BEYOND LIFE AND DEATH

Several years ago, I initiated a Zoom conversation with two Zen Masters about what to say to people whose loved one is dying. Before I was able to say anything more about the exact issue with which I was grappling, they started talking. I didn’t interrupt their energetic, two-way, conversation. Instead, I stayed quiet and let them talk.

The upshot of their advice: Just let the words come.

Yes, that was a given. After thanking them and ending the call, I went back to pondering what I had not been able to explain to them. My specific concern had been about how to talk about death to my large family of born-again Christians and of which I am the sole Zen Buddhist.

I’m familiar with the differences in each group’s perspectives about dying, death and the afterlife: I was raised as a Christian from a very young age – including over a decade of teaching Sunday School. I had hoped for advice about how best to respect the beliefs of the Christians in my life and the experiences I have had as a Zen person.  

Christians believe that when they die, their earthly entities transition into spiritual versions that continue onto heaven or hell. Often, they express the hope that they will be reunited with loved ones who have already passed. It is difficult to imagine their self, their particular identity no longer existing. 

From a Zen perspective, however, life and death cannot exist without each other; they are stages of a single cycle. Our earthly form comes together for a brief time and then disappears when conditions change. When that form ends, we are no longer associated with that identity, and only the essence of our being continues.

That essence has no particular identity yet it is our True Self. There is no “me” who goes to a heaven above or to a hell below. Instead, heaven and hell, life and death are merely constructs of our dualistic minds. That is, there is no heaven, no hell; no life, no death – except in our own minds. 

Understandably, different people may have different belief systems about life and death that provides them with a sense of peace about what awaits at the end of life. The challenge for us as individuals in this environment of so many beliefs is to understand and empathize with others, to, as the old saying goes, “Walk in that person’s shoes.”

When my mother passed away – at age 100 – in 2014, she was surrounded by more than a dozen family members, plus the pastor from her church. I looked at my mother’s face while the pastor led everyone else – heads bowed – in prayer. I saw my mother’s facial expression change: Whatever it was that had animated my mother had left her physical body. She was no longer mom; she was gone. No one else seemed to notice she had died, and the praying continued in earnest, asking God to ease her passing and to bring comfort to those left behind.

Each of us has, and had, our own way of facing the death of a loved one.

I have memories of my mother – as well as those whom I have known but who are now deceased. I do not, expect or hope to reunite with them in the forms we and they had. Instead, without the limitation of a physical form defining our life identity, we return to the unlimited, undifferentiated, indescribable essence that is our true selves: the form of no-form, in which we and the universe are one. There is no “I” to meet with anyone; and there is no one for me to meet.

So, with this Zen perspective, what would I say to my family or others about death and dying?

I cannot go into any situation with any preconceived notions about what to say or do. Instead, I must focus on my being – centered, calm, clear, that is, empty – trusting that the doing that comes from this state of being will be what is appropriate for the time and place.