The objectives of this dissertation are 1) to study the views, the meaning, the value of life and death in Buddhism  2) to study the views of death preparation and the process of death in Theravāda and Vajrayāna Buddhism; 3) to study an integration of death preparation in Theravāda and Vajrayāna Buddhism.

From this study, it is found that the basic concept of death preparation existed in ancient time. That is to say when Lord Buddha was a Bodhisatta (a person who generated a determined aspiration to accomplish the state of Buddhahood, not merely for His own sake alone, but also for the sake of all sentient beings), He saw the four devine messengers appearing in the forms of an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a monk. When He saw these devine messengers, He went forth to seek for the way to go beyond death. Finally, He realized “The Four Noble Truths” and attained enlightenment. Since then, He taught trainable persons not to be careless in spending their lives, but to do useful things for their own lives and others’ lives. This is the way how the people would prepare for death with mindfulness. The essence of Buddhism is to teach the people to understand the Four Noble Truths. So, the Theravāda Buddhist way of teaching is to emphasize teaching the Buddhists to realize suffering and impermanence of life in which death could happen at any time. So, a man should study and learn Buddha-dharma for death preparation and should prepare his life to go beyond all sufferings caused by ignorance by beginning to learn the Tisikkhā (The Threefold Learning) by training oneself to behave firmly in morality in order to have good conduct in act, in word and in thought, with meditation to be calm. With pure morality and strong meditation one will develop deep contemplation to cultivate wisdom that can truly open our hearts (minds) to have only right conduct or wholesomeness.  Lord Buddha taught His disciples to understand death and the Dependent Origination               (Patฺiccasamuppāda) and Samฺsāravatฺtฺa (the Wheel of Rebirth). The most important teaching was carefulness or non-negligence in every step of living in our lives, by developing the contemplation on death, and considering the death before death and being in death. Every good and bad action will give everybody the result after death.

                Moreover, the essence of Vajrayāna Buddhism is to realize the precious human life and the law of impermanence by recognizing how precious and short life is and that death can happen at any time. So, a man should study and learn Buddha-dhamma to understand 1) the meaning and the value of life, 2) the process of dying and 3) the preparation for death. In essence, the Vajrayāna Buddhist way of teaching is the same as Theravāda Buddhism. It emphasizes the Law of Karma and the Law of Causation or the Dependent Origination (Patฺiccasamuppāda) and Samฺsāra (the Wheel of Rebirth). These are the factors of birth, old-age, pain of diseases, inner sickness of attachment and death, all of which are sufferings. So, Vajrayāna Buddhism helps us to prepare our lives by engaging in spiritual practices to go beyond all sufferings caused by ignorance. Vajrayāna Buddhists realize that in this birth, they have the most precious human bodies, so they use their bodies to have good volition heartily, to abstain from the ten unwholesome courses of action and five poisons : desire, anger, ignorance, pride and jealousy. They are careful or non-negligent in every step of living in their lives, i.e., before death and being in death, because every good and bad action will give results. Moreover, Vajrayāna Buddhism emphasizes the practice of Dhamma based on bodhicitta and the purification of the mind so that it embodies realization of emptiness and compassion to help all sentient beings decrease the physical and mental sufferings while they are still alive. When they are near death and are dead, Lama or the well-trained minded person could do Phowa to send their consciousnesses while they are still in Bardo to go to a Buddha’s Field .

An integration of death preparation in Theravāda and Vajrayāna Buddhism for Thai Buddhist societies to encounter death mindfully can be done by 1) cultivating loving-kindness and compassion, 2) study the dying process from The Tibetan Book of the Dead (The Bardo Thödal) in order to become familiar with the stages of the death process, 3) contemplation and meditation on death and Abhinฺhapaccavekkhanฺa: the facts which should be again and again contemplated and doing Phowa to guide the ejection of consciousness out of the body to good realm or a Buddha’s Field at the time of death. So, we, the Buddhists should practise the Dhamma seriously from now on in order to realize the fact that good life must go with wisdom and without ignorance.