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Unfortunately in our current modern education system we do not encourage children to reflect on death. It is said that the Bhutanese Buddhistic culture makes it compulsory for the populace of Bhutan to reflect upon death five times a day. The secret of the much famed happiness of the Bhutanese are said to be because of this
By Surya Vishwa
This page is dedicated to the overall theme of ‘Harmony’ and we look at this concept from different dimensions, in order to give a holistic meaning to life. Often this page has initiated introspective discussions that are normally not taken up in the mainstream media but which are essential to the building up of a humane condition.
Today we look at what death means as an examiner of life throughout its brief phase. The span of life – even if it is a long one, say 100 years – is still brief, as judged within the vast expanse of time.
Living a meaningful life
This topic for contemplation of death and life – of life and death, is not brought about to instil a sense of morbidity but rather to instil a sense of purpose. It is only when we reflect constantly upon death that we can truly live out a meaningful life. It is only when we reflect constantly upon death that our minute actions will be kinder, empathetic and all what we do here in this impermanent world, in whatever professional role, will be purposeful and devoid of scarring selfishness or pettiness.
Unfortunately in our current modern education system we do not encourage children to reflect on death. It is said that the Bhutanese Buddhistic culture makes it compulsory for the populace of Bhutan to reflect upon death five times a day. The secret of the much famed happiness of the Bhutanese are said to be because of this.
Indeed when we think of death five times a day, the impact has to be seen within us and reflected in our outer behaviour. The Bhutanese respect Mother Nature; much of their country is segmented forest cover. They value simplicity in life and are pragmatic in their political decision making so as to safeguard their culture. This must be why the craze to settle in foreign lands for purported ‘better’ materialistic gains has not gripped their people; it is known that the Bhutanese who go abroad return back to their country.
It is indeed interesting that it took a country that reflects daily on death to create the Gross National Happiness (GNH) index to a mercenary world and when Bhutan introduced GNH to the United Nations in 1998 it influenced all world governments to re-look at their social policy making.
In the materialistic Western tradition constant reflection on death will be seen as having a fatalistic attitude. There is no place in the Western education system (that we have aped) to reflect on life let alone death, although this system seems to have mastered the art of creating premature death to all that is around us. We have cut trees for ‘development.’ We have poisoned the oceans. We have poisoned the soil. See http://www.ft.lk/harmony_page/2021-wish-May-humanity-stop-abusing-Mother-Earth-and-her-children/10523-711014.
However, in Lankan pre-colonial Gurukula and Pirivena education tradition, the reflection of the cycle of death was encouraged as a significant factor webbed into life and thus all of life’s actions were encouraged to be wise, kind and unselfish. Children then whose minds were free of the tuition menace were taught to accrue merit.
Liberation from the cycle of life
Buddhistic traditions and cultures such as in Sri Lanka have revolved on what happens after death. The Tibetan Book of the Dead of the Tibetan Buddhists is about coaching the consciousness of the dying person to exit peacefully in order to help him or her to choose the next life carefully.
Total liberation from the cycle of life being a final objective in Buddhist cultures, we need to possibly spend more time examining how each of our worldly actions (karma) contribute to this.
Tied up as most of us are in this world, with much of what we do akin to machine like whirling, whether it is education, family life or holding leadership positions, where attachment, ambition and competition govern us, the concept of true detachment that is a pre-requisite for freeing ourselves from our ego often eludes us. We do not think of our daily actions in karmic proportions.
Here is one example of how we can relate to what is said above. If we try as much as possible to detach ourselves from the modern malaise of competition in education, we liberate ourselves from jealousy and envy and thereby avoid disparaging our own uniqueness by comparing ourselves to another and prevent getting mired in either inferiority or superiority. A small example of how this could relate in life; in the context of current Lankan university education is by contributing to prevent ragging; the result of an abnormal mental status that is caused by an education system devoid of holistic values.
Unfortunately the great fault of the modern world is that spirituality as taught by spiritual masters and philosophers exist only in isolated cocoons and within rote worship and rituals carried out without contemplation.
Rationality and spirituality
Spirituality should enter our schools, classrooms or institutions where we teach religion, our universities, our parliaments and our business institutions. Rationality and spirituality should co-exist.
Spirituality should not be some bubble floating in the ether or only reaching the surface of the mind as mere theories or sermons. It is not the old who should talk of death. We should learn about the finite nature of this journey at a young age and that we are here to create and leave a better world. We should learn from a young age that creating a better world is a task we should do without wanting fame or glory and that each of our actions (good karma) however small can contribute to it.
