Living and Dying During the Holidays

The “Christmas” holiday season is to commemorate the birth of a mythical man-god. Over a billion people believe in the literal existence of a man for which there is no historical evidence. There is an irony in that. A billion + people depend on this man for their salvation, for the forgiveness of their sins and a life in paradise after death. For a humanist this is a little like trusting Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny for eternal life. But that’s why we call it faith. To add irony to this, the religion denies reincarnation but teaches it instead. What would you call dying and being reborn in a paradise or a hell?

Of course, we do exactly the same thing in Buddhism. Jesus may or may not have lived but the Cosmic Buddhas definitely fall under the heading of faith-based religion. For those who practice what is called “Original Buddhism” or “Primitive Buddhism” — whatever those terms might mean to you — it doesn’t really matter whether the Buddha is historical or not. Buddhism doesn’t rely on the historicity of the man. It relies on the value of the Dhamma — the teachings regarding reality. It doesn’t matter if the Buddha, Amitabha, the Medicine Buddha or Tara or any of the 2,000 + others, have some kind of concrete existence or not. The Dhamma is all that really matters. Enlightenment is a process one engages in after they awaken to the truth. It is that process we trust and have our faith.

On December 17, 2013, my wife’s father died. He was 79 and a very sweet man. The world will miss him, at least my world will. My own father died on my birthday, the day after Christmas in 1986. December seems like a good time to die. Death comes to us all, there is no escape, only avoidance.

The Buddha said that it wasn't important which day we die. Whenever the breath runs out, that is the day. The only criterion he gave was our last breath. When it comes to death, he didn’t say trust him. He told us to trust ourselves. Whether we face death, or even life, it is not some named or nameless god, some Cosmic Buddha or even a historical Buddha, that we are to trust for our salvation. Amitabha never walked anyone to the Pure Land any more than Jesus held anyone’s hand at the time of their death. No one really knows what happens when we exhale for the last time. No one has come back to make an announcement about that. We take all these things on faith and often forget that they are symbols, stories to help us be comfortable at the moment we need comfort. The symbol of Amitabha is more sensually inviting than the reality of Amitabha and the teachings. Because what happens at death is unknown we try to make it knowable. This is just another trick of the mind — the one who knows. 

Our mind is much like a child. The child is unable to take care of itself and so has to depend on its parents, on guardians, holding on to a variety of people. The child has parents and guardians to look after it, to make sure it doesn’t meet with harm. The mind, on the other hand, is always grasping and clinging to all kinds of things, it doesn't find a lot of security and safety. It clings on to things because it cannot rely on itself. Like a child, it seems to spend a lot of its existence reaching for inappropriate things to cling to, things that will do it harm. It reaches out in order to find security and safety and comfort. Our mind does not know what is dependable or even real, it just clings to what it finds attractive to one degree or another. These things pose a danger because they cannot be trusted. It doesn’t matter whether the child is grown up or not. It’s still the same.

As human beings we have a normal tendency to always put our hopes in other things or people. We  can’t rely on ourselves so we try to rely on others. Like an uncoordinated child we somehow don’t get into standing on our own two feet. The mind doesn’t know how to care for itself so it confuses what is right with what is wrong. It has no one to tell it when it is in danger. If someone would be there it is highly doubtful the average mind would pay attention to them. In fact, it would probably get angry if it were told what it should grasp or let go. Even if there is no joy in what it grasps, it’ll still clings. We wouldn’t normally think that something that doesn’t give us some kind of gratification is worth clinging to, right? Yet, the mind will do that because it is immature.

The mind will cling to anger, to guilt, to regret, to imagined past wrongs, to conspiracy theories. The mind grasps. It clings to delusion anger and lust because it gets caught up in those things. It loves a world that is more black and white than a world filled with colors. The mind doesn’t know objects because it gets caught up in them, clings to them, even though there is no good in them.

The mind is not aware — or doesn’t care — about repercussions. It wants what it wants, now. You might want to break the habit of “mindfulnessless” grasping, but you really can’t. There is something much more powerful going on here. The object the mind grasps gets caught in the emotional spin and this overshadows and obscures everything else. These obscurations are called “moods.” The mind will latch on to anything no matter how significant or insignificant it is. The mind cannot rely on itself no matter how old the body is. We are all children trapped in aging bodies.

The Buddha said, “self is the protector of self.” ("Atta hi attano natho, kohi natho paro siya?" "Self is the protector of self, for who else could (one's) protector be?" Dhammapada. v160). Yet in our fear of dealing with life’s trifles we continue to grab imagery such as conspiracy, political affiliation, magical thinking, an imagined past or future, Jesus, Allah, YHVW and even Amitabha. As our mortality becomes increasingly apparent we cling to life at all moral and emotional costs trusting in some imagined savior to free us; free us from fear. We might make the Buddha the one who saves us from the inevitable — the ultimate self-deception, the ultimate codependency between fear and hope.

It is hard to disengage from such objects, but how would you be self-reliant unless you manage to do so? You really do have the resources you need to deal with life’s traumas.  You can’t rely on your parents, friends, the political masters of the universe, gods or Cosmic Buddhas. It’s like this all over the world. We have a hard time even living up to the standards of many species of animals. They are much more self-reliant than we are. This is why the Buddha taught self-reliance.

The Buddha called those who are self-reliant “refined.” These are ones who practice Dhamma with both heart (emotionally) and mind (intellectually). We need to have sufficient and significant training under a teacher who knows which way to go in our journey through life and the difference between spirituality and coarse religion. It is the duty of each of us to learn how to trust ourselves. When we learn how to do this then there is inevitable peace and happiness in our present and future because everything we do will be out of wholesome and skillful motivation. It is this that makes up the finest object and superior food for the mind.

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