Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Pende Hawter draws on over twenty years of palliative care work to explore how to be truly present with the dying. Rather than rely on techniques or doctrine-dumping, he emphasizes attentive listening and meeting each person where they are—asking what they believe rather than imposing answers. He illustrates this with powerful case studies: a woman scarred by fire whose compassionate partner and spiritual transformation changed her life; a suicidal AIDS patient who learned to trust through non-judgment; families struggling to communicate about mortality until given permission and space to speak openly. Hawter stresses that the best gift to a dying person is a calm, quiet mind, not words. The talk concludes with Buddhist perspectives on suicide and euthanasia, explaining why Buddhist teaching regards both as lacking wisdom—they postpone unfinished karma and, if motivated by despair, risk negative rebirth—yet recognizing that motivation and state of mind ultimately determine karmic consequence.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 10 D and D 1994 11 13.mp3
UUID: 5df69654-892c-4225-9f3e-7affc551be7f
Teacher: Ven Pende Hawter
Collection: Death and Dying (Ven Pende Hawter)
Date: 1994-11-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.9 minutes
Words: ~7,481
Person because she was very badly disfigured at that time. And then he said, no. He said, you know, I I haven’t I don’t wanna marry you for your looks. I marry and I wanna marry you for your personality and because I love you, and that hasn’t changed. And so they’re still together now.
So it’s a nice it’s a nice story. Attachment aside, it’s a nice story. Because she’s a really lovely lady, and she said before that she was a very selfish, self centered person that totally changed her life, as you can imagine. And she now is the loveliest, gentlest lady, a really, really lovely lady, very spiritual lady. Anyway, the story she told me about when she was in the ward was that at one stage a so called religious person came into the burns unit and went around from bed to bed telling people that what had happened to them was their own fault, basically.
But in a sense, it was a bit like you could say, it was more or less saying in a very blunt way, well, you created the cause for this, but totally inappropriate. Buddhism talks a lot about skillful means, and skillful means is is using wisdom and and knowing what to say to people when. And even though I’m talking about all this stuff this weekend, very often when I’m with patients, I wouldn’t say any of this stuff. I would just simply go there and and be quiet and not say a word or just sit there and hold their hand because that seems the most useful thing to do rather than jabber like I’ve done all this weekend. Anyway, what happened when she this fellow went around, the next thing she she was blind at this stage, this lady.
And next thing she heard a nurse say, oh my god. And she knew something terrible had happened. And one of the patients had leapt off the balcony and committed suicide as as a result of that person going around and after that all except for several recognized religious people were banned from the burns unit. So it’s an example of sometimes, and I’m sure many of you have seen this, where people have become angered or upset by the inappropriate use of religion, and they’re just some some examples of where things have gone very wrong. And also the very approach to the very approach to the whole religious issue, and I know I was talking to I’ve forgotten her name.
What’s your name at the time? Glenda. Glenda? Yes. I was talking to Glenda at Buddha House the other day, this thing about just the approach the approach when people ask you spiritual questions.
So if a person says, you know, if a person asks me what I think is going to happen to them when they die, then I’ll always turn it around and say, what’s your belief? What do you think? Always sound out the person and find out what their beliefs are, what their philosophy is, and then always then I gently work around their own philosophy and try and use that philosophy to help them to die. If necessary, bring in people of their own religious faith, you know, ministers from their own faith to help them. And I remember one of our ladies that I was very close to and had helped a lot, she she’s somewhat of a lapsed Catholic.
What’s that? What’s that joke about RC? What does the r stand for? Not retired. There’s some joke about r the r in that Roman Catholic standing for for retired Catholic, something like that.
No. Not recycled, I don’t know. Not recalcitrant. I forget. Sorry?
They’re recovering. Recovering Catholic? No. Don’t think it’s recovering. Would be good.
