On my final pilgrimage stop, death.

RLG206Y

Prof. Frances Garrett

Final Paper

2015, April 1st

Junyeon Kim

Background story

My Character, Julian King have left the village and begun his pilgrimage when he turned 47 years old. The Chang’an was his first pilgrimage stop as I demonstrated in the last two blogs. Julian takes his life as a bigger scale version of pilgrimage and he continues his journey to visit as many sacred sites as possible during his lifetime. The time period, in which I am writing this paper on, Julian is old and he prepares for his death as he comes back to the village. He has never stopped his pilgrimage since he first began many years ago. Now he is old and it is time for him to embrace the death as his next destination. Through scientific observation and self-questioning, Julian demonstrates his understanding of the world through Buddhist philosophy. He takes the scientific and western concepts of understanding of world in order to explain through the Buddhist philosophy. For instance, he compares the concept of energy (atom) with the Buddhist term, Qi. Also, he compares the biogeochemical cycle[1] with the Samsara. In the end, as he demonstrates how the modern and western science bears the imprint of ancient Buddhist philosophy, he prepares for his death and dissolution of his body.

Journey back to the village

Since I became from Korean War refugee to a Buddhist villager, I decided to dedicate my life to seek for truth about the world. I consider myself a pilgrim of this reincarnated life in a lifelong pilgrimage. To recall my early stage of life, I was born grew up in Korea. During the Korean War in the 1950s, I lost my family and home then I was sent to America as a war refugee. Ever since I moved to America, I grew up with a distorted mindset towards the world. My uncertainty and unfairness in life was my biggest suffering. When I turned 40, I finally realized that my suffering was only came from my strong negative conviction about the world. This was my first ignorance that I realized. Right away I knew that I had to get rid of my ignorance in order to suffer less and find my peace. This became my only goal, which had led me to the village in Tibet. During my stay in the village, I became more open and positive person as I interact with people who had similar views about the world. People in the village always helped each other. As a result, we successfully have gone through the hailstorm, the Naga illness and the Lama visit. Furthermore, We built library, nunnery and medicine factory. As villagers, we also had contributed our opinions for how to deal with the death of Crazy uncle.

My experience living with other villagers gave me hope for life and confidence in myself. This is when I decided to leave the village before I get too attached to them. I was still sad to leave the villagers and the cave I have been living in. However, I was also excited to go to my next stop of the lifelong pilgrimage. My first stop was Chang’an and from here, I have been travelling most of the sacred places across from far west China to far east Japan. Of course, I visited my homeland, Korea as well. From this life long journey I observed and learned more about Buddhism in different ways.

The one thing I can confidently conclude is that Buddhism is rather “a way of life” than a religion per se. There are Buddhist traditions that identify several supernatural beings as gods or demons. However, there are not considered to be the God of Buddhism like Jesus in Christianity or Allah in Muslim. If there was one, the most relevant figure for Buddhist God could be the Shakyamuni, also known as Siddhartha Gautama. Unfortunately, he explicitly stated that he was not a god and must not be treated as if he were in any sense divine (Barash, 2013). Despite of what Shakyamuni stated, there is a strong tendency among some people who worship the Buddha as a god. Furthermore, Buddhism varies significantly among different cultures. The distinction is fairly huge that the some Buddhist schools and temples (parties) worship different Buddha. While the core Buddhist philosophy is fairly static, the teachings of Buddha always have integrated differently with the local people and their way of life, culture. For instance, the Confucianism influenced Chinese Buddhism, Korean Buddhism developed fairly liberal (much more equality for women practitioner) school called, Chogye and Japanese culture developed the Zen Buddhism. Recently, there is growing number of people who considered themselves as Buddhist atheist. The best-known Buddhist atheist, Stephen Batchelor, who is the former Buddhist monk and current scholar and author, concerns that the Buddhism has become institutionalized (Barash, 2013). The Buddhism has tended to lapse into religiosity. Buddhist atheists believe in the teachings of Buddha and practice meditations and rituals. However, I think the best exemplary person who lived a life with the great Buddhist mind was Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein mentioned about Buddhism, “The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description.” He also said that, “If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism.” In the modern world, most of us tend to process in a linear and western thinking. Habitually, we look for scientific reasoning and empirical evidence in order to reduce our uncertainty and ignorance. Therefore, I decided to demonstrate how modern scientific concepts could be explained by Buddhist philosophy and teachings.

