Tuesday, 23 October 2012

Show compassion to dying how?.

If you have friends or relatives who are illness or dying, I know that no one told you to feel at ease with them. Everyone agrees that you should start compassion. The problem is, how compassion translate into concrete action, not very similar.

For some people, compassion means to prolong life as long as possible;, but for some others, compassion is the termination of life through euthanasia - when the quality of life of people disease is no longer a shell. And no one in the two groups if the other group is real compassion. Before the crime watch group after group; groups after viewing before a cruel and evil.

For us, who are trying to pass everywhere blurred boundaries between these two extremes, there is not much reliable guidance. Culture is our culture not like to think about illness and death. As a result, when faced with an illness or someone dying, we are often confused about what to do. Someone suggested that you simply that you should do what feels right. But what feels right is the feeling which is not easy to hold and always in trouble. What I feel is true simply because they make us feel good, regardless of whether they are true to others or not. A desire to prolong life may mask a deeper fear of your own death; a desire to end a disease that extreme pain may be incompatible with your pain in time to witness comments suffering.

This is why the simple teachings that have compassion or mindfulness of advice from an illness or dying is not enough. We need help in fostering their compassion. It is the specific advice about the ultimate judgment of our actions in the face of life and death, and the specific case of the ancient contemplate such issues.

With this in mind, I've been looking all over the Pali Canon, the view can draw lessons from the case of the Buddha. First of all, the Buddha often said that he was like a physician, and his French as a medicine for the suffering of life. According to his view, all of us are sick and dying, in a certain degree, so we all deserve mercy. But that advice Herbalist (Buddha) offer for those who are faced with suffering by disease and death? He was treated for mortal suffering physical illness and death like?

Maybe you already know this story. Once, with the Venerable Ananda, the Buddha saw a teacher sick monks do not care who was lying huddled in the dirt. After bathing him, he gathered the monks and others, blaming them on the abandoned property law, and encourage them by stressing that: "Those who care should take care of the sick. "And he specified that he is taking care of the sick patent entitled to receive the special diet, to encourage them and help them work less hard. Vinaya specify any a small sanction for monks refused compounded care of their sick or dying, or leaving a monks illness before the patient recovered or common destiny. However, there was no sanction for refusal or discarded medical treatment for patients. Thus, the rule does not convey the message that life does not hold is committing a sin. However, an increase of deliberately ending the life of a person, whether because of compassion, will be expelled from the monastic and never allowed to return to this life; therefore euthanasia or help patients die without pain is not present in Buddhism.

This means that the focal point is the true compassion can be used anywhere. Buddha gives some guidance for this case by determining how an ideal physician. You have qualified to take care of the patient if: (1) you know how to prepare drugs; (2) you know what can be used for the treatment of patients; (3) your enthusiasm for compassion rather than material interests; (4) you are not upset with the cleaning dirt caused by defecation and urination, or talks period and map vomiting; and (5) your ingenuity in promoting encourage patients to hear appropriate at the time.

In this quality, it is discussed in the Pali Canon is Thursday. So what qualities are considered a useful French speech and compassion for someone who is sick or dying? And what is not?

Here, the "should not" separated from the "should". Vinaya recounts the case that there is some master monks, it is recommended that a person is concentrating on the approaching death, in the belief that death is better than the painful state of the disease life . Doing this medicine on the advice of the teacher, the patient had died; and Buddha frequency of teacher is out of the monastic community. Thus, in the eyes of the Buddha, to encourage a person to let go of life, or give up the will to live is not considered an act of compassion. Instead of trying to do a short transition period to the death of the patient, the Buddha focused on helping him to understand the suffering and the end of suffering.

This is because you see every moment of my life as an opportunity to practice and receive the benefits from the French. There is a principle known in all traditional practice meditation, that for a moment reflect on the suffering of current benefits than the present moment with disgust and hope for a better future more. This principle applies at the end of life, as well as at any stage of life. In fact, the Buddha encourages the monks should always reflect on death as can happen at any time, even when health was normal, so they have a sense of the real level of their practice, and for them to keep mindful of the present moment. If you see every moment could be your last moment, when the moment finally comes, you will deal with it be prepared.

Most often, however, a sick or dying person is not living with the awareness needed, so the first thing to advise such a person is to give away all the emotional obstacles to return current. Pali Canon refers to two obstacles: the worry about the responsibility they have to leave, and fear of death. There is a touching prayer, tells the story of a dying man, and his wife consoled him not to worry. She said that she can fulfill themselves and their children when his absence; she will not re-married to another man;, and she will continue to practice French. With each word, she set the stage, "So do not worry when he died. Death is suffering for those who are worried. Exalted been reminded that do not have anxiety at the time of death. "Unexpectedly, the man recovered. And while it is still very weak, he went to pay homage to the Buddha, narrated to him the promise of his wife. Buddha explains why predestined man get so lucky when having a wife wise and full of introspection.

