Matters of life and death

SO MANY people turned up for a lecture in Bangkok last month on the “art” of living and dying that latecomers had to be turned away at the door.

The keen interest was perhaps not so much in matters of life and death as in the speaker, the celebrated teacher Sogyal Rinpoche, author of “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying”.

His audience at Thammasat University’s Sriburapha Hall was mainly Theravada Buddhist Thais, with a sprinkling of Westerners. Their reward was one of the most intellectually and spiritually stimulating activities held in Bangkok in years. 

Tibetan Buddhism combines the essential teachings of Mahayana Buddhism with tantric and shamanic beliefs and some of the ancient Tibetan religion called Bon. Meditation is central to its practice, as are rituals – and a preoccupation with the relationship between life and death.

Despite its conceptual remoteness to Thai Buddhism, the Tibetan perspective on living and dying has had a strong influence on at least part of the local Buddhist community. The Buddhika Network for Buddhism, for instance, runs the Peaceful Death Project, providing spiritual and psychological support for the terminally ill.

Rinpoche’s sermon featured samplings of his whimsical humour and periodic eccentricity. He’d occasionally laugh at things the rest of us found not so funny and regularly checked if the audience was keeping up with him. “Is that clear?” he’d ask. “Do you understand?”

Phra Paisal Visalo, the respected Thai monk who translated Rinpoche’s book, was on hand to provide a live, simultaneous translation of his lecture. At times he was even asked to read sections of the prepared script while the Tibetan teacher “took a break”. It didn’t matter either way, Rinpoche said. “The main thing is that this is not a talk, not a lecture. Please listen with mindfulness, not only with your ears, but your eyes and your mind and heart. And you will hear more than the words.

“When you come to a teaching, you must not come to gain, but to lose. Lose what? Prejudice, judgmental mind, preconceived ideas.”

Rinpoche pointed out that most people only begin to appreciate their lives when they’re older and aware they will soon die. “Then they’re ravaged by regret. But isn’t it far too late? What’s more chilling is that most people die unprepared for death, just as they lived unprepared for life.”

Tibetan Buddhism divides existence into the linked “realities” of life, death, after death and rebirth – the four “bardos”, natural, painful, luminous and karmic, respectively. As Rinpoche explained, all four bardos actually occur continuously throughout life, each in turn offering a juncture at which liberation through enlightenment becomes possible. These are much more powerful moments than others. 

“I think of a bardo as being like the moment you step toward the edge of a precipice,” Rinpoche said. “In such a moment a master introduces a disciple to the essential, original and innermost nature of his or her mind. The greatest and most charged of these moments, however, is the moment of death.”

Death, he advised, is neither depressing nor exciting, but merely a fact of life, a mirror reflecting the entire meaning of life. In Buddhism, life and death are seen as one whole and death as the beginning of another chapter in life. Death comes not as a defeat but as a triumph, the crowning and most glorious moment of life.

“People today are taught to deny death, that it means nothing but annihilation and loss. Most of the world lives either in denial of death or in terror of it. Even talking about death is considered morbid and is thought to carry the risk of wishing it upon ourselves.”

We should use our lives to prepare for death, rather than waiting for the painful loss of a loved one or the shock of a terminal diagnosis, Rinpoche said. 

The best way to understand the nature of life and death is through meditation on impermanence, he added. It enables us to recognise life’s preciousness and brevity, leaving us more likely to live it meaningfully. 

“But, despite such teachings, modern society is largely a spiritual desert, where the majority imagines that this life is all there is. Without faith in an afterlife, most people live lives deprived of any ultimate meaning.

“We can begin, here and now, to find meaning in our lives. We can make of every moment an opportunity to change and to prepare – wholeheartedly, precisely and with peace of mind –for death and eternity.”

Buddhism teaches that our true nature is to be awakened, Rinpoche noted. Normally, though, our minds are shrouded in delusion and ignorance. Only in death does the luminous, pure mind emerge.

“What happens at the moment of death is that the ordinary mind and its delusions die, and in that gap the boundless-sky-like nature of our mind is uncovered.

“If all we know of mind is the aspect that dissolves when we die, we will be left with no idea of what continues, no knowledge of the new dimension of the deeper reality of the nature of mind. So it is vital for us all to familiarise ourselves with the nature of mind while we are still alive. Only then will we be able to recognise it as naturally as a child running into its mother’s lap.”

Rinpoche suggested choosing a calm and harmonious environment for death. We all have the right to a peaceful death, and the circumstances have an impact on our spiritual future. The dying person most needs to be shown as unconditional a love as possible, to be released from all expectations.

“I feel that, wherever possible, people should die at home, because that’s where people are likely to feel most comfortable. And the peaceful death that the Buddhist masters advise is easiest to obtain in familiar surroundings. 

“When a person is very close to death, I suggest you ask the hospital staff to not disturb him or her so often and that they stop checking on his condition. These procedures can cause anger, irritation and pain. The mind of the dying person needs to be as calm as possible in the moments before death.”

It’s this aspect of his teaching that has helped improve the way in which the terminally ill are taken care of in hospitals and hospices in many countries, including Thailand.