The document discusses Buddhist teachings and practices related to dealing with illness, death, and grief. It provides examples from the Buddha's own experiences with death and describes how prominent disciples like Sariputta and Maha Moggallana died. It then gives details on the Buddha's own passing, including how his body was prepared and cremated according to custom, and how his relics were divided and enshrined in stupas by followers. The Buddha taught his disciples to accept death as a natural part of life and not to grieve in an unwholesome way.

1. 以佛法
面對老病死

6. Objectives
目標
■ The Buddha’s teachings on how to deal with illnesses and deaths 佛理
■ Buddhist practices: the brahmaviharas 四無量心。
■ Dealing with terminal illness 如何面對病痛?
– Personally or family members
■ Last moments of death 流離之間
■ How to grieve 如何面對悲傷?
■ Care receiver 接受照顧者 vs. caregiver 照顧者

7. My experiences with funeral
18 persons (Jun. 2020-Jul. 2021)
■ 35 to 95 years old (not covid)

8. Types of Deaths
Gradual:
• Old age
• Illness
Sudden:
• Illness
• Accidents
• Disasters
• Wars
• Pandemic
• Mass shootings

9. Buddha’s Experience with Death
佛對死亡經驗
■ His mother, Queen Maya [摩耶夫人] passed away seven days after giving
birth to him
■ His father, King Suddhodana 淨飯王, passed during the fifth rains retreat
(Rahula was 12 years old)
■ Rahula 羅睺羅 died before the Buddha, Sariputta, and Moggallana
■ Mahapajapati Gotami 摩訶波闍波提 (aunt and stepmother) passed at 120
years old
■ Yasodhara 耶輸陀羅, wife of Gotama, passed away two years before the
Buddha

10. Sariputta
舍利弗
■ Known for his wisdom and ability to teach the Dharma.
■ At deathbed, he asked: “If I have ever said or done any- thing
unpleasant during our long years of association, please forgive me.”
■ When his mother, Rupasari, realized that her son was gone she wailed
and lamented the fact that she had never taken an opportunity to offer
dana to him or to his fellow Sangha members. She sobbed until dawn,
regretting that she had wasted all those years in darkness, never
accepting the Buddha’s teaching or offering robes to the monks.

11. ■ “Regret is a very painful emotion,” comments Sopaka. “Only by living in
gratitude for the present, appreciating fully ‘what is,’ and understanding
the impermanent nature of all things, is one able to avoid regret and
self-recrimination when a loved one is gone.”
■ Then the Buddha said: “Dear monks! Behold 觀察 the relics 舍利 of
Sariputta who was of great wisdom! Behold the relics of Sariputta who
was of vast wisdom, of active wisdom, of quick wisdom, of sharp
wisdom...of few wants, easily contented...and highly energetic.”

12. Maha Moggallana
目犍連
■ Known for his supernatural powers
■ Naked ascetics, having lost all their disciples to the Buddha, hired
Samamaguttaka to kill Maha Moggallana for attracting their disciples. Using
his supernatural powers, Moggallana was able to evade the killer until the 7th
time. He was caught and killed.
■ The Buddha knew and personally arranged and conducted the funeral rites,
which lasted for seven days.
■ After hearing that Moggallana was murdered, King Ajatasattu rounded up the
naked ascetics and Samamaguttaka and executed them.

13. ■ “It is wonderful, it is marvelous in the disciples how they give effect to
the Master’s teaching and carry out his advice, and how they are dear to
the Sangha and loved and respected and revered by the Sangha!
■ It is wonderful 奇妙, it is marvelous in the Perfect One that when such a
pair of disciples has attained final Nibbana 涅槃, he neither sorrows悲
哀 nor laments 哀嘆! How could it be that what is born, come to being,
formed, and bound to fall, should not fall?That is not possible.” S. 47” 14
(page 302 ofThe Life of the Buddha by Namamoli).

15. Buddha’s Nirvana
■ “O monks, preserve carefully, the knowledge I have acquired and that I
have taught you, and walk in the right path, in order that the life of
holiness may long endure, for the joy and salvation of the world, for the
joy and salvation of the Gods, for the joy and salvation of mankind. A
few months more, and my time will have come; three months more,
and I shall enter nirvana. I go and you remain. But never cease to
struggle, O monks. He who falters not in the path of truth avoids birth,
avoids death, for ever and ever avoids suffering.”
The Life of the Buddha by Herold

16. ■ "Enough, Ananda! Do not grieve, do not lament! For have I not taught
from the very beginning that with all that is dear and beloved there
must be change, separation, and severance? Of that which is born,
come into being, compounded, and subject to decay, how can one say:
'May it not come to dissolution!'?There can be no such state of things.
Now for a long time, Ananda, you have served theTathagata with
loving-kindness in deed, word, and thought, graciously, pleasantly, with
a whole heart and beyond measure. Great good have you gathered,
Ananda! Now you should put forth energy, and soon you too will be free
from the taints."

