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Memento Mori, Latin for remember to die, or, remember, you will die. Death, we really don’t talk about it in the West. We don’t even want to think about it. It’s almost as if death is understood as a fact that happens regardless of any effort on our part and doesn’t need any further discussion. The two paintings above speak to Memento Mori from a western perspective. If you are into symbolism, you’ll recognize them, one is subtle, the other not.
In the Vanitas painting, the tulip suggests the naivety, or foolishness, of life, the skull, the fragility of life. The hourglass is the reminder of the passage of time, the limits of life. The Van Gogh is more subtle. If you come to the service regularly, you’ll sometimes see a flower arrangement that echoes this painting: flowers in three stages of life: youth, adulthood, old age.
Those of us coming to Shin Buddhism from the Abrahamic religions’ influence on our western culture arrive loaded down with images and beliefs we may not even be aware of. We are surrounded by its influence on art, music, the written word, media, social media, you name it, our culture’s undertones are steeped in religion’s views on death and judgment. Just because a person says they are an atheist, an agnostic, or spiritual but not religious does not mean they are not deeply influenced by these cultural norms. Just because a person says they have no knowledge of the beliefs doesn’t mean they don’t observe, practice or participate in the cultural rituals and beliefs that evolved from them.
The Memento Mori trope is a focus of meditation on death, at least as far back as Socrates (470-399 BCE) in the West, and longer in the East. Why on earth would anyone want to mediate on death? It sounds so depressing. It is counter to our cultural focus and energies on youth and living. Yet, with modern medicine and health care blurring the lines of how death is defined, with their focus on delaying death at all costs, the reality is that there is increased anxiety about death in our culture.
A paper released in 2014 by the NIH* concludes that Asian Americans consistently have less symptoms of anxiety disorders than any of the other racial groups in American and “These data point to the strong contribution of culture on anxiety disorders.” Our cultural attitudes and practices affect our view of self, not only on ageing, but also on dying.
This helps explain why there are so many “Nightstand Buddhists” in this country and the numbers are growing exponentially. Most are looking for a way to live this life more fully, more at peace and with joy in their hearts. Buddhism is not the silver bullet that will change the reality of this world, but for me, it liberated me from most anxieties of life. How refreshing is that?!
Shin, a Pure Land Buddhism, is liberation from the fear of death. Death is something that is familiar, something to explore in relation to the true meaning of life and death. We aim to acquire the mental capacity to prepare for the death of “self” (see The Nightstand Buddhist below) and others, without hiding from it, but with informed recognition. It is no longer enough to think about death from the purely physical medical ethos that sees death as a failure in medicine. By exploring it openly, from both perspectives, mind and body, we may begin to find the path most in the East have always understood.
The Pure Land is not a physical place out there somewhere in the sky. It is the obliteration of time, of the ‘now’ as we know it. As soon as we say ‘now’ it is gone, where is the now? Where is the ‘me’ that is now? The sand flowing out of the hourglass does not stop, time flows eternally. Birth in the Pure Land is a transcending of life and death.
Memento Mori then, from a Shin perspective, is a concept we can begin to explore, without fear, without anxiety and without self-doubt. To fearlessly explore death from this perspective will actually allow us to live this life more fully, without wasting a moment of it and with greater wisdom and compassion for ourselves and others. We may actually wake up to this life.
Namo Amida Butsu.
In Gassho,
Rev. Anita
rev.anita.cbt@outlook.com
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