(Alvin’s Note: Our dear fellow Life Coach, and passionate personal development extraordinaire, Paiboon Busayarak, has embarked on a 3 month initiation into Buddhist monkhood in his native Thailand. He just sent me this post via email sharing the conversations he’s had with his teacher. The words are his, the grammar tweaking is mine 😉 Enjoy!)

What Would Buddha Do When A Loved One Dies?

Not through weeping and grief do we obtain peace of mind. We increase misery; we increase misery; we harm our bodies. We become thin and pale, destroying ourselves by our own power:

Sutta Nipata 584

There are times when we must weep if we are to remain human when our feelings demand expression, whether that expression brings embarrassment or tears to those who watch. Buddha knew this; this is not what he counsels against here. When a life ends we do need to mourn. But once we have faced and expressed our grief, we have to let it go.

This is the rub because we hold on to grief. We hold on to it as held on to the one whose loss prompts the grief. This holding drains us and prevents our directing that energy towards someone new. We remain attached to those we love.

How he longs for permanence! But he won’t find any; nor will we. Yet if his tears will not bring back his child, may be his verse will return him and us to an awareness of how things really are. His grief, even this will pass away.