|
|
|
|
Some time ago, I had a letter from a lady who was quite distraught after running over a stray kitten she had taken in as a stray and nursed back to health. She had lavished care and attention on it and been extra cautious when driving in and out of the garage where she had housed it, but in spite of all this, the poor cat managed to get in the way of the wheels one day, and ............ RIP! Just as with the birth and growth of anything, so, too, with Compassion: pain is involved; in fact, the very word means ‘to suffer, or feel, with’. It was compassion that had induced the lady to take in the abandoned kitten in the first place, and devote time and care to restoring it to health, seeing it was properly housed, fed and so on. Now she blames herself for its death and feels that she killed it, which is unjust to herself and only increases her suffering, and will never bring the kitten back to life anyway. Of course she feels sorry that something she cared for and loved is now dead; but although it died beneath the wheels of her car as she reversed out of the garage, she did not kill it, simply because she didn’t know it was there at the time, and would never intentionally have harmed it in any way. We live within limits; all that is
born will die, and it’s only a matter of time before we go off into the Void,
and although there is nothing we can do to prevent this, there is plenty that we
can do about the limits of ignorance, which is our greatest foe. While we are
here, we should do what we can to alleviate and remove pain—in others as well
as in ourselves—but, more than anything else, should try to understand the
nature of life—how uncertain and insecure it is—and strive to help others to
understand, too, for just as we are grateful if someone helps us to understand
something, there are lots of people who would appreciate a bit of help from us.
I know someone who imparts a little Dharma to people while giving driving
lessons; he once told me about this, so: “I explain that driving
involves not only driving skills but also a moral attitude, and can be compared
to daily life, since all the time one is on the road the situation changes and
is never the same; hence one has to be aware of everything that is happening on
the road. I start my lessons with a warning of what people should try to avoid
if they want to drive a motor vehicle: first, not to drink and drive; second,
not to get upset or angry and drive; third, not to think too much about other
things and drive; and fourth, not to drive when one is very tired. If one pays
attention to such things, driving will be an art and a pleasure for everyone”.
This is practical Dharma at the wheel. Money, fame, power and the uses and abuses thereof, are all used as insurance policies, especially in times—most of human history and pre-history, in fact—when there were no things like welfare states or social security systems; it was expected that children should care for their parents in their old age. It is still this way in poor and not-so-poor countries. Wives, husbands, parents and friends are also insurance policies. Religion and philosophy—the ‘love of wisdom’—are the ultimate insurance policies, on which people fall back and hold onto for support when all else fails. Often, however, it is too late then; the time for becoming religious and seeking wisdom is before disaster strikes, not afterwards. We hear a lot nowadays of ‘death-bed conversions’ from one religious ‘brand name’ to another. I will not say ‘from one religion to another’ because that is rarely so. It is more the case of people whose minds—understandably—are fearful at the known or expected approach of death, and who succumb to the seductive wiles and promises of those who are drawn to death-beds like vultures in the hope of winning last minute converts with inducements of different kinds, including fear and threats. It is usually just a change of name rather than of substance, for if the dying had spent more time in trying to understand their religion when they were younger, healthier and better able to, and had also done some research into other religions—as we all should—they would have more to lean on and would probably be less afraid and more composed at the end. Of course, I am speaking from conjecture and generalizing here, and there is no blueprint that everyone can and should follow; surely, the end, and the way it is faced, will be different with every individual. If I have lived and died before, I do not remember it, and am yet to face my death in this life (although I have probably come near to it many more times than I was aware of); how I shall fare—supposing it doesn’t come suddenly and without warning—I cannot imagine, but must wait and see. Meanwhile, life provides us with many opportunities to prepare for it. The concept of God as held by Christians and others, can be, at one level—I will admit—reassuring (it is also terrifying if one thinks about it in a wider way!) When I was a Christian I used to believe in God and pray, but that was long ago, and I now find the concept unsatisfactory and childish. Far from accepting the statement in Genesis that God created man in his own image, I feel that it was the other way around: that Man created God from his hopes and fears in his image! What, then, do I have in place of an anthropomorphic God* from which I draw strength and comfort? I have Dharma, the central principle of which is the Law of Cause-and-Effect; but this is not a person with likes and dislikes, unpredictable and volatile emotions and so on—as is the Christian God—and prayers of supplication to it, promises, pleas, bargaining, ceremonies, offerings, mediating priests, etc., will have no effect whatsoever, just as praying for light in a dark cave will never dispel the darkness; we must strive for understanding and light, and the more