada and with urgency in every moment, even in the time it takes to draw one breath. Not being diligent every moment, is called negligence by the Buddha (AN 6.19). In the Earliest discourses of the Buddha, the term Maranasati is only explicitly defined twice, in those two suttas AN 6.19 and AN 6.20. Later Buddhist schools have expanded the meaning of maranasati to include various visualization and contemplation techniques to meditate on the nature of
death Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
. The cultivation of Maranasati is said to be conducive to
right effort The Noble Eightfold Path (Pali: ; Sanskrit: ) is an early summary of the path of Buddhist practices leading to liberation from samsara, the painful cycle of rebirth, in the form of nirvana. The Eightfold Path consists of eight practices: ri ...
and also helps in developing a sense of spiritual urgency (
Saṃvega Saṃvega is a Buddhist term which indicates a sense of shock, dismay and spiritual urgency to reach liberation and escape the suffering of samsara. According to Thanissaro Bhikku, ''saṃvega'' is the "first emotion you're supposed to bring to ...
) and renunciation (
Nekkhamma ''Nekkhamma'' (Sanskrit: नैष्क्राम्य, Naiṣkrāmya) is a Pali word generally translated as "renunciation" or "the pleasure of renunciation" while also conveying more specifically "giving up the world and leading a holy life" ...
).


Theravada Buddhism

Mindfulness Mindfulness is the practice of purposely bringing one's attention to the present-moment experience without evaluation, a skill one develops through meditation or other training. Mindfulness derives from ''sati'', a significant element of Hind ...
of death is a common practice in Southeast Asian
Buddhist monasteries Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
. Buddhist monasteries such as Wat Pah Nanachat will often have human skeletons on display in the meditation hall.


In the Pali Canon

The
Satipatthana Sutta The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 10: ''The Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness''), and the subsequently created Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya 22: ''The Great Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness''), are ...
( MN: 10) and the Kayagata-sati Sutta ( MN: 119) include sections on the cemetery contemplations which focus on nine stages of corpse decomposition (Pali: nava sīvathikā-manasikāra). These are: #A corpse that is "swollen, blue and festering." #A corpse that is "being eaten by crows, hawks, vultures, dogs, jackals or by different kinds of worms." #A corpse that is "reduced to a skeleton together with (some) flesh and blood held in by the tendons." #A corpse that is "reduced to a blood-besmeared skeleton without flesh but held in by the tendons." #A corpse that is "reduced to a skeleton held in by the tendons but without flesh and not besmeared with blood." #A corpse that is "reduced to bones gone loose, scattered in all directions." #A corpse that is "reduced to bones, white in color like a conch." #A corpse that is "reduced to bones more than a year old, heaped together." #A corpse that is "reduced to bones gone rotten and become dust." The
Satipatthana Sutta The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 10: ''The Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness''), and the subsequently created Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya 22: ''The Great Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness''), are ...
instructs the meditator to reflect thus: 'This body of mine, too, is of the same nature as that body, is going to be like that body, and has not got past the condition of becoming like that body.' According to the ''Maranassati Sutta'' (2) a monk should reflect on the many possibilities which could bring death and then turn his thoughts to the unskillful mental qualities he has yet to abandon. "Just as when a person whose turban or head was on fire would put forth extra desire, effort, diligence, endeavor, undivided mindfulness, & alertness to put out the fire on his turban or head, in the same way the monk should put forth extra desire, effort, diligence, endeavor, undivided mindfulness, & alertness for the abandoning of those very same evil, unskillful qualities."


In Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga

According to
Buddhaghosa Buddhaghosa was a 5th-century Indian Theravada Buddhist commentator, translator and philosopher. He worked in the Great Monastery (''Mahāvihāra'') at Anurādhapura, Sri Lanka and saw himself as being part of the Vibhajjavāda school and in t ...
's
Visuddhimagga The ''Visuddhimagga'' (Pali; English: ''The Path of Purification''), is the 'great treatise' on Buddhist practice and Theravāda Abhidhamma written by Buddhaghosa approximately in the 5th century in Sri Lanka. It is a manual condensing and syst ...
, there are eight ways of meditating on death:
meditating on death as a murderer, since it takes away life; meditating on it as the ruin of success; viewing it by comparison with famous persons reflecting that even these great ones eventually died, even the enlightened ones themselves; meditating on the body as the abode of many-many worms as well as the target of many others; meditating on the difficulty of keeping alive; meditating on it as without occasion, since beings die unpredictably; meditating on the shortness of a lifetime; meditating on the fact that, properly speaking, the lifetime of a being is a single moment of consciousness, that one dies every moment, so to speak.


Tibetan Buddhism

Mindfulness of death is a central teaching of
Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
: it is one of the "Four Thoughts," which turn the mind towards spiritual practice. One set of Tibetan Buddhist contemplations on death come from the eleventh century Buddhist scholar Atisha. Atisha is said to have said to his students that if a person is unaware of death, their meditation will have little power.Powers, John. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, Ch. 10 Atisha's contemplations on death: #Death is inevitable. #Our life span is decreasing continuously. #Death will come, whether or not we are prepared for it. #Human life expectancy is uncertain. #There are many causes of death. #The human body is fragile and vulnerable. #At the time of death, our material resources are not of use to us. #Our loved ones cannot keep us from death. #Our own body cannot help us at the time of our death. Other Tibetan Buddhist practices deal directly with the moment of death, preparing the meditator for entering and navigating the
Bardo In some schools of Buddhism, ''bardo'' ( xct, བར་དོ་ Wylie: ''bar do'') or ''antarābhava'' (Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese: 中有, romanized in Chinese as ''zhōng yǒu'' and in Japanese as ''chū'u'') is an intermediate, transitio ...
, the intermediate stage between life and death. This is the theme of the popular ''Great Liberation through hearing during the intermediate state'' (
Tibetan Book of the Dead The ''Bardo Thodol'' (, "Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State"), commonly known in the West as ''The Tibetan Book of the Dead'', is a terma text from a larger corpus of teachings, the ''Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation t ...
).


See also

*''
Memento mori ''Memento mori'' (Latin for 'remember that you ave todie'Right Effort The Noble Eightfold Path (Pali: ; Sanskrit: ) is an early summary of the path of Buddhist practices leading to liberation from samsara, the painful cycle of rebirth, in the form of nirvana. The Eightfold Path consists of eight practices: ri ...
* Viriya


References

{{Reflist Mindfulness (Buddhism)