分別功德論 2.6

2.6

As for "mindfulness of death", it means being mindful of when a person's merit is exhausted and life ends: seeing the omens of hell, they lose their feces in terror. If they see hungry ghosts or animals, depending on where their actions cause them to fall, all they see is terrifying. Their mind wishes to cast it off and leave, but instead they are dragged by their karmic retribution. If they are to be born as humans, it depends on the union of parents. If taking birth in a male womb, they feel love for that woman; if taking birth in a female womb, they feel love for that man. Removing their sickness and difficulties, when the three conditions do not err, they then enter the womb. Having received it, they further grasp it as their own; changing every seven days, the skillful wind carves and cuts it, until in thirty-eight periods of seven days its form is finally completed. If born in the heavens, heavenly music comes to welcome them, and overcome with joy they immediately lose their urine. These omens of the five destinies each have what is seen. One who should practice this death has already taken it as a clear precept, deeply contemplating impermanence: life is as swift as lightning or a cloud passing through a courtyard, and when old age, sickness, and death arrive, there is none who does not pass away. Constantly being mindful of this transformation to awaken oneself: therefore it is called mindfulness of death.