The preliminaries · Verse 4 of 37
Verse 4: Impermanence: Letting Go of This Life's Concerns
Verse 4 of The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas, the fourteenth-century Tibetan poem by Gyalse Tokme Zangpo (1295–1369). It belongs to the section on preliminaries.
Family and longtime companions will part from each other. Possessions gained with effort will be left behind. Consciousness, a guest, will leave the guesthouse of the body. Let go of this life. This is the way of a bodhisattva.
The practice of all the bodhisattvas is to renounce this life's concerns,
For friends and relatives, long acquainted, must all go their separate ways;
Wealth and prized possessions, painstakingly acquired, must all be left behind;
And consciousness, the guest who lodges in the body, must in time depart.
You will separate from long-time friends and relatives;
You will leave behind the wealth you worked to build up;
The guest, your consciousness, will move from the inn, your body.
Forget the conventional concerns — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.
A facilitator's reading across the commentaries
Every teacher rushes to prevent the misreading — this is not "abandon your family and give away your house" (GR, KTGR, KS are explicit). It's withdrawal of investment, calibrated by AB's 50/50. The guest/guesthouse image appears in all of them; it may be the single most quotable line of the preliminaries for your group.
GR Garchen Rinpoche · HHDL H.H. the Dalai Lama · AB Dr. Alexander Berzin · KTGR Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche · KS Khenpo Sodargye · TC Ven. Thubten Chodron · KM Ken McLeod
What the teachers say
Garchen Rinpoche Drikung Kagyu
"Our body is like a hotel, our mind is like a guest, in the next morning, and the guest has left the hotel." Letting go of this life means releasing mental attachment, not dumping your possessions — which would only create difficulties. What we truly need isn't things but loving kindness and compassion; prepare for death by developing bodhicitta, Amitabha visualization, and accumulating merit — the wealth that travels.
Full commentary: 37practices.info (37practices.info serves this as one long page; find the verse by number.)
H.H. the Dalai Lama Gelug
Death strips everyone equally — "the king leaving his kingdom, the beggar his stick." At death companions can't help, relatives can't follow, body and possessions are abandoned in a separation that is permanent. Since the time of death is uncertain, only Dharma provides lasting benefit — prepare now.
Full commentary: 37practices.info (37practices.info serves this as one long page; find the verse by number.)
Dr. Alexander Berzin Gelug
Practical calibration: the Dalai Lama's 50/50 advice — half our concern for this life's necessary affairs, half for what goes beyond it. Friends part like leaves blown together briefly on karma's winds; possessions "often become garbage. Nobody wants to keep them" — or become inheritance disputes; Shantideva's advice is to give things away now. The corpse becomes repulsive — attachment to this temporary form is unrealistic.
Full commentary: studybuddhism.com
Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche Karma Kagyu
Three facts — loved ones separate, effortful wealth stays behind, the mind is a guest in "a kind of hotel." The renunciation is mental non-clinging, supported by seeing phenomena as dreamlike, lacking true existence.
Full commentary: dharmaebooks.org (Free ebook, trans. Suzanne Schefczyk.)
Khenpo Sodargye Nyingma, Larung Gar
Impermanence meditation dissolves clinging that's rooted in perceiving things as permanent and real. The practice doesn't demand giving everything away; it redirects the energy of clinging toward practice.
Full commentary: khenposodargye.org (Free ebook PDF.)
Ven. Thubten Chodron Sravasti Abbey, Gelug
Enormous mental energy goes into protecting and enhancing exactly these three — relationships, wealth, body — generating karma through attachment, yet all separate from us. Contemplate your own funeral; widen the frame from this lifetime to beginningless rebirths, and anxiety about loss naturally shrinks. Verses 4–6 talk · Sangye Khadro on the eight worldly concerns
Full commentary: thubtenchodron.org
Ken McLeod Shambhala / independent
"Forget the conventional concerns." Commentary in Talk 3 (2006) (covers vv4–7) and Tricycle verse 4 (subscriber).
Full commentary: unfetteredmind.org (Tricycle's per-verse written commentary is behind a subscriber paywall.)
Further reading: Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, The Heart of Compassion (Shambhala). A purchased book — no text is reproduced here.