Getting a lot of suggestions here about the r and r c from all the Catholics in the group. Anyway, on the night that she was dying or or the night before, I know the Catholic priest had come in and administered the the holy water. Holy water, holy oil. I’m not sure. Whatever whatever it is.
And that was very meaningful for her because of her belief. So whatever is meaningful and helpful for the person to to remark to bring that faith to their mind. So anyway, my approach is always to sound the person out. Don’t just go in and say, I believe blah blah blah, but sound them out and ask them, well, what’s your belief? You know?
And people have all sorts of beliefs, just every possible type of belief. I remember one man who I think was Polish. His he didn’t have any specific spiritual belief, but he believed that the only thing that went on after you died was the genes that you’d passed on to your children, not the jeans you wear. And so that was his belief. Actually, was very happy with him because he had some openness of mind.
But before he died, I lent him the boy lama, the copy of the book, The Boy Lama, about Lama Yeshe, Lama Zopa, a reincarnation, The Boy Lama, it’s called. And he read thirty, forty pages of that before he died. And just just simply, I think, by reading that and opening his mind to that possibility, I just knew that that imprint in his mind was going to be extremely beneficial. So work with the person and whatever their beliefs are. And another interesting example for me personally, which in in a sense reinforced this attitude of just being with the person, and also this whole idea of being nonjudgmental with the person, whatever the situation is, accepting them as they are.
Because as soon as you bring any any judgment, you’re going to lose the person and lose their faith and trust in you. And I remember one years ago, one AIDS patient, I was on a roster, and I was visiting him, I think, every Saturday for about four hours, and that went on for two or three months. And he was very depressed, negative, had attempted suicide three or four times. I think he always rang the ambulance after he’d taken the pills. He didn’t really want to die, but it was a cry for help.
Spent his his time chain smoking, listening to the races, listening to music, and being very uncommunicative. And so and and I don’t I don’t know. He would have known my name, but he wouldn’t have even known that I was a Buddhist or or anything about me. And so it was a challenge then just to accept him as he was, just simply to accept him as he was. And that that was sort of backed up by what happened a bit later because or the the fact that that helped him to develop some trust in me because I accepted him.
And many people left his roster because he was so unfriendly and uncommunicative. But at one stage, one day, one of his it was it was an ex lover who had been on his roster, but they these two used to fight and argue. And he thought someone had stolen some of his tapes or his clothes, and he was going to call the police and cancel his roster. And the this fellow who had been his ex lover said, well, you don’t think it was me, do you? And he said, well, you’re not beyond suspicion.
And he said, what about Pende? And he said, no. And he said, well, how do you know? He said, I just know, which was the closest thing he ever said to saying thanks. But it was very it was very reinforcing of the fact that there was some sort of at some level, there was some trust of me because I just because I didn’t sort of judge him and I accepted him as he was.
So I felt in that particular case, that was the best way that I could help that person. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to try and tell him any of this, but I don’t think it would have been. It was just enough for me to be there and to accept him as he was. And, also, I’ve about this a little bit about this the last few days as well, that often a person will say something like, you know, well, I’m I’m what’s this sort of question? They might say something like, well, what happens after you die?
And sometimes when they ask you that question, sometimes they want you to tell them, but other times they don’t. And so then again, I’ll say, do you think? And they will and then then sometime and then also with experience, I think you pick up whether they really want to know your opinion or whether they just really want a chance to talk about it themselves. And so again, I think you have to use judgment. Sometimes they don’t want to know what you think.
They just want the chance to talk about it themselves, and they have a fixed view of what happens. And again, I think that that comes with a little bit of experience. And what I what I often say now and what is my experience that as I’ve gained more experience working with people who are dying, I think these days I probably say less, talk less than I used to. Now I’m more content just to perhaps sit there quietly and just in a sense try and be a quiet presence in the room of a dying person. And often what you find is when you do that, if you just go there and just sit there quietly and put your arm, you know, and I might put my arm on someone’s put my hand on someone’s arm or their back or or whatever just to reassure them.