Fear of death, the Buddha noted that one of the main reasons of this fear is the memory of the harm or evil that you have created in the past. So Vinaya show that, the teacher monks often comforting a teacher initiates dying by asking him to recall the most positive thing - attaining the highest meditation of him - and to concentrate think of him in that. In a similar way, the common practice in the Buddhist countries in Asia is to remind the dying person remembers the generosity or the happy news that he has done in this life. Even if you can not focus on mindfulness and awareness necessary to obtain a deeper insight about the present, any French lesson that helps reduce anxiety and prevent the fear is an act of true compassion.

However, the Buddha explained that there are three more reasons why people fear death: clinging to the body, attachment to the pleasures of the senses, and the lack of a direct insight of French birth and death. His instructions for the sick and dying so focused on the removal of the cause of this fear at the root. He had visited a patient and told the monks there access to recite the elements of mindfulness and awareness. Instead of focusing on whether or not they have recovered, they should observe the state of feeling that they are experiencing: pain, pleasant, or neutral. For example, observing a sense of their suffering should pay attention on its durability, and then focus on continuous process vanish of sensations suffering. Then they can apply such awareness on the sensations pleasant or neutral. Consistency in the focus will arise a perception out sensory sensations, and from here they can develop themselves in and let go, both for the body and the sensations. Since that letting go will lead to a true observation in France that it will put an end to all fear of death.

Once, he came away from the-good-visit the famous patron of the Buddha is bourgeois Anathapindika, when he was dying. When you realize that the condition of bourgeois Anathapindika worse, to honor author advised him to refrain, "I will not cling to the eye; official I would not depend on the eye. I will not cling to the ear; official I would not depend on the ear, "and similarly for the six senses and their objects, and any state of mind depends on them. Although bourgeois Level She can not develop this consciousness does not depend on the guidance of Venerable Xa-profit-waving, he suggested that these guidelines should also give the layman, because there will be those who understand and benefit from these tips.

Obviously, these guidelines are based on the teachings of the Buddha about our state of mind affects the process of death and rebirth like, but that does not mean that they are only suitable for those who identify themselves as Buddhists. No matter what your religious beliefs are, when you deal with pain you will definitely see the value of the guidance that we show you how to do with reducing suffering by discovering suffering inside . If you have the ability to carry out these instructions, then please try to practice. And if you achieve immortality through your efforts, you will not bother to themselves as Buddhists and non-Buddhists.

This is illustrated by a story also related to false religious relics-waving. When visiting a Ba-la-elderly subjects dying, fake religious relics-waving think the Ba-la-subjects often desire to be united with Brahma, so he teach this old man developed four attitudes of a Brahma-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, social immeasurable. Follow these instructions, the Ba-la-subjects were reborn in the Brahma realm after death. However, the Buddha then reprimanded false religion because he did not teach Ba-la-subjects observe suffering, because if you do so, the Ba-la-subjects will experience Nibbāna and complete liberation from samsara.

The remarkable thing about this guide is that, from the perspective of the Buddha, the Dharma to people dying not unlike French is taught to people with normal health. Cause suffering in all cases is the same, and the path to the end is also the same: a good understanding of suffering, the causes, realizing its cessation, and development characteristics attention that we give to the end. The only difference is that the near-death state makes lectures both easier and harder. Easier because the patient was free from external responsibilities and can clearly see the urgency in understanding and relieve suffering; difficult because patients may be too weak both physically and will , due to fear and anxiety, to apply these guidelines into practice.

In my personal experience - both in the observations of the teachers I've done these guidelines and where the effort to make them for myself - I learned two important lessons. First, the patients most suitable for the implementation of the illness or at the point of death who would not suffer with the memories of the harmful and evil things they have done in the past, and the progress has been made in the practice of meditation before they get sick. Even if that is not a Buddhist practice, intuitively they feel the message of the Buddha about suffering and can use the messages that diminish the suffering of their own. The lesson here is that if you know you are going to die someday, you will avoid doing evil and start practicing meditation for yourself, to be ready to receive sickness and death as they arrived. As my teacher, he Ajaan Fuang, once said, when you practice meditation you are practicing how to die - how to keep mindfulness and awareness, reducing suffering, how to control your thoughts instead always change and can achieve immortality - so that when the time close to death, you will have the experience to do it.

The second lesson is that if you want to help others overcome the fear of death, you also must learn how to overcome your fear of death, by giving up clinging to the body, to give the clinging to sense pleasures, avoid evil, and to have an insight of the Undead. To overcome their own fears, you will have a more positive influence in the lecture for dying. You will not be embarrassed to death. You can communicate directly necessary for the dying, and your words will have more weight, because they come from direct experience. Your compassion is not training with books or feelings, but by a discerning insight on what dies and what not.

Finally, these two lessons together into one: meditation, as an act of compassion for yourself and for others, even when death seems far away. When the time of imminent death, you will reduce the burden for those who are interested in you. Also, if you are invited to help people with illness or dying, your compassion would be more useful, and you will have a more effective message to convey.END=VIETNAMESE TRANSLATE ENGLISH BY THICH CHAN TANH.MHDT.WORLD VIETNAMESE BUDDHIST ORDER=VIETNAMESE BUDDHIST NUNS=GOLDEN LOTUS MONASTERY.AUSTRALIA,SYDNEY.24/10/2012.NAM MO SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA.( 3 TIMES ).