Chapter 11
A Matter of Life and Death
In This Chapter
Coming to terms with your mortality
Using death as an inspiration for practice
Practicing the nine-point death meditation
Coping with the death of a relative or friend
Understanding how the different Buddhist traditions view death
Shortly before the start of the third game of the 1989 World Series between the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants, a strong earthquake hit the greater Bay Area. Jon was living just north of Santa Cruz at the time, about 10 miles from the epicenter, and witnessed firsthand the damage the quake caused. Fortunately, considering the large population of the area, relatively few lives were lost. But within 15 seconds, the event brought millions of people face to face with the fragility of their lives. The resulting emotional upheaval lingered for a long time.
The event caused many people to question some of their basic assumptions about what was really important in life. Conversations, even between strangers, quickly turned to spiritual matters. Attendance at meditation courses in the area increased dramatically and stayed high for many months after the earthquake. The event seemed to shake people up in more ways than one.
A close confrontation with death — whether through natural disaster, severe illness, or some other life-threatening event — often leads people to reevaluate and ultimately change their lives. Shakyamuni Buddha began his spiritual journey when he encountered suffering for the first time while venturing into the world outside his pleasure palaces (see Chapter 3). The path he discovered is the subject of Chapters 12, 13, and 14. In this chapter, we focus on Buddhist teachings on death, but don’t be concerned if the subject matter sounds depressing. Our intention is to show how a deep appreciation of your own mortality can motivate you to become spiritually involved and how death itself can be a powerful teacher.
Taking Death Personally
You need a number of things to stay alive, such as a regular supply of food and drink, appropriate clothing and shelter, and medical care when you get sick. But as Buddhist masters like to say, dying doesn’t take much at all — you merely need to breathe out and not breathe back in again.
If you stop breathing for just a few minutes, you’ll soon be knocking on death’s door. Death isn’t remote or unusual — it’s the one experience that’s definitely going to happen to you (see “The story of the mustard seed” sidebar). As the old saying goes, you can rely on two absolutes in life: death and taxes.
But there’s a big difference between a mere intellectual understanding that death is inevitable and a heartfelt appreciation that this reality applies to you personally. For example, if you polled a number of teenagers and asked them, “Do you think you’re going to die someday?” they’d all answer “Yes.” But, if you examined the way many of them live, you’d probably conclude that teenagers think that they’re immortal. Think of the risks some (notice we say some) teenagers routinely take: binge drinking, reckless driving, extreme sports, and unprotected sex, just to name a few. Despite what they may say, some teenagers seem to believe that death happens only to other people.
We’re not picking on teenagers; we’re just using them as a rather obvious example. The fact is that most people live their lives as if they’re never going to die. They confront the inevitability of their own mortality only when they’re faced with the death of a loved one or a life-threatening illness of their own. And after the event passes, the window on reality that so suddenly opened quickly closes, and they forget about death — at least, for the time being.
Buddhism has always considered death to be one of the most powerful teachers, but this doesn’t make it a joyless or life-denying religion. Buddhism simply acknowledges that death has an unparalleled capacity to force you to look deeply into your own heart and mind and recognize what really matters. This profound contemplation of death actually fuels your vibrant aliveness and self-awareness and motivates you to change your life in significant ways.
You may want to stop reading for a few minutes and consider your own attitude toward death. Do you ever give death much thought? Sure, you’re uncomfortable with the idea of dying; most people are. You may even feel a certain anxiety as you move through life’s inevitable transitions, knowing that they’re bringing you closer to your ultimate demise. But do you ever consciously contemplate your own mortality and its implications for how you lead your life? Buddhism encourages you to do just that.
Recognizing Your Life As a Rare and Precious Opportunity
To contemplate death — or any other Buddhist theme — start right where you are at this moment. Take a close look at your present situation. We probably don’t need to point out that you’re a human being (unless, of course, you’re reading this sentence in a bookstore on Mars).
