How are you preparing for death?

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Malcolm
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Malcolm »

Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 4:42 pm Thanks JD

Anyone done any of the practical stuff yet?

You know: making a will, writing instructions on what you want done with your body after death, buying a funeral plan etc?
Yes. I have a will, including a living will in case of some disability. I don't much care what happens to my body after I part with it. But it will certainly be cremated. Leaving it to rot in a box in the ground somewhere is an unnecessary expense and not a good use of land resources.
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Sādhaka
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Sādhaka »

I just read the other day that a living trust is almost always better than a will. May be something to look into.
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by reiun »

Malcolm wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 4:46 pm
reiun wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 4:19 pm
If some teachings have not been proven factual, then they are theoretical.
So your standard of "factual" is the ordinary perception of common, deluded, sentient beings? Good to know.
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 4:42 pm Thanks JD

Anyone done any of the practical stuff yet?

You know: making a will, writing instructions on what you want done with your body after death, buying a funeral plan etc?
I’m working on this stuff with my wife right now. I’m younger (relative to some of you:)), but I want to start tackling it.
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Malcolm
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Malcolm »

Sādhaka wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 4:56 pm I just read the other day that a living trust is almost always better than a will. May be something to look into.
Generally, when you make out a will these days, the living trust part is included.
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Knotty Veneer »

Giovanni wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 4:36 pm
Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 3:07 pm I think I took us down a fruitless rabbit hole in my responses to Malcolm's answer. So let me rephrase:

So, anyone care to share what they are doing to prepare for their death (rather than their trip through the bardo)?
I get the feeling that having become disillusioned with Buddhadharma you want validation for that disillusionment.
I am by no means disillusioned with the Buddhadharma. I may not agree with your take on it but it's a bit presumptuous of you to judge me like that, Giovanni.
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Giovanni
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Giovanni »

Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 5:18 pm
Giovanni wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 4:36 pm
Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 3:07 pm I think I took us down a fruitless rabbit hole in my responses to Malcolm's answer. So let me rephrase:

So, anyone care to share what they are doing to prepare for their death (rather than their trip through the bardo)?
I get the feeling that having become disillusioned with Buddhadharma you want validation for that disillusionment.
I am by no means disillusioned with the Buddhadharma. I may not agree with your take on it but it's a bit presumptuous of you to judge me like that, Giovanni.
But you reject one of its central tenents. That isn’t MY take. Rebirth is central to the teachings of most Theravadin and Mahayana teaching universally and historically. It’s a bit like describing the redistribution of the means of production as my take on Marxism.🤣
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

A thread on Buddhist preparation for death that is dismissive of rebirth seems absurd to me, almost a contradiction in terms.

The thing is, if we are talking almost any traditional Buddhist practice here, it all assumes rebirth as a backdrop to such preparation.

That said, I’m not sure how fruitful yet another debate on rebirth will be, so maybe it would be good to clarify what Knotty is actually asking about. If it’s mainly about worldly preparation for ones death, this is an overlapping but different question than Buddhist- specific death preparation.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

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Knotty Veneer
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Knotty Veneer »

I think we have a doctrinal dispute between those traditions whose adherents are comfortable with accepting teachings that cannot be proved on faith and those traditions that emphasize a more questioning attitude.

I pretty much share Shohaku Okumura Roshi's approach to rebirth:
I don’t believe in rebirth and yet, I don’t negate it. There is no basis to believe or negate it. What I can say for sure is, “I don’t know.” The important thing for me is to practice in this lifetime as the Buddha instructed in the Dhammapada, “To refrain from anything bad and practice everything good. Purify your mind. This is the teaching of the seven Buddhas.”

If there is rebirth, it is all right, I will try to practice in the same manner. If there is no-rebirth, I don’t need to do anything after my death. So I don’t need to think about it in that case. Even if I don’t believe rebirth as a person, I don’t negate the principle of cause and result. What I am doing now will have result even after my death.
Those who seem to think that refusal to believe unquestioningly in rebirth makes one not a Buddhist might want to reflect on whether they might be being sectarian.
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Malcolm
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Malcolm »

Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 6:44 pm I think we have a doctrinal dispute between those traditions whose adherents are comfortable with accepting teachings that cannot be proved on faith
...

Those who seem to think that refusal to believe unquestioningly in rebirth makes one not a Buddhist might want to reflect on whether they might be being sectarian.
It just makes your practice mundane, for this life only, that's all. When one dies, that's it, zip, one's ability to help sentient beings ends with brain death. It renders the bodhisattva vow meaningless, and so on. Since the Buddha clearly taught rebirth as crucial to his model of liberation, without which it is pointless, one is better off practicing some secular discipline since one cannot really say that one actually has confidence in the Buddha's teachings, since one rejects his own observation that rejecting rebirth is wrong view. It's like being a Catholic and rejecting the seven sacraments of the church. But this topic (rebirth is tired).
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Knotty Veneer »

Malcolm wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 6:50 pm
Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 6:44 pm I think we have a doctrinal dispute between those traditions whose adherents are comfortable with accepting teachings that cannot be proved on faith
...

