Clear Purpose, A Meaningful Life and a Dignified Death; A Look at a Whole Human Being in Our Modern World

The vision of any limited being is mostly a fragmented one. One small evidence of this is that we tend to see things for their parts and not their role in an entire eco-system. This applies to how we see others, in our medical system’s view and so many other parts of life. Even when we look at statistics about people, they are viewed largely regarding a specific issue only, such as number of deaths, how rich or poor they are, and other partial definitions of the whole human’s experience. But human beings are not at all that easy to define. They are surely not only their bodies or they’d be happy to be hooked up to life support like in the Matrix. The whole human being is defined by so many elements, not the least of which is our identities and quality of life.

So when a government, for example, looks at life’s quality myopically on the basis of number of deaths and the causes of deaths, our use of that information can haunt us down the road since most people are ultimately afraid of and bewildered by death, or at least by our limited notions of it. Vajrayana Buddhist practitioners, on the other hand, try their best to look into what death is, in reality, and therefore have a more holistic approach to both life and death.

The Moon in My Living Room

About fifteen years ago I brought Rinpoche, who was fresh out of Tibet, to my mother’s home in New Jersey. She recounted the interaction in her book called Eating as I Go in a chapter called “The Moon in My Living Room.” I can only guess that she came up with that chapter title because Rinpoche seemed far away from what she usually saw on this earth. The two of them got into a heated discussion over lunch when my mother asked Rinpoche if he liked America. I translated his brief reply, “I don’t see any difference.”

My mother winced and asked me if he had understood her question. “Well,” Rinpoche continued, “in Tibet people all wish to be happy but have very little idea of what actually causes happiness. They also don’t wish to suffer but are pretty good at causing that to happen. I see the same thing going on here in this great country, so I do not see any fundamental difference. Do you?”

My mother wasn’t satisfied and told me, “Your friend is a terrible reductionist.”

We all want what we call “A good life,” but the way we define this varies considerably from person to person, culture to culture, and country to country. Even the view of what is successful is determined by each individual from a kind of random numbers-crunching of a few factors, what their surroundings tell them is successful, and what feels like success. Most people will agree on the same measurements of success, as they affect each other, but oftentimes they diverge to the point where individuals suffer within a system designed toward an unattainable imaginary model.

If we were each to try to define what a “good life” is, we would all come up with a wide range of mile markers. A satisfying life may mean dying with a good financial status, or a track record of successes in the eyes of others, or a perception of rewards to come after death. Some people think a person is successful by having sufficiently good grades in school, enough make-up, enough muscles, the best car, etc. Some feel a great success would be to have lived simply without too much suffering. Others feel that the purpose of life would be comprised of some balance between being of benefit to others and enjoying the process of life fully. Others look for a more internalized approach, seeking deeper meaning in all they do and experience. As you can see, the first thing that must be defined is our purpose. Only from establishing a purpose can we begin to measure what a successful life really is, and it must by nature differ from person to person.

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

—Mark Twain

Once we establish purpose, we can start going about the task of fulfilling that purpose. If one is very young, then fulfillment needs to come pretty much right away or frustration quickly takes the place of aims and desires. This gets into a deeper question of how we educate our young. Have we really given a sufficient number of clear options to our children about caring for the welfare of others as a way of life? Since this is a rich topic, it should be addressed more fully at a later time.

Then, as we mature, once we know what we are supposed to be doing and are fairly at home with that view and task, our doing becomes much more clear and certain, and therefore likely easier and even joyful. When we wake up, we don’t have to be stressed because we know what the challenge is and why we have to do it. We are like children who simply have to know the why of something in order to take on a task willingly and enthusiastically.

If all is well and in place, a strong, clear purpose will lead to a relatively healthy life, because the lifeforce channel is defined and strong. The chi knows pretty much exactly where to go and what to do and great joy can arise in this fulfillment process.