Although your humanness may be obvious, you can take it for granted or simply dismiss it as insignificant. What’s the problem with these options? From a Buddhist point of view, as a human being, you’re uniquely positioned to accomplish the primary goal of spiritual training — complete liberation from suffering and dissatisfaction, resulting in a life of lasting happiness and boundless compassion for others (see Chapter 14 for a description of this compassionate way of life).
As a human being with the interest and ability to turn your mind to spiritual training, you have the capacity to achieve this goal. But here’s the question: Will you choose this life direction? Your brief existence is going to come to an end all too quickly; if you don’t choose wisely, you may be throwing away a rare and precious opportunity to do something valuable with the time you have left.
Why do we call your existence “a rare and precious opportunity”? With six billion people living on this planet and more being born every minute, you may not think that being human is particularly rare. But stop and consider the number of creatures in a small garden or a local pond — or a rainforest clearing. For every human being, millions of other creatures of every description inhabit the Earth. And among all these different kinds of life forms, how many species actually have the self-awareness necessary to do anything truly significant with their lives?
Even among your two-legged brothers and sisters, not too many folks have the life circumstances, interests, motivation, or innate potential to support inner growth, or spiritual awakening (see Chapter 10 for more on what it means to awaken spiritually). Many people grow up in environments so unsettled, impoverished, or violent that anything beyond mere survival is an unaffordable luxury. Others live in such remote areas or under such repressive regimes that they have no opportunity to hear valid spiritual teachings, much less practice them. And some folks simply lack the intelligence or the inclination to get the spiritual ball rolling.
By contrast, you have the time, energy, interest, and freedom to pick up this book and read about Buddhism. You probably even have life circumstances that allow you to study and practice the teachings. Compared with billions of other beings, you have a unique opportunity. You might even consider it to be “a rare and precious opportunity.” Now you have to decide what to do with it.
“If you neglect the opportune moment now,” wrote the great eighth-century Indian master Shantideva in his Bodhicharyavatara (Chapter 1, verse 4), “when can you ever hope to encounter it again?”
Facing Reality: The Nine-Part Death Meditation
According to the teachings of Buddhism, if you’re going to take full advantage of this precious opportunity to do something significant with your existence, you need to keep the reality of death uppermost in your mind as a constant reminder and motivator. Otherwise, when you eventually do come to the end of your life, you may regret having wasted your time on trivial pursuits.
The following nine-part meditation on death, adapted from the Tibetan tradition (see Chapter 5), is designed to help practitioners make the most of their lives and to avoid the regret and panic that can arise if they die without properly preparing themselves for the inevitable. The meditation is written for dedicated students of Buddhism, but you may want to read it over to get a general idea of what the approach involves. Then if you want to continue, you can thoroughly examine each section, comparing it with your own experience and deeply contemplating the truths within.
As you examine the different points of the meditation, try to keep them in mind even when you’re not meditating and see if they make sense in your everyday life. Then as you become more familiar with each point, you can see if your attitude and conviction begin to develop in the manner that the meditation describes.
If you decide to pursue the meditation further, you can place your new understanding and conviction at the focus of your single-pointed attention (as explained in Chapter 7) and integrate this deeper understanding into your life. Then the meditation practice won’t remain a mere intellectual exercise, but will actually affect the way you both live and die.
We don’t intend this meditation — or the rest of the material in this chapter, for that matter — to depress or demoralize you. Its ultimate purpose is actually quite the opposite. You can use it to wake up from your illusion of immortality and set yourself firmly on the path to spiritual development. You may find it disturbing, but we really hope that you’ll also find it thought provoking and even inspiring.
Understanding that your death is definite
You first have to face the cold, hard fact: Your death is a certainty. You can’t get around it. You’re definitely going to die. To reinforce this realization, consider the first three points in the nine-part death meditation:
You can’t do anything to prevent the inevitable. Nothing that you or anyone else does can keep death from occurring eventually. How well you take care of yourself, how famous you become, or where you decide to travel doesn’t make any difference in the end: Death will find you. Think of the millions of people who were alive a mere 120 years ago. Not one of them is still living; death will pay you a visit, too.
