Grieving the Buddhist way

     I had never been to a “Parinirvana Day,” which is held annually at Buddhist centers like Aryaloka in Newmarket, N.H. The word “parinirvana” is a combination of “pari,” or “about,” and “nirvana,” or “enlightment,” and loosely translated it means “final enlightment.”

     It was a day about death.

     Rick and I wanted to go today not only because we had just lost our beloved dog Liberty, but because her death recalled all the other deaths we have experienced – our parents, my two previous husbands, a sister-in-law, my good friend Kathy Bruemmer, our beloved neighbor Bill and so many others. What to do with all the grief?

     The day began in meditation, which I find to be a way of calming the mind so that it is more receptive.

     Death does that, too. Have you ever noticed that, at least with some people, grief opens your heart? For some time after the death of a loved one, the smallest things – a falling leaf, wind in the trees – become profoundly meaningful, as though they were messages from another realm, or sacred occurrences we had never fully appreciated before. Maybe they are, and maybe they’ve always been sacred and it is just our present openness that allows us to see that.

     After a break, we returned for readings from the Parinibbana Sutta, basically a text about the Buddha’s final weeks of life, took another pause and regrouped to share stories about the loved ones we were there to remember and celebrate.

     There were some tears, yes, but also much joy.

     For Buddhists believe – and they are certainly not alone in this – that impermanence is inescapable, that death is life’s destination, that surrender and acceptance are our best means of coping.

     So there is sorrow, yes, but not the hand-wringing “why me” kind. More like an acknowledgement that yes, that person or that animal walked this earth and was loved by us and now is gone, as we someday will be, as well.

     My dear late friend Ed Buthmann, who was quite elderly when he died, used to use a German expression that means “shared joy is doubled joy.”

     After today, I might add that shared grief is lessened grief.

     I feel lighter than I did at the start of the day.