Death has long been recognized as an effortlessly determined empirical fact, not requiring further discussion or elaboration. But a conceptual crisis has arisen in modern medicine and biology, stemmed from the realization that the definition of death requires reexamination. To approach the subject of death from the Pure Land Buddhist angle certainly reflects some of the most pressing needs of modern times.
The term 'Ojo' symbolizes Pure Land Buddhist eschatology, as exemplified in the expression 'Despising this defiled world and hoping to be born in the Pure Land.' Among the many varieties of Buddhism, the Pure Land teaching most deserves the epithet 'otherworldly.' In reality, the Pure Land doctrine tells us that this world is an arena unavoidable frustration, and holds out the vivid prospect of birth in another, better world named the Land of Ultimate Bliss.
Pure Land Buddhism addresses the fundamental thanatological inquiries, in a way that can alleviate the fear of death and the consequent suffering, elucidating the eternity of life. These are actual problems, like sending-off the pass-away, the sorrow of parting, various issues in bioethics and the diversity of attitudes toward the dead. In the advanced industrial societies, a large number of people now die in hospitals. A mechanistic approach has developed, in which the protraction of dying process has become a major by-product of modern technology. Instead of perceiving death as something natural, physicians have come to see it as a defeat of all their therapeutic endeavors.
In terms of facing the inevitability of death, there was a prevalent slogan called 'Memento Mori' in the medieval Christian world. This is an impressive Latin phrase that can be translated as 'Remember death,' which is to remind people of their own mortality. Modern people, on the other hand, have excessively been trying to avoid considering death and to conceal it. However, in recent years, the focus of thanatological research has been directed to socially challenging themes, such as terminal care, death education and suicidology, with strong practical concern.
When considering the relationship between Ojo and death, a modern view of Ojo should also be contained in this category as a part of 'death education.' Because death education can now be most needed education to consider death as a familiar problem, to investigate the true meaning of life and death, and to acquire mental attitudes in preparation for the death of self and the others with determined consciousness. In this regard, recognizing the thought of Ojo as an element of thanatological development may also lead to modern renaissance of Pure Land Buddhism.
The conditions of life in present-day society based on the Cartesian paradigm do not offer much psychological support for people who are facing death. This contrasts very keenly with the situation encountered by those dying in ancient days when cosmology and philosophy, as well as spiritual and ritual life, contained a clear message that death is not the absolute and irrevocable end of everything. Hence, when in talking about death historically, it is not enough to deal with it intellectually. We must thoroughly understand it with both mind and body.
Life that is eternal in the sense of Ojo means to transcend life and death, and to stand beyond time. Why, then, should we attempt to transcend life and death, trying to stand beyond time? Because to do so means our fear and apprehension of death is gone. It also implies that we have the equanimity to someday leave our loved ones behind when our time has come.
One of the salient characteristics of modern society has long been the treatment of death as something taboo and not to be talked about, as mentioned above. However, people today are earnestly seeking a clearsighted understanding of life and death, triggered by social arguments on bioethically polemic issues including brain death, organ transplantation and euthanasia, for instance. As Kierkegaard had said, there is 'sickness unto death' in modern times. The anxieties of death cannot be relieved by the advancement of science and technology; indeed, it rather aggravates them. We do not require the existential philosophy of Heidegger to know that human existence is itself a 'being-towards-death' in order to know that death underlies life. Without the consciousness of death we can neither live humanely nor spend time meaningfully. The question of death is in itself the question of life. As long as this question remains unsolved, life cannot be truly substantial. The notion of Ojo must be considered from this scope, too.
To be ready to die with life may be necessary throughout our lifetime. Perhaps we can say that only those with such a determination will prove to have lived a vital life. In order for Pure Land Buddhism to be meaningful to modern times, all we can do is to make the concept of 'Birth in the Pure Land' intelligible for our contemporaries through reconstructing it on the basis of the true significance of the eternal reality. Believing in the Pure Land is nothing but the experience of encountering the eternal now. But the eternal now is not a temporal now. Rather, it is the 'now' in which time has been broken through. In other words, it signifies the time where the eternal enters into time.
Within human life there is actually no 'now.' We may try to specify the now to the hour, minute, or second, but that now soon flows away; it does not stop for even an instant. If human life, however, were only a matter of being within time, then it would be just like being without time. Up until today, we all have lived a certain number of decades. But, while it seems to have been a long time, it also does not seem to have been long at all. For example, when we were children, it felt as though the days passed slowly. But as we get older, it soon comes around before we know it . When it comes to time then, no matter how long of a time period it may be, in the end it flows completely away, leaving nothing.
