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    Life & Death: A Buddhist Perspective
    Life & Death: A Buddhist Perspective
    Life & Death: A Buddhist Perspective
    Ebook84 pages1 hour

    Life & Death: A Buddhist Perspective

    By James Hilgendorf

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    About this ebook

    This book weaves together Buddhist history and ideas, science, psychology, near-death experience research, and personal experiences, to offer unique insights into the subject of life and death.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJames Hilgendorf
    Release dateApr 10, 2010
    ISBN9781452485065
    Life & Death: A Buddhist Perspective
    Author

    James Hilgendorf

    James Hilgendorf is the author of nine books - "Life & Death: A Buddhist Perspective", "The Great New Emerging Civilization", "The New Superpower", "The Buddha and the Dream of America", "A New Myth for America", "Poems of Death: Time for Eternity", "Handbook for Youth in a Muddied Age", "Maybe We Need a New Religion", and "Forever Here". He is also the producer of The Tribute Series, a series of highly-acclaimed travel films that are in homes, libraries, and schools all across the United States, several of which have appeared on PBs and international television.

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      Book preview

      Life & Death - James Hilgendorf

      Life & Death: A Buddhist Perspective

      by

      James Hilgendorf

      *****

      Published by

      James Hilgendorf at Smashwords

      Life & Death: A Buddhist Perspective

      Copyright 2010 James Hilgendorf

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above published of this book.

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

      *****

      This book is dedicated to Daisaku Ikeda, for his vision, courage and unparalleled efforts towards world peace, culture, education, and the happiness of humanity.

      *****

      Life & Death: A Buddhist Perspective

      *****

      Chapter 1: Introduction

      In the 13th century, Nichiren Daishonin, a great revolutionary Buddhist sage, wrote:

      If you truly want to understand life, you must first study death.

      Death is the most democratic of experiences. All of us inevitably meet our end at some point in time. But in our high-tech, western culture, death is somehow the last thing we like to talk or think about. For many people, only when facing their imminent demise, through disease or old age or war or whatever, do they face the disturbing final questions.

      But as Nichiren Daishonin was intimating, only when we come to grips with death, can we fully live. For death, and our understanding of it, gives meaning - or the lack of meaning - to our lives.

      In Tolstoy’s great novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, this point is driven home in an extraordinarily poignant fashion. The story follows an official in the Russian government, Ivan Ilyich, who leads a rather normal life, with family and career and the struggles of everyday life occupying his time and thoughts, until suddenly, in his mid-forties, he comes down with a strange and progressively fatal disease. At first, he is only a little worried. Then, as the pain increases, he is forced to confront the possibility of his death. The reality of his own approaching death becomes unbearable and overwhelming. He is forced to search for answers, to struggle with his own mortality, to re-evaluate all that he has been or done. It is only during the last moments of his life, on his death-bed, that he finds some answers; and in those moments, his life is utterly transformed.

      But more of that later...

      Life and death are all around us, as common as water and the air we breathe. Every moment, life is coming into being, plants and animals, men and women, distant stars and suns and moons, in dazzling variety; and each moment an equal infinity of beings and galaxies expire and take their exit from the stage of life.

      What is the meaning of it all? Is there any meaning? What is life? What is death?

      These are questions we will address in this book.

      As the title of this book indicates, a Buddhist perspective underlies this book; but we will be exploring the question of life and death from many different perspectives - from the perspective of science, of physics, of relativity theory, quantum mechanics, string theory, holographic theory and evolution; from the perspective of other religions; of philosophy and psychology, the work of Carl Jung, and Edgar Cayce, and adding in the voluminous research done on near-death experiences, including the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Raymond Moody, Dr. Kenneth Ring and others.

      The purpose in touching upon these many different disciplines and approaches is to pose questions, stimulate curiosity, and open further paths of inquiry.

      For a basic tenet of this book is that, if there is a single underlying truth and reality about our universe, then religion, science, psychology, and even simple common sense should all help to illuminate that reality. All of them should point in a common direction, and help us understand how we fit in with the cosmos around us. We may never be able to comprehend the grand scheme of things, and, at its heart, the universe may forever remain inscrutable; but I have no doubt that we can begin to decipher our own relations to the workings of the universe, to life and death, and this is, after all, of utmost importance to the way we live our lives, and to our happiness.

      I am no expert on the subject of life and death. I am not a scholar, nor am I an expert on religion or science or psychology. I stress this, because during the entire book, I will be taking the approach of a layman, or an ordinary person, looking for answers. I am still looking for answers. I believe, after all, that the subject of death is something you have to subjectively come to grips with by yourself. What seems obvious or sensible to me may not seem so to you, and vice versa. But I do believe that if each of us searches long and hard enough, we will uncover answers, or at least the intimations of answers. I also believe that in the process of searching for answers, your life and understanding will deepen immeasurably, and that you will become a richer person, even though you may not actually find complete answers.

      There are many different forms of Buddhism, just as there are many kinds of Christianity. In this book, we will touch briefly on the historical development of Buddhism; but much of the material will reflect the views of a particular type of Buddhism, that of the SGI, or Soka Gakkai International. This Buddhism originated with Nichiren Daishonin in the thirteenth century, and is based on the chanting of the words Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. But it is also directly linked to the teachings of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, and especially to the teachings he expounded during the last eight years of his life, the Lotus Sutra. The SGI is an international lay organization, with, to date, over fourteen million members practicing in 192 countries around the world.

      In Buddhism, there is no conflict between religion

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