The Importance Of Death In Buddhism

1. Introduction

There is a general interpretation from the public that death is a forbidding topic because it indicates the mental and physical suffering and pain. They believe that death means the end of one’s life and losing everything he got. This leads to an unacceptable level of sorrow for everlasting separation of the dying person or his friends and relatives. As a result, people are reluctant to face death and it becomes a taboo. However, this belief is actually inconsistent with Buddhist teaching, which emphasizes on the process of life and views death as an important transition moment. It demonstrates the importance of understanding life. There is a saying ‘how can you know about death while you do not know about life?’ It is meaningless

This psychophysical combination is not permanent; their function will cease when one dies. And this is subjected to the law of change. Life is regarded as a process instead of an identity in Buddhism. Similar to the biological theories, human body is constantly under developmental process, which started from a fertilized ovum. Going through numerous transformations, human body is developed with a complicated physiological structure, resulting in a multi cellular living thing. There are three stages in the psychological process: arising, remaining and pass away. In Buddhism, the mountain river depicted in Anguttaranikāya (n.d.) is illustrated as a metaphor to describe the continuous development of a physical being as well as the succession of thoughts: it continues and keeps on flowing without stopping for a second. It emphasizes that life is a continuum with different stages and no

According to the Buddhists, death takes place once the mental part is detached from the physical body. One is subjected to death when the physical body breaks down and the five aggregates stop functioning; the faculty of living ceases. Based on the understanding of life from Visuddhimagga (2011), “There is no doer but the deed, there is no experiencer but the experience”, meaning that there is no person, but a process; there is no sufferer in death, but only process of dying. Supported by this statement, life and death are believed to be an on-going process.

There is a common misconception from the general public that one’s mind or consciousness can proceed to the next life. However, referring to Buddhism, this is not the truth since it is believed that mind is not permanent. It may influence the later lives but it does not pass on through different lives and given that consciousness keep changing. Although there are many lives in the past and future, Buddhism rejects the idea of continuity of soul because the present life constantly changes.

3. Law of