[Dottore]

A decade or so ago I was at a dinner attended by the Dalai Lama. The host was a client of mine who contributed major funds to the Tibetan Buddhist cause. At some point in the evening the subject turned to death, and the Dalai Lama started to laugh, quietly at first, and then increasingly hysterically. We were all taken aback, but when things quieted down the Dalai Lama said something like this, “People are always so sad and worried about death. That’s what they are taught. A long time ago I decided that death is funny. Really funny. So now whenever I think about it I have to laugh.” And with that he went back to his food.

I was reading a lot of Buddhist thought at the time, and thought I understood the notion that fear of death really is just the result of being too attached to things in life—and that if you weren’t at all attached to these things, death might indeed not be very frightening. It might even be funny. It was after all just the flip side of life. Without it there would be no life. Not only is there absolutely no point in hoping or believing that life somehow carries on after death, it’s critical to the Buddhist notion of dharma to understand that everything changes and is inherently impermanent. Death is to be embraced, just as we embrace life, just because it is. That should be sufficient.

Buddhists talk about the notion of “death awareness”, and how the constant and clear awareness of death makes it totally acceptable. This is not a dark thought at all. It just is. It’s an awareness that triggered laughter and merriment in the Dalai Lama. I like that thought a lot.

It made we wonder why death was such taboo subject in the Christian home in which I grew up it. It was only mentioned in whispers and never discussed. Whenever someone died it was always a vale of tears, and the grief was dark and thick and oppressive. Although I asked, I never got a satisfactory answer to the question of why everyone was so sad when so and so had gone “to a better place”.

Then two years ago my father got very ill, and I had to watch him die a slow and grinding death. He asked me repeatedly to shoot him or poison him or even just hit him over the head with a hammer. He was in palliative care at the time, and when he realized that palliative care was all about trying to keep him alive, he decided to starve himself to death. It took two weeks, and it wasn’t pretty, but he managed it in the end. He told me throughout this time that he had no fear of death, and that he would much prefer it to the diminished bed-ridden existence, which had become his lot. He had led a rich and full life, and had no qualms about leaving it. I told him my Dalai Lama story, and it was the last time I saw him laugh. “I’ve always liked that guy”, he said.

This past year I had my own medical crisis, and had a lot of time to contemplate my own mortality. That’s all behind me now, but people regularly ask me what it’s like to look death in the face.

For me I can honestly say, it doesn’t frighten me any more. Not at all. I certainly prefer life—but death is always there, just in the background. I’m not laughing about it yet, but hope to be able to one day.

I’d be interested to hear how you guys think about death, and generally deal with the subject. Do you talk to your kids about it? Are you afraid of it or not, and why?

It’d be great if we could keep this out of PARF.