THOUGHTS ON DEATH
Growing up, and well into my adult life, I avoided thinking about death as much as possible. It was something to be feared. With the passing of my father when I was thirteen years old, and the deaths of grandparents, uncles and aunts, I understood death only as a horribly sad dark mystery; something to be avoided at all cost.
As a result of my study of the Buddha’s teachings, I began to contemplate my own death. This inward inquiry and the practice of mindfullness and Vipassana (insight) meditation has led me to understand death as the key that unlocks the seeming mystery of life.
It is by understanding death that we truly understand life; for death is part of the process of life in the larger sense. In another sense, life and death are two ends of the same process and if you understand one end of the process, you also understand the other end. Hence, by understanding the purpose of death we also understand the purpose of life.
It is the contemplation of death, the intensive thought and acceptance that it will some day come upon us, that softens the hardest of hearts, binds one to another with cords of love and compassion, and destroys the barriers of caste, creed and race among the peoples of this earth. Death is our common destiny. Death is also a great leveler. Pride of birth, pride of position, pride of wealth, pride of power must give way to the all-consuming thought of inevitable death.
It is the contemplation of death that gives balance and a healthy sense of proportion to our highly over-wrought minds with their misguided sense of values. It is the contemplation of death that gives strength and steadiness and direction to the erratic human mind, now wondering in one direction, now in another, without aim, without a purpose. I have learned how great and useful is the contemplation of death. It not only purifies and refines the mind but also has the effect of robbing death of its fears and terrors. And I know it will help me at the solemn moment when I am gasping for my last breath, to face that situation with fortitude and calm.
Death is a reminder of the impermanence of all things, of the preciousness of life, of the need to be diligent to one’s spiritual practice. In the practice of Vipassana meditation there is an important stage that one reaches called bhanga (in the Pali language), in which one experiences the dissolution of the apparent solidity of the body into subtle vibrations. There, at the heart of the atom or one’s own consciousness, one experiences constant and dynamic change—energy. This energy—now wave, now particle—is seen as it infuses each and every cell of the body. One experiences the birth and death of the atoms that make up the body as they rise and pass away with great rapidity. And when one realizes that there is nothing solid or finite about the body, nothing to cling to, and nothing to call “I” or “mine,” one understands that death is nothing to fear.
Those who understand death as part of the natural process of life sees life as an opportunity to workfor transcendence beyond transmigration, for awakening to our original purity, for full development of our innate potential, and for compassionate service to all sentient beings.
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