We must never forget that philosophers and spiritual leaders such as the Buddha and Jesus were social reformers; what they said were to be practiced for a better life as lived; where we first master life and then death.
In a recent conversation with a meditation guru, one point that was highlighted was how the practice of spirituality should be first and foremost taught to those who lead; whether it is schools, universities, security administrations, or countries. Although contemporary leaders the world over seem to have no qualms about creating wars, they do not seem to spend time reflecting on their own mortality.
Concept of detachment
The concept of detachment has been spoken of in different ways by many spiritual masters. But often this is interpreted as otherworldly or misconstrued as encouraging non-action. We do not spend as adequate an amount of time as needed to reflect that it is only with detachment and accompanying awareness that we could manage the ego that often defiles an action and makes it selfish.
We should spend more time to reflect that it is selfless and detached action which makes a distinct difference. Detachment from the ego is thus a very useful ally in how to wisely approach all decisions of life; from the field of business, to the realm of the intellectual or governance.
Detachment from ego could be one of the best teachers of how to manage power wisely. We should ideally have a PhD course for our politicians (with only practical assignments and no theories) for them to grasp the futility of amassment of wealth through corruption.
The concept of true detachment arising from vanquishing the ego could be grasped best when we silence our mind from the noise of this temporary world to think of our death; the true inheritance of life. We will probably need another PhD course to be crafted for our politicians who seem to think that their life is an eternal tapestry and probably that the afterlife too will be a banquet of indulgences at the cost of the people.
The Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita places a lot of emphasis on action for duty’s sake when referring to the battle of Kurukshetra and the importance of letting go of the ego when doing one’s worldly duty. The Quran speaks of Jihad to be a continuous struggle and conquest of the self; thereby a battle between right and wrong. Fasting or the abstinence from food for particular durations of time, was introduced in all spiritual traditions to make humans detach themselves from afflictions such as greed. Greed of any form ultimately brings sorrow.
Unfortunately modern man has lost touch with the original wisdom of such teachings and the everyday interpretation as seen in action is often the opposite of the actual teaching.
This is why we have lost holistic happiness in contemporary life and have so many seemingly successful people attempting suicide. The last I heard of such a case was of a Lankan millionaire in the echelons of elite society, with millions stashed in banks here and abroad, begging his friends to shoot him. In general we have a majority of humans in this world whose consciousness is in a permanent stupor of the tinsel of glitter, devoid of the depths of a true shine.
Education
This writer in a previous paragraph referred to pre-colonial education structures of this country. In this education that we had, we learnt about a kind of knowledge that we cannot test or know in the way that modern science tells us. Unfortunately today modern science rules the roost and anything that it cannot grasp is debunked.
Many ancients in our culture placed significant emphasis on righteous life because they considered that life as we know it does not end outside the human body, after we breathe our last and had perfected ancient knowledge that proved it (in different ways to how modern science would).
Buddhists as well as Hindus believe it is very hard to obtain a human life after death and thus we can imagine how hard total liberation of nirvana or moksha would be. Although much of the knowledge of the afterlife is taken as superstition in a modern sense, there are few persons even today holding this knowledge of what the human eye cannot see; they are able to see certain phenomena which many (not all) Western scientists may scoff; for example images of individuals who have shed their human bodies along with their last breath but who still return to places where they earlier occupied because they did not let go of attachment of those links. Or because they did not do much harm but did not do enough merits (good karma) to get them out of the trap of hovering in suffering within the world they lived in.
One reason that we have such a dysfunctional world with educated humans creating the worst damage whether it is to the environment or humans is because we have wiped out ancient knowledge and debunked much of it as superstition. Eastern and Western knowledge have not united enough (although there are many books written by Western authors including scientists on some of the above) to bridge this gap. Yet what has happened over the years is that we have got distanced from our own spiritual values and related knowledge and gone one step further to debunk it on our own volition. Hence, in this technological age more than any other we go through life as fragmented entities and we create every conceivable complication for ourselves garbed in niceties.
We place below some related articles for better understanding of some of the points mentioned above and for further reflection to help all of us create for ourselves a meaningful, compassionate, purpose driven life through which we can say to death ‘I have used this human life I was bestowed with, as best as I could, have tried my best not to hurt another, and am ready to leave.’