Your lifespan is always shrinking. With each tick of the clock and beat of your heart, the time you have left to live is growing that much shorter. When a condemned man is led to his execution, each step he takes brings him closer to his end; time is taking you steadily in the same direction.
You will die whether or not you’ve done anything worthwhile in this life. Even if you do practice the Dharma taught by Shakyamuni Buddha, you get no assurance that you’ll get very far in your practice before you punch that big time clock in the sky. Death doesn’t say, “Oh, okay, I’ll just wait until you’re finished doing what you’re doing. No, don’t worry — I’ll come back later.” Likewise, you can’t send death away from your doorstep or turn off the lights and pretend you’re not home (of course, it would be nice if you could).
After you consider all the ways in which your death is certain — providing further insight from your own experience and understanding — put your foot down and decide that you definitely must do something to protect yourself from suffering both now and in the future. This “something” is the practice of the teachings, or following the spiritual path.
Although this death meditation may seem grim, it isn’t designed to depress you. Its purpose is to mobilize and motivate you to seek liberation from suffering now rather than at some random point in the future. In other words, you could say that the death meditation is intended to sober you up (without the cold shower and strong, black coffee) and open your eyes to this simple truth: Nothing lasts, everything changes, and this body also will turn to dust one day.
Realizing that the time of your death is uncertain
When you fully appreciate that your death is definite, you can turn to the next three points in the death-awareness meditation: The exact time of your death is most uncertain:
The human lifespan isn’t fixed. Although statisticians can calculate the average lifespan for a man or woman living in a particular country, you have no guarantee that you’ll live to be that age (and some people may not even want to). Young people can die before their elders, and healthy people can die before people who are ill. It happens all the time. You can make a delicious meal, but you may not live to finish it; you can set out on an interesting journey, but you may not live to complete it.
Many factors can contribute to your death. Open a medical textbook and read the long list of fatal diseases. Open a newspaper and read all the ways people lose their lives. Many real threats to your life exist, but you have relatively few ways to protect yourself. Even some of actions that are supposed to enhance your life can close the curtain on the final act. You need food to stay healthy, but thousands of people choke to death each year while eating. Taking a vacation is supposed to provide rest and relaxation, but thousands of people die each year in accidents while on holiday.
Your body is fragile. Just because you’re strong and healthy doesn’t mean that it’ll take a lot to kill you. Something as small as a pinprick can lead to infection, disease, and death — all in a very short time. Newspapers are full of stories about people who were apparently healthy one day and dead the next.
When you fully appreciate that the time of your death is uncertain, you may naturally conclude that you can’t afford to postpone your practice of the teachings any longer — you must practice right now, from this moment on. The point isn’t to be uptight and afraid of enjoying yourself; instead, staying alert to the reality of every passing moment, being as clear and present as you can, is the key.
Using death awareness as your spiritual ally
Finally, consider these last points of the death meditation to note what you can’t use at the time of your inevitable death:
Wealth can’t help you. Many people spend nearly all their time and energy trying to accumulate as much money and as many possessions as they can. But all the wealth in the world can’t buy your way out of death. (“Um, Death, why don’t you take my credit card and go buy yourself something nice?” It doesn’t work. Sorry.) Rich or poor, everyone must face it. Also, no matter how many material possessions you’ve acquired, you can’t take even the smallest particle with you. In fact, attachment to your belongings only makes letting go at the time of death more difficult.
Friends and relatives can’t help you. You may be the most famous or popular person in the world. An army of your supporters may surround your deathbed. But not one of them can protect you from death or accompany you on your ultimate journey. Your attachment to your friends (like your material possessions) may only make letting go and dying with a peaceful mind more difficult.
Even your body can’t help you. All your life, you’ve pampered your body by clothing it, feeding it, and taking care of it in every way possible. But as death approaches, instead of being helpful to you, your body can easily prove to be your adversary. Even if you have a spiritual practice, the pain your dying body subjects you to can make it extremely difficult for you to focus your mind on what you have to do.
