Some people, out of fear, convert to another religion when they are near death. Here the Buddha assures that for a devoted Buddhist, that would be an unnecessary mistake.
"Suppose a man were to throw a jar of ghee or a jar of oil into a deep lake of water, where it would break. There the shards & jar-fragments would go down, while the ghee or oil would rise upward and separate out. In the same way, if one's mind has long been nurtured with conviction, nurtured with virtue, nurtured with learning, nurtured with relinquishment, nurtured with discernment, then when the body... is eaten by crows, vultures, hawks, dogs, hyenas, or all sorts of creatures, nevertheless the mind... rises upward and separates out.
"Have no fear, Mahanama! Have no fear! Your death will not be a bad one, your demise will not be bad."
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