Orange County Buddhist Church

Transcending Life and Death

    Some years ago, before I was about to conduct a graveside service for an elderly gentleman who had passed away, his daughter handed me a piece of paper.  Written on the piece of paper was a short poem.  She asked me if I wouldn’t mind reading the poem at the graveside service for her father.  It was a most beautiful poem, written by an unknown author.  Since then I have used it at many graveside and memorial services.  I would like to share it with you today and reflect on its content.  The poem goes as follows: 

            Do not stand at my grave and weep;
            I am not there.  I do not sleep.
            I am a thousand winds that blow.
            I am the diamond glints on snow.
            I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
            I am the gentle autumn’s rain.
            When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
            I am the swift uplifting rush
                        of quiet birds in circled flight.
            I am the soft stars that shine at night.
            Do not stand at my grave and cry;
            I am not there.  I did not die.
                                    Author unknown

    I was most impressed by this poem, and to me, although the author might not have even been Buddhist, the poem is written by someone who has transcended life and death.  To transcend life and death might seem like a difficult thing to understand, but I think this poem expresses it most beautifully. 

    Most people would write a poem from the standpoint of some kind of afterlife, and say something like, “I will be watching over you from heaven or the Pure Land.”  But this author does not make that kind of expression.  The author of this poem states most beautifully, I will be the “sunlight on ripened grain” or the “soft stars that shine at night.”  In other words, the author has seen something deeper than their own limited, physical life.  The author realizes that his or her own physical life has its limits and will come to an end someday, but despite that, the author does not feel despondent nor even fearful, because the author has transcended life and death. 

    To transcend life and death in Shin Buddhism means to awaken to “immeasurable life.”  To me, this author has awakened to immeasurable life.  The author has touched the essence of life, a truth of life that goes beyond one’s limited physical existence.  Immeasurable life does not mean to actually live forever and ever, like some kind of eternal life.  Immeasurable life means to transcend life and death, to touch the heart of eternity in the here and now.

    Saichi the Myokonin expresses this as well in his poems.  For Saichi, the world of immeasurable life is the Pure Land.  Saichi’s Pure Land is not some kind of heaven-like existence.  Saichi’s Pure  Land is all around him.  It is the world of truth, the world of suchness that he senses, that he sees through his awakened eyes. 

            My joy is that while in this world of shaba
            I have been given the Pure Land –
            Namu-amida-butsu!
                                    p. 166, “Mysticism:  Christian &
                                    Buddhist”, by D.T. Suzuki.

    This insight by Saichi allows him to transcend life and death, as he expresses in the following poem.

            I, bound for death,
            Am now made into the immortal 'Namu-amida-butsu'.
                                    p. 159 

    The Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, also beautifully expresses the same kind of truth in a poem that he has adapted from a Buddhist sutra.  It goes as follows:

        This body is not me;
        I am not caught in this body,
        I am life without boundaries,
        I have never been born and I have never died.
        Over there the wide ocean and the sky
        with many galaxies
        All manifests from the basis of consciousness.
        Since beginningless time
        I have always been free.
        Birth and death are only a door
        through which we go in and out.
        Birth and death are only a game
        of hide-and-seek.
        So smile to me and take my hand
        and wave good-bye.
        Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before.
        We shall always be meeting again
        at the true source,
        Always meeting again
        on the myriad paths of life.
                p. 186, “No Death, No Fear”, Thich Nhat Hanh

    "I am life without boundaries, I have never been born and I have never died," are expressions of transcending life and death, or touching immeasurable life. 

    The Nembutsu, Namuamidabutsu means to open our hearts and minds to this great immeasurable life.  "Namu" means "I bow, I take refuge in, I open my heart and mind to."  "Amidabutsu" is Amida Buddha.  What is Amida Buddha?  Amida Buddha is immeasurable light and immeasurable life.  Namuamidabutsu thus can be interpreted to mean, "I open my heart and mind to immeasurable life.  I open my heart and mind to immeasurable light." 

    When we open our hearts and minds to immeasurable life, we will be able to see beyond life and death.  We will see how we are one with the world as "the gentle autumn's rain" or as "quiet birds in circled flight."  We will see the world in which we can say, "do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die." 

Namuamidabutsu,
Rev, Marvin Harada

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