Death
and Dying in the Buddhist Context
Joseph Ong, October 1999
Buddhism is one of the oldest religions in the world, being founded in the 6 century B.C. in India by Gautama Buddha. The word 'Buddha' means 'the Enlightened one' in Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language. It is a common misperception that the Buddha is a God, for there is no God or any supreme omniscient being in Buddhism. The Buddha is a human being like anyone of us, who after realizing the truth and nature of things in this world, attains Nirvana, or Enlightenment. The Buddha is said to be 'all-knowing' and is equipped with infinite wisdom and compassion. According to the Buddha, all human beings have the potential to attain the same enlightened state as him if they were to work hard and follow his teachings (dhamma) along the path to Nirvana.
The Nature of the World
Buddhists are taught to accept death with equanimity and wisdom; to see death as merely a phenomenon of nature and to understand death as the beginning of another life. Buddhists should not evade or fear the question of death; they are encouraged to discuss it openly and to relate it to the nature of the world. Buddhism believes that the world as a whole has three prevalent characteristics: impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha) and non-self (anatta). A thorough understanding of each of these characteristics will help us overcome the fear of death and to better prepare ourselves for it when the time comes.
Impermanence
Everything in nature is impermanent or transient in nature. Nothing can exist in time for eternality without undergoing some form of change or death. All forms of life will undergo the process of birth, life and death. Even the sun and the solar system does not exist in space forever, so how can we expect mere mortals like us to escape the fate of death? Knowing that death occurs to everything in the universe and our demise is in accordance to the order of things in nature will help us to accept our deaths more easily and calmly.
Suffering
Suffering is another characteristic of the world. Actually, the original term dukkha does not have the same meaning as 'suffering' in the English language. 'A constant state of being unsatisfied' is more appropriate. We are suffering and are constantly escaping from it all the time only that we are not aware of it at all. For example, I may be perfectly all right now sitting in front of the computer screen. But if I were to sit at the same spot throughout the day and night, I will probably experience some sort of physical discomfort and pain and so this is a form of suffering. So you can see, suffering is part of nature and we should not be afraid or flinch from suffering in the face of death.
Non-self
Man is perturbed by the state of the 'Self' or consciousness after death, but in Buddhism this worry is totally unfounded as there is no 'Self' in the first place at all! It is irrelevant to ask the question 'What happens to Joseph after his death?' because there is no real 'Joseph' in the first place. Descartes divides man into a physical body and a rational soul. If you say that this human body and face is 'Joseph', then which part of the body does 'Joseph' resides in? Let's do a thought experiment here. If you sever one of my arms, do u call the detached arm 'Joseph' or the remaining body 'Joseph'? But in the first place, if we defined the complete human body as 'Joseph', then I should not be in existence anymore now that a part of my body is severed! The human body is made up entirely of cells and there is a total turnover of cells in eleven months. This means every eleven months, there will be an entirely new 'Joseph'! Again, if this physical body is really us, then why can't we stop it from becoming ill or diseased? The belief in the human body as the 'Self' is fraught with many inherent contradictions and it is hard to accept this argument completely without any doubts.
There are some people who believe that the seat of consciousness or the soul lies in the mind, and the physical body is only a shell to be left behind after death. The real 'Self' resides in our mental world of consciousness, feelings and emotions. Following Descartes' dictum 'I think therefore I am', all human thoughts are attributed to the existence of a real self. In Buddhism, the mind is composed of the aggregates of thoughts, feelings, perceptions and consciousness. The mind is like a blank screen on which these aggregates are projected onto. When a thought arises in our mind, it will soon subside and fade away after sometime. This applies too to our feelings, perceptions and consciousness. If we say that the mind is the 'Self', then the 'Self' will always be in a state of flux or change since thoughts, feelings and perceptions are fleeting in nature and this itself is a negation of the concept of 'Self' which is supposed to be a real, unchanging entity.
A Buddhist who understood completely the concept of non-self will not be frightened or worried by the existence of the 'Self' after death. The 'Self' that we perceive erroneously to be real is actually composed only of a material body and an aggregation of mental factors.
