“There’s More to Dying than Death: a Buddhist Persepctive”

by Lama Shenpen Hookham

£10.99, Winhorse Publications

ISBN-10 89579680 OR 10-139781899579686

Review by Sr M Laurence, SPB

A very readable and accessible book, that speaks from the heart, as a critic describes it. Shenpen had spent several years in the 1970s in India as a Buddhist nun training under Tibetan teachers and returned to Britain in due course to form the Awakened Heart Sangha for people who in t heir ordinary life wanted to study and explore the practice of Mahayana Buddhism. Some of her students helped in the presentation of the book and information about her course “Discovering the heart of Buddhism” is given at the end of the book.

In clear, jargon-free language she takes is through a consideration of death and its different stages from the Buddhist perspective, of the importance of meditation with meditation practices, and of our heart as the “ground of our being”. Shenpen teaches that our Awakened Heart, our true nature, is not destