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9. The Business of Death |
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One of the easiest ways to
manipulate people is through fear. Since the fear of death
is the greatest fear for most people, many religionists
have long exploited death as a means to manipulate believers
for their selfish gain.
For example, the sale of indulgences by ‘pardoners’
grew considerably from the later Middle Ages and became
an immediate cause for the Protestant Reformation. In
his “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences,”
which is commonly known as “The Ninety-five Theses,”
posted on a church door at Wittenberg in 1517, Martin
Luther wrote, “There is no divine authority for
preaching that the soul flies out of purgatory immediately
the money clinks in the bottom of the chest” (Martin
Luther: Selections from His Writings, John Dillenberger,
ed., p. 493).
Neither was the history of Buddhism immune to the clerical
exploitation of people’s fear of death. The late
15th century saw the economic growth of farmers in Japan.
Now that many farmers did not have to worry so much about
starvation, they began thinking of their afterlife and
adopted funeral rites, which had been previously reserved
for aristocrats and samurai warriors. Buddhist priests
were quick to seize this opportunity; they began to systematize
their funeral rites and invented dogmas to stress the
importance of having priests conduct services for the
deceased.
Priests transformed Buddhism
into ‘funeral Buddhism’
Some priests of Nichiren Buddhism went so far as to forge
documents and attribute them to their founder. One such
document, titled “On the Blessings of Funeral Rites”
(Jpn Eko kudoku sho), vividly describes the gruesome agonies
of the dead and explains that their surviving families
must ask priests to perform funeral rites in order to
relieve their pains. This document puts the following
words in the mouth of Nichiren Daishonin: “According
to the Nirvana Sutra, King Yama [of hell], upon some considerations,
drives forty-nine nails into the dead. Nevertheless, if
they have pious children in this world and send someone
for a priest to pray for their repose, this news will
be brought to the palace of King Yama, and immediately
fifteen nails will be removed from their feet” (Showa
Teihon Nichiren Shonin Imon, p. 53; this document was
also included in Showa Shintei Nichiren Daishonin Gosho
published by Nichiren Shoshu.).
Needless to say, there is no such description in the Nirvana
Sutra as the author claims.
According to this document, each of the 49 nails driven
into the dead is as long as 1 foot. When the priest transcribes
a sutra passage on a memorial tablet upon his arrival,
six nails will be removed from the stomach. When the priest
conducts consecration—called “eye-opening”—on
the tablet, 18 nails will be removed from the chest. When
he delivers a sermon for the dead, two nails will be removed
from the ears. When the priest prays to the tablet, two
more will be removed from the eyes. And when the surviving
family chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to this consecrated memorial
tablet, the last six nails will be removed from the tongue.
The document also warns believers: “Although you
have been bequeathed with the belongings of your father
and mother, if you neglect to perform the funeral rites
for their repose, thinking that the dead can do nothing,
then the dead will become evil spirits and haunt their
descendants generation after generation” (p. 56).
The priestly author of the document cleverly plays upon
believers’ ignorance of Buddhism, inciting their
guilt of failing to perform filial duties and their fear
of the afterlife. Moreover, the author claims that if
believers do not pay priests to perform those elaborate
funeral rites, they will be tormented by the dead even
in this world. Without priests’ help, he warns,
believers’ worldly pleasure and comfort will be
eclipsed by the shadow of underworld.
The current Nichiren Shoshu priesthood succeeds this tradition
of “funeral Buddhism.” About one month before
excommunicating the Soka Gakkai, on Oct. 21, 1991, Nichiren
Shoshu General Administrator Nichijun Fujimoto sent “Notification”
to Soka Gakkai President Einosuke Akiya. In the notification,
Mr. Fujimoto wrote: “Recently the Soka Gakkai has
been conducting funerals for its membership without priests….This
is a slanderous act to destroy the Daishonin’s Buddhism….Nichiren
Shoshu, therefore, absolutely cannot condone it.”
Mr. Fujimoto went on to declare in his notification that
those who conduct funerals without priests—as well
as the deceased—“will surely fall into hell.”
In the Daishonin’s Buddhism, however, the funeral
rites conducted by priests were never intended as essential
to the enlightenment of the deceased. Instead, the Daishonin
emphasizes believers’ own faith to triumph in death.
For example, he states: “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo will
be your staff to take you safely over the mountain of
death….Devote yourself single-mindedly to faith
with the aim of reaching Eagle Peak” (The Writings
of Nichiren Daishonin, pp. 451-52).
Nowhere in his writings does the Daishonin mention that
priests’ rituals and prayers are essential for the
enlightenment of believers—whether they are living
or dead. The Daishonin emphasizes believers’ sincere
practice in the here and now—for their own happiness
as well as for the peace of the deceased. He consistently
drives home the importance of faith: “What is most
important is that, by chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo alone,
you can attain Buddhahood. It will no doubt depend on
the strength of your faith. To have faith is the basis
of Buddhism” (WND, 832).
Authoritarian religion cloaks
the fear of death with a false sense of security
Many philosophers in the past tried to explain away the
fear of death. For example, Epicurus, an ancient Greek
philosopher, taught that the fear of death is irrational.
As he argued: “So death, the most frightening of
bad things, is nothing to us; since when we exist, death
is not yet present, and when death is present, then we
do not exist” (The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings
and Testimonia, Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson, trans. and
ed., p. 29). Epicurus, however, had to admit the reality
that the majority of people are gripped by the fear of
death: “One can attain security against other things,
but when it comes to death all men live in a city without
walls” (p. 37).
