23

HAPPINESS IN THE PRESENCE OF DEATH

Remember that there are two kinds of lunatics: those who don’t know that they must die, and those who have forgotten that they’re alive.

PATRICK DECLERK

Death seems to be so distant, yet it is always so near. Distant because we always imagine it at some time yet to come; near because it can strike at any moment. While our death is certain, its hour is unpredictable. When it comes, no eloquence can persuade it to wait, no power can stop it, no wealth buy it off, no beauty seduce it.

KEEPING DEATH IN MIND TO ENRICH OUR LIFE

How do we face death without turning our back on life? How can we think about it without despair or dread? Etty Hillesum wrote: “We cannot live fully by excluding death from life, but by welcoming death into our lives, we grow and enrich our lives.”¹ The way we think about death has a considerable impact on our quality of life. Some people are terrified of it, others prefer to ignore it, yet others contemplate it so as to better appreciate every passing moment and to recognize what is worth living for. Accepting death as a part of life serves as a spur to diligence and saves us from wasting our time on vain distractions. While we are all equal in having to meet death, each of us prepares for it in his own way. The twelfth-century Tibetan sage Gampopa wrote: “At the start, we should fear death like a stag trying to escape from a trap. At midway, we should have nothing to regret, like a peasant who has carefully tended to his field. At the end, we should be happy, like someone who has accomplished a great task.”

It is better to learn how to profit from the fear of death than to ignore it. We do not need to live haunted by death, but we must remain aware of the fragility of existence. This understanding will help us appreciate fully the time we have left to live. Death often strikes without warning. We may be in good health, enjoying a fine meal with our friends, and yet be living out our final moments. We leave behind our friends, our interrupted conversation, our half-eaten meal, our unfinished plans.

Nothing to regret? Can anyone who has made the most of human life’s extraordinary potential have anything to regret? The farmer who has labored, sown, and reaped his harvest, in good weather and in bad, has nothing to regret; he has done his best. We may blame ourselves only for what we have neglected to do. Someone who has used every second of her life to become a better person and to contribute to others’ happiness can die in peace.

“I WILL BE NOTHING, ALL WILL BE NOTHING.”

Is death like a flame being extinguished, a drop of water being absorbed into parched soil? If so, as Epicurus asserted, it has no bearing on happiness: “So death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since when we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist.”² But what if death is just a transition and our consciousness will continue to experience countless states of existence? We will need to face this important passage not by focusing on our fear of the suffering of the moment, but by adopting an altruistic, peaceful attitude, free of grasping at possessions and loved ones.

In any case, it is surely preferable to spend our final months or moments in serenity than in anxiety. What good does it do to be tormented by the thought of leaving our loved ones and possessions behind and obsessing over the decay of our body? As Sogyal Rinpoche explains: “Death represents the ultimate and inevitable destruction of that to which we are most attached: ourselves. Clearly, therefore, the teachings on non-ego and the nature of the mind can be of enormous help.”³ As death draws near, then, it is best to adopt a serene, selfless, and detached attitude. In that way death need be neither a mental torment nor a physical ordeal.

We should not wait until the last minute to ready ourselves, because that is hardly the right time to consider embarking on a spiritual journey. “Are you not ashamed,” wrote Seneca, “to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live!”⁴ We must get started now, while we are healthy in body and mind.

OTHER PEOPLE’S DEATHS

How can we deal with the death of another person? While the death of a loved one sometimes feels like an irreparable trauma, there is another way to think of it, because a “good death” is not necessarily tragic. In the West nowadays, people are only too ready to avert their eyes from death. It is disguised, covered up, sanitized. Since there is no material way to avert it, we prefer to remove death altogether from our consciousness. When it does come along, it is all the more shocking, because we are unprepared for it. Meanwhile life has been slipping away day after day, and if we have not learned to find meaning in its every passing moment, all it has meant to us is wasted time.

In ancien régime Europe, the entire family gathered around the dying member, the priests administered the sacrament, and last words were heard. Still today—in Tibet, for example—people tend most often to die among their family and friends. This also allows children to see that death is a natural part of life. If a spiritual master is at the bedside, death comes serenely and the loved ones are comforted. If in addition the dying person is an experienced practitioner, nobody has any worries for him. Often people returning from a cremation will say, “It went really well.” A U.S. ambassador to Nepal, following the cremation of a friend—an American Buddhist nun who had died in Kathmandu—told me that he had never been to such an uplifting funeral.

THE WISE MAN’S DEATH

The wise man enjoys a very special kind of freedom: prepared for death, he appreciates every moment of life’s bounty. He lives each day as if it were his only one. That day naturally becomes the most precious of his existence. When he looks at the sunset, he wonders: “Will I see the sun rise again tomorrow morning?” He knows that he has no time to lose, that time is precious, and that it is foolish to waste it in idleness. When death finally comes for him, he dies tranquilly, without sadness or regret, without attachment to what he is leaving behind. He leaves this life as the eagle soars into the blue. The hermit Milarepa sang this song:

Fearing death, I went to the mountains,

Over and over I meditated on death’s unpredictable coming,

And took the stronghold of deathless unchanging nature.

Now I have gone beyond all fear of dying.