Content warning: this essay contains discussion of political violence and suicide.
Do you remember your first death?
I don’t mean if you’ve died and been resuscitated, although if you have, kudos to you, and I’m glad you’re back with us. Rather, what I mean to ask is who you remember as the first person in your life to die. For most people, I imagine, it’s a family member. That’s the case for me.
My uncle Hui passed away when I was very young, so there are only six things I remember about him. The first is that he liked drinking milk—big, tall glasses of milk. Comme d’habitude for most Midwestern men, but rather rare for a Thai. The second is that he was awfully quiet. He spoke so rarely to me in the little time I knew him that I don’t even remember the sound of his voice, other than that it was quite deep. The third is that he loved listening to his cassette player, which was very dear to him. The fourth thing I remember about him is that he married my aunt Kim, who moved away to Nebraska after his death, where she too later passed.
The fifth thing I remember about him is that he was a survivor of the massacre that took place in Bangkok in 1973, when the military regime in power at the time deployed tanks, helicopters, and infantrymen to slaughter pro-democracy protesters outside of the royal palace, most of them university students. Over 70 people were killed and more than 800 were injured. I didn’t learn about this until I was a teenager, long after he passed, when my father brought it up while we were discussing the massacre. He told me that though his older brother survived, he was never the same after he made it home, sinking into the depression that came to define the rest of his life. I don't know whether he was a leftist—like most of the students were, and like I myself grew up to be—or whether he had simply been swept up in the spirit of the uprising. I don’t know if he lost friends there, or how much of the carnage he personally witnessed. All I know is that what he saw changed him forever, and ultimately contributed to his early death.
The sixth and final thing I know about him is that he fell victim to despair. By “despair” in this instance, I mean “a potent mixture of loneliness and fear that conspire to convince one to take one’s life.” I know this because he hung himself. Again, I didn’t know at first, or rather this was kept from me, as you expect a family might keep from a child. I believe I was originally told that he died from illness, which I suppose is the truth.
His funeral is one of my earliest memories. I couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 years old. I remember being confused why my mother wouldn’t let me play my Game Boy in the funeral parlor, and being captivated by the chanting of the monks my family had invited to the ceremony. I remember watching his casket get loaded into the cremation chamber. I remember noticing a piece of broken red glass on the crematorium floor and wondering—in my childhood ignorance—if it was a shard of somebody’s blood that had somehow crystallized in the heat of the flames.
I remember the broken glass, but not the sound of my uncle’s voice. It’s funny how we remember the dead.
The reason I’ve been thinking about my uncle is because I’ve been thinking a lot about death. This has gone on for more than two years now—since the beginning of the pandemic. I imagine some of you have had a similar experience. It’s difficult not to think about something that surrounds you at all times. The United States recently crossed the once-unthinkable threshold of one million COVID deaths, with society barely stopping to register it into thought. Many of us have lost loved ones to the virus. The murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd remain fresh in our memory, with the footage of Mr. Floyd’s final moments replaying in the back of our minds. Recent killings of Asian women and elders, not only in Atlanta and Dallas but all over the country, are the subject of fearful discussion in many Asian-American households. And of course, the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, Laguna Woods, and Uvalde have shocked us to our core, although none of us can quite say we were surprised at the sight of them.
All of this is to say: if you’ve been thinking about death, I don’t blame you. In fact, I’m right there with you. I’ve thought about death probably once every day since the pandemic began. Sometimes it’s out of fear and other times it’s out of morbid curiosity, although I suspect these are two sides of the same coin. I look at my parents and marvel at how old they’ve grown—how broken a lifetime of manual labor has rendered their bodies. I wonder when my other friends and family will die. Often, I turn these thoughts inward. How will I die? Will it be painful, or instantaneous? Sudden, or foreseen? Will I be satisfied? Discontent? Married? A father? Will I be missed even by those I did not know, as I have missed certain individuals I admire but never met? You can see how easy it is for these thoughts to spiral. I’d wager you’re no stranger to spiraling yourself.
One wonders what the best response to all this anguish might be. I don’t know, but I can at least talk about the things I’ve tried. One of those things is the Dharma.
Although I was raised Buddhist, my family is Buddhist in the same way most white families are Christian: certainly during holidays and funerals, not so much in between. I only became devout in the summer of 2020, when I discovered the teachings of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, who passed away back in January. Thay’s words spoke to me like nothing had before, providing a much-needed refuge from all the suffering going on at that time, both in my personal life and in the broader culture. I dove headfirst into the Buddha’s teaching from there. Finally, in April of this year, I became an official member of the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhists when I took the Five Mindfulness Trainings and received my Dharma name, Compassionate Action of the Source.
You might find it funny that, while running from thoughts of death, I sought shelter in a religion that constantly reminds its adherents not only that they will die, but so too will every person they ever loved. Trust me, I do too. But strangely, it works out. Thich Nhat Hanh taught that we must learn to hold our suffering like a mother holds her child. Well, if a major focal point of my suffering over these past two years has been my fixation on death, then I am learning to hold that fixation as if it were a dear child. It doesn’t work all the time, as it is a fat child and rather difficult to carry. But when it works, it works.
