Death, Dying & Buddhist Funerals

Buddhism begins with death. The four sights that sent Siddhartha out of his father’s house were an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a renunciant, and the first noble truth names birth, ageing, and death as the primary instances of dukkha.

It is also, across Asia, the tradition people turn to when someone dies. In Japan, around nine in ten funerals are Buddhist while most of the population reports no religion. Whatever else Buddhism does in a society, it handles death.

The contemplation of death #

Maranasati, mindfulness of death, is a formal practice, not a morbid disposition.

The canonical instruction (AN 6:19) is to reflect, at the start and end of each day, that many things could cause one’s death — a snake, a scorpion, a stumble, indigestion — and to ask whether there are unwholesome states unabandoned that would be an obstacle if one died tonight. If so, extraordinary effort should be made to abandon them.

The Visuddhimagga gives eight ways of recollecting death, and the Thai forest tradition preserves the charnel ground contemplations — meditation on corpses in stages of decomposition, with the refrain that this body too is of the same nature, will become like this, is not exempt.

In Tibetan practice, the reflection on death and impermanence is the second of the four thoughts that turn the mind, undertaken before anything else. Its function is motivational: the practice one intends to do later is being deferred against a deadline of unknown date.

The stated purpose throughout is not to produce anxiety but to produce urgency, and to loosen the assumption of continuation that structures ordinary planning.

Caring for the dying #

Buddhist traditions give considerable attention to the state of mind at death, and this produces specific practices.

In Theravada, the last moment of consciousness conditions the rebirth-linking consciousness directly, with no interval. What is present in the mind at death therefore matters, and the practice around a dying person is to support a wholesome, calm, and unafraid state: chanting, recollection of the person’s own generosity and virtue, and the presence of monastics.

In Tibetan traditions, an intermediate state follows, and practices — phowa, the transference of consciousness, and the reading of the Bardo Thodol — are directed at the process itself.

The modern Buddhist hospice and contemplative end-of-life care movement draws on both. See Caring for the Dying.

Funerals #

Practice varies enormously by country, and the variation is instructive: funeral rites are where Buddhism accommodated local custom most extensively.

Theravada funerals centre on merit made on behalf of the deceased — offerings to monks, chanting, and the formal transfer of merit, with water poured from one vessel to another as it is dedicated.

Tibetan practice is oriented to the forty-nine days of the bardo, with readings and rituals at intervals. Sky burial, in which the body is offered to vultures, reflects both the practical constraints of the plateau and the doctrine that the body is no longer of use.

East Asian funerals are elaborate and combine Buddhist rites with ancestral observance, including posthumous ordination names and memorial services at fixed intervals for years afterwards.

See Buddhist Funeral Rites.

What happens after death #

The doctrinal answer is rebirth — the continuation of a causal process without anything transmigrating.

The traditions differ on the mechanics. Theravada holds rebirth is immediate. Most other schools, including all the Tibetan ones, posit an intermediate state of up to forty-nine days. See The Bardo.

Why the tradition looks at death so directly #

Three reasons, and they are not the same reason.

It is the problem. Ageing, sickness, and death are the first instances the first noble truth names, and they are what sent the young Siddhartha out of his father’s house. A tradition organised around the end of suffering has to be organised around this.

It produces urgency. The standard reflection is not “you will die someday” but “you will die, the time is unknown, and only practice will be of use.” Its purpose is motivational, and the Tibetan preliminaries put it second precisely because practitioners defer.

It discloses impermanence directly. The charnel ground contemplations and the recollection of death are not symbolic exercises. They are attempts to make impermanence perceptual rather than notional, using the one instance nobody can argue with.

The classical contemplations #

Maranasati — mindfulness of death. AN 6:19 gives the instruction: reflect at the start and end of each day that many things could cause your death before tomorrow, and ask whether there are unwholesome states unabandoned that would be an obstacle if you died tonight. If so, make extraordinary effort.

The nine charnel ground contemplations in the Satipatthana Sutta — a corpse one, two, three days dead; eaten by animals; a skeleton with flesh and blood; without flesh; scattered bones; bleached bones; bones a year old; bones rotted to powder. Each concludes with the same refrain: this body too is of the same nature, will become like this, is not exempt.

The five remembrances (AN 5:57), recited daily in many communities: I am subject to ageing; I am subject to illness; I am subject to death; all that is mine will change and vanish; I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, and my actions are the ground on which I stand.

The last of the five is the turn. The first four state what cannot be controlled; the fifth states what can.

The four thoughts that turn the mind, in Tibetan preliminary practice: the precious human rebirth, death and impermanence, karma, and the defects of samsara.

Grief #

The tradition’s position on grief is more humane than its reputation suggests, and it is worth stating because the reputation causes harm.

Ananda wept at the Buddha’s approaching death. He was not reprimanded; he was told that everything born and conditioned must break up, and that saying otherwise is impossible. The canon contains a great deal of grief — Kisagotami carrying her dead child from house to house, Patacara losing her entire family — and it does not treat grief as a failure of practice.

What the tradition does say is that grief is itself conditioned and impermanent, that resisting it adds a second arrow to the first, and that the belief that this particular loss should not have happened is a form of the wider misapprehension the path addresses.

Practitioners who have been told that a Buddhist should not grieve have been told something the texts do not support.

Across the traditions #

A brief orientation, since practice varies so much.

Theravada — rebirth is immediate, so the state of mind at death is decisive and practice concentrates on the bedside. Funerals centre on merit made and transferred.

Tibetan — an intermediate state of up to forty-nine days, with a developed account of the dying process, phowa at the moment of death, and readings through the seven weeks. See The Bardo.

Pure Land — recitation of Amitabha’s name at death, with the promise of rebirth in Sukhavati. The most accessible deathbed practice in Buddhism, requiring nothing but the capacity to hear or say a name.

Zen and East Asian generally — posthumous ordination names, memorial services at fixed intervals for decades, and the household altar. The tradition’s principal social function in Japan.

Sources & further reading #

Bhikkhu Analayo, Mindfully Facing Disease and Death (Windhorse, 2016) — the canonical material, carefully presented. Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (HarperOne, 1992) — the most widely read modern treatment; see the note on its author in The Bardo. Joan Halifax, Being with Dying (Shambhala, 2008) — contemplative end-of-life care. Frank E. Reynolds & Earle H. Waugh (eds.), Religious Encounters with Death (Penn State, 1977). Bryan J. Cuevas & Jacqueline I. Stone (eds.), The Buddhist Dead (University of Hawai’i Press, 2007) — the scholarly survey of practices across the Buddhist world.

Related articles #

• Buddhist Funeral Rites — the ceremonies
• Caring for the Dying — practice at the bedside
• The Bardo: Between Death and Rebirth — the intermediate state
• Rebirth and Samsara Explained — the doctrine
• Impermanence (Anicca) in Buddhism — the contemplation
• The Tibetan Book of the Dead — the text