Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Sanghy Khandro offers a 2-minute guide to supporting someone dying who does not practice Buddhism. Rather than imposing Buddhist beliefs, she teaches how to honor and work within the person’s own spiritual tradition. If they are Christian or Jewish, for example, encourage faith in God, trust in divine forgiveness, and confidence they will be with God in heaven. When the dying person is weak, confused, or in pain and cannot practice alone, you can recite their prayers or perform their practices for them, visualizing that they practice alongside you. The central teaching is maintaining a positive state of mind aligned with the person’s own beliefs—never imposing your tradition unless asked—because ethical, respectful support is what truly serves the dying.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 5.08 Spiritual Help for the Dying_Other Religions.mp3
UUID: 72d7bcc1-80bb-4a79-92ec-ff93cef41878
Teacher: Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald
Collection: Heart advice (Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 2.4 minutes
Words: ~351
And then in the case of helping a person who is not a Buddhist, then you can find out what religious practices, beliefs they do have. Try to understand those beliefs and practices, have respect for them, and talk to them in accordance with that. So for example, if they’re a Christian or if they’re Jewish, and if they believe in God, they believe in heaven, then talk to them in those terms. Encourage them to have faith, trust in God, to pray to God, to feel certain that God is forgiving and loving and compassionate, will forgive them for whatever mistakes that they made and will always be there to help them and to guide them. Help them to feel confident that they will be with God in heaven after they leave this life.
So it’s important to have a respectful attitude towards the person and towards the beliefs and practices that they have. And again, you can help them to do those practices if they have difficulty on their own because of pain or because of weakness or confusion. You can recite the prayers for them Or do the practices, the meditations, the visualizations for them. And imagine that they are doing those practices together with you. So that will definitely be helpful for the other person.
So again, remember that the bottom line, the most important thing, is helping the person to have a positive state of mind, to have positive thoughts, feelings, and attitudes in their mind in accordance with their own religious beliefs and practices. So it’s definitely not appropriate who try to impose your own beliefs upon them and try to convert them or talk to them in terms of your own beliefs and practices, unless they are interested. Of course, if they’re interested, they know you’re Buddhist and ask you about Buddhism, then it’s okay to talk to them about that. But to do it in a very skillful way, not in a pushy, proselytizing way. So doing that would actually be disrespectful and unethical, could cause the person to become confused, even angry.