Those who seem to think that refusal to believe unquestioningly in rebirth makes one not a Buddhist might want to reflect on whether they might be being sectarian.
It just makes your practice mundane, for this life only, that's all. When one dies, that's it, zip, one's ability to help sentient beings ends with brain death.
I disagree. One thing that certainly survives the death of the body are our actions. Our ability to help beings certainly can survive the death of the body. Through your children, those you influenced for the good, maybe through books you wrote or charitable giving you made. Our karma ripples out long after we are gone.
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 6:44 pm I think we have a doctrinal dispute between those traditions whose adherents are comfortable with accepting teachings that cannot be proved on faith and those traditions that emphasize a more questioning attitude.

I pretty much share Shohaku Okumura Roshi's approach to rebirth:
I don’t believe in rebirth and yet, I don’t negate it. There is no basis to believe or negate it. What I can say for sure is, “I don’t know.” The important thing for me is to practice in this lifetime as the Buddha instructed in the Dhammapada, “To refrain from anything bad and practice everything good. Purify your mind. This is the teaching of the seven Buddhas.”

If there is rebirth, it is all right, I will try to practice in the same manner. If there is no-rebirth, I don’t need to do anything after my death. So I don’t need to think about it in that case. Even if I don’t believe rebirth as a person, I don’t negate the principle of cause and result. What I am doing now will have result even after my death.
Those who seem to think that refusal to believe unquestioningly in rebirth makes one not a Buddhist might want to reflect on whether they might be being sectarian.
I’ve said it before, and I will say it again
(Mostly because I’m an old geezer who tends to truest himself a lot), those who don’t believe in rebirth basically hold to some idea of a truly existent “self” and they deny that this “self” takes rebirth.
Even if they technically, as Buddhists, refute the idea of self, this is the lingering subconscious take on it. Still clinging to a self without even realizing it.
But the Buddha never said that there’s a truly existent “self” that is reborn.
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Knotty Veneer
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Knotty Veneer »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 7:08 pm
Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 6:44 pm I think we have a doctrinal dispute between those traditions whose adherents are comfortable with accepting teachings that cannot be proved on faith and those traditions that emphasize a more questioning attitude.

I pretty much share Shohaku Okumura Roshi's approach to rebirth:
I don’t believe in rebirth and yet, I don’t negate it. There is no basis to believe or negate it. What I can say for sure is, “I don’t know.” The important thing for me is to practice in this lifetime as the Buddha instructed in the Dhammapada, “To refrain from anything bad and practice everything good. Purify your mind. This is the teaching of the seven Buddhas.”

If there is rebirth, it is all right, I will try to practice in the same manner. If there is no-rebirth, I don’t need to do anything after my death. So I don’t need to think about it in that case. Even if I don’t believe rebirth as a person, I don’t negate the principle of cause and result. What I am doing now will have result even after my death.
Those who seem to think that refusal to believe unquestioningly in rebirth makes one not a Buddhist might want to reflect on whether they might be being sectarian.
I’ve said it before, and I will say it again
(Mostly because I’m an old geezer who tends to truest himself a lot), those who don’t believe in rebirth basically hold to some idea of a truly existent “self” and they deny that this “self” takes rebirth.
Even if they technically, as Buddhists, refute the idea of self, this is the lingering subconscious take on it. Still clinging to a self without even realizing it.
But the Buddha never said that there’s a truly existent “self” that is reborn.
I would argue that the 'one-out - one in' conception of rebirth is much more mired in clinging to a concept of self. Noone here is denying the possibility of some form of rebirth - just that its existence is not provable.
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Giovanni
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Giovanni »

But the concept of karma is meaningless without the concept of karma-vipaka. And karma- vipaka is meaningless in terms of one lifetime. We cannot simply cherry pick ideas that appeal to us and decontextualize them. Or perhaps we can but it is transparent.
Malcolm
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Malcolm »

Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 7:02 pm
I disagree. One thing that certainly survives the death of the body are our actions. Our ability to help beings certainly can survive the death of the body. Through your children, those you influenced for the good, maybe through books you wrote or charitable giving you made. Our karma ripples out long after we are gone.
One's karma does not ripple out or ripen on anyone else. This is a common misunderstanding of karma in the West. As the Buddha says:

"'I am the owner of my actions (kamma), heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir."

One cannot be an heir of one's actions, if, at death, one's continuum utterly ceases.

One's acts on the other hand may and can affect others. Action (karma) and deeds/acts (kāra) are two separate words in Sanskrit, with different meanings. In English this distinction is not as precise, since "actions" and "deeds" are synonymous. It is mostly a translation issue.

Karma is intention and intentional physical and verbal acts. The vipaka or ripening of such intentions and intentional acts is what most people mean when they say, colloquially, that was my karma. But in fact while our acts or deeds can affect others, their ripening, positive or negative, ripens only on ourselves.
Malcolm
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Malcolm »

Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 7:13 pm I would argue that the 'one-out - one in' conception of rebirth is much more mired in clinging to a concept of self. Noone here is denying the possibility of some form of rebirth - just that its existence is not provable.
Rebirth occurs because of the habit of I-making. When that habit is eradicated, then one has control over birth. It may not be "provable" to those commoners with ordinary, contaminated, undeveloped sense organs, but it is verifiable by those who make the effort to cultivate samadhi and the deva eye, etc. That community has found rebirth empirically validated amongst themselves.
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Knotty Veneer »

Ok we're going down the unprovable karma/rebirth rabbit hole again.