No matter how hard we may try to rationalize death, the
fear of death seems to creep up from the depths of our
existences. So some leave the matters of death to the
so-called professionals such as priests or spiritualists
and go on living their mundane lives in complete oblivion
to their approaching deaths. Others try to numb their
fear of death by seeking a false sense of security in
the reward of afterlife or the release from present sufferings,
rather than facing death and searching for life’s
meaning therein.
Authoritarian religion thrives on people’s inability
to deal with death; it uses an idea of afterlife as an
escape from the reality of death, rather than as an encouragement
to confront and triumph over the inevitable end of our
present existences. A teaching of afterlife per se, however,
does not make a religion authoritarian. For example, the
Buddhist concept of life’s eternity can be used
either as an escape from the reality of death or as a
tool to understand death and create value in present life.
Depending on our emphasis—whether on powers outside
people or powers within people, we may make an authoritarian
dogma even out of a humanistic religion.
Authoritarian religion emphasizes the power of external
authority and uses the fear of death to manipulate people,
as we see in the sale of indulgences or the funeral rites
of some Japanese Buddhism. Soliciting the consecration
of a memorial tablet for the fee of $7 each, a Nichiren
Shoshu temple in New York writes to its parishioners:
“[such ceremony] brings immeasureable [sic] blessings
to the deceased—whether they practiced in life or
not. Naturally, by repaying our debts of gratitude to
our ancestors and friends in this way, we too can enjoy
the reward of happiness the Buddha’s compassion
brings” (from the application for “‘Urabon’—Memorial
Service for the Deceased,” July 2001). The Daishonin
was especially strict toward the clergy who promoted esoteric
rituals and undermined lay believers’ self-reliant
faith, as he wrote: “The priests of today observe
the two hundred and fifty precepts in name only and, in
fact, use their so-called observance of the precepts as
a means to dupe others. They have not a trace of transcendental
power—a huge stone could sooner ascend to heaven
than they could exercise such powers. Their wisdom is
in a class with that of oxen, no different from that of
sheep. Though they might gather together by the thousands
or ten thousands, they could never relieve one iota of
the sufferings of departed parents” (WND, 819).
Humanistic religion empowers
people to face the fear of death
To understand the meaning of death and overcome our fear
of it, we need the strength to face our final reality.
Regarding our escapist attitude toward death, Martin Heidegger,
a renowned German existentialist philosopher, says: “One
knows about the certainty of death, and yet ‘is’
not authentically certain of one’s own….One
says, ‘Death certainly comes, but not right away.’
With this ‘but…,’ the ‘they’
denies that death is certain….Death is deferred
to ‘sometime later’….Thus the ‘they’
covers up what is peculiar in death’s certainty—that
it is possible at any moment” (Being and Time, trans.
John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, p. 302). Heidergger,
in this regard, describes our existence as “Being-towards-death”
that “is dying factically and indeed constantly,
as long as it has not yet come to its demise” (p.
303).
Humanistic religion stresses our inner strength and encourages
us to face our reality as “Being-towards-death.”
Eric Fromm, a noted psychoanalyst of the last century,
explains: “Humanistic religion…is centered
around man and his strength….Man’s aim in
humanistic religion is to achieve the greatest strength,
not the greatest powerlessness; virtue is self-realization,
not obedience” (Psychoanalysis and Religion, p.
37). The Daishonin’s Buddhism is intended to do
exactly what Fromm envisioned in humanistic religion—to
help people awaken to their inner strength to overcome
any obstacle, including death.
In this regard, the Daishonin states in the “Record
of Orally Transmitted Teachings”: “Regarding
life and death with abhorrence and trying to separate
oneself from them is delusion, or partial enlightenment.
To clearly perceive life and death as the essence of eternal
life is realization, or total enlightenment. Now Nichiren
and his disciples who chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo awaken
to the ebb and flow of birth and death as the innate workings
of life that is eternal” (Gosho Zenshu, p. 754).
To understand death as an innate working of life is a
path not only toward triumph over death but also toward
enlightened living. Here the Daishonin makes it clear
that our understanding of death leads to our understanding
of life.
Instead of deluding ourselves into a fiction of death
as reserved only for someone else or to occur at some
distant, imagined future, the Daishonin encourages us
to face our present reality as Being-towards-death by
cultivating “the profound insight that now is the
last moment of one’s life” (WND, 216). The
meaning of death, according to the Daishonin, lies in
our present efforts to live to the fullest extent. Our
prayer to the Gohonzon, therefore, should be our affirmation
of life in the face of death. As the Daishonin states,
“Be resolved to summon forth the great power of
faith, and chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with the prayer that
your faith will be steadfast and correct at the moment
of death” (WND, 218). Through such powerful prayer
and dedication, the Daishonin teaches, we can discover
a true sense of security deeply grounded in the reality
of life and death, as if “a drop of dew rejoining
the ocean, or a speck of dust returning to the earth”
(WND, 1003).
As long as we feel powerless in the face of our essential
reality that death is possible at any moment, we will
find a way to deny death and thereby deny the reality
of life. Life lived without an awareness of death is life
lived in unreality. It may be easy to blame corrupt priests
for taking advantage of people’s fear of death,
but the real blame lies in people’s own powerlessness
to face the reality of death. As long as we live in denial
of death, there will always be scandalous religionists
to make their business out of death. To live a life genuinely
rooted in reality, however, each of us must learn to take
care of the business of death ourselves. For the business
of death is the most important business of life.
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(Originally published in the World
Tribune, March 22, 2002)
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