The Cycle of Birth and Death
What happens to the components of the 'Self' after death? Buddhism says that the beginning of the world and of life is inconceivable since they have neither the beginning nor end. Bertrand Russell supports this school of thought by saying 'There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts'. We have infinite past lives before us and will have infinite future lives in the future. Birth is the beginning of death while death is the beginning of another life. In Buddhism, there are thirty-one planes of existence besides the human realm. These include the animal kingdom, the heavens and the hells. It is entirely possible and reasonable to be human in this present life and to assume another life form in the next life. Man's destination in the next life depends on his karma, or actions in his life. If he is a good and benevolent person in this life, he will be reborn in heaven after his death; on the other hand, if he is evil and malicious, he may be reborn in hell. In Buddhism, life on earth is only transient; it is like a transit from one stop to the next. No matter how much happiness or suffering one has to endure in this life, it will change in the next life. What we shall become in the next life is governed by the law of karma. In short, good deeds and actions at the present moment will result in happiness and prosperity in the next life while evil actions will bring about suffering and agony. The person 'reaps what he sows'. Buddhism encourages us to prepare ourselves actively for our deaths and the happiness of our future lives by doing 'meritorious' deeds in the present life. This can mean donating money to charitable organizations, helping the poor and suffering, purifying our minds through meditation or spreading the teachings of the Buddha (dhamma) to others. A good Buddhist should not evade or fear death; instead he must seek to understand and overcome it through critical analysis and intuitive wisdom. This can be achieved by reading the Buddhist scriptures, meditating and listening to teachings given by monks.
The Last Thought Moment
The last thought moment is defined in Buddhism as the moment preceding death before human consciousness is obliterated. This period of time is thought to be of extreme importance to the dying person as it will determine his destination after death. If he is happy and at peace with himself before death, chances are that he will be reborn in a human or heavenly realm of resistance. If he is troubled and in a confused state of mind, he may descend into one of the lower realms of existence in the animal kingdom or hell. The actual process is much more complicated; this is only a simple model used to facilitate our understanding and does not represent the entire picture. In countries with a predominantly Buddhist population as in Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka, it is part of their cultural heritage for dying persons to die in their homes surrounded by relatives, friends and a Buddhist monk. A prolonged period of dying before death in hospitals and hospices is almost unheard of. Buddhists believe that life should be let go of naturally and not prolonged artificially by medicine. Delaying the onset of death is considered unwise as it may disrupt the dying person's peace of mind with excessive medical interventions and procedures. However, Buddhism is not a proponent of euthanasia. Buddhism rejects the argument that mercy killing is done on humane grounds to relieve unnecessary suffering because it is not how the killing occurs that is important, but the fact that a life of one being is terminated by another. No one has any right to do that for whatever reason.
Transference of Merits
The Buddha says that the greatest gift one can confer on one's dead relatives and friends is to perform 'acts of merits' and to transfer these merits so acquired. He also says that those who give also receive the fruits of their deeds. The Buddha encouraged those who did good deeds such as offering alms to holy men, to transfer the merits which they received to their departed ones. There is no use weeping, feeling sorry, lamenting and bewailing; such attitudes are of no consequence to the departed ones.
Transferring merits to the departed is based on the popular belief that on a person's death, his 'merits' and 'demerits' are weighed against one another and his destiny determined, his actions determined whether he is to be reborn in a sphere of happiness or a realm of woe. The belief is that the departed one might have gone to the world of the departed spirits. The being in these lower forms of existence cannot generate fresh merits, and have to live on with the merits which are earned from this world. Those who are reborn in an unfortunate spirit form could be released from their suffering condition through the transferring of merits to them by friends and relatives who do some meritorious deeds.
The exercise of transferring merits to the departed is helpful in providing a meaningful form of support and comfort for the relatives of the deceased as their contributions will be of use and service to its beneficiaries. The living is advised to make use of this opportunity to reflect on their mortality and deaths. The funeral service is usually arranged to be simple in setting and a monk is invited to give Dhamma talks to the attending on dying and death.
© Joseph Ong
Reference:
1. 'What Buddhists believe' by Ven Dr.K.Sri Dhammananda.
2. 'The Buddha and His Teachings' by Narada.
3. 'What the Buddha taught' by Walpola Sri Rahula.