Death and Dying: Practices and Resources

Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommends various practices to perform when someone is dying or has died. However, the most essential practices to do are:

• The Array of Sukhavati Pure Land: A Concise Mahayana Sutra | PDF | Audio
  This sutra can be recited three times and then tap the sutra on the head of the dying person three times 
• The Eight Prayers | PDF, which includes King of Prayers | PDF | Audio
  A collection of prayers which is commonly recited in the gelug monastic communities for the recently deceased
• Helping Yourself and Others Die Happily: Instructions and Practices for the Time of Death | PDF
• Liberation Tools to Help the Dying and Deceased | PDF
• Medicine Buddha Practices
  • A Brief Meditation-Recitation on Guru Medicine Buddha | PDF | Audio
  • A Very Short Medicine Buddha Practice | PDF
  • Medicine Buddha Sadhana | PDF
  • Medicine Buddha Mantras | PDF | Audio
  • Medicine Buddha Pujas
    • Extensive Medicine Buddha Puja: The Wish Granting Sovereign | PDF
    • Medicine Buddha Puja: The Wish-Fulfilling Jewel
      A simple puja (set of prayers) that can be performed by anyone with faith in the Buddha | English | Sinhalese
• Rinchen Tsugtor Chen: Holy Name and Commentary | PDF | Audio
  During the 2010 Light of the Path retreat, Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised that this verse is the very first thing to recite in a person or animal’s ear when they are dying or dead.
• Recite OṂ MAṆI PADME HỤ̄M and Request to Chenrezig | PDF | Audio

• Additional Practices to Benefit the Deceased: Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche | PDF
• Amitabha Pure Land Prayers | PDF | Audio
• Benefits of Medicine Buddha Mantra and Practice by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
• Blessing Medicine
• Holy Objects to Place on the Body at the Time of Death | PDF
• The Jangwa Practice Associated with the Medicine Guru [Buddha] Entitled Freeing the Wretched from the Chasm | PDF
• Liberation Card for a Dying Person | Chinese | English | French | Spanish
• Liberation Cloth – to place on the body of the dying and deceased | PDF
• Mantras to place on the body of someone who is dying or has died | PDF
• Nyung Na: The Means of Achievement of the Eleven-Face Great Compassionate One | PDF
• Recitations for the Time of Death | Audio
• Recitations for Alleviating Pain | Audio
• Sur Ritual | PDF 

Mantras

• Collections:

  • Five Powerful Mantras for Liberating Sentient Beings from the Lower Realms | PDF | Audio
  • Ten powerful mantras for the time of death | PDF | Audio
  • Mantras to Recite for the Dying | PDF
• Individual (some of these mantras are contained in the “Collections” above):
  • Kunrig Mantra | PDF | Audio
  • Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha Mantra | PDF | Audio
  • Mantra from the Sutra of Great Liberation | PDF | Audio
  • Milarepa Mantra | Audio
  • Mitrugpa Mantra | PDF | Audio
  • Namgyalma mantras | PDF | Audio | Video | Card | Benefits
  • Sarvanivaranaviskhambhin – The Exalted Zung Called “Eliminating Obscurations”
    Contains the mantra to be recited every day to not have pain at the time of death | PDF

• Practicing the Five Powers Near the Time of Death – Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s commentary on integrating the five powers into one lifetime as the best preparation for the happiest death (also available in Heart Practices for Death and Dying)
• Advice to a Person Who Is Dying
• How to Think When Death Comes New! Dec 2023
• Rejoice before Dying
• Making preparations at the place where a person is dying
• How to Make Your Possessions Most Meaningful at the Time of Death – In this PDF document, which was created as an insert for the book Heart Advice for Death and Dying, Lama Zopa Rinpoche sets out how to use our money so as to create merit that will bring us happiness and good conditions for Dharma practice in future lives.

Books by Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• Heart Advice for Death and Dying – This book contains essential advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche for preparing for the time of death and leading a fulfilling life.
• Wholesome Fear: Transforming Your Anxiety About Impermanence and Death – A condensed and edited version of the book Heart Advice for Death and Dying by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

*Additional information and advice is available to FPMT centers, projects, and services in the Death and Dying Resources section of the FPMT Affiliates Area.

• Show the Mitrukpa Mantra [2]

  The mantra of Mitrukpa (Sanskrit: Akshobhya) is included in Liberation Card for Dying Person PDF.

• Bless the Body with a Text [5]

  There is a very powerful text, the benefits of which are unbelievable, called Natural Liberation of the Aggregates: Liberation Through Wearing According to the Profound Dharma of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities’ Natural Liberation of the Mind (Zhi Thro). 

• Bless Your Loved One’s Body with Written Mantras [58]

  A small version of eleven mantras is in Powerful Mantras for the Body at Death Time PDF (Tibetan).

  A Liberation Cloth with mantras on it is available from FPMT centers.

• Bless the Body with a Stupa [6]

  There is a stupa in the Liberation Tools Set.

