The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

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So tonight I'd like to start off with a story that we find in the Suitas that is like the early Buddhist literature and it's about the day that the Buddha dies.

It's not about the Buddha so much, but that's the occasion in which this happens.

And it's quite something that Buddha is talking to Ananda.

Many of you know Nanda is his attendant, was his cousin, but also somebody who helped take care of whatever need to be

taken care of at that time and he tells his attendant I'm going to die today. I don't know what his mood was but you know just

matter of factly I'm going to die. He knew he was dying and asks Ananda to prepare the place where he's going to die.

So Ananda, it's between these two salt trees and he pulls together stuff a soft place for the Buddha to lie down.

And it said that the Buddha lay down on his right side and then did some meditation things and then died.

But before that happens, Ananda said But, no, no, no, no, no, don't die here in this place.

He said to Abbuda, no, no, no, no, don't die here in this place.

He says, this is

a Marise Walsh's translation which I just love it's kind of fun he says so Ananda is

speaking to the Buddha and he's saying,

may the blessed one not die in this miserable little town of Wattle and Dob

right in the jungle in the back of beyond.

So he feels like the Buddha should die in a place

where there's people that can help put on a funeral

or take care of what's happening.

He didn't want him to just die in some kind of, I don't know, just

the backwaters or something like this.

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