Chapter 81: No Death, No Fear
A few weeks ago, I picked up a new book by one of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh. As I was spending an afternoon doing one of my most loved activities, wandering aimlessly around a bookstore, I found myself (as usual) standing in front of the small section on religion and spirituality.
Here, Thich Nhat Hanh’s No Death, No Fear caught my eye. How’s that for a title? I was hooked. I bought the book and started reading it immediately. As I’ve written about in many blogs before, I practice Buddhism. Buddhists generally believe in the concept of re-birth. I don’t want to get too deep into the weeds of Buddhist philosophy here, as I write this blog for people of all faiths and also no faith, but I think a bit of context will help you understand one of the ways I’ve come to view life and how this view has very powerfully helped me cope with own illness and illness in others.
Raised as a Catholic, I grew up going to Sunday school and learning all about the concepts of Heaven and Hell. In most Christian religions, death is looked at as an ending, where the body and soul separate and the soul goes somewhere else, someplace else. Where that other place is, who knows. I’m not opposed to this idea at all, in fact, it’s a beautiful idea and I fully understand how it helps many people face the idea of death in themselves and loved ones.
For me, however, I can’t help but look at death in more scientific terms. Having studied genetics, physics, chemistry, one simple truth has been drilled into me- energy is not created, energy is not destroyed. Energy simply evolves. Science has shown this must be so.
The concept of death leading to nothingness does not fit well in my own scientifically-oriented brain. As I dove head-first into the philosophy of Buddhism, I came to find that many Eastern religions do not view death in the same black and white, alive or dead, way that many Western religions do. The Buddhist viewpoint of re-birth at first sounded crazy to me, but as I read more of the nuanced philosophy behind this, it is not so much a wild idea of reincarnation into another body as it is simply a belief in the transfer of energy.
When rain falls, did it come from nothing? Of course not. Rain starts as water vapor in a cloud and, through condensation, is transformed into liquid water droplets, which eventually become so heavy that they fall from the cloud onto the Earth as rain. Did the cloud die to become rain? I would argue that it did not. The cloud is still above us, even though parts of the cloud evolved into another form, rain. Was the rain born from nothing? Of course not. The rain was always there, it was simply in another form, vapor.
Scientifically, nothing is born and nothing dies. A French scientist, Lavoisier, declared “Rien ne se crée, rien ne se perd.” Nothing is born, nothing dies (or, nothing is created, nothing is lost). In No Death, No Fear, Hanh notes that this statement by Lavoisier, who became known as the “father of modern chemistry,” is quite in tune with Buddhist beliefs. Hanh states, “Although he [Lavoisier] did not practice as a Buddhist but as a scientist, he found the same truth the Buddha discovered.”
Simply because something is not there does not mean it does not exist. Today may be sunny, but the rain is still there in another form, as water vapor, sitting in clouds high above us. When the conditions change, the water vapor will condense and fall onto us as liquid water.
When we as humans get sick, when we die, where do we go? Our body is made of energy, small atomic particles we cannot see with the naked eye. When our human body dies, does the energy in us simply stop existing, or does it change forms?
To a Christian, perhaps the energy changes forms into a soul which heads straight to Heaven, if we’re lucky. To a Buddhist, perhaps the energy changes forms and enters a new body, one not yet born into this world. To an atheist, perhaps this energy leaves the body and enters the universe as atoms of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen which eventually move upwards, landing in a cloud above us which, when conditions are met, creates rain.
Those are my thoughts on this sunny Saturday morning, as I sit in bed and reflect on my own eventual death. Or rather, my eventual transformation. I’ve always loved falling asleep to the sound of rain. No death, no fear.
Fondly,
Courtney
©CB2021