All these considerations lead to the inevitable conclusion that only your practice of the teachings can support you at the time of your death. (See Chapters 1 and 2 for a general understanding of Buddhism and Buddhist practice, and Chapters 12 to 14 for more specific suggestions.) Death is generally regarded as a time to practice the teachings as single-pointedly and continuously as possible, without distraction.
Reaping the Result of the Death Meditation
In the beginning, when you’re first getting used to the death-awareness meditation, you may find the whole subject distasteful and rather morbid. But the farther into it you go, the more you can benefit (yep, we said benefit).
If you practice the meditation wholeheartedly, your life may begin to take on a direction and a purpose that it lacked before. And your spiritual practice, whatever form it happens to take, may grow in strength. If you’re a practicing Buddhist and you genuinely take death awareness to heart, you may find that your attitude as you approach death is transformed as well:
As a beginning practitioner, you may still be afraid to die, but at least you don’t have any regrets, knowing that you’ve done everything you could and didn’t waste your life.
As an intermediate practitioner, you may not be happy about dying, but you have no fear, convinced that you can handle death and whatever comes next.
As an experienced practitioner, you may actually welcome death because you know that it will be the gateway to awakening.
Dealing with the Death of a Loved One
Buddhism offers various practices for transcending the fear of death by realizing that there’s no separate self that can die. It also acknowledges that most people don’t have such a profound understanding and will naturally be afraid of death and grieve when they lose someone they love. Buddhism considers this pain completely normal and understandable, and welcomes it with compassion as a natural expression of the human condition. After all, if your heart is truly open to others and you wish the very best for them, watching them die can be extremely sad.
At the same time, even a preliminary grasp of concepts such as impermanence, selflessness, and emptiness, coupled with some appreciation of the nature of attachment and the suffering it can cause, can help ease your pain of loss. Buddhist meditation, the simple practice of being with your experience just the way it is, can be a powerful support by allowing the pain to surface and eventually release. If you don’t block out your deep pain or grief or let it turn into anger or bitterness, grief can actually foster the precious spiritual quality of compassion for the suffering of others — compassion for the millions of people throughout the world who experience similar separation and pain.
Whatever your response to the death of a loved one, the most important point, from a Buddhist perspective, is to be kind and compassionate toward yourself. Instead of using Buddhist philosophy in an attempt to talk yourself out of your grief, you can tenderly allow your experience to be exactly the way it is, which can be a tremendous relief. This unconditional acceptance of the way things are lies at the very heart of Buddhism.
Surveying Attitudes toward Death in Buddhist Traditions
In this chapter, we mention that we’re discussing death from a Buddhist point of view. But the truth is that not all Buddhists share a single view of death. As with so many topics, each Buddhist tradition has its own distinct way of relating to death and the process of dying.
All traditions would agree that death is a powerful motivator, that the truth of who you are doesn’t die (only your body and personality), and that the moment of death can be an especially opportune time to awaken to this higher truth of who you really are. But even though different traditions share the same or similar attitudes, they often emphasize different aspects of the death experience.
The following sections offer a brief guided tour of the various ways that the major Buddhist traditions understand death. Although this quick survey can’t be exhaustive, it’s broad enough to give you an idea of the wealth of Buddhist approaches to this important topic.
Theravada: Getting off the wheel of existence
The theme of the Buddha’s first teaching (as recorded in the Pali canon of the Theravada tradition) was how to gain release from the cycle of existence, known as samsara. (See Chapter 3 for more about the Buddha’s first teachings, and Chapter 4 for more about the Theravada tradition.) Samsara is sometimes called a vicious circle because it consists of an endlessly repeating pattern of births, deaths, and rebirths in which no lasting satisfaction can be found. The ultimate goal of the Theravada teachings is to find a way out of this vicious circle and experience the inexpressible peace of nirvana — complete freedom from all suffering and dissatisfaction.
Because death is considered simply the boundary between the end of one life and the beginning of the next, your suffering doesn’t end when you die. Death merely accelerates your next rebirth. The only real solution is to stop being reborn. How can you do this? Intriguingly enough, by realizing that no one dies and no one is reborn!
“That’s ridiculous,” you may object. “Clearly, I’m the one who is going to die and — assuming rebirth is true (which I’m not at all sure about) — I’m the one who’s going to be reborn.” But who or what is this “I” that you’re talking about? By searching for an answer to this important question, you can solve the riddle of birth, death, and rebirth. So put your tray tables up and return your seats to their full, upright position; you’re about to embark on an explanatory ride that may get a little bumpy.
As we discuss in more detail in Chapter 13, “I” is just a convenient way of talking or thinking about the nonstop series of events arising in your body and mind: I have a headache; I don’t like the pain; I’ll take an aspirin; I wonder if it’ll help; I feel a little better; and so on. All these sensations, thoughts, memories, feelings, likes, dislikes, and so forth are continuously bubbling up in your experience; they last for a brief moment and then subside again — only to be replaced by others. They appear to refer back to some permanent, enduring “me,” but where exactly is this “me” or “I”? In your brain? Your body? Your heart?
When you closely analyze your experiences, all you find are these ever-changing mental and physical events. Other than these momentary events, there’s nothing else you can discover.
No matter how exhaustively you may search, you won’t find a separate, unchanging, self-contained “I” at the core of your being who’s having these experiences; you’ll merely find these momentary experiences, themselves, giving rise to one another.
Death and rebirth work the same way: There’s no solid, unchanging “I” that dies and then is reborn; there’s only the pattern of the ever-changing momentary events perpetuating themselves. To interrupt this pattern and break free from cyclic existence (samsara), you need to give up your inborn belief in a concrete “I” (or self). This mistaken belief in a concrete “I” feeds the desires and attachments that bind you to the wheel of samsara; the insight of no-self — that is, the wisdom of selflessness, which helps you overcome your belief in a concrete “I” — enables you to break free from this wheel. (See Chapters 13 and 14 for more about the wheel of samsara and how to overcome false views about the “I” or “self.”) The aim of Theravada practice is to develop such a degree of penetrating insight into the true nature of your existence that the causes for being reborn in samsara vanish, or dry up, and you experience the release of nirvana.
Death meditation in Theravada Buddhism
In his manual Visuddhimagga (Path to Purity), the Buddhist scholar Buddhaghosa (370–450 CE) teaches the recollection or mindfulness of death as one of ten kinds of recollection. The practitioner of the recollection of death develops the thought in his mind that death will surely occur and cannot be escaped. In his manual, Buddhaghosa further distinguishes eight aspects of death (Chapter 8, sections 8–39):
Death in the role of a murderer
Death as the final ruin of life’s accomplishments
Death by inference — just as others have died, so will the practitioner
Death involving one’s corpse being shared with many creatures (such as worms)
Death illustrating the fragility of life
Death as being unpredictable
Death as revealing the limited span of life
Death as showing the shortness of the moment
This detailed classification in the Visuddhimagga shows that the meditation on death was developed and systematized to a very high degree in Theravada Buddhism.
Vajrayana: Turning death itself into the path
In the Vajrayana traditions practiced in Tibet and the surrounding regions, death is more than an unpleasant reality to be endured; it’s considered an opportunity that a properly trained practitioner can use as a pathway to enlightenment itself.
To transform death into a spiritual path, you need to become well versedin the details of the dying process. You must have a good conceptual understanding of the stages you go through as you die, and you must be able to rehearse them in your daily meditation practice (and even in your dreams) as if they were actually happening to you. In fact, it is assumed that by the time tantric yogis (expert Vajrayana practitioners) come to the end of their lives, they’ve already “died” numerous times and know exactly what to expect.
According to the Vajrayana teachings, your physical form isn’t the only body you possess. Underneath this physical form is a subtler “body.” All the energies that support your physical and mental functions (including the way your senses operate, how your digestive system works, and even the way your mind processes thoughts and emotions) flow through this underlying body.