If you ask me, there are two means of challenging one’s preoccupation with death. The first and probably more common means is that of distraction. That’s when, in an attempt to dilute or outcrowd our thoughts of death, we drown ourselves in sensual pleasures, often taking up new vices along the way. We throw ourselves into our daily lives with renewed ferocity. “If I can just do enough, consume enough, please myself enough,” and so on, “Eventually, I will be granted a reprieve from my preoccupation with death.” That’s what we say to ourselves when we embark on this path. This practice, speaking from experience, is untenable. The costs—material, physiological, and spiritual—are much too high, and climb higher and higher as our tolerance for indulgence grows. This means is fraught with what Buddhism calls the Three Poisons: greed, hatred, and delusion. It is therefore unsustainable despite its allure.
The second, and in my opinion preferable path, resides in accepting your preoccupation with death for what it is: a tax you must pay in order to live authentically. Here, we recognize that the posture we really ought to take toward death is one of respect. Without our knowledge of death, the true value of our relationships and accomplishments would be a mystery to us. We would be unable to recognize the courage inherent in daring to love another person. Our mortality serves as an anchoring point for our appreciation. It is the banana for scale in the image of life.
Something that I think illustrates this point brilliantly is my favorite painting, Klimt’s “Death and Life.” The painting depicts a mass of naked people huddled together, surrounded by flowers and warmth. Darkness encircles them, and stalking them is Death, adorned in crosses, waiting with club in hand. The interpretations of this painting range from pessimistic to hopeful. Some would say that it depicts ignorance; that the people in the painting are so wrapped up in their intimacy that all but one—the woman on the extreme left—fail to notice Death standing right behind them, grinning eagerly as he prepares to strike. Another interpretation is one of brazen defiance. Maybe they know perfectly well that Death has come for them, but choose to disregard him anyway, not permitting fear to get in the way of their love for one another. But my preferred interpretation is one of neither ignorance nor defiance. It is one—again—of respect.
Death’s smile isn’t devious. It isn’t even malicious. In fact, he’s impressed. Impressed that those living are unafraid of his ghastly presence; that out of the void of existence, they have managed to cobble together such things as art and love and beauty. Death, old and wise as he is, is no simple-minded brute, giddy at the prospect of violence. He understands the effect he has on people. The breathless spectator of a tremendous act, Death can’t take his eyes off us. He is as fixated on us at our best as we are with him at our worst. And in return, we give Death a begrudging respect. So to me, the open-eyed woman is saying: “Death, thank you for making life possible. We know you must come for us soon to collect what you are owed, but we ask you to be patient and wait your turn. We have plenty of love left to give.”
It’s tempting to look upon death as an enemy. But as Assata Shakur taught us, “Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.”
The last two years haven’t been easy for me. But things have gotten a lot better ever since I conceded the fact of my mortality. I breathe easier knowing that my life is not really my own. It has only been loaned to me for a short time—a small piece of the cosmos that I have been temporarily asked to hold. Our bodies are not really ours. They’re not even really our bodies. That which is commonly known as a living thing is merely water, carbon, and electricity arranged in a certain pattern for a certain amount of time. Once that time has elapsed, it dissolves itself so as to provide the necessary materials for a newer, different pattern to take shape. We are all links on this chain of pattern-making and pattern-breaking.
My uncle Hui lost his battle against despair, and we lost him. You might have deduced this by now, but another reason I’ve been thinking about him is because I, too, am at war with despair. Suicidal ideation has been coming and going in my head since the pandemic began, though I am slowly taming it. Isn’t it funny? To be so afraid of death that it nearly paralyzes you—and yet to want it at points, quietly and to yourself. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a genetic predisposition to hopelessness. Because the same forces that took my uncle before his time are also present in me, even if they have been far kinder to me than they were to him. If I could speak to him now, I’d pray that I could muster enough courage and eloquence to share with him all these thoughts I’ve shared with you. I’d ask him if he thinks they hold any water, him being so much more experienced in suffering than myself.
I’m not naïve enough to think I could stop him from doing what he did. But if I could show him the lessons his passing has taught me, and how he remains in my thoughts even now? Then he could return to his rest with the knowledge that his memory has served as a trusted ally in his nephew’s own battle against despair—a battle I seem to be winning.
Image credit:
By Orion 8 - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7325750. (Edited)
Tokyo Kokuritsu Bunkazai Kenkyūjo 東京国立文化財研究所, ed. Nyūyōku Metoroporitan Bijutsukan, kaiga, chōkoku ニューヨークメトロポリタン美術館,絵画・彫刻 (Painting and sculpture of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) Kaigai shozai Nihon bijutsuhin chōsa hōkoku 海外所在日本美術品調查報告 (Catalogue of Japanese art in foreign collections) 1. Tokyo: Kobunkazai Kagaku Kenkyūkai, 1991, p. 1, cat. no. 4.
By Gustav Klimt - https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/wd/rAGqexSs58_H0A, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=107570313.