Our process of observation had to be radically reoriented after Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrodinger discovered the physics of relativity and quantum mechanics (Cho, 2014). Both scientists were significantly influenced by philosophy. Einstein admitted that he was reading David Hume and Ernst Mach just before he wrote the paper about special relativity. Einstein used Mach’s principles to discount as a non-verifiable notion the possibility of two events happening at the same time in different space. Similarly, Schrodinger was reading philosopher Mach and Arthur Schopenhauer in order to explain the behaviour of particles and waves at the microscopic level. The philosophers, both Hume and Mach believed that the self was a transient observational platform. Buddhist philosophy holds almost exactly the same thoughts (Cho, 2014). It is called, impermanence in Buddhism. In the universe we know today, nothing is static. There is nothing that holds its existence permanently. Everything must go through the cycle of formation and dissolution. The gravity and entropy could be the forces that act upon everything we observe, in which the opposite of equal reaction also impose the formation and dissolution. However, the most fundamental and basic unit of everything also suggests impermanence. The unit is called, atom in science. This is also the essential and fundamental measure for energy too. For instance, for an average human who weights 70 kilogram or 154 pounds, there are almost 7*1027 atoms — that is a 7 followed by 27 zeros. In other words, there are seven billion billion billion atoms in average person body. The atom is something that cannot be created or destroyed because it is a form of energy. In Buddhism, the energy is called, Qi and it is described similarly as the energy. Everything is made of Qi. In Buddhism, this concept is crucial to understand the philosophy of impermanence. Since we are sharing or made of same Qi with all the sentient and insentient being, everything is made up of same substance technically. In this analogy, we all equally have Buddha nature and also there is no self, Anatman. Under the concept of Qi, Buddha nature suggests that everything including sentient and insentient beings have possibility to achieve the enlightenment. Anatman indicates that there is no self in the world and the cycle of Samsara where everything is going through a cycle of death and rebirth.

In Western society today, almost all of the natural phenomena and events we observe are explained through scientific explanations with empirical evidences. Habitually, we cannot outthink the given scientific paradigm. For instance, scientific theory of biogeochemical cycle proves that how chemical substances move through biotic and abiotic cluster of elements. Given that there are only 118 chemical elements known to us, everything is made up within the range of the 118 chemicals. For example, our body and a mobile phone share some of the same chemical elements like Calcium or Iron. The Western and modern theory of biogeochemical cycle is a rational explanation with empirical supporting evidence. However, this is somewhat considered to be a linear way of thinking. The world is more complicated to be comprehended through a cycle of chemicals. Moreover, the modern science, as consequence, still has many aspects about the world unexplained. While this kind of Western and rational explanation are being commonly accepted, the ancient Buddhist philosophy have already explained the concept of cycling substance in a nonlinear and conjoining way. There are 5 elements — earth, water, fire, wind and consciousness in Buddhism. Since I am walking back to the village in order to prepare my death and dissolution of my body, I will take formation and dissolution of body to explain the scientific theory of biogeochemical cycle.

Compare to Samsara, the cycle of birth and death, the theory of biogeochemical cycle demonstrates the similar idea of recreation. Since the smallest unit of energy, atom or Qi cannot be created or destroyed, the elements must be reused through formation and dissolution. Scientifically, about 99 percent of the human body is made up of six elements that are oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. When a person is dead and begins its dissolution and decomposition, the chemical elements are absorbed back into nature. In other words, the chemicals will be reused as nutrition or essential elements for plants or animals. Take a fish for example, the elements from the dead would eventually washed off by the rain and carried into the river. A fish eats the elements to sustain its fitness in the nature. One day, its predators or human will eat this fish to sustain their life (Karma-Glin-Pa et al. 2000). This is a simple exemplary cycle of recreation. The biogeochemical cycle suggests simple and linear explanation for our birth and death.