And often, even if you’ve said almost nothing, when you leave or after the death, they really thank you for helping them because you just helped them to remain sort of calm and quiet. Sorry? Well, thank you after the best of luck. Take me up. Not the dying person, though, but the relatives will often thank you.
I might add with that AIDS patient I mentioned, the one where there was some trust. He very much controlled his situation right through from the beginning to the end. And I wasn’t there when he died. Actually, it was interesting. I went there on the evening he died, and I don’t know whether Joy seen this often or other people, but his skin had become extremely sensitive.
And I just put my hand light in his leg, and he sort of cried out in pain. His skin had become extremely sensitive. Now I’m looking at the karmic reason for that as well. And the the nurses wanted to roll him, but it caused him so much pain to move him. And then he died that night, think, ten o’clock or perhaps perhaps about two o’clock.
I think I left at ten o’clock. But the the the coordinator of of his volunteers who was there when he died, there was a few people around, she said that, you know, he always he always had the last say. And after he died after he had died, his eyes were open, still open. After some time, closed his eyes, and they opened up again. And she said she said she could almost hear him say, I’ll close my eyes when I’m ready.
Thank you. And because he was always so much in control of his situation, he did it his way. Okay. Is there any questions at this stage? I’ve been talking for a long time.
Any questions about things that I’ve said or from your own experience or things you found helpful or things you disagree with? From a Buddhist point of view, the actual time of death, like I believe from a traditional law, generally, people tend to die around three or four in the morning. That’s what I was told anyhow, that’s a normal timing because the body rhythms, etcetera. Has that got any significance in Buddhism? Well, for a start, I’m not sure if it’s true.
Joy, do they die any They can die at any time. Mean, there does seem to be a period during those early hours of the morning that’s a bit of a dicey time, and they certainly can But from my experience of two or three hundred, say, I don’t think it’s, you know They can die at any time? Any time. So Joy, who who runs a hospice agency, says that the two or three hundred people that she’s helped to die or been with, that they can die at any time of day or night, which is also my experience. But often often the early hours of the morning is a time perhaps when if if they’re going to die, often they they may die.
If they’re close to death, they’ll often die in those early hours of the morning. But really, we we we see people die at any time, day or night, even on public holidays. So any other questions? I think we have a couple over here somewhere. So we might have had one.
No. Can I ask a question? No. I think Yes. I’d just like you to comment on an experience I had where I’d been very close to working with a patient.
And then after he died, about four or five nights later, I sat up in bed and had the experience of smelling the smoke that he had a particular brand of cigarettes that he smoked. And I thought, well, what’s happening? No one in my house smokes, and I sat up to make sure I was quite awake. And this happened on two nights, and my thought process went to him and I said, okay, Henry, what are you trying to tell me? But it was a very real experience.
Can you comment on that? Over the years, I’ve heard numerous similar stories of these unusual things happening, of people smelling things, seeing things, hearing things, and it is a little hard to to understand to explain, I mean. I’m not quite sure how I would how you would explain the smell of cigarette smoke. But another similar story is one lady, his son died in a car accident, and she was on a farm. And when she used to milk the cows, the son used to sit on a little stool in the corner.
And he might only been he was perhaps seventeen or eighteen, and he would smoke, but I think his mother didn’t like him smoking either at all or in the cow shed. So he often used to have half of the cigarette behind his back and the smoke, she could see the smoke sort of going up behind his head. And some days after he died, she looked across to the stool and there was this smoke going up, sort of exactly where he used to sit. These sort of stories I’ve heard countless times, and I don’t think I can explain them. Can anybody explain them why those things might occur?
What was your understanding? What was your understanding? Well, I was definite at understanding was very clear that he was trying to contact me in some way and I felt that alright I tried to sort of stay open and the thought that came across were two. One that I got very clearly would I look after his granddaughter, which did happen, she was a physiotherapy student and worked with us for a number of years. And the other one was something to do about business, and I never did get that one.