Let's just leave it. I don't think it's going anywhere.

Let me ask a question in a way that doesn't lead us to go there:

What practices help you face death and dying, and what have you learnt from them?
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Malcolm
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Malcolm »

Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 7:49 pm What practices help you face death and dying, and what have you learnt from them?
Asked and answered.
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 6:44 pm I think we have a doctrinal dispute between those traditions whose adherents are comfortable with accepting teachings that cannot be proved on faith and those traditions that emphasize a more questioning attitude.

I pretty much share Shohaku Okumura Roshi's approach to rebirth:
I don’t believe in rebirth and yet, I don’t negate it. There is no basis to believe or negate it. What I can say for sure is, “I don’t know.” The important thing for me is to practice in this lifetime as the Buddha instructed in the Dhammapada, “To refrain from anything bad and practice everything good. Purify your mind. This is the teaching of the seven Buddhas.”

If there is rebirth, it is all right, I will try to practice in the same manner. If there is no-rebirth, I don’t need to do anything after my death. So I don’t need to think about it in that case. Even if I don’t believe rebirth as a person, I don’t negate the principle of cause and result. What I am doing now will have result even after my death.
Those who seem to think that refusal to believe unquestioningly in rebirth makes one not a Buddhist might want to reflect on whether they might be being sectarian.

That’s not a doctrinal formation or some tenet but one teachers upaya. Zen has all kinds of ceremonies directly addressing things like prayers for the deceased, funerary tradition which assumes rebirth, etc. and like most Mahayana schools generally takes samsara as a given. That is not sectarianism, it’s the reality of Buddhist tradition as we know them, independent of personal belief.

There are certainly schools with vastly different emphasis on this, but the implication that agnosticism about rebirth is somehow a traditional Buddhist position alongside belief in rebirth is simply not accurate IMO.

As to practices that help, I’d again mention simply imagining one is dying soon, it’s aided by the fact that for some of us, it may be true!

Corpse contemplation is another classic example, I’ve always loved the Japanese versions:
https://www.talkdeath.com/contemplation ... rt-kusozu/
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

-Khunu Lama
Knotty Veneer
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Re: How are you preparing for death?

Post by Knotty Veneer »

Johnny Dangerous wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 7:53 pm
Knotty Veneer wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 6:44 pm I think we have a doctrinal dispute between those traditions whose adherents are comfortable with accepting teachings that cannot be proved on faith and those traditions that emphasize a more questioning attitude.

I pretty much share Shohaku Okumura Roshi's approach to rebirth:
I don’t believe in rebirth and yet, I don’t negate it. There is no basis to believe or negate it. What I can say for sure is, “I don’t know.” The important thing for me is to practice in this lifetime as the Buddha instructed in the Dhammapada, “To refrain from anything bad and practice everything good. Purify your mind. This is the teaching of the seven Buddhas.”

If there is rebirth, it is all right, I will try to practice in the same manner. If there is no-rebirth, I don’t need to do anything after my death. So I don’t need to think about it in that case. Even if I don’t believe rebirth as a person, I don’t negate the principle of cause and result. What I am doing now will have result even after my death.
Those who seem to think that refusal to believe unquestioningly in rebirth makes one not a Buddhist might want to reflect on whether they might be being sectarian.

That’s not a doctrinal formation or some tenet but one teachers upaya. Zen has all kinds of ceremonies directly addressing things like prayers for the deceased, etc. and like most Mahayana schools generally takes samsara as a given. That is not sectarianism, it’s the reality of Buddhist tradition as we know them, independent of personal belief.

There are certainly schools with vastly different emphasis on this, but the implication that agnosticism about rebirth is somehow a traditional Buddhist position is not really accurate IMO.

As to practices that help, I’d again mention simply imaging one is dying soon, it’s aided by the fact that for some of us, it may be true!

Corpse contemplation is another classic example, I’ve always loved the Japanese versions:
https://www.talkdeath.com/contemplation ... rt-kusozu/
Ah JD, you are not so really arrogant as to sit there and tell me that Okumura doesn't really believe what I just quoted just because it contradicts your position? It was only a skillful means to appeal to slow learners like me?

Whether his view is traditional or not is beside the point. If rebirth were a provable fact we'd all accept it as fact just as we accept death as a fact. Okumura's stated view is valid as is. Apparently he's a really nice guy. Maybe we could email him and ask him?

The problem I find with those who accept things they cannot know on faith is when they cannot then admit they might - just might - not know the whole story. That can start to smell a bit like fundamentalism.

Rebirth might exist exactly as described in the various teachings. You might be right. But you don't know for sure.

I think I need a break from this forum.
This is not the wrong life.
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