My final Essay for my Death and Dying class! Essay on Buddhism, Hinduism and the way in which they approach liminality and death.
So here is my final essay for my Death and Dying class, I kind of free flowed it, neglected the recommended structure, and wrote what my heart told me to write, wonderfully a subject which I’m impassioned by, ancient religious traditions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, which point to the unfathomable dynamism of life emanating from its imminent stillness. Luckily the teacher enjoyed, and I got an A :) sometimes risks are rewarded, but usually such attempts at creativity are disregarded by the school system, though that's a subject for a different article. My approach is to attempt a balance between chaos and order, organizing the chaos of my creativity, my mind, the flow of ideas which permeate from the unnamable source, whilst having fun, as much fun as you possibly can within the structured template of school, you know?
Death and Liminality According to Buddhism and Hinduism.
Buddhism and Hinduism are almost like mystical entities, unreachable, and incomprehensible to many, mistakenly believing them to be esoteric and stupefying. Though there is a degree of esotericism to these traditions, there is a great deal of practicality, especially regarding death. It is of my humble opinion that most of the western world has lost touch with the importance of death rituals, and the fundamental longing for the discovery of death, or the acceptance of the invariability of death. Of course, it is a question which plagues us so heavily, really, and we wish not to spend any time with this haunting thought, we brush it off, and actually categorize it as impure or immaterial thus insignificant. Though, I’m sure Buddhists and Hindus would regard this as utterly preposterous, why lose touch with something so inevitable, why live a life that does not take into account the full picture of life, death, perhaps rebirth, but ultimately timeless origins. It is in these traditions that one can discover the importance of the unknown, and liminality, instead of the denial, it can be an honoring, a mystifying kind of reverence for the unknown, and the liminality of the universe.
Buddhism has its roots in India. A young prince by the name of Siddhartha Gautama, heir to the throne of this small kingdom, located by the Himalayas, renounced such illusory and superfluous prestige, and devoted himself to a life of ascetic practice, having an unquenching thirst for truth. After years of pilgrimage, wandering through India in search of the finest and most learned teachers, he is said to have abstained from food, and water perhaps, becoming skeletally skinny, however, still not satisfied, it seemed that something was just beyond his reach and he couldn’t quite grasp it. His pilgrimage culminated in his sitting meditation where in he is supposed to have uncovered the fundamental truth about reality, and grasped that in fact it was in letting go of this desire for grasping, that one would truly be able to taste the unfathomable bliss of the universes source. Having discovered, and touched this source of limitless wisdom, he then expounded notions regarding the human experience in relation to the universe, most notably his method of alleviating suffering, through the recognition of the impermanence of phenomena, essentially, just as there is life, there is death as well, all that arises must subside. Thus, from this fundamental curiosity towards death, various principles we’re articulated, and suggested, in order to facilitate the journey beyond. Buddhist believe in the notion of Karma, which is essentially, according to them the psychological baggage which we carry, the Skanda, and perpetuates itself throughout our lifetime, and upon death is carried over to our next life time through the process of reincarnation. With this in mind, Buddhist, Tibetan Buddhists in particular have various ritual practices which are meant to assist the transient, and travelling soul to arrive safely to her next incarnation. Tibetan Buddhist practitioners have at the center of their practice the postulation of death, their meditation practice centers around death and its impending reality. For Buddhists, it is a ridiculous kind of denial of life, to deny it’s accompaniment, the unequivocal other side of the flamboyant nature of the universes expressions, death. Though perhaps a bit morbid, and tragic certainly, the loss of the life which we so firmly attach a sense of desirability too, for Tibetan Buddhists there can be no other truer thing than death, life is by its nature a slowly fading away kind of game. For Tibetan Buddhists, as explained in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, there is this idea of liminality, the space between life and death which one is traversing through, or being held in before they are directed to their next incarnation. They call this liminal space ‘The Bardo’. Rather than being a scary kind of thing, death is embraced as an opportunity for a favorable rebirth, depending on the cleanliness of one’s consciousness. It’s like this, in every human, there are various seeds, seeds of good deeds, and seeds of badness, whichever one is exacerbated, a kind of blossoming of that particular sentiment is put at the forefront of the persons mind and consciousness. Thus, the Buddhist aim is to cultivate mindfully the seeds of goodness so as to have a more opportune reincarnation in her next life, one which is closer to enlightenment. Enlightenment, is not wholly divinely so to say, but rather it is to come closer and closer to truth, though wordiness evades truth, and so the ultimate purpose is dissipation of illusory definitions which bind things to a paradigm of duality. This ‘liminal’ and wordless kind of paradigm, is thought to be the end of the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, and thus, suffering, for it is in this attachment to the very processes which cause us a great deal of distress, that suffering stems from. Buddhist death rituals are centered on this notion of enlightenment, and the devoted desire for enlightenment. Whether it be in this life, or the next one, this is the resolution, and so rituals enacted must be mindful of the ‘traversé’ of the soul, from this corporeal form to the next. “The Liberation Through Hearing in the Bardo the well-known Tibetan instruction manual for guiding the dying through the bardo between death and rebirth, is often an integral part of funeral rituals. The text guides the dying in: (a) recognizing the fundamental clear light nature of the mind at the time of death; (b) recognizing the true nature of the wrathful and peaceful deities that appear; and © achieving liberation from rebirth. Just as a prisoner on death row may experience a spiritual breakthrough, the intensity of the experience of dying can serve as a catalyst for spiritual awakening. It is believed that a highly competent practitioner may even achieve enlightenment in the bardo.” (Tsomo, 2001, 157). Thus, it is in this liminal space of bardo, wherein the principles, which one has practiced repeatedly over the course of their incarnation, come into helpful fruition. It is almost as though life has been a preparation for death.