The main aim of Vajrayana practice is to awaken an energy far more refined than any of the other energies flowing through you. When you can do this, you have access to what’s known as the mind of clear light, which is the priceless treasure of the tantric yogi. When this penetrating awareness is coupled with insightful wisdom, it can burn away all obstructions from your mind, allowing you to experience the purity of full enlightenment within this short life. (That’s the theory, at least.)
Achieving enlightenment in this way is an extraordinary accomplishment, and even skillful Vajrayana practitioners may not be entirely successful during their lives. But every human being, whether or not she has practiced these advanced meditation techniques, naturally experiences the clear light at the time of death, at least for a moment.
The more prepared you are, the better you’ll be able to remain fully conscious during this clear light of death experience and use it as your spiritual path to awakening. Even if you fail to awaken completely, you may still be able to direct your mind (through a forceful technique the Tibetans call the transference of consciousness) so that you can consciously take rebirth in a pure realm of existence (a so-called Buddha field or pure land) where everything is conducive to achieving full awakening. But if you don’t reach a Buddha field, your preparation is still valuable. It provides you with a head start of sorts in your next life.
By remaining as fully conscious as possible during the dying process and controlling your rebirth, you can bring increased benefit to others in your future lives. This approach agrees with the compassionate vow to dedicate your practice to the liberation of others rather than to your own release from samsara. The Tibetans have a unique tradition in which highly skilled lamas who can direct their rebirth are discovered and then brought up in a way that enables them to continue their spiritual practices from one life to the next. For example, the 14th Dalai Lama was discovered as a child to be the reincarnation, or tulku, of the 13th Dalai Lama. Check out Chapter 15 for more about the way the Dalai Lama was discovered.
The Vajrayana isn’t the only Buddhist tradition that uses the death experience as a pathway to enlightenment. For centuries, followers of the Chinese and Japanese schools of Pure Land Buddhism have used their devotion to Amitabha Buddha as a way of gaining access to his Buddha field at the time of their death (see Chapters 4 and 5 for more information on Pure Land Buddhism). In all these cases — whether you’re practicing a highly technical yogic method or relying on your faith, devotion, and altruistic intentions — death ceases to be an obstacle to your spiritual development and becomes an opportunity to carry your development forward.
Zen: Dying the “great death” before you die
In the Zen Buddhist tradition, fearlessness in the face of death is one of the hallmarks of the truly enlightened. (For more on enlightenment, see Chapter 10; for more on Zen, see Chapter 5.) When you realize that you are the vast ocean of existence itself, life and death at the relative level become mere waves rising and falling on the surface of who you are. Your physical body may die, and this particular existence in space and time may come to an end, but you remain the unborn, the deathless, the eternal, the abiding reality — known as Big Mind, Great Way, or True Self — that underlies both life and death.
A famous (fictitious) Zen story illustrates this realization quite well. A notoriously cruel and ferocious samurai is looting and pillaging a particular village with his band of henchmen when he sees the local Zen master sitting quietly in meditation. The samurai walks up behind the master, applies the sharp blade of his sword to the master’s neck, and arrogantly announces, “You know, I am someone who could cut off your head without batting an eye.” To this, the master replies calmly, “And I am someone who could have his head cut off without batting an eye.” Stunned to the core by the master’s response and realizing that he has met his superior, the samurai immediately bows before the master and becomes his disciple.
The realization that you are the deathless, which occurs at the moment of full enlightenment (Japanese: daikensho), is known paradoxically as the “great death” because it signals the end of the illusion of being a separate self. For this reason, Zen urges you to “die before you die” (as the master in the previous story has already done), meaning that you put an end to separation (the idea of a separate “I”) and awaken to your oneness with all of life. Only then does death lose its grip on you.
On a more everyday level, Zen emphasizes giving yourself so diligently to each activity that you completely lose yourself and leave no trace of a separate self behind. So Zen actually encourages you to die in each moment before you actually die — to let go of attachment and control with every action and every breath, just as you’ll need to let go at the moment of death.