Buddhist philosophy, however, takes the biogeochemical cycle to more profound term, that is the wheel of life. Throughout the history, we tend to fall into our instinct pitfall of cognitive bias that we are too egocentric or too easily influenced by the phenomena. Buddhist philosophy suggests that we must find the well-balanced middle point, which will help us to understand the concept of no self, Anatman. Once we understand the Anatman, we will soon realize that we are impermanent. Even though many people live in the world as if we are going to live forever, nothing is static in the world. We began to die from the moment we are born. I am old and my body already began its process of dissolution. Once I get to the village, I will begin my practice of death. I have practiced before in order to remind myself of Anatman, impermanence and interdependence. Also, it is for me to reduce suffering of ignorance by previewing the moment of death (Karma-Glin-Pa et al. 2000). The five elements of my body will begin its dissolution first with the earth element. My flesh and bones will dissolve into smaller elements, water. Then I will lose my body heat as the third element, fire leaves my body. The fourth element, wind will leave with my last breath. Shortly after, the wind will also take my last element, consciousness or space away from my body. I will then enter the Bardo, the intermediate phase before the reincarnation (Karma-Glin-Pa et al. 2000). By knowing and practicing this death ritual, I will suffer less from the ignorance about the death. In the wheel of life, my stored karma will determine my next reincarnation. This is the Samsara, the wheel of life.

In the modern world, people are heavily depended on the logical reasoning and empirical evidence. The most cutting edge science today still has not proved how our heart begins to beat and how it stops at death. It is because the science explains how things are, while a religion deals with why (Goonatilake, 2000). The science is largely concerned with the facts of the world, whereas religion deals with issues of ultimate meaning and ethics. Accordingly, the two are and should be of equal but independent status. I started my lifelong pilgrimage because I am more concerned about why we live in this world than how should we live in this world. As a result, I didn’t require any empirical evidence. Instead, I went to seek out the ultimate meaning and the enlightenment. The Buddhist philosophy had already figured out the cycle of life in ancient time through meditation for seeking truth. While modern science only conclude a linear way of see the world through the most high-end technology. Also, one of the most radical science discovery bears the imprint of ancient Buddhist philosophy (Goonatilake, 2000). Most importantly, Buddhist philosophy has explained to me why I am going to die. Having faith in this philosophy gave me strength. I conquered the uncertainty and suffering through understanding that I am in the process of dying. Also I will not be overwhelmed once I entered the Bardo. When my body decay and go back into the nature, I would be happy that the elements of my body would stay around the village and become the trees, plants, animals and the wind for the community. The next life would be using someone else’s previous elements because everything is under the great wheel of life.

Reference

Harvey, Peter. 1990. “An Introduction to Buddhism — Teachings, History and Practices” ISBN: 9780521313339. Cambridge University Press.

Cho, Francisca. 2014. “Buddhist Mind and Matter” Volume 5, Pp. 422–434, DOI: 10.3390/rel5030422. Religions. Georgetown University. Washington D.C. USA.

Barash, David. 2013. “Buddhist Biology — Ancient Eastern wisdom meets modern Western science” ISBN: 978019998556. Oxford University Press.

Karma-Glin-Pa et al. 2000. “The Tibetan book of the dead” The After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane. 4 edition. ISBN: 9780195133127. Oxford University Press.

Goonatilake, Susantha. 2000. “Many paths to Enlightenment” Journal Article Volume 405, Pp. 399, ISSN 0028–0836. Nature. Millennium Essay.

[1] Biogeochemical cycle is a substance turnover or cycling of substances. It is a pathway by which a chemical substance moves through both biotic (biosphere) and abiotic.