I’ve come close to death on a number of occasions and crossed the threshold a couple of times. Death – death is not the enemy. Death is not an enemy, it’s a friend. It’s something to look forward to. This attitude is the true spirit of Buddhism. It’s born of experience, or it may be transmitted from those who know. The one great moment is the moment of transition into death. This is unreplicable, it’s something quite different from the rest of life.
So, death is something to keep close. Keep it close at hand like a good friend. The person who keeps death close at hand in a mode of reverent appreciation just can’t take the vicissitudes of this world as having any ultimate significance.
Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A phantasm, a dream,
as it says in the Diamond Sutra.
Of course, there is dukkha – groups break up, loved ones are lost to death, there are conflicts, there are failures, there are complications. Of course, one can reduce the complications somewhat, one can choose a simpler life - this is what we call renunciation and it has its own bliss - but the purest bliss comes from realisation of the nature of impermanence, the knowledge that death is a friend. If death is one’s friend, then one can be friends with other people within this life since we’re all going towards the same point. And the Pure Land practitioner realises how that point is the light of Amida. We might have conflicts of troubles but we shouldn’t take them too seriously. They’re just waves on the surface that clash for a short time. Our connections and differences in this life, they’re only preliminary. When we have reverence for death, we see that all this soap opera is not really that important.
If one is with a dying person, it’s not your role to help them. When you have the attitude “I’m going to help this poor person who is dying”, this is a mistake because it carries and implied denigration of death and its sacred quality.
The time of being with a dying person is a time for fellowship with somebody who is closer to the Great Time than oneself. This is a time for humility. A dying person is sacred.
People say that death is natural but, you know, in an important sense, death is super-natural. It’s more than the ordinary. Death goes beyond what is natural. When one is close to death – whether it’s your own death or the death of somebody else – one is closer to the sacred, closer to what takes one beyond all that is merely natural. Death is a precious jewel. This is where you leave your body and mind behind! Practise is to be dead before you die. If we can meet all the circumstances of life in this spirit, everything becomes holy. The radiance of the Limitless Light beyond death - it’s only the thickness of a tissue away. Closeness of death makes that tissue translucent and the light floods this world.
So, revere those who are dying and also those who have already passed away. It’s they who help us. They’re in touch with the Infinite Light. Amida has them in his hand. We can ask them for help or advice. We can ask them to be with us in spirit. We’ll always get an answer one way or another.
When a person is dying, we wish them well on their journey and we feel blessed that we’ve been with them at this sacred time when the great dark is broken open and it all becomes clear.
Thank you very much
Namo Amida Bu
Dharmavidya
David
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