But I just felt that I was being contacted. Yes. Many people have those sort of experiences. I I think they’re just you know, I’m sure if I ask my teachers, they’d come up with some sort of explanation. But some of those things I I can’t explain because they’re very common source experience.
I I might just add here that we sometimes have to be a bit careful with this whole area of visiting and making contact with relatives who’ve died, you know, the concept of seances and and spirit mediums or mediums and spirit contacts and those sort of things. Often, know when we’ve talked to the Lamas about, you know, people often say that they’ve made contact with relatives who died years ago, and if they’ve been reborn within seven weeks, how can that be so? And often the sort of answer they’ll make is that there are certain mischievous spirits, for instance, who will mimic their relatives who have died before and and very much appear to to be their relatives who have gone gone before. So there can be different sorts of spirits and influences that can mimic or pretend to be that person or come to you in some way. And I know I have the same sort of feeling with spirit guides and and mediums.
I mean, often they can be genuine. They can give correct guidance. I’ve also heard stories of often giving bad advice and people getting into trouble as a result of these things, and it’s a matter of, you know, knowing who you’re dealing with. And personally, you know, I prefer to have an embodied guide who I know who he is and what his credentials are rather than someone who’s coming to me in in in some other way. But that’s an individual thing, and I think each one of us just has to check up in our own mind and just be careful that way.
Other questions? Question down the back. We have the machine. I’m wanting to for your views about skilful means of broaching the subject of death with parents who don’t discuss the matter and who are fearful and who well, obviously, I would like to be able to be of some assistance to particularly the very few occasions that I get to see them. And given an age of well, they’re now over eighty.
It becomes less and less likely that I’m going to see them again. So you’re talking about how to communicate with them or help them or Basically, do you approach the subject and and what sort of matters would you would you what sort of methods would you use to discuss the issue, and how would you address it? Okay. It’s it’s a little hard sometimes to answer those questions because it’s such an individual thing, and and and it would be different in each family. Sometimes you have to go be a little bit sort of devious and roundabout and sometimes it’s probably works better to be quite direct.
Sometimes it may work better to be initially to be a little or just to to gently sound out the the person or the parent your parents about their feelings, and it’ll quickly become apparent, I think, whether they want to talk or whether they don’t. And if they don’t want to talk about it, then nothing you can do really, other than to do do particular practices on their behalf and dedicate it for their benefit. So if they’re not open to it, if they’re if they’re closed to those ideas and concepts, but they don’t want to talk about it, then you more or less have just have to do practices on their behalf. For instance, when they die, you make various offerings on their behalf. You sponsor pujas.
You ask lamas to make prayers for them. You do various practices and you dedicate the positive energy from those practices towards their good rebirth, in particular getting monasteries and Lamas to do things on their behalf. Anyone else got any comments about that? It’s a little bit of a also a sort of psychological sort of counseling type question. If other people have got comments, please make them.
Glenda? I’ve just recently visited my ageing parents in Brisbane, and as they’re getting on and not open to talking about these things, it’s only been just this October when my father, who’s eighty three, has had an operation. And for the first time, has actually had what I call a touch of the mortalities. And so he was the one who was able to privately speak to me about the fact he’s concerned about what’s going to happen. So it’s taken all these years, and he’s known what I’ve been doing for a long time, but never, never spoken about it, because his focus is always on living and not on dying.
I can’t say the same has happened for my mother yet, but the fact that he, as I say, had come to that position in his own life was the only way that it naturally unfolded for him to say something to me, which I found a great privilege to actually chat with him. So that’s, as you say, probably the only way it can happen Yeah. In a very natural way. And you cannot make these things happen when people do not want to face these things. That’s true.
My feeling, I guess, is that if you’re the most important thing is to give the other person the create the most conducive environment which will allow them to speak. Now I’m just thinking back to many years ago when I was in my early twenties and my father was dying of cancer and lung cancer. And I’ve been overseas, and I got a letter from my aunt suggesting I come back because my father was dying. I mean, one of my sisters was was a triple certificated nurse and very experienced. And and when I came back, I came back in.
I just I sat at his bedside for the afternoon and we spoke to him and obviously just spoke to him quite openly. And I can’t remember what we talked about, but just accepted and was open to whatever he talked about. And he may have said, well, you know, I think I’m going to die. And and my response probably would have been would have been, well, yes. It seems that you are or some something like that.
And as I left the ward that day, his friend in the in the bed next to him handed me a note and said a couple of things, and one of them was it said you’re the first person who’s got through to your father. Now I didn’t do anything special. I didn’t use any particular technique other than openness and acceptance of of where he was at. And I might add that the other part of the note says something like, your father told me something about you, which he made me promise not to tell. And I went went back several weeks after my father died, he died.
So he’s taken he’s taken his secret with him. So, you know, I don’t know whether I’m the son of the milkman or what to make of that. But, anyway, that was just an example of of how just with some openness, just accepting what was happening and allow giving my father the space to talk about what he wanted to talk about, just as with you, if you just give your parents the space to talk about and give them the opportunity in the space. And very often this happens in our work that one day a patient will open up their heart to you or their family member will open up their heart to you and tell you everything about their life story, and the next day you’ll go there and they’re completely closed off, they just don’t want to talk at all. So it’s matter often people say, of course, you know, what do you say to somebody who’s dying?
There’s no recipe. The only thing you can suggest, I think, is you you just go in with an open mind without any preconceived ideas, and you just let happen what’s going to happen that day. And and and that’s why it’s said, I think, that the the best gift that we can take to a dying person is our own quiet, calm mind because that will give them the most space and opportunity to talk. And so for instance, for nurses, doctors, etcetera, it’s recommended that if if they’re if they’re rushing around going and visiting different people and often nurses are incredibly busy and stressed and that when they get to the dying person’s home that they just sit in the car for a couple of minutes and just quiet in their mind before they go into the car into the house. And so for us, I think it’s the same.
Before we go and sit at a dying person’s bedside, we just bring our mind into a more calm and peaceful state. So I think it’s three o’clock. So shall we stop? Yes. Using my analogy for the privilege.
Just recently, Richard’s question reminded me that recently I went to visit my father-in-law who has dementia and is in a nursing home. All the family has been treading on eggshells around him him and very fearful about talking about how they’re really feeling about anything important. I just decided to ask him. I said, how do you feel? Do you think much about dying?
And in the meantime, he rambles and he’s completely unintelligible most of the time. When I asked him that question, he said, I think about it all the time. It makes me really sad. And just thought I was aware of you know that being direct and being open he really heard what I said you know his gross mind heard what I said. Just one one final point I’d like to make is, well, I find that one of the most useful methods for helping someone who’s dying to feel relaxed and to open up and their family is the appropriate use of humor.
Now people often think working with the dying must be very depressing. And, I mean, we have so much fun with dying people, don’t we, Joy? I mean and I mean, sometimes the humor gets pretty black, but just and and dying people and their families, they just if you use humor appropriately, they just love it. I mean, they’re just so happy when you do that. And I can think of one family we’re working with at the moment, and I probably really enjoy working with them because it allows me to be the natural fool that I am.
Mhmm. And so it’s a thirty five year old woman dying of a brain tumour, and she’s getting worse now. But some weeks ago, I remember taking because everyone was treating her very seriously, and most of her family were keeping her way, and she was feeling very housebound. And so I took her down to the local park, and I was trying out our new video on her, and she was just playing around. We had a tennis ball, and we’re throwing at each other and she ran around like a sort of a ten year old kid and playing on the swings and she just had such a fantastic time because because she was able to be herself and to act naturally and to have fun and and and so, you know, we we had a family conference with that family.
