Death & Dying: A Buddhist perspective

Death will happen to us all, but it does not need to be a frightening thing if we prepare well. In this meditation day course we will explore the Buddhist understanding of what happens when we die, and how we can meet death with a calm and fearless mind. Having come to terms with our own mortality, we will be in a position to help and support others who are close to dying.

Although we know we are going to die one day, most of us prefer to ignore this undeniable truth and live our life as if the only things that matter are the things that we will have to leave behind when we die, things like possessions, reputation, friends and sense pleasures. But as Geshe Kelsang Gyatso says in Living Meaningfully Dying Joyfully:

“The fact of the matter is that this world is not our home. We are travelers, passing through. We came from our previous life, and in a few years, or a few days, we shall move on to our next life. We entered this world empty handed and alone, and we shall leave empty handed and alone. Everything we have accumulated in this life, including our body, will be left behind. All we can take with us into our next life are the imprints of the positive and negative actions we have created.”On this day course we will look at the process of dying and reincarnation, and also at the law of karma which describes how the quality of our thoughts and actions in this life determine the quality of our life after death. Understanding death and what happens afterwards depends on understanding the nature of consciousness and the various levels of consciousness, so we will learn some meditations to help us recognise the non-physical nature of our own mind through personal experience rather than just theoretically.