What does it take to have no fear of dying? Is there some insight (or experience) that can set you free not only from the fear of death – but from death itself? What would it even mean to be “free of death”?
We find the Buddhist answer to this question in an ancient story from the Pali Canon. The story tells of an incident when bandits capture a wandering Buddhist monk. Little do the bandits know that they’ve captured an enlightened master, what the Buddhist tradition calls an arahant (Pali: अरहंत्). Confused by the monk’s composure in the face of death, his captors question him. His response changes their lives forever.
But before we get to the story, consider for a moment: What is your attitude toward death?
I know this is not the most inviting question – and you may have already clicked away from the essay, but if you’re still here – consider it for a moment. Have you ever truly confronted the reality of your death—not as an abstract idea, but as something inevitable, pressing closer with every moment?
For the Buddha, constant awareness of one’s mortality is key to setting your priorities straight – to making the best use of the life you have. He makes this point with a powerful simile, one I’d like to share with you before we get to the story about the bandits and the monk.
(You are reading the script of my original video essay on YouTube.)
I. The All-Crushing Mountain
The most powerful teaching on death I know of comes, again, from the Pali Canon of Buddhist scripture.
One day, the Buddha is visited by the great King Pasenadi of Kosala. The Buddha is already a renowned sage by then, and the king visits him to share his woes and receive guidance. (Note how similar this setup is to our modern practice of psychotherapy.)
After the formal greetings, King Pasenadi sits by the Buddha’s side under the shade of a tree. Unsure how to speak to the great sage, the king cuts straight to the point. He says: ‘I have conquered a vast territory, Master Gautama, and I keep it well – but I am restless. I am obsessed with power and authority. I have access to every pleasure you can imagine – and more – but it’s never enough. How can I find some peace of mind?’
Simile of the Mountain
The Buddha, being a proper therapist, doesn’t answer the king directly. He suggests a thought experiment. ‘Imagine, great king’, the Buddha says, ‘that a trustworthy messenger arrives from the east, carrying grave news. He says he has seen a huge mountain rushing your way, crushing all creatures in its wake, and he asks you what is to be done.’
King Pasenadi looks at the Buddha confused. Before he can answer, the Buddha continues: ‘Imagine, king, that just as this man delivers his news, another messenger rushes in from the west. That second man too says he has seen a huge mountain rushing your way, crushing everything in its path. He too asks you what is to be done. And while this second man speaks, another messenger rushes in from the north, and another from the south. These two men also report of a great mountain closing in on you, crushing all life in its path. Having learned of this calamity, great King, of this impending doom – what will you do? What is the best course of action?’
King Pasenadi, known as a great strategist, considers the Buddha’s words for a minute. Finally, he answers: “Master Gautama, there is no beneficial course of action in such an event. All that’s left is to cultivate insight and wholesome actions. Should there be some existence after death, determined by my deeds in this life, I should act with wisdom and integrity while I still have time. This, at least, may be of some benefit.”
Wisdom & Wholesome Actions
At these words, the Buddha turns to face the king. He puts his hand on the king’s shoulder and says: ‘I am your messenger from the east, Pasenadi, I am your messenger from the west, from the north, and the south. These are the news I bring you: old age and death are closing in on you from all sides. The all-consumer is approaching as we speak. What is the best course of action, Pasenadi?’
The king lowers his gaze, unable to meet the eyes of the Buddha. He replies: “It is just as I said, Master Gautama, in the face of death, the only beneficial course of action is to develop wisdom and wholesome deeds. My understanding and my actions are my last remaining resource.”
“You never have any other resource,” says the Buddha.
Death Approaches Always
For some time, the king and the Buddha remain silent in the shade of the tree. Even in the heat of midday, the king feels cold, exposed. It is he who breaks the silence.
“Master Gautama,” the king says, “it is my pride and pleasure to engage in battles of elephants, cavalry, chariots, and infantry. I am known as a great conqueror, you see. But how silly my army and my strategies seem now in the face of death. And my wise counselors too, with their sharp minds and cunning tongues, they cannot help me outsmart the all-consumer. My treasury is full of riches from around the world, looted from the ruins of my enemies. But what will all that buy me when death is at the door? How odd it is, that now, speaking with you, I find no more valuable possessions than wisdom and integrity. And how odd it is that I, Lord Pasenadi, feel like a beggar before you, asking for alms. For you are the richest man I have ever come across, Master Gautama!”
Death as a Constant in Life
So goes the story of when the Buddha discussed death with King Pasenadi. The Buddha’s simile here is particularly useful. Most of us never consider death, or when we do, we have an abstract or romantic notion about it.