There’s a lot of bad communication goes on in that family, and we had this family conference with with this woman. Her six sisters and her brother and her parents who are divorced. It’s a family conference of ten of them whose family Jan, you would have liked this one. They they would have liked this one, where the family method of communication communicating was that each one tries to outtalk the other one all at the same time. So ten of them trying to outtalk each other to and we were trying to work out a roster, and and at one stage, two of the sisters sort of walked out in a huff, and the mother went after them and told them, you you too can f off and don’t bother to come back.
And then the brother-in-law went out and calmed them down, and they came back about ten or twenty minutes later in tears and apologetic and hugs all around. But it turned out to be a very healing experience, but just this all this stuff was going on and the fear the fear of their sister dying, I mean, their reaction was coming from fear and inability to cope with it. And but since then, I I think it’s really improved a great deal by bringing them together, allowing them to talk about their feelings, express their anger, this all took three hours mind you to work out this roster, but they needed that time just to let off and to and then to just express their feelings and and it was a real healing experience for that family. So giving people the opportunity to talk about their feelings and just express it can be very helpful. Let’s have a break for a cup of tea and come back in, how long, twenty minutes or so.
So it’s it’s three So we’re into the last session, and I still got about three days of stuff to tell you about, so I’m not sure what to do. But one thing we did promise to talk about, it doesn’t matter so much that I don’t get on to Phowa because you’ve got a whole weekend of that in two weeks. So this will encourage you to go to the Phowa weekend. But one thing we did promise to talk about perhaps is from the Buddhist perspective, the concepts of of suicide and euthanasia Mhmm. And those things.
Because these questions are often asked because many people commit suicide, and and perhaps a number of you have relatives, friends, people people you know who’ve committed suicide or attempted suicide, and Natalie was telling me of one of her experiences at afternoon tea time. So coming back to an early point, I just remember yesterday Barbara mentioned that her brother had died early in the week, and and I asked her how she was feeling about that. And she said it was just so nice to be able to talk openly about it in this sort of forum because the rest of her family just wouldn’t talk about, you know, that death. And so that’s very difficult. Often people do want to talk about it and they feel that they have no one to talk about it, which is why things like bereavement support groups can be so healthy and beneficial because it allows people to talk about these issues.
Of course the other thing would be nice to mention a little bit about in the time we’ve got left is funerals. This is not a paid advertisement from Sue here, but to say a bit a bit about funerals because there’s a lot of misunderstanding about funerals and who can do them, etcetera. Anyway, suicide. Basically, the Buddhist attitude about suicide is not making a valid judgment about whether it’s a good or a bad thing to do, but, basically, it’s regarded as something lacking in wisdom because the the basic concept is that any difficulty or suffering that we experience is the finishing of some previous karma or negative causes that we’ve created because every single thing that happens to us in Buddhist terms is the result of previous causes that we’ve created. And so if we’re in a particular situation where we’re experiencing mental or physical pain or suffering, then a, we must have created the cause for it sometime in the past.
But more importantly is the fact that by going through that difficulty, that pain, that suffering of of body or mind, we’re burning off or finishing those causes which we’d created. So by going through that experience, we’re finishing that karma which doesn’t have to be experienced in the future. And you remember I said earlier that these karmic seeds that we’ve created that are in our in our mind streams, imprinted on our mind streams, that they can only be gotten rid of. Well, in particular talking about the negative imprints, they can only be gotten rid of if they are manifest as some form of suffering or or pain or or suffering, or if they’re purified through particular meditation practices like applying the four opponent powers or Thirty-Five Buddhas or Vajrasattva practice or whatever it might be. There’s many, many types of purification practices.
