Part 1 - The impermanence of the body

Though the body is held dear, it is impermanent. This impure and changeable essenceless body will be separated from us and is not to be depended on. Here is the instruction that those attached to the body should absorb the mind day and night in contemplating impermanence:

This body, which is the principal source of all the kleshas,
Is the source of all suffering and unhappiness of the mind.
Though decked in fine garments and ornaments, flower garlands and such,
And worshipped with many offerings of food and drink,
In the end it must be parted separated from us,
Because it is impermanent and destructible.
This body will be food for foxes, vultures, and jackals.
Abandon all thoughts that it is important, lasting, or pure.
Rather, from now on, let us practice the holy Dharma.

Grasping our alleged bodies as a permanent I and self, we offer them food and clothing, tending them with a level of ceremony befitting our ideas. If others insult us even a little, because we don’t like it, we answer to ward off the harm of it. Shantideva says in the Bodhicaryavatara:

This body of ours is like a momentary reflection.

The time when we will be taken by the Lord of Death comes without warning. When the mind separates from the body, we cannot follow or be with the body any more. It will be food for charnel birds, dogs, foxes, vultures and so forth. To count such a thing as paramount and even think that we should do evil deeds for its sake should be regarded as vanity. Really, we are something like a servant indentured to the work of the body's happiness. Why is the body so worthy of being rewarded with food and clothing? What is worth exertion day and night is the Dharma. The Sutra of Instructions to the King (raajaavavaadaka suutra, rgyal po la gdams pa’i mdo) says:

O great king, these four terrors have an essence like a great mountain, solid and firm in all the four directions. This mountain is indestructible, not to be split, very hard, undamageable. Its four sides, dense and massive, touch the sky and return again to the earth. Grass, trees with all their trunks, branches and leaves, accumulate there along with living things, like flour on a mill-stone.

To escape that mountain by speed, remove it by force, buy it off, or exorcise it with substances, mantras, and medicinal herbs is no easy task.

O great king, that is what these four great terrors are like. We cannot escape them by speed, remove them by force, or buy them off. To exorcise them with substances, mantras, and medicinal herbs is no easy task.

What are these four? They are old age, sickness, death, and deterioration.

O great king, old age comes to conquer youth. Sickness comes to conquer health. Deterioration comes to conquer all our good qualities. Death comes to conquer life itself. One cannot escape them by speed, remove them by force, or buy them off. To exorcise them with substances, mantras, and medicinal herbs is no easy task.

O great king, it is like this. The king of beasts, the lion, dwells among the beasts. He preys on the beasts. He rules as he wishes. The beasts are powerless against the irresistible might of his jaws.

O great king, it is like this. Likewise, there is no provision against the gleaming staff of the Lord of Death. There is no protector, no refuge, no friendly forces, no friends and relatives.

Our joints will divide and come apart. Our flesh and blood will dry up. Our bodies will be racked by sickness. We shall rage with thirst. Our complexions will be altered. Our arms and legs will convulse. We shall be unable to act. We shall have no strength. Our bodies will be covered in saliva, mucus, urine, and disgusting vomit. Our powers of vision, hearing, smelling, tasting, touch, and thought will cease. We shall vomit. Our voices will crack and wheeze. Our medicines will be given up as useless. We will be given up for lost by our doctors. All our medicine, food, and drink will be given up as useless. As preparations are made to give them away, we shall lie in our beds for the last time. We shall subside into the beginningless round of birth, old age, and death. Hardly any life will remain. We shall be terrified by the Lord of Death. We shall come under the power of disaster. Our breathing will stop. Our mouths and noses will gape. Our teeth will be exposed.

They will demand, "Give us our inheritance." Our karma will take over, and we shall pass into the control of cyclic existence. Alone without a second, we shall be friendless. We shall leave this world. We shall be outside the world. We shall make the great change of abode. We shall dwell in the great darkness. We shall fall over the great precipice. We shall be crowded off the edge of the world. We shall be cast into the great abyss. The great ocean will carry us away. Our karmic energy will pass away. We shall go to ugly places. We shall enter the great battle. We shall be seized by the great harm. We shall die away into space.

Our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters will gather round. Our breathing will stop. They will say that our property should be handed out. Oh no! our fathers will say. Oh no! our mothers will say. Oh no! our children will say. Fear will overwhelm us. Then generosity, penance, and Dharma will be our only friends. There will be no refuge but Dharma. There will be no other protector. There will be no other friendly forces.

O great king, at that time, at that moment, the Dharma will be an island, a dwelling, a protector, a teacher. O great king, at that time, though looking like we are asleep in our beds, we shall experience appearances of the life to come. If we are going to go to the lower realms, terrifying appearances of those realms will arise. What refuge will there be then but Dharma?

O great king, You should certainly guard such a body. But no matter how perfectly you look after it, its time of death will come. Intimates having all good qualities, with whom we have been satisfied by much pure food and drink and so on, parents and children, will be there for the last time. We will be given up for lost by our doctors. When everything has been given up as useless, such will be the time of death. The unhappy time of death will come.

O great king, your body, repeatedly washed and anointed, will be fumigated with incense. It will be covered with fragrant flowers, but no doubt an unpleasant odor will arise.

O great king, you will be dressed in fine clothes of Varanasi cotton, silk and so forth, but when you are put on your bed for the last time, it will be as if you were dressed in filth. The time of death will come, and you will go alone and naked.

O great king, though you have enjoyed your various desirable possessions, you will abandon them all, as if they did not satisfy your desires. The time of death will come.

O great king, within your house incense, flowers, silk hangings, cushions, and various cloths will be collected. With the pillows on the left and right, your bed will be taken away to a great charnel ground full of crows, foxes and revolting human corpses. Inevitably your motionless body will lie there on the ground.

O great king, as you are thus carried on the backs of your elephants, horses, and so on, different kinds of music will be heard and pleasantly enjoyed. Various parasols, victory banners, and so forth will be raised aloft. The new king, minister, and friends and relatives will make nice little speeches, praising you and going to look at you. The bed, formerly not raised very far, after you have died, will be raised high by four pallbearers. After it has been lifted by your parents brothers and so forth, slaves driven by painful beatings will bring it out by the south gate of the city. Then in a solitary wild place you will be buried under the earth, or you will be left to be eaten by crows, vultures, foxes, and so forth. Your bones will be burned by fire, thrown into water, or put on the ground, whichever it may be. They will be dispersed by wind, sun, and rain, and strewn in all directions. They will rot.

O great king, all composite things are impermanent. Do not rely on them.

Take this extensive teaching to heart and remember it. Persons knowing that the appearances of this life, no matter what they are, are empty, should try to exert themselves solely in practicing the holy Dharma, day and night.