(舊文章) Tomorrow and afterlife, which one will come first?

這是我四年前的舊文章 ......

In our last class, you asked us “would you be surprised if I die this afternoon?” I didn’t answer your question because I was not ready for it, even though I know everyone is mortal. Thus, this issue causes me to think about “Am I ready for death?”

Tomorrow and afterlife, which one will come first?

We would never know that.

(A Tibetan saying)

This saying shows that life is impermanent. We could encounter death every next moment, but we ignore it intentionally. As you said, only we ourselves would be surprised at that moment of our death because we are supposed by ourselves to live forever and unchangeable. Covering that fact with ignorance is not a good idea because we might learn a lot from it.

There is a good example of learning from death. I once read a book, “Tuesdays with Morrie”. Morrie was an old Social Psychology professor in his seventies who had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal illness. As soon as he received his sentence of death, he asked himself “do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left?”

He decided to make death his final project. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, a human textbook. “Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.”

(Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom)

Morrie offered his experience of his journey toward death as a textbook of life. He was really brave and generous. He showed that we will see things very differently when we recognize death is close to us, and it could be good most of the time. With teachers like Morrie, we don’t necessarily realize this just when our death is foretold. If we took this to mind, the quality of our life would be improved tremendously.

I remember he said, “Perhaps we should take the idea of Buddhists. They ask themselves everyday ‘Is it today? (of dying)’ and ‘Am I ready? (for death)’” (I don’t exactly remember all his words.) Morrie thought doing this would be good in our daily lives because we would seriously consider what is significant to us, and we would not like to hurt others because we only want love in the rest of our lives.

If we realize that we could die at any moment, we would not want to waste our time on hurting others and pursuing things which we will not possess after death.

In some perspectives, death is good. Since we all know it would happen to us sooner or later, visualizing death reminds us that life is impermanent and we have very limited time in the perceivable dimension. This could entail insight.

Being a Buddhist, what is beneficial to our long-term continuum is significant and worth to pursuing. On the other hand, what is harmful should be abandoned as soon as possible.

It is hard to practice being ready for death, especially the death of our loved ones. I used to think that I should practice for my parents’ death first because that might happen in 20 year or less. I am not sure if I will be ready then. If that is the case, I must be shocked.