So by by going through the experience, that karma finishes and doesn’t have to be experienced in the future. So for example, if a suffering experience, say a person has some pain or mental or physical pain and their natural lifespan would finish here, If if at this point here, the person decides to end their life or with the help of somebody else euthanize, rather than end the suffering, which is the reason why the person makes that decision, in Buddhist terms what they’re actually doing is not ending the suffering, but they’re postponing it. Because this amount of suffering that they would have experienced this life and finished this life, purified this life, because it hasn’t been worked off, still has to be experienced in the future. So rather than finish the suffering, end the suffering, then it still has to be experienced in the future. Now that’s the first point.
The second point is, as I mentioned earlier, that the crucial thing when a person is dying is the state of mind at the time of death. If the mind is in a positive state, then the person is likely to take a good type of rebirth, and if it’s in a negative state, likely to take a negative type of rebirth. Mostly, not always, but mostly if a person decides to suicide or euthanize, the mind is in an unhappy state. Not always. Some people can consciously, clearly, perhaps often with the wish to avoid of being a burden on their relatives, or they can they can very consciously, you know, euthanize or suicide.
But I would think that most people, if they get to that point where they actually want to finish their life, are not in a good state of mind. And because of that, if they’re in a negative, depressed, unhappy state of mind when they take that action, that’s likely to throw them into a negative type unhappy type of rebirth. So not only have they not finished the karma, they’ve postponed it, but they’re likely to end up in a worse place as well. Now I should say here that this is this is I was gonna say my opinion, I think it’s the general Buddhist opinion, but I know Stephen Levine on a on a tape that I’ve heard of his, he’s a little bit he’s much more open about the concept of suicide and said that he would not normally try and discourage somebody from committing suicide if they wanted to as long as it was done consciously and mindfully. So my feeling is certainly a lot stronger, I guess, or more opposed to suicide as an unwise action than his is, and and he does come from a Theravāda Buddhist background.
So there are differences of opinion. So this is this is sort of I think this would be the general opinion. Well, it is the general opinion of of Buddhist teachers that I’ve spoken to. So it’s much better to try and work through the problem, and if you like, using the various methods I’ve talked about of helping the helping the person to make sense out of their pain and suffering, and ideally even be able to transform it into compassion as we’ve talked about. And with help, like Lama Zopa says, you know, with wise counsel or help and assistance, then most people should be able to turn that experience around and turn it into something, some positive experience.
So that’s sort of the Buddhist attitude towards suicide. And especially the fact that, you know, especially I’ve spoke I’ve counseled many suicidal people over the years, and and I give always give them this sort of explanation. And none of them to my knowledge have committed suicide yet. It’s not it’s bound to happen sooner or later because the mind can be so disturbed when it’s suicidal. But generally, the thought of ending up in a worse place is a real detriment to to committing suicide because, know, you think the suffering is bad now.
What if I end up in a worse place? And you think, you know, it’s not worth taking the risk. In terms of of euthanasia, what Lama Zopa says about that, apart from what I’ve said already, is that if a person is fairly close to death and, there doesn’t seem much point in continuing to live, then if the only way in a sense that you could justify euthanasia is if you know that the person is going to go to a better type of rebirth. If you know that they’re going to a better place, then it’s okay for the life to end. If you don’t know that, by helping them to euthanize you could be sending them to a worse place.
You could actually be creating more harm by ending this life. You could be sending them to to one of these lower realms for instance. And then, of course, you know, the only people who know whether a person is gonna have a better rebirth is someone with clairvoyance. So basically what he’s saying is that unless you have clairvoyance, unless you know where they’re going, then you don’t have the wisdom to make this judgment about euthanasia or, of course, suicide. Let’s say euthanasia because you’re doing it on someone else’s behalf.
So I think there are a few things worth thinking about there. Perhaps I’m sure people have got some comments about those things. So doctors who do that, would they be So doctors who volunteer to euthanize people, does that mean they go to their realms by killing a person? No. Because what determines the the result of any action is our motivation.