“How will I be remembered when I die? Will they mourn me when I am gone? Will there be some sort of life after death?”
Unable to face its limitations, the mind tries to reframe death as an experience we might get something out of. We rarely stop to consider the hard facts of death, which are that all our experience, as we know it, ceases; all our possessions remain ownerless, our personal life drama, our achievements and failures, our hopes and fears, our pain and pleasure – all these remain only as memories in the minds of people we have shared them with. But soon enough these people too become all but memories and are then forgotten. The rest is silence.
By comparing death to a mountain rushing towards us, destroying all in its path, the Buddha reminds us it is not just our body-mind that falls apart at death. The entire world, as known by the body-mind, perishes. To those who survive you, it will be you that are gone, but to you, it will be all of existence.
Re-Birth, Re-Death, etc.
The Buddha teaches the reality of rebirth according to the moral quality of our actions – according to karma. To learn about this in detail, you can watch my video on it. Some criticize the teaching of rebirth as a sort of opiate for the masses, meant to justify present suffering and relieve death anxiety. Indeed, King Pasenadi looks for good karma to soften the blow of death. But rebirth, as the Buddha taught it, does not free us from death. It only ensures we meet death again and again, through countless lives and losses.
If this really is our predicament, if after one mountain crushes us – there follow countless more to crush us yet again – what is our best course of action? What would you have answered the Buddha if you were in King Pasenadi’s place? What is your answer to death? Do you have one?
Beyond Death?
A man called Mogharaja once asked the Buddha:
One who regards the world in what way isn’t seen by Death’s King?
Mogharajamanavapuccha; Sn 5.15
The Buddha did not hesitate to answer:
Always mindful, Mogharaja, regard the world as empty, having removed any view in terms of self. This way one is above and beyond death. One who regards the world in this way is not seen by Death’s King.
Mogharajamanavapuccha; Sn 5.15
The Buddha’s words here may seem cryptic. To see what he means by being “above and beyond death”, let’s go to that bandit story I teased at the beginning. While King Pasenadi trembles at death, another man—facing it directly—remains unmoved. Why? And how?
Well, let’s find out.
II. The Bandits & the Monk
One stormy night a band of cut-throats spots a traveler on an unguarded road. They surround the man and search him. The bandits’ dark mood turns into violence once they find the man is carrying no valuables, no possessions even, save for a wooden bowl. They drag the man into the woods and beat him up for sport, but there is no pleasure in it. Their victim neither begs for mercy nor resists. At last, the bandit chieftain unsheaths his sword. He presses the cold blade against the man’s neck, and stares into his eyes, searching for the look of fear. But there is no fear in his victim. In fact, the man looks like he is smiling.
After a moment of confusion, the chieftain steps back. He regards the man strangely and then says: “The lads and I have ended many men. Some we have killed for wealth, some out of spite, and some others out of boredom. All of them have trembled and babbled from fear. But you show no fear, not from my blade nor from my eyes… Are you some kind of lunatic? These are your last minutes, wretch, don’t you realize that?”
Venerable Adhimutta
The man, who was no other than Venerable Adhimutta, an awakened disciple of the Buddha, replies: “There are no painful mind-states, chieftain, for one free of craving. Fear cannot arise in one who is no longer in chains. When phenomena are seen as they are, their arising and passing away recognized, death holds no fear.”
At these words, the thugs laugh and exchange sardonic looks. But the man continues.
“I have lived well,” he says, “I have walked the path to where no paths remain. I have seen how false is the appeal of pleasure, and I have renounced temptation like poison spit out after it’s drunk. Death to me is like being released from a house on fire, chieftain.”
With a mocking smile, the bandits’ leader sheaths his blade. Only now does he recognize the robes his victim is wearing. He remembers the rumors of ascetics inhabiting the area. Followers of some great guru, people say.
The monk rises from the ground and says: “Whatever arises due to causes and conditions belongs to no one. So teaches the Awakened One. They who comprehend this, deeply, with both mind and heart, no longer cling to any experience. I have never been anybody, chieftain, nor will I ever be. Who is there to grieve for when this body-mind perishes? Once you see the impermanence of phenomena, delusions such as “I”, “me”, and “mine” can no longer arise. How can fear arise where there is nobody to be afraid?”
Liberating Insight
The monk looks at the gathered men and says: “Do with this body what you will – I will feel neither love nor hatred from it. It is you who will live with the consequences of your actions – and you who will die with them.”