If, on the other hand, our purpose is poorly defined, either due to lack of clarity, lack of resolution, or the adoption of less-than-meaningful or mistaken goals, then one’s doing in life will be weak, confused, and filled with hesitation, and one’s chi becomes compromised. When this happens, people become ill sooner, and more often, and then must fall back on more and more medicines to solve the problem. As you can easily extrapolate from the above, if we look at our society as a whole, most individuals within it have done a poor job at defining their purposes. Moreover, our societies in general have created unhealthy and destructive purposes and environments, and misleading purposes have also been forcefully imposed on populations.

It is on this basic systematic level where societies can become ill. If this happens, it naturally follows that individuals within that society will also become ill. If the entire system is ill, then individuals within it will suffer more.

A Meaningful Human Life (Mig Lu Rinpoche)

The Buddhist way of defining purpose A good system would ideally allow people to understand two accomplishments or fulfillments in balance with each other. Which one comes first is probably an issue of the evolution of the individual, but for the sake of setting a higher ideal I will put “benefiting others” as the first accomplishment and “enjoying life” (benefiting oneself) as the second fulfillment.

The beauty of the above understanding is that wherever we are in life, we can be extremely happy knowing we are clearly on the way toward success, and this alone is cause for great joy regardless of whatever suffering we may have to endure along the way. I believe with a little modification the following phrase can work:

You can even take people through a tour of hell and they will be happy provided the reason for the journey is clear. In other words, people can much more easily tolerate hardship if they know their sacrifice and efforts are not in vain. Expressed in another way, if we work from an altruistic motivation, the Enlightened or Bodhichitta mind of compassion, our purpose will never be at odds with our own best interest or the health of the overall environment or social structure.

There is a biological imperative in life that also has its own spiritual basis. I would say that the sperm must reach the egg. If you say I am wrong, you are sorely outvoted. By who you ask? You are outvoted by billions and trillions of sperm beings that vote each and every day. Yes, in the Tantric system of the internal yogas, women also have sperm, but it is measured differently. Each single individual person has billions of them and they all wish to live for the day when their purpose can be fulfilled. There is a force behind them, which we can call simply call life. In fact, they are themselves an expression of life.

Now, this force is precious and arises concurrently with birth or even upon conception. Although even the Bible mentions this—“go forth and multiply”—this analogy should not be taken so stiffly that we all need to get out there and make babies in order to be successful in nature’s or our own eyes. But let’s keep it as a metaphoric understanding for the moment. The basic lifeforce energy that allows for the monumental work of creating a new life can be channeled in many ways and achieve a variety of “lower” or “higher” purposes. Bear in mind that lower may be higher in some cases, and higher may be lower in others.

If society is adjusted well enough to allow for any individual within it to fulfill the two purposes of benefiting oneself and benefiting others, then the lives of those who comprise it will generally be quite healthy and, yes, relatively happy as well. Ultimately, this understanding must probably have to include all forms of life in order to work, as we belong to and live within a system of interdependence. So a healthy society would be defined as one that allows for this to happen without too much gap.

Elements of a Dignified Death

To return to the “Moon in the Living Room,” when I brought Rinpoche to my mother’s home for lunch, the conversation between East and West continued on its uneven course.

Rinpoche posed a question to my mother: “What do you think happens when you die?” To which she replied: “Some questions are best left unanswered.”

My mother’s paradigm was that there was no possible way to know the answer to that question unless one came back from the dead. Since anyone who appeared to have gone through a near-death experience was in fact still alive, their experience was most likely invalid. This lack of conclusion was basically her worldview concerning death.

Rinpoche appeared shocked by her retort, and pursued: “I’m afraid I don’t understand. You are a learned academic person, a professor trained in a large reputable learning institution. How could it be that this question of death, one of the main events that defines your life, could be dismissed as unimportant? Do you believe, like Saddam Hussein, that it is all over when we die? Are you a Nihilist?”

When I translated, my mother slammed her hands down on the table and retorted: “Is he accusing me of being the same as Saddam Hussein?”

