Part Two
Chapter 5: The Mind Shrouded in Ignorance

WE ARE ALL TRAVELERS TOWARD THE WORLD AFTER DEATH

The “dark mind” means the mind shrouded in ignorance of what happens after death.

People often shy from the subject of death as somehow ill–omened, as if to say, “Don't talk about it, or you'll be next to go!” You are as likely to fall dead after talking about death as you are to come into a windfall after talking about money, to be awarded a Nobel Prize after talking about the nominees, or to have a house build itself after you have been talking about a blueprint. The death taboo goes unchallenged, but it is silly.

In the Japanese language, the number four is a homophone for death. As a result, hospital sickrooms have no number four, elevators have no button for the fourth floor, and so on. (A similar phenomenon occurs in the West, where the number thirteen is considered unlucky, and many high–rises have no thirteenth floor.) Such resistance shows the extent of people's fear of the terminal station of life through which all must pass.

New Year's decorations,
mileposts on the journey
to the other world—
auspicious and not auspicious
at the same time.

In this poem, the Zen monk Ikkyu (1394–1481) makes the point that human beings are all travelers on a journey to the next world—that is, the world after death. There is no doubting the truth of this observation. Each day that we live brings us one day closer to death. Stopping all the clocks in the world would not stop our progress along that route. This is a stern reality shared by everyone alive. Nobody would knowingly set foot in an aircraft certain to crash, yet from the day of our birth, each of us is a passenger on just such a doomed flight.

THE TIGER IN THE MOUNTAINS

Death is the destiny awaiting us all, and yet few people give it much serious thought. We would rather just not dwell on it. The sudden passing of an acquaintance, a friend, or a relative forces us to stare the unpleasant fact of death in the face, which may cause some to tremble with anxiety and fear; but that is only a temporary state. We soon forget again, filling in the hole in the heart with questions of how best to live. Accepting death's inevitability does not stop us from pushing it into the distant future.

All this time it was
only other people who died,
or so I had assumed—
now the thought of my own death
is more than I can bear.

This poem is said to have been written by a physician on his deathbed. The difference between attending other people's deaths and contemplating one's own imminent demise has been likened to the difference between seeing a tiger in a zoo and coming face–to–face with one in the mountains. Even if we tremble with anxiety and fear when someone close to us dies, we are looking at a caged tiger, not at the wild beast loose in the mountains.

But what if you were told that you suffered from terminal cancer and had only one month to live? According to Hideo Kishimoto, the former professor of religion at the University of Tokyo who battled cancer for ten years before passing away, at such a time all else recedes, leaving only the burning question, “What will happen after I die?” Kishimoto's record of his confrontation with death is gripping.

What does it really mean, the cutting off of life? Certainly it means the end of the physical life of the body. Breathing ceases, the heart comes to a stop ... But human life is not constituted only by the physiological body. At least while a person is alive, it is common sense to think of him or her as a spiritual entity as well. In the now of life, one has a consciousness of self. There is someone whom one knows as “oneself.” Matters quickly focus, therefore, on the point of what will become of “oneself ” after death. This is the great question for all human beings.

COMFORTING THE DEAD

Even people who deny that there is life after death often change their mind on the death of a friend or acquaintance. They may speak of the “spirit of the departed,” or offer prayers for the repose of the loved one's soul. In Japan, the set expression gomeifuku o inorimasu is specifically a prayer for happiness in the other world, obviously based on the assumption that such a world does exist. Set expressions directed through tears to the deceased include yasuraka ni onemuri kudasai (“Sleep in peace”) and mayowazu ni jobutsu shite kudasai (“Attain Buddhahood straight away”). After a shipwreck or other disaster at sea, it is common for bereaved people to go to the accident site to throw out flowers or other tokens from a plane or boat. This is no empty ritual. Mourners' faces are solemn, their gestures circumspect.

Every August, Japan remembers its war dead with memorial services called ireisai, literally “soul–comforting ceremonies.” Without the assumption that souls of the dead exist and need comforting, ceremonies like this would never take place. In the natural order of things, one does not offer comfort to someone who is happy, as there is no need to do so. Yet many Japanese continue praying for the happiness of souls in the next world while denying the existence of an afterlife; something keeps them from acting in accord with their denials.

Such actions can be laughed off as social niceties only by those still fortunate enough never to have experienced the death of a relative. Sooner or later, death forces itself on the attention. Some protest, “You will never know what happens after death until you die anyway, so the subject is not worth discussing”—yet those same people think nothing of planning against fires and saving for old age without knowing whether they will ever experience either contingency. In fact, most of us will never be in a fire, and anyone who dies young need not worry about old age, and yet—“just in case”—people go on assiduously taking out fire insurance and saving for a rainy day. Nobody says, “You will never know what old age is like until you are old anyway, so who cares?” The inconsistency of taking seriously the possibility of fires and old age while ignoring the absolute certainty of death seems not to occur to anyone.

Excuses abound. “Thinking about it will not change anything.” “I'll worry about it when the time comes—if I spent my time thinking about that now, I could not live my life!” Something in death makes people stubbornly avert their eyes, as if facing up to its inevitability would compel a drastic choice between unconditional surrender and last–ditch resistance.

As long as one's health remains good, it is possible to adopt the easygoing view of death as “repose” or “eternal sleep,” and claim not to find it menacing at all; in the clutch moment of one's own imminent demise, however, all that matters is what lies beyond death's curtain. In life we contemplate the absolutely unknown “after death,” uncertain whether there is any such thing, or any reason for hope. This state alone—the state of ignorance and anxiety about what will become of one after death—is called the “mind of darkness” or “dark mind.” Darkness here refers to human ignorance or uncertainty about what will happen after death.