The bandits, no longer laughing, look away as the monk addresses them. The youngest among them steps forward and asks: “How have you attained this wisdom, master? Or has somebody given it to you?”
“One can only walk the path for oneself,” Venerable Adhimutta says, “ and yet I was shown the way. The Great Seer is my master, the healer of all the world, Gautama the Awakened.”
Here the story ends and we can’t tell what happened to Venerable Adhimmuta. As far as I know, he never shows up again in the scriptures, so it is unlikely the bandits spared him. But the text does tell us some of the bandits who heard him turned their backs on the life of crime. Some of those sought out the Buddha – and some of those dedicated themselves fully to liberation and realized it. Who knows, it may have been one of these bandits-turned-monks who passed on the last words of Venerable Adhimutta.
III. A Cloud Does Not Die
Consider our two stories side by side. King Pasenadi, reveling in power, achievement, and pleasure, is shaken at the mere mention of death. Venerable Adhimutta, on the other hand, possessing nothing, being nobody, is so indifferent to death that he gives a dhamma talk to his killers. And he tells them exactly what insight has freed him from fear:
There are no painful mind-states, chieftain, in one without longing… I have no ‘I was,’ no ‘I will be’…
For one who sees, as it actually is, the pure arising of phenomena, the pure seriality of fabrications, there’s no fear.
Adhimuttattheragāthā; Thag 16.1
Death, the Buddha teaches, is not overcome through hopes of a better future life, nor by forced indifference. Death is overcome through insight alone.
Death Seen Through
As the mind grows sensitive, patiently observing experience, what usually appear as separate phenomena are seen for what they are: impermanent constellations of causes and conditions. The world of “things” reveals itself as a flow of evolving relationships. Nowhere is there an independently existing object, person, or event.
We recognize this same emptiness in our personal experiences. We observe how thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and desires arise in response to causes and conditions. We see there is no owner of these experiences. We see the very sense of being their owner arises due to causes and conditions.
This careful observation – known as meditation – dissolves the delusion of separately existing “things” out there and of a separately existing “self” in here. In fact, the very distinction between “out there” and “in here” is seen through as a delusion.
But if we feel the insight of selflessness to be our own, if we feel like the permanent witness of impermanence – we have not yet attained the insight Venerable Adhimutta speaks of.
The final dream we need to wake up from is the dream of waking up. True awakening occurs only upon discovering there is nobody to wake up.
As the Buddha says:
Always mindful, Mogharaja, regard the world as empty, having removed any view in terms of self… One who regards the world in this way is not seen by Death’s King.
Mogharajamanavapuccha; Sn 5.15
Once experience is perceived as empty of any self whatsoever, there is nobody to be seen by Death’s King. The insight that frees us from death is the insight that death is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. An illusion.
If Death is an Illusion, what is Life?
Now, I can imagine what you’re thinking…
Seeing death as an illusion may work for an ascetic dedicated to meditation. But most of us don’t live that life. Most of us return home to our partners, kids, parents, and pets. What good is the no-self teaching when we look those we love in the eyes and know we will someday lose them?
Are we to deny the existence of our loved ones? Are we to label our life’s story as an illusion? If this is the price of having no fear of death, is it worth paying?
Remember, the Buddha’s no-self teaching addresses the misperception of existing separately from the world. Because this misperception is so deeply ingrained – and causes so much suffering – the Buddha emphasized the selfless nature of experience. This emphasis has confused some of his followers.
As we’ve seen in previous essays, the Buddha said the existence of the self and the non-existence of the self are equally wrong ways of viewing experience. Both notions are too static to represent the dynamic nature of reality. The Buddha explained reality is not composed of fixed “things” that either exist or not. It is composed of evolving relationships – of causes and conditions that change moment-to-moment.
A Wave is Water
Thich Nhat Hanh explains this beautifully:
We think that the person we loved came to us from somewhere and has now gone away somewhere. But our true nature is the nature of no coming, no going… When conditions are sufficient, we manifest. When conditions are no longer sufficient, we no longer manifest…
A wave may say… “I have been born and I have to die.”… But if the wave bends down and touches her true nature she will realize that she is water… Water is free from the birth and death of a wave…
Our true nature is the nature of no birth and no death. We do not have to go anywhere in order to touch our true nature. The wave does not have to look for water because she is water.
Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life
Our discussion of death brings us face-to-face with the ultimate nature of reality – with your ultimate nature. The Buddha’s technical term for this is “Dependent Origination”. This is his greatest teaching and I explore it in detail in my most in-depth video. I invite you to watch that to gain a new way of understanding your experience.
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Remember, what you seek is seeking you.
See you next time.