Within time, we cannot catch hold of any now. The now that we speak of now is 'now in the past.' As Dogen says, life is a stage of time and death is also a stage of time, like, for example, winter and spring. We do not suppose that winter becomes spring. There is no specific substantial instant when winter is suddenly not anymore and spring all of a sudden exists. Buddhism inherently views the cosmos as a vast living entity, in which cycles of individual life and death are repeated without cease. To be sure we experience these cycles every day, as millions of some 60 trillion cells that comprise our bodies die and are renewed through metabolic replacement. Death is therefore a necessary part of the life process, making possible renewal and new growth. Through death, the physical elements of our bodies, as well as the fundamental life-force that supports our existence, are returned and recycled through the universe.
The spiritual process of dying, just as the process of biological conception, gestation, birth and subsequent growth are scientifically understood as a continuum of emergence and development from the common sources of universal life, can be viewed as the process by which individual consciousness recedes into deeper levels until it fully merges with the cosmic eternal life. This is a kind of continuum on which death can be recognized as the point where the dying process has become irreversible. A person who entrusts in the birth in the Pure Land comes into contact with what does not flow away and the now can be secured. The eternal world through which Ojo is to present, in addition, is not a separate world of the after-life which is different from our temporal world. If the Pure Land does not come into this world, it makes no difference whether it exists or not to contemporary people. If this world and the Pure Land were to stand in mutual opposition without any interaction, it would not be the true Pure Land into which we will be going. Death is not the end of the process, nor does the moment of birth begin the process. Preparation for death is actually preparation for Ojo.
Thinking of death realistically does not mean being obsessed by it . Though there is a strong fear of death among us, we sometimes have a desire for it . This is called 'thanatos, ' or 'death instinct' in a Freudian term. Many contemporary people show suicidal tendencies , or even actually commit suicide, whatever be the explanation. This would seem to explain the vehemence with which people hold the desirability of anti-survivalist views, so to speak. But this is not in fact the urge to true liberation, but merely an escape-reaction. Thinking of Ojo should not signify such escapism at all. Complete equanimity through the mindset of yearning for Ojo can be turned towards the supramundane which alone is the goal of Pure Land Buddhism. Birth in the Pure Land constitutes a Buddhist symbol for the transcendence of life and death. Pure Land Buddhism places strong emphasis on the last moment of life, for in this Buddhist view it contains the sum total of one's lifetime. All the acts done during one's lifetime, both good and bad, decide the way one dies. The way one dies, whether calmly or dreadfully, is a perfect reflection of the life one has led and a spotless mirror of one's future. And we experience death only as the death of 'the other. '
The most common reaction to the fear of death is to repress or deny it . We all have a cognitive awareness of death, or knowledge of death in our heads but not in our hearts. One of the reasons which account for our present fears of death is that, given the advances in medical science, death has largely been appropriated by the medical profession and death has even come to be seen as a medical failure. As soon as we construe death from an exclusively medical perspective, all the other factors, which in the past we depended upon and which gave meaning and comfort to dying people and their grieving relatives, are rendered irrelevant. Therefore, promoting a holistic understanding of human life together with a deep sense of sacredness and reverence for human destiny must play a central role in today's Pure Land thanatological ideology, with the perception that death should be seen as a perpetual continuation of cosmic life. Facing death is probably the deepest challenge which each of us faces in our spiritual lives. It can also be the greatest opportunity, though. It must be the source of spiritual growth for all of us. In avoiding death we learn to keep away from life.
There is an ethical distinction made between biological life and biographical life. A biographical life refers to one's sum of aspirations, decisions, achievements, and human relations. According to Alfons Deeken, there are four aspects regarding death. They are psychological death, social death, cultural death, and physical death. We generally think of death as genuinely physical event. But, for the elderly in particular, some of them experience psychological death prior to physical death at the moment of completely loosing zest for life. When a person is facing death in a hospital, unvisited by anyone, it will be a kind of social death. As we humans are innately cultural beings, it must be cultural death for us without any cultural satisfaction during the process of dying.
A huge challenge to Pure Land thanatology in the 21st century based in modern interpretation of Ojo would be to aim at thoroughly examining the phenomenon of death psychologically, socially and culturally, other than merely considering death physically. We are now required to revaluate the ideological significance of Ojo as a form of 'thanatological' engaged Pure Land Buddhism, primarily relevant to coping with the diversified bioethical issues of death and dying in modern society, from the perspective of spiritual existentialism and transcendentalism.
References :
Lewis R. Aiken, "Dying, Death and Bereavement"; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001
Richard K. Payne, "Re- Visioning Kamakura Buddhism"; University of Hawaii, 1998
Tad M. Schmaltz, "Radical Cartesianism: The French Reception of Descartes"; Cambridge University Press, 2002
Alan Bullock and Stephen Trombley, "The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought"; Harper Collins Publishers, 2000
Damien Keown, "Buddhism and Bioethics" ; PALGRAVE, 2001