Eastern philosophy on dying

A number of my Aussie friends and I are Buddhist, and belong to a Taiwanese order. Buddhism is deeply philosophical, psychological, and spiritual; each of us came to it via different paths late in our lives.

It has two main strands with a number of different schools in each. It originated in what we know now as Nepal, and spread rapidly throughout the East.

Many people classify Buddhism as a religion, but that is not really true. It is a practice based not on faith, but on fact.

The Buddha was not some sort of divine being, just a determined man seeking fact and truth. The name “Buddha” is actually Sanskrit for “enlightened one”, and was bestowed on him when he became enlightened about the origin and effect of everything in existence, then commenced to teach others.

Buddhism is atheist. It discounts any supernatural, or divine being, and is a lifestyle whose purpose is to teach truth. A great deal of enjoyable learning and practice flows from its study, because it is simply reasoned commonsense. A key teaching is about impermanence; that every thing is changing constantly - nothing is permanent.

A case in point is our own body. Every second, millions of our cells are dying, but at the same time, every one of them is being replaced with a new one - a scientifically proven example of rebirth. Rebirth is probably the ultimate form of recycling.

Another side is that with this constant ending and rebirth, there is no reason to regard death as anything more than the normal ending of one living period, yet most people are terrified of it; they want to hang onto their life, their attachment, and what it means to them. They see it as some form of retribution, not a process of evolution.

This article is drawn from a philosophically challenging Tibetan writing on living and dying. It may give you a different slant on life and death, and evolved out of a strand of Tibetan Buddhism which has existed for more than 2,000 years, in which large emphasis is placed on understanding rebirth, therefore a hereditary transmission of learning.

Incidentally, a factor which works in favour of the historical consistency of this Tibetan strand is that the country remained landlocked in almost total isolation for many centuries, and was not subject to the kind of social changes that other Buddhist nations such as China, India, Japan, Korea and many South-East Asian countries experienced.

Look deeply into impermanence, and you will find it has another message, another face, one of great hope, one that opens your eyes to the fundamental nature of the universe, and our extraordinary relationship to it.

If everything is impermanent, then everything is what we call “empty”. That means lacking in any lasting, stable, and inherent existence - all things when seen and understood in their true relation, are not independent, but instead inter-dependent with all other things.

The Buddha compared the universe to a vast net woven from billions of brilliant jewels, each one having countless number of facets. Each jewel reflects in itself every other jewel in the net, and in fact is at one with every other jewel.

Think of a wave in the sea. Seen one way, it seems to have a distinct identity - an end and a beginning, a birth and death. Seen in another way, the wave itself doesn’t really exist, but is just the behaviour of water.

It is “empty” of any separate identity, but “full” of water. So when you really think about the wave, you come to realise that it is something made temporarily possible by wind and water; it is dependent on a set of constantly changing circumstances. You also realise that every wave is related to every other wave.

Nothing has any inherent existence of its own when you really look at it. This absence of an independent existence is what we call “emptiness”.

Think of a tree - when you think of a tree, you tend to think of a distinctly defined object, and, on a certain level, such as the wave, it is.

But when you look more closely at the tree, you will see that ultimately it has no independent existence - when you contemplate it, you will find that it dissolves into an extremely subtle set of relationships that stretch across the universe.

The rain that falls on its leaves, the wind that sways it, the soil that nourishes and sustains it, all of the seasons, the weather, moonlight, starlight and sunlight - all form part of this tree. As you begin to think about this tree more and more, you will discover that everything in the universe helps to make the tree what it is, and that it cannot at any moment be isolated from anything else, and that every moment its nature is changing subtly. That is what we mean when we say that things are empty, that they have no independent existence. Even us!

Modern science tells us of an extraordinary range of interrelations. Ecologists know that a tree burning on a Queensland plain, alters in some way the air breathed by someone in Paris, and that the trembling of a butterfly’s wing in a Sydney garden, affects the life of a fern in Ireland. Biologists are beginning to uncover the fantastic and complex dance of genes that creates personality and identity, a dance that stretches back far into the past, and shows that each so-called “identity” is composed of a swirl of different influences.

Physicists have introduced us to the world of the quantum particle, a world astonishingly like that described by the Buddha in his allegory of the glittering net that unfolds across the universe. Like the jewels in the net, all particles exist potentially as different combinations of other particles.

So, when we really look at ourselves, the things around us that we took to be so solid, so stable, and so lasting, we find that they have no more reality than a dream.

To explain this idea, Buddha with a great sense of poetry, said:

“Know all things to be like this:
a mirage, a cloud castle ,a dream, an apparition,
without essence, but with qualities that can be seen.

Know all things to be like this:
as the moon in a bright sky in some clear lake reflected,
though to that lake, the moon has never moved.

Know all things to be like this:
as an echo that derives from music, sounds, and weeping,
yet in that echo is no melody.

Know all things to be like this:
as a magician makes illusions of horses, oxen, carts, and other things,
nothing is as it appears.

Contemplation of this dreamlike quality of reality need not in any way make us cold, hopeless, or embittered. On the contrary, it can open up a warm humour, a soft, strong, compassion which we hardly knew we possessed, open up more and more generosity toward all things, and beings.

A Tibetan master said “Seeing emptiness, have compassion”.

When through contemplation we really have seen the emptiness and interdependence of all things and ourselves, the world is revealed in a brighter, fresher, more sparkling light, just like the reflecting net of jewels of which Buddha spoke. No longer do we have to protect ourselves or pretend, and it becomes easier to do what that master advised:

“Always recognise the dreamlike qualities of life, and reduce attachment and aversion. Practice good-heartedness toward all beings. Be loving and compassionate, no matter what others do to you. What they will do will not matter so much when you see it as a dream. The trick is to have positive intention during the dream. This is the essential point. This is true spirituality”.

True spirituality also is to be aware that, if we are interdependent with everything and everyone else, even our smallest, least significant thought, word, and action has real consequences throughout the universe. This cause and effect, karma, is how you, and you only, control your own destiny.

Throw a pebble into a pond; it sends a shiver of ripples across the surface of the water. Ripples merge into one another, and create new ones; everything is inextricably interrelated. We come to realise that we are responsible for everything we do, say, or think; responsible in fact for ourselves, everyone, and everything else, and the entire universe.

The Dalai Lama has said:

“In today’s highly interdependent world, individuals and nations no longer can resolve many of their problems by themselves. We need one another. We must therefore develop a sense of universal responsibility - it is our collective and individual responsibility to protect and nurture the global family, to support its weaker members, and to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live.”

Therefore, a counter to fearing death is the acceptance of reality, this acceptance of constant change. Death is a fact of life; no one escapes it, so don’t fear what you can’t change.

Therefore it is better to think about it now, and affect your future while you are still alive, and able to do something about living. Your life today was shaped by your previous life. Your present life shapes your future one. Death is just like the hour hand on the clock at midnight ticking over to the next day.

Don’t be attached to today - plan for the new day tomorrow, and be happy.