I quickly tried to remember where all the exits to the house were. I employed the first Buddha activity of pacification, wiped my mouth with a napkin, and changed the subject by reminding Ronpoche of our next appointment.

The point here is that death has, by and large, remained a taboo conversation. As a result, we leave it to the experts, as we do with medicine. The topic is and should forever remain far away, God willing. We are taught by so-called scientists that what happens after death can never be known, and that is the end of the discussion.

Death is typically seen in our modern, largely atheistic world, as a great unknown and indefinable finality. And whereas it is maybe the end of one type or part of a story, it is not the finality people see it as. Regardless of this, people on their deathbeds are overall concerned with something surprising. When a survey asked what their biggest regret is, those on their deathbeds generally say that they wished they had done this or that or loved people more, or gone to more places, etc. The general feeling is that the thing the people regret the most is not the mistakes they made while living life, but not having lived life fully enough.

Milarepa, a great famous accomplished master and saint from within the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition, said, “The Dharma of Milarepa is to die without regret”

As you can see, death is not really the main concern, but a good, fulfilled cycle of life is of the greatest importance. Essentially, all is forgiven if we can live well and die a dignified death. So, once again, if a society allows for a dignified death according to the needs of individuals, and this includes any rituals for the dead or the living who remain, then we are doing pretty well.

When we purchased our land for the purposes of establishing a Dharma center in Nepal, we had the difficult task of creating harmony and agreement between several brothers and uncles within a large family, who all owned individual portions of the land. This process took us more than a year. When the time came, the land sale concluded fairly smoothly and one of the results was that the owner of the main portion, a senior member of the family, left our home with a wad of cash to deal with.

Perhaps one or two years later, this old man was making his rounds in his village of Sankhu. Although normally a very stern man of few words, on this particular day he greeted each and every one of his relatives with joy and expressions and words of love, praise and affection. His family was confused by this expression as it was very much out of his normal behavior.

That evening he called his extended family in to his home in the small village above Sankhu Vajrayogini. They all sat in a circle and he went around the circle addressing each one of them again with words of love and handed out some portion of the cash he had been keeping after settling his other affairs. He explained all the financial and technical issues and at the end, as he handed the last of the cash to the last member of the family, he said his last words: “And one lakh for you.”

He then smiled broadly and sitting cross-legged, he folded his arms across his chest, leaned back against the wall of his house, closed his eyes, and passed away in front of his entire family at that very moment. He had concluded all his affairs and left with a smile on his face. Although he may not have been a saint or skilled meditator, this is certainly one type of dignified death.

Pure Vision: A Central Feature of the Vajrayana Path

Many Western students have romanticized the teacher-student relationship within the Vajrayana tradition. Westerners are not really accustomed to a deep sense of social obligation or the meaning of commitment to a teacher. The idea of taking a vow is novel and seems more like a kind of expression of a wish. We like the idea of having a quasi-relation with a high lama who sits far above us on a throne, the image of perfection, dwelling somewhere above the surface of this confused planet. We hope that we will get whatever we need from the space of devotion, and yet we might feel terribly inconvenienced if we were asked to do anything menial to assist with the crowd’s needs, etc., since we are far too important for the low task of serving ordinary people.

But real lineage doesn’t flow properly in total from one person to another in this manner, from an exalted ideal to a self-satisfied follower. In fact, it is the lowly servant of the Lama who absorbs all the internal understanding and behavior of the Lama from close observation, selfless service, and self-discipline. In fact, most of the real transmissions on how to behave under what circumstances, comes within the sphere of daily life, even more so than from within the Sadhanas or Buddhists texts alone.

On the occasion of my own Mother’s passing away, I called Acharya Dawa Chodak Rinpoche on the telephone to request that he perform Powa, the transference of consciousness, for her. Before I arrived at her home, without alerting the people near her that she was going to pass, she said to them: “Now I need you all to be quiet. Stop talking as I need peace.” They complied and my mother leaned back and passed away quietly without them even knowing.