we acquire of these, the better equipped we will be to face whatever life throws at or brings us. This might appear rather stark and stoical philosophy and I know that it will not suit everyone, but there are plenty of people who do and would subscribe to it, who are fed-up with airy-fairy ideas and untenable doctrines. I might have stated it rather forcefully and some people might think I am trying to deprive others of hope, but this is not so; I am trying to impart something that people may accept or reject as they see fit, something that I feel is better and more reliable than the ‘pie-in-the-sky’ hope held unthinkingly by vast numbers of people around the world; with so many negative ideas thriving therein, I feel I have something positive and constructive to contribute. If we examine hope, we will find that it is always accompanied by fear; hope is, in fact, the other side of the coin of fear. Where there is hope, there is fear; where there is fear, there is hope; they go together inseparably and perhaps we can say that they are really two different names for the same thing, because when we hope for something, there is fear of not getting it, and when we are afraid of something, there is hope that it will not happen. Can we separate hope of winning or succeeding from the fear of losing or failing? And the things that we hope/fear for: is there a realistic basis for them? If we would examine them, we would almost certainly find that we have merely adopted the standards of others, which they adopted from others, back and back; in other words, our hopes and fears—especially of things abstract and unseen, like what will happen after we die, heaven and hell, etc.—are inherited from others. This is not to say they have no substance and are false and illusory, but neither does it say that they are time tested and true. It merely says that they should be thought about and investigated. Since Buddhism rejects the notion of a personal ‘Creator-God’ who or which will take the faithful to heaven upon death and cast the sinners into hell forever, how are Buddhists taught to face death?
Buddhism teaches and encourages us to develop self-reliance
while we are alive and able to, and to accept responsibility for our own living;
it teaches us to face the inevitable end—if death is the end—with
understanding, courage and detachment. It teaches that rather than
praying/hoping/fearing, it is better to focus on good and positive things like
the virtues of the Three Jewels: the Buddha, as the one who discovered and
revealed the Way, the Dharma, as both the Way and the eventual Goal, and the
Sangha, or those who have experienced or attained—in some degree, at
least—the Goal that the Buddha indicated. We should reflect on the virtuous
things we have done and accomplished in our lives—not in a manner, however,
that would cause us to think egoistically, “How good I have been!”, which we
must always be alert against, but because such accomplishments are indications
that we have, at times, drawn near to Dharma. We should recall things we have
done that were of benefit to others, particularly things of public benefit
rather than restricted to specific individuals, things which helped us to
transcend personality, both of self and of others. Thinking of how one’s life
has been useful to others—of how it has not been a complete waste or in vain,
and that good seeds were sown—will help to counteract fear and uncertainty and
enable the mind to become peaceful and joyful, buoyant and light, and will make
the passing easier. As far as possible, the mind should not be allowed to dwell
on negative things like fear, worry, anger and regret for things done and
undone. Remorse is useful and productive of good while we are alive and able to
correct things, but should not be indulged in when it comes time to die, as it
makes the mind sorrowful and unclear and drags us down, rather than helping us
to ‘soar from life’s low vale’. Most useful of all at the time of death,
however, is the insight—penetrating and clear—into the nature of life that
we experienced while alive, as this influences us very much, of course; it is
this, most of all, that can carry us through, and this is one of the reasons we
are advised to take advantage of our opportunities while we are healthy and well
to inquire, investigate, meditate on and apply ourselves to Dharma, instead of
living mainly and merely to enjoy ourselves, so that at the end we will be
better prepared.
For all our religious and
philosophical beliefs and theories about what happens after death, no-one really
knows. Now, let us suppose—just suppose, if we are not afraid to—that this
life is all we’ve got and there is nothing further beyond death; certainly, it
is a belief or even a conviction that many people hold, and it is, as far as we
know, a possibility, so let’s consider that it might be so (I’m not saying
that it is, mind, but just looking at the possibility of it, and cannot prove,
one way or the other, that it is or is not). Would that preclude or invalidate
any attempt to lead a moral or religious life? Would it render meaningless any
effort to make sense out of life, with all its pain and confusion? I don’t
think so; on the contrary, if we lived nearer to the present than we do, instead
of worrying and speculating about what—if anything—lies beyond death, we
would probably make a better job of living than we do. There would be a good
reason to live fully and responsibly if we thought that this is the only time we
have; we would not defer our living until later—after-death living, so to
speak. We don’t know if there is life after death, but there is certainly life
before it! with love?
[*Anthropomorphic means ‘having human form’, ‘in human form’.]
THE END
|
|
COMMENTS OR SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE THE WEBSITE, PLEASE CLICK HERE
|
