On Death and Life
The following is not intended to be a doctrinal thesis, or to be considered as any thing other than my personal views regarding death. I am asked this question probably more than any other single question. I have taken the time here to summarize my response to those questions.
Within Buddhist thought there are many who view one life as a continuation of another specific life, yet at the core of the Buddhas teaching is the teaching of no permanently existing soul or self. It has been my experience, when talking to people, that it is at this point where many people have the most fear of dying.
The idea that a life, this life, is all there is of oneself can be most unsettling. We want to believe that we are so unique that we will continue forever; this, the Buddha teaches us, is the most difficult link to break in the 12 Link Chain of Causation. This clinging to oneself is what causes suffering it is what causes rebirth. I won’t go into all the different links but suffice it to say that they dependently arise because we desire or cling to identity or self.
Back to life and death though, which is after all my main purpose for sharing this with you. So, if there is no permanently existing soul or self what does that look like.? Where do I come from, where do I go, why even exist at all? These are great questions, not unlike the questions I imagine most people of faith ask at one time or another.
There is a really great book I came across a couple of years ago titled The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self: An Intellectual History of Personal Identity by editors Raymond Martin and John Barresi. What the editors of this book have done is lay out the development of Christian thought through the ages from before Christ to modern time concerning personal identity in general and the soul in particular. The editors have made no attempt to critique any of the thought processes but merely to lay them out in a continuum for examination of the development of thought.
One of the fascinating things I find is that religion needs to be examined not as a fixed way of thought with no prior history, thinking that the way one thinks now is the way all people before have thought. I don’t guess I need to tell you that, but I do believe that many people practice their religion with that kind of mindset.
Within the continuum of Christian thought, early on, scholars grappled with the concept of soul and personal identity. Initially there was a realization that we do not exist as fixed entities uniquely constituted solely of ourselves. The idea of resurrection hit a roadblock when faced with questions of what gets resurrected. Is it the person in the prime of their life, or the old person or the very young wrinkle free person? They recognized that the body decays and the decayed body serves as nutrient for other plants and animals which in turn serve as nutrient for other humans. So the molecules I consume that once belonged to another person do they get subtracted from me in resurrection? These are questions that I suspect not many Christians concern themselves with today, since the early scholars ‘solved’ the problem, or at least explained it away.
I mention this because these are the kinds of questions that Buddhist to this day do not ignore. There is no independently arising self or anything. Nothing exists independent of everything else.
An analogy I frequently use to try to explain the Buddhist view of life and death and personal identity is waves.
Waves on Oregon Coast
On a body of water there occur waves. These waves come about due to a variety of causes and conditions. These range from the geography of the floor of the body of water, let me just use ocean from here on out, but you can see it on any body of water. The floor of the ocean is a factor influencing the kind of wave. Water temperature also influences waves, especially in larger bodies of water, take el nino for example. The moon is an influencing factor. So too is the atmospheric conditions on the surface of the water, are there high winds and such. Geological occurrences far away also influence the formation of waves, take for example tsunamis.
Ok, the make up or type of wave will be influenced by many factors. The duration of the life of the wave will also be influenced greatly by many of these same factors. While a wave is in existence, what is it composed of? It contains the water from which it is ‘born’. In many ways there is really no distinction between the water of the ocean and the water of the wave. So too, it is with our lives. The only thing that causes us to see uniqueness or separateness is our karma, those things that have caused our unique existence to come about. Yet we remain a part of the life force of the universe.
When a wave ceases to exist where does it go until the next occurrence of a wave? It goes back into the ocean from which it came. When another wave is reformed what are the constituent parts that make up that wave? They are nothing other than all the parts of the ocean.
It is clinging to personal identity as a continuing entity that causes the most suffering. So then the question becomes; if there is no personal identity, then why be good? Why not just be any old way we wish?
Here is how I look at it. It only takes a small amount of poison or pollutant to ruin a large amount of water. It only takes a small amount of chlorine to purify a much larger quantity of water. Of all the circumstances I would wish for rebirth it would be as clean water, wouldn’t you.
Now is it easy to come to terms with this belief? No it is not. But that difficulty does not make it impossible. I do not believe it is easy for anyone of faith to face death without serious inner exploration.
I think some people over simplify this fear and call it lack of faith. However, I think it can be harmful to label questioning as a lack of faith, and it is harmful because it doesn’t really address the real fear of the unknown. We all want to believe something, but when faced with death some can find nothing there to substantially believe in, other than words of other people.
This may be an oversimplification but I think when people have found enough proof in the provable it is easier to believe in the un-provable. By this I mean, I am sure that as a person of faith looks around every day they see the glory, the mystery, or the proof of the existence of their God. Sometimes this proof flies in the face of science yet it is seen in ways that are indeed very religiously scientific, if I may say that.
Because a person has seen proof in their life, they can believe in things that are basically un-provable, at least un-provable to many.
As a Buddhist I look around and see an infinite number of examples that substantiate my beliefs. I see so many examples that support what I believe, that I am confident in my belief in what I cannot prove. I cannot prove to any person exactly all the Buddhist thought regarding death and the continuation of life, but I believe I can demonstrate with enough examples that could give a person an idea into at least a rational acceptance of what I believe.
This does not say that a person will believe as I do, but they can approach the door through which I have entered.
I was speaking with someone the other evening and they admitted they weren’t completely sure which view was correct, the view of only heaven or of rebirth. I think that to some degree it is not the question we must ask ourselves. That is not the real issue we face, instead the real issue is what am I or what are we doing in this very moment to live our lives that have been given to us. Living now is the preparation for the future we wish to experience.
I honestly believe that if we do the best we can in this moment that the moments which follow will naturally be well prepared for.
Now I do not expect everyone to be comfortable with this statement without qualification. I may be wrong here, but for people of faith, the best possible preparation for death is to live one’s life fully according to their particular religious teaching. The way to prepare for death lies not in giving up life but in living. So too for the Buddhist, the way to face death is to live fully right now.
I may not have fully explained or helped in seeing the great joy I experience in my life including the eventual extinction of this existence. It is my hope that this will elucidate the philosophical foundation for my belief and how it plays out in the reality of day-to-day existence.