I arrived shortly after and I was sitting at her bedside. I was on the phone with Rinpoche and he asked me, “Are you sitting next to the Kudung?” Kudung is an honorific term used to address the body of a holy or elevated person such as a saint or a Lama. I thought for a moment, Why is he using that term, since my mother was pretty much an ordinary being? Then I realized the attitude he was indicating that I should adopt. I replied, “Yes, Rinpoche I am right at her side.” He then performed the transference while on the phone, and I experienced the true energetics of that process firsthand in a real situation. This is an example of how a Lama communicates critical elements of the path to his or her students.

World and Individual

Humans in the world need to have some sets of unifying principles in order for the planet to function properly in a self-sustaining manner. It can be said that our world’s graduation ceremony or final exam at this time is to cross through this transition. But for people of the earth, there is a big question about how top-down this process is going to be. If all individual behavior, innovation, etc., is crushed, then there are severe consequences for the human spirit, health, and overall well-being. Without harmony, humans will not only suffer oppression, but our self-sustaining, smooth functioning as a species will be badly compromised.

If, on the other hand, each individual is allowed to be a dominating King or Queen at the expense of the whole, then we perish from our lack of proper custodianship of the earth. The result of this modality unchecked is constant warfare across the planet.

Please bear in mind, we’d better return to the use of the idea and term custodianship as a way to frame our minds and actions, as the Earth is most certainly going to outlast humans as we know ourselves.

A Balance Must Be Struck

The balance between individual needs and expressions and the needs of the whole requires sufficient inputs from local level endeavors of humans, not just global responses where a “one-size-fits-all” approach can and will often fail us.

Today’s society must now gear itself and allow itself to be modified to allow for pursuit of individual good life with Purpose, the pursuit of happiness and harmony and a dignified death.

One may ask, “How can the qualities of the six perfections really arise in ordinary flawed humans? Where do they come from?” They come from a clearly defined Bodhichitta purpose. With clear purpose, the Bodhichitta (compassionate awakened mind) naturally blooms and unfolds and guides our view, wishes, and actions. The Vajrayana is filled with templates to help this process unfold as Shing Kham or a Buddhafield.

Everything—appearance and existence, samsara and nirvana—has a single Ground, yet two paths and two fruitions, and magically displays as Awareness or unawareness.

—From the Great Perfection Aspiration Prayer of Kuntuzangpo

Whatever is going on in our world, be it good economic times, or times of plagues, whatever it is, it is either wisdom or confusion depending on your view. Although it does not suffice simply to call everything pure with one’s mouth, generally, if we truly see it all as wisdom or pure realm occurrence, then our practice is going well. If we see it as chaos, it is an indication our practice is not sufficient and that we’d better practice more diligently.

If we do this well as individuals, then the Earth, with us in it, will naturally become sustainable, harmonious, and joyful. The strongest most reliable vote one really has in life, the real and true representation of our rights in this world, etc., comes from within the sovereignty and wisdom of our own practice. We should be joyful in that understanding and act accordingly.

This is what is meant by a precious human life.

For me, although I feel I may generate many more in the future, my lips are already filled with so many rich stories and experiences. My teachers were extremely kind beings, Buddhas and Sons and Daughters of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. They had no limit in what they gave and my limited continuum has been more than filled. My life therefore, feels so full each and every day. I am generally speaking, overflowing with gratitude and love for all beings, both friends and those with dissenting views.

Inspired by the descended grace of a host of Dakinis on a Dakini Day Tsok offering, this was written by a person named by others as Red Earth, Son of Peace. A dinosaur like-person who praises the acts of passed exalted ones by embracing the benefits of trans-migratory beings in our seemingly complex modern world. May I be able to fulfill all the wishes of my teachers and may all beings arise as Kuntuzangpo and Kuntuzangmo as a union of compassion and wisdom and may these two never separate.