17. ■ "The body of a universal monarch,Ananda, is first wrapped round with
new linen, and then with teased cotton wool, and so it is done up to five
hundred layers of linen and five hundred of cotton wool.When that is
done, the body of the universal monarch is placed in an iron oil vessel,
which is enclosed in another iron vessel, a funeral pyre is built of all
kinds of perfumed woods, and so the body of the universal monarch is
burned; and at a crossrods a stupa is raised for the universal monarch.
So it is done, Ananda, with the body of a universal monarch. And even,
Ananda, as with the body of a universal monarch, so should it be done
with the body of theTathagata; and at a crossroads also a stupa should
be raised for theTathagata. And whosoever shall bring to that place
garlands or incense or sandal paste, or pay reverence, and whose mind
becomes calm there — it will be to his well being and happiness for a
long time.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.16.1-6.vaji.html

18. Sahampati
All must depart — all beings that have life
Must shed their compound forms.
Yea, even one, A Master such as he, a peerless being,
Powerful in wisdom, the Enlightened One, has passed away.

19. Sakka, the king of gods
Transient are all compounded things,
Subject to arise and vanish;
Having come into existence they pass away;
Good is the peace when they forever cease.

20. VenerableAnuruddha
No movement of the breath, but with steadfast heart,
Free from desires and tranquil — so the sage
Comes to his end. By mortal pangs unshaken,
His mind, like a flame extinguished, finds release.

21. Ananda
Then there was terror, and the hair stood up,
when he,The All-accomplished One,
the Buddha, passed away.

22. The Funeral
■ For six days, people paid homage to the body of the Blessed One with
dance, song, music, flower-garlands, and perfume, and erecting
canopies and pavilions, they spent the day showing respect, honor, and
veneration to the body of the Blessed One.
■ On the 7th day, they carried the body to South of the city.

23. Ananda’s Instruction
■ “the Mallas of Kusinara wrapped the body of the Blessed One round
with new linen, and then with teased cotton wool. And again they
wrapped it round with new linen, and again with teased cotton wool,
and so it was done up to five hundred layers of linen and five hundred of
cotton wool.When that was done, they placed the body of the Blessed
One in an iron oil-vessel, which was enclosed in another iron vessel, and
they built a funeral pyre of all kinds of perfumed woods, and upon it
they laid the body of the Blessed One.”

24. ■ Venerable Maha Kassapa, the Buddha’s top disciple, and other monks
found out.The monks, not free from passion (not enlightened), cried.
■ Kassapa said: "Enough friends! Do not grieve, do not lament! For has
not the Blessed One declared that with all that is dear and beloved there
must be change, separation, and severance? Of that which is born,
come into being, compounded, and subject to decay, how can one say:
'May it not come to dissolution!'?"

25. ■ Kassapa arrived. He arranged his upper robe on one shoulder, and with
his clasped hands raised in salutation, he walked three times round the
pyre, keeping his right side towards the Blessed One's body, and he paid
homage at the feet of the Blessed One. And even so did the five
hundred bhikkhus.
■ And when homage had been paid by theVenerable Maha Kassapa and
the five hundred bhikkhus, the pyre of the Blessed One burst into flame
by itself.

26. ■ And it came about that when the body of the Blessed One had been
burned, no ashes or particles were to be seen of what had been skin,
tissue, flesh, sinews, and fluid; only bones remained.
■ For seven days people paid homage to the relics of the Blessed One with
dance, song, music, flower-garlands, and perfume, and showed respect,
honor, and veneration to the relics of the Blessed One.
■ The relics were divided into eight portions for eight different
tribes/countries which built stupas to venerate the relics.

27. HTTPS://WWW.BRITANNICA.COM/PLACE/GREAT-
STUPA-BUDDHIST-MONUMENT-SANCHI-INDIA

29. Sources
■ Majjhima Nikaya (1029-1032).
■ ThusWe Heard by Bhante Piyananda & Stephen Long
■ The Life of the Buddha by Bhikkhu Nanamoli