Don't grieve

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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greggorious
Posts: 263
Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2011 6:40 pm

Don't grieve

Post by greggorious »

I was watching a youtube clip of a Monk, can't remember his name Yattumundo or something? An American Thai forest monk. He mentioned that it was wrong to grieve when a loved one dies. Now I hate to take issue with a monk, but surely grieving is natural and that if you force yourself not to grieve you'll only suppress it and it'll be even more unhealthy.
I think to be able to grieve the death of a parent or child is necessary.
"The original heart/mind shines like pure, clear water with the sweetest taste. But if the heart is pure, is our practice over? No, we must not cling even to this purity. We must go beyond all duality, all concepts, all bad, all good, all pure, all impure. We must go beyond self and nonself, beyond birth and death. When we see with the eye of wisdom, we know that the true Buddha is timeless, unborn, unrelated to any body, any history, any image. Buddha is the ground of all being, the realization of the truth of the unmoving mind.” Ajahn Chah
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LonesomeYogurt
Posts: 900
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:24 pm
Location: America

Re: Don't grieve

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

greggorious wrote:I was watching a youtube clip of a Monk, can't remember his name Yattumundo or something? An American Thai forest monk. He mentioned that it was wrong to grieve when a loved one dies. Now I hate to take issue with a monk, but surely grieving is natural and that if you force yourself not to grieve you'll only suppress it and it'll be even more unhealthy.
I think to be able to grieve the death of a parent or child is necessary.
There's a difference between repressing grief - which is bad - and not indulging in grief. Being mindful of death, free from clinging, and confident in the laws of kamma, we can know that the death of a loved one is nothing to grieve over but instead just a natural part of life.

If you want to grieve, if you feel as though you need to, then grieve. Buddhism is not about faking it! But what the monk was saying is that through the practice of compassion and the development of wisdom, we can get to a point where grief over someone's death no longer arises; until that point, please do deal with the grief that arises in a healthy and positive way. Don't ever think of repressing it.
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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