So our motivation and for the person dying in a state of mind at the time of death, if the doctor, as in most cases, doctor would do it out of compassion, but it’s what it’s what you would call perhaps misguided compassion or perhaps compassion without wisdom. But as long as the motivation is done with with compassion, there is still a karmic result, it’s it probably is not a heavy result because it’s been done with a compassionate thought. And we were discussing at one of the breaks, I think, lunchtime about an example, for instance, it’s interesting to consider these different these different examples of results. So for instance, somebody gives a lot of money to charity, we were using this example. They give a lot of money to charity, they help a lot of other people, but they do it just to gain a good reputation and as Joyce said, get their name on pamphlets and things like that.
So that even though a lot of people are benefiting perhaps from the charity, if it’s done with a negative mind or a mind that’s only concerned about oneself, then it’s actually the karma is negative as compared so to a to a doctor, while a doctor perhaps is committing euthanasia or more the the example I usually use is like a doctor or a surgeon who does an operation with the wish to help the person, but he makes some mistake or due to some bad judgment the person dies, it actually actually causes the death. And here, if the motivation is is pure, the with a genuine compassionate wish, then there isn’t there is no negative karma involved. And, of course, it’s the classic stories. And we mentioned to someone, I think, at lunchtime. Some of you know of the Buddha in a previous life when he was the captain of a boat.
And on that on that boat, there was a hundred merchants. And through his clairvoyance, could see that one of the merchants was plotting to kill the other ninety nine. So out of his compassion for the ninety nine merchants and with the with the complete willingness to take on the karma of of the of his action, he killed that one merchant. He was going to kill the other ninety nine. But it said because it was done with pure pure compassion that he only generated a lot of positive energy, positive karma and no negative karma.
So it’s it’s not as it’s not that, you know, if if you commit an abortion or or euthanize somebody that you’re going to go to a hell realm. It depends really on your motivation. But certainly, in Buddhist terms, the action is is really lacking in wisdom unless you know where that person is going. So the general thought is that unless you know because you could just be propelling the person into a lower rebirth, into the lower realms. So certainly I wouldn’t like to be involved in an action like that if it’s actually going to if in my heart, I thought it might be resulting in in worse suffering for the person who was dying or suffering.
Sorry. Just asked to say something again. What would you do in this Pende? For instance, my mother has made it very, very clear that there is no way that she wants her life she wants to be on life support systems, that she signed a piece of paper that says that she’s to be given an injection or whatever. I’ve argued with her about it, but she’s got her heart completely set on doing this.
What would you suggest that I mean, obviously, can’t do anything about that, and I can only say prayers and be as compassionate as possible when the time comes. But what would you say about that? Well well, again, it comes back to this thing. All you can do is explain to people these different points of view, and then people always have their choice. They can act in the way that they want to act, and if your mother is set on acting that way, then she may act that way.
But I I remember reading the story of of one hospice doctor who ran a well known hospice in England, and he tells this amusing story of of one little old lady who said, doctor, you know, I’m fed up with life. I don’t want to go on. I want to end my life. Will you do it? Will you will you help me to end my life?
And he said, yeah. Sure. That’s fine. And he went away, he came back with this huge needle, the biggest needle he could find, and started drawing it up. And and she she rapidly changed her mind.
And so he found out that that was very skillful means, you see, of scaring the hell out of this lady, scaring her into living. And I think the result was that, you know, with adequate symptom control that she lived, you know, she died peacefully sometime later. It was enough just it was enough for her to to shock her into realizing she didn’t really want to die, and perhaps it was more coming from fear or anxiety. And perhaps with your mother, if she has good palliative care and good symptom control, Generally, it comes to the crunch, people don’t want to go through with euthanasia. People tend to cling to life at all costs.
And the basic argument against euthanasia in the hospice movement is that with good symptom control, then euthanasia is a non issue because people can be kept comfortable and pain can be controlled and then people lose the wish or the thought to to to have to engage in euthanasia. But, you know, people people do have their own choice. You know, someone wants to do it, then you can try and discourage them.