Death and the Asian Worldview

Below there is a Word Document (DD&B2)I would like you all to give it a read through. It will say at the top that it is a summary of what I covered in Thursday’s class (or something like that). Just ignore that comment and carry on.

In the meantime, I strongly encourage everyone to watch this movie. In fact, I am going to require it. It will be very useful for you if you know very little of Buddhism. There are a couple of deaths in there and you can begin to get a feeling how the Tibetan Buddhist Monks regard death and dying. It’s a visually appealing movie (even if Keanu Reeves’ acting is a bit . . . stilted in it). On the other hand, he is portraying Shakyamuni Buddha in a book about the Buddha that is written for children, so in a weird way, his acting does kind of make sense. At the very least, it will familiarize you with important events from the Buddha’s life and give me a break from typing out a bunch of words for you to read.  

https://gostream.site/little-buddha/

Or I watched it here: https://ww6.0123movie.net/movie/little-buddha-12822.html

I added two further readings. Death, Rebirth and Liberation in Buddhism and In the Mirror of Death. The second reading (In the Mirror of Death) is written by a Tibetan monk (and actually, if you watched the movie, “Little Buddha” you met him briefly. He played the monk, ‘Kenpo Tenzin’ – the guy who wore glasses and laughed all of the time. He was the monk who first approached Jesse’s mom, Lisa. Anyway, his real name is Sogyal Rinpoche and he wrote a book called ‘The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying’. The reading I gave you is an excerpt from that book. I think you will find very interesting what he has to say about death and dying in the West as viewed from his Tibetan perspective. Toward the end of that particular reading, he talks about what (according to Tibetan Buddhism) happens to “you” (your mind or your consciousness – the thing that thinks in terms of there being a you in the first place). Remember…in Buddhism there is no soul or anything permanent that carries over after death. So, if you were wondering dying and rebirth means to Buddhists, well, pay attention when you come to that part! 

Your assignment here is to tell me – based upon the glimpse of Buddhism you have seen thus far – do you think Buddhism has any contribution to make to the west’s understanding of death and dying? Why / why not?

Instructions

The PDF document I posted, “In the Mirror of Death” has the section, “Death in the Modern World.” In it, Sogyal Rinpoche gives his views of death in the modern and technically advanced west, juxtaposing that against the very traditional Buddhist upbringing he received in Tibet. As I was reading through that section, it brought me back to an earlier reading I had you do, specifically, the Erich Fromm reading about death in the Middle Ages. If you recall that reading, Fromm maintained that in the Middle Ages, although there was a lack of what we might call today, “individual freedom’ – this was not really perceived as a deficit because the individual as we understand the concept now simply did not exist then. Most of you rightly pointed out in that assignment that the Church in Medieval times was the dominant ideology of the day. This got me thinking about Sogyal Rinpoche’s experiences growing up as a monk in a Buddhist order in Tibet. Certainly Buddhism would have been his dominant ideology (as well as the dominant ideology of all those he interacted with). With that in mind it is not difficult to understand his shock in seeing the way western culture treats death. Your assignment here is to tell me – based upon the glimpse of Buddhism you have seen thus far – do you think Buddhism has any contribution to make to the west’s understanding of death and dying? Why / why not?

*I’m going to be evaluating these papers based upon your ability to use the actual materials I gave to you. Please do not use outside sources! You need to demonstrate that you have watched the movie, done the readings, and given careful consideration to the question. You should probably plan on writing about 2 pages.