Hinduism on the other hand, is a rather inscrutable kind of tradition, in that there are diverse religious identities amongst Hindu communities. It is perhaps an unneeded task to label Hinduism, or try to categorize the various beliefs, in that, it would seem that ultimately the foundational faith is that of an undying, and eternal source which pervades all expressions of the universe, and all the myriad of Hindu expressions are simply denominations of this permeating source, all equally instrumental. Instrumental is a fabulous word here, because it alludes to the expressive, and dynamic nature of the universe. Their notions of liminality, and death, are perhaps, more varied, in that they practice in a way that is quite particular to their own subjectivity, in a way. Allow me to elaborate. In Hinduism, there is a fundamental notion of oneness, called Brahman, that nameless source, that most invigorating explosion, which indeed, according to Hindus, expounded life in its diversity. Thus, since there is no single kind of doctrinal origin, there is a liminality of sorts. It is in my understanding that, Hinduism is founded in liminality, a non-defined kind of religion. In its origins, Hinduism was not named Hinduism, rather there was at its root, an admiration for the unknown universe. This is a bewildering kind of idea, in that most of Western religions try to categorize the unknown, creating absolutes, undeniable notions of God, as a singular and all-commanding entity. Though, in Hinduism, there seems to be an equivalency between God, and the unknown, Brahman is in fact, the unknown, which is quintessentially linked to death, because death may very well be the greatest unknown of all. Thus, as J. Krishnamurti, a spiritual teacher whom embodied these notions of Hindu liminality, would say, freedom from the known, embracing of the totality of the unknown, is freedom from suffering. Is death suffering? Most probably for most, yes, death is the end of a life which we have attributed significance to in relation to our selves, and certainly there is a tragedy to death, it is a saddening reality, though it is not one without inherent significance. Death, which is to most, the greatest liminal mystery of them all, is not denied by Hindus, rather it is addressed with reverence as a holy kind of unknown. Thus, liminality here, is the word employed to address this issue, this most precedent issue of ‘unknown’, and seeing what this word points too. Swami Vivekananda was a Hindu ‘guru’ of sorts, whom appeared at the World Parliament of Religions, as a representative of Hindu traditions. Swami Vivekananda articulates his understanding of Hinduism as a religion of Universal Acceptance, and tolerance towards all religions. “To the Hindu, the whole world of religions is only a traveling, a coming up, of different men and women, through various conditions and circumstances, to the same goal. . .. Why, then are there so many contradictions? They are only apparent, says the Hindu. The contradictions come from the same truth adapting itself to the different circumstances of different natures.” (Koppedraye, Hybrid constructions: Swami Vivekananda’s presentation of Hinduism at the World’s Parliament of Religions, 2004, 21). In fact, Hinduism in its origin, has as a tenant, the basic, and fundamental inclusivism and honoring of all religious streams of beliefs. Indeed, it is understood, that all religions, had at their roots, the curiosity, and sensitive devotion to the mystery, the liminality, the unknown, and through ritual, practice and reverence, there is a greater sensibility for the unknown, rather than having that knee-jerk reaction of ‘woah, I don’t know this, it is terrifyingly grandiose’, there is a comprehension that humble admiration and appreciation is all one can hold, in facing this utterly stupefying, and terrifying cosmos.
It would seem that rather than deny something so obvious, it would be most illuminating to see, without the illusory category of impure, or petrifyingly unknown, the sacredness of death, that in this liminal unfathomability, is precisely that which we must consider for a whole life. In the traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, it is not in the denial of death that one finds greater peace, or connection to life, rather it is by the absolute realization of death, that one can then fully be alive. The Buddhists call this Nirvana, and Hindus call it Brahman, or Atman, the everlasting soul. It is here, where dwells the ‘missing piece’ so to say, of the puzzle which we try so feverishly to put together. Precisely in that liminality, the question of death, and its puzzlingly unknown status, is wherein according to these ancient traditions, lies that catastrophically overlooked sort of path, “the pathless path”, to quote Mr. Krishnamurti. Thus, in denying such a path, and such a plainly obvious fact, that of the unknowingness, meaning ungraspable through mental cognition, of the universe, one denies the vey intelligence which is subsisting all life.