• Meditate Using Stupas [37]

  There is a stupa in the Liberation Tools Set.

• Offer a Mani Pill from His Holiness the Dalai Lama [56]
  A mani pill is in the Liberation Tools Set.

• Put Blessed Substances on Your Loved One’s Crown [61]

  There is a phowa pill in the Liberation Tools Set.

• Recite the Namgyalma Mantra [25]

  Namgyalma mantras are available from the Foundation Store.

• Sponsor Monasteries, Dharma Centers, or Friends to Perform Practices Such as Medicine Buddha [59]

  Information about where to have prayers and pujas done can be found on Request for Prayers and Services.

• Recite Calling the Guru from Afar or the Guru Puja [72]

  The practice of Guru Puja is available from the Foundation Store. 

• Do a Retreat, such as a Nyungné Fasting Retreat [73]

  The practice of Nyunge is available from the Foundation Store.

• Consult a Tibetan Astrologer [76]

  Information about how to locate a Tibetan astrologer is available from Tibetan Medical and Astro Institute.

• Bless the Ashes, Hair, Nails, and So Forth of Your Loved One with Jangwa [78]

  The practice of jangwa and information about centers that can bless the ashes of your loved ones with jangwa are available from Request for Prayers and Services.

• Make the Offering of Sur [82]

  The practice of sur is available from the Foundation Store.

• Offer Money on Behalf of Your Loved One [85]

  Information about charities is available from FPMT’s Charitable Projects.

• Sponsor Dharma Activities with Your Loved One’s Money [86]

  Information about Dharma activities you can support with your loved one’s money is available from Education and Preservation Fund and Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

• Make Holy Objects on Behalf of Your Loved Ones [87]

  Information about where to have holy objects made is available from Nalanda Monstery’s Buddhist-Art Workshop and Chenrezig Institute’s Art Studio.

• List of FPMT hospice services at the back

  A list of FPMT hospice services is available from the Community Services in the FPMT.

• In order to request prayers for someone who is sick please email and mention the sick person’s full name. The Sangha at Rinpoche’s house will dedicate for them during regular animal liberation practices and in Nalanda Monastery when making long life tsa-tsas daily.
• If you would like to make a donation for this service please go to the Animal Liberation Fund and Stupa Fund.
• For advice on what are the best practices you can do at this time, Lama Zopa Rinpoche always recommends Medicine Buddha practice and Using Sickness for the Path.

You can request prayers for people who have passed away in the past 49 days. The names of people who have recently passed away are given to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, FPMT sangha communities, and individual Buddhist practitioners with a request for their prayers. Students at Nalanda Monastery, France will also dedicate a stupa tsa tsa for them. You can also subscribe to the prayer list so that you can contribute your own prayers to those who have died in the past 49 days.

Kopan Monastery offers free prayer services as well as opportunities to sponsor pujas for those who are sick, dying, or have passed away.

The following FPMT centers offer jangwa puja, a purification ritual to benefit the deceased, please contact them directly for more information:

• Amitabha Buddhist Centre Singapore
• Chokyi Gyaltsen Center Penang, Malaysia
• Dorje Chang Institute Auckland, New Zealand 
• Jinsiu Farlin Taipei, Taiwan
• Kopan Monastery Kathmandu, Nepal
• Land of Medicine Buddha Soquel, USA
• Losang Dragpa Centre Selangor, Malaysia
• Potowa Center Tangerang, Indonesia
• Rinchen Jangsem Ling Retreat Centre Triang, Malaysia

There are also many FPMT hospice services that help provide end of life care for those in need.

• Life, Death and After Death – Understand the death process and train on how to deal with it so that when the time of crisis arrives you will know what is going on. 
• Meeting Death with Wisdom: A Mandala Ebook on Death & Dying – This is a collection of teachings, advice, stories, and interviews drawn from Mandala magazine’s archive that takes a look at how both high lamas and ordinary students have experienced the death and dying process.
• Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying – An account of a historic dialogue between leading Western scientists and the Dalai Lama revolving around three key moments of consciousness—sleep, dreams, and death.
• Mind of Clear Light: Advice on Living Well and Dying Consciously – His Holiness the Dalai Lama draws from a wide range of traditions and beliefs to explore the stages we all go through when we die. 
• Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism unfolds in detail the complex Tibetan Buddhist system of subtle physiology, providing a complete exposition of the channels, drops, and winds which serve as foundations for consciousness. 

FPMT Education Programs

• Heart Advice for Death and Dying
  An FPMT introductory course available online and in some FPMT centers. The course provides practical instructions for the time of death to anyone who is interested in learning about death and dying from the Tibetan Buddhist perspective.
• Discovering Buddhism, Module 5. Death and Rebirth
  An FPMT foundational-level course available online and in many centers. It explores life, death, and rebirth and the nature of mind. Students learn to use the fear of death to overcome the fear of death. They discover how to use the certainty and imminence of death to enhance their quality of life.