Lust for life: Bob Thurman

Interview, Feb, 1996 by Dimitri Ehrlich

Something new is happening to the way we look at death. Death is all over pop culture in America, from suicide-obsessed heavy metal and murderous "horrorcore" rap, to hyper-violent films and television. (Consider, for example, how much more graphically death is depicted in a popular film like Casino than in the Dirty Harry movies of the 1970s.) The fact is, in the past ten years death has smacked so many young Americans in the face that it's no longer possible to avoid confronting the subject. Whether from AIDS or firearm violence - the former is now the number one killer of young people in America, the latter claims enough lives every day to fill a classroom - the current death rate is appalling for a nation "at peace."

It is generally thought that discussing the topic of death can somehow bring bad luck. But our mortality is always somewhere in the back of our minds, along with the questions it begs: What happens to us when we die? When and how will it happen? How can we prepare? The widely held and unexamined notion is that death will be oblivion, we will be in total blackness, our bodies decomposing, our personality excised. But what if the "lights out" theorem proves to be wrong? Robert Thurman, a former Buddhist monk and current professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies at Columbia University's religion department who also recently translated The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bantam) - argues thoughtfully and forcefully that popular Western ideas about death are not only unrealistic, but illogical. When I went to speak with Professor Thurman at his home, he emphasized that the views he expresses are not theistic, but philosophical, and certainly do not require any religious conversion or belief in order to be of value in confronting that one thing that catches up with us all.

DIMITRI EHRLICH: It's obvious that our culture is going through a transformation in the way people think about death. It's a time when death has been made a more active part of our consciousness, and suddenly it is a very personal issue, rather than a distant menace.

BOB THURMAN: I think it's a very healthy, realistic thing to be aware of death. The fact that in our culture now, people are not living an unreal, sort of dollhouse existence the way they used to, is a good sign. But it's terrible the way it's happened. This is all coming at a time when we've attained a much higher consciousness as a species. The knowledge that large numbers of people possess today is unprecedented. The planet could be a bliss field, but instead we are totally screwing ourselves over with excessive greed and hatred. A way out of that is for people to wake up. And the way to wake up is to realize that life is incredibly fragile and that we will definitely be dying one day. Knowing that death is a reality early in life may make us much more fruitful and less wasteful of our time in life.

DE: So you would say there is something to be gained from all this suffering.

BT: People have lost a lot of dear ones, there have been a lot of disasters, and society is deteriorating. But the point is, we can learn how to die, and we may be able to use that knowledge to become more conscious of what we need to work out in this life. According to Buddhist psychology, you can master your own subconscious to create the ultimate art form, which is the love of life itself.

DE: HOW can a person prepare for death?

BT: Well, in Buddhism they say there are three things about death that a person should focus on first. They're called the "three roots." The first of these is the certainty that you're going to die. It's said that people believe it's bad luck to talk about death, and there's an element of truth to that in the sense that if you obsess about death, you can become a little paralyzed in your life. For example, in his teachings the Buddha forbade people to overdo the meditation on death, unless they combined it with meditation on the preciousness of human life. So, thinking about death should be balanced with something positive like meditation on love or compassion. The confrontation with one's own mortality is considered the gateway to all kinds of treasures because it makes you value your life so immensely and one's relationships become more precious.

The second root in this confrontation with reality is the certainty that there is no certainty about when you are going to die. It could happen any day. We are especially vulnerable to modern mechanical threats, like automobiles. Life is as fragile as a candle flame flickering in the breeze. A small puff can just blow it right out.

And the third certainty is that when I die, only the dharma will help me. Now that may sound like something religious, but it shouldn't. The dharma means the teaching about the nature of reality, but the word also means reality itself. So, what you know of reality, what you have encompassed in your soul about it, is the only thing that will help you.

DE: Being realistic means what, in this context?

BT: Well, it's considered realistic to be generous, because if you clutch possessions, you're going to lose them anyway. When you die, you lose everything, you lose your body, your eyes, and the store of information in your brain. But you don't lose your soul, you're stuck with that. And if your soul is shriveled and puny, and has not been pumped up by anything you've done in life, then you're going to have a horrible time, because that's all you're going to get to take with you. You know the saying, "You can't take it with you"? The point is, you do take it with you. But instead of taking your bank account, you take the residue of your relationships with other people. If you've been loving and you've learned to overcome your hostilities, egotism, and fear by cultivating wisdom, that's what's valuable.