As a bit of side research for the show I’m on, I read through this brief philosophical manifesto from Thich Nhat Hanh which delves into Buddhist outlooks on death - and how to comfort someone who is approaching their own. He goes at great length to explain how his teachings fit in with any religion or lack thereof and I found his claims to be legitimate by the time I finished the book. Hanh is incredibly prolific, having written over 40 books on these sorts of subjects. His prose is simple and beautiful and his messages comforting, and warmly delivered.
The research was for the sake of grounding some of our characters’ perspectives. Specifically, they are militant atheists — and various characters approach their own, or witness another’s, death. So we wanted to understand how they might look at it. Much of the book is too empathetic and grief-related to be relevant to the show, but there were many quotes that concisely describe a Buddhist’s understanding of death, as well as why fanaticism - even of the Buddha’s own teachings - is to be avoided. Here are a few:
“We believe that we are born from nothing and that when we die we become nothing. And so we are filled with fear of annihilation. The Buddha has a very different understanding of our existence. It is the understanding that birth and death are notions. They are not real. The fact that we think they are true makes a powerful illusion that causes suffering. The Buddha taught that there is no birth, there is no death; there is no coming, there is no going; there is no same, there is no different; there is no permanent self, there is no annihilation. We only think there is. When we understand that we cannot be destroyed, we are liberated from fear. It is a great relief. We can enjoy life and appreciate it in a new way.” (P.1)
“The Buddha said that if you get caught in one idea and consider to be “the truth,” then you miss the chance to know the truth… So if you are committed to an idea about truth or to an idea about the conditions necessary for your happiness, be careful. The first Mindfulness Training is about freedom from views: Aware of the suffering created by fanaticism and intolerance, we are determined not to be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology, even Buddhist ones.” (P.9-10)
“I prefer to use the expression of “manifestation” to the word “creation.” Look deeply, and you can understand creation in terms of manifestation. Just as we can understand a cloud as a manifestation of something that has always been there, and rain as the end of the cloud manifestation, we can understand human beings, and even everything around us, as a manifestation that has come from somewhere and will go nowhere. Manifestation is not the opposite of destruction. It simply changes form.” (P.30-31)
“When we lose someone we love, we should remember that the person has not become nothing. “Something” cannot become “nothing,” and “nothing” cannot become “something.” Science can help us understand this, because matter cannot be destroyed – it can become energy. And energy can become matter, but it cannot be destroyed. In the same way, our beloved was not destroyed; she has just taken on another form. That form may be a cloud, a child or the breeze. We can see our loved one in everything.” (P.61)
“After you have touched the wave, you learn to touch the water… The wave does not have to die in order to become water. The wave is water in this very moment.” (P.165-166)
A poem Hanh has written, adapted from Sutra to be “Given to the Dying”:
This body is not me; I am not caught in this body,
I am life without boundaries,
I have never been born and I have never died.
Over there the wide ocean and the sky with many
Galaxies
All manifests from the basis of consciousness.
Since beginningless time I have always been free.
Birth and death are only a door through which we go in
And out.
Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek.
So smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye.
Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before.
We shall always be meeting again at the true source,
Always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.
(P.179-180)