mourning?

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befriend
Posts: 2284
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2011 11:39 am

mourning?

Post by befriend »

how do buddhists mourn the deceased. or what do they do to heal after a loved one has passed. my brother died when i was 9 and i was too young to properly mourn his passing. and i had a dream after meditating for some time, and woke up in tears realizing i had never mourned my brothers death. so i am now trying to come to terms with his passing but realize there is some hatred and anger directed towards the universe for taking my brother.
Take care of mindfulness and mindfulness will take care of you.
befriend
Posts: 2284
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2011 11:39 am

Re: mourning?

Post by befriend »

i am doing a lot of crying though. just to give you a bigger picture.
Take care of mindfulness and mindfulness will take care of you.
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Ben
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Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: mourning?

Post by Ben »

befriend wrote:how do buddhists mourn the deceased.
Apart from cultural funeral arrangements, basically the same as everyone else.

i had a dream after meditating for some time, and woke up in tears realizing i had never mourned my brothers death. so i am now trying to come to terms with his passing but realize there is some hatred and anger directed towards the universe for taking my brother.
Best to regard the grief as it actually is - impersonal transient phenomena. As much as possible - just observe without ascribing any value or meaning to the experience.
wishing you all the best,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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LonesomeYogurt
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Location: America

Re: mourning?

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

Take his death as a lesson on the impermanence of life; reflect on how close we all are, at any moment, to dying, and use this knowledge to energize you and guide you on a wholesome path.

Remember this story as well:
At the time, priests of a religion were charging money for a ritual prayer that promised to release a dead relative's soul from hell so he could go to heaven. At one point in the prayer they struck an urn full of stones with a ritual hammer. If the urn broke, and the stones were released, it was a sign that the soul was also released, according to their teaching. Of course, the brittle clay could not withstand the blow of the heavy metal hammer.

A young man, distraught over his uncle's death, went to the Buddha, believing that the Buddha's teaching was a newer, greater form of religion, and asked him for a ritual which would release his uncle's soul. The Buddha told him to obtain two of the ritual urns from the priests, and fill one with butter and and one with stones.

The young man, believing he was about to get a more powerful ritual, was very happy and did as the Buddha said. When he returned, the Buddha told him to place the urns carefully in the river, so that the rim of the urn was just below the surface. Then he instructed him to recite the usual prayer of the priests, and strike both urns under the water with the hammer, at the usual point in the prayer, then come back and describe what happened.

The young man, very excited to be the first person to be given this wonderful new ritual, more effective than the old, did exactly as he was told. On his return, the Buddha asked him to describe what he saw. The young man replied "I saw nothing unusual. When I smashed the urns, the stones sank to the bottom of the river and the butter was washed away on the surface of the river."

The Buddha said "Then you must ask your priests to pray that the butter will sink and the stones will float to the surface!" The young man, shocked by the obvious ridiculousness of this request said "But no matter how much the priests pray, the stones will never float and the butter will not sink."

The Buddha replied, "Exactly so. And, it is the same with your uncle. Whatever good, loving actions he has done during his life will make him rise towards heaven, and whatever bad, selfish actions he has done will make him sink towards hell. And there is not a thing that all the prayers and rituals of the priests can do to alter even a tiny part of the results of his actions!"
You obviously loved your brother, and I assume that he was a good, loving person. Reflect on his good qualities and take joy in the fact that he is reaping their rewards now, wherever he may be. Wish him the best on the road towards freedom from suffering.
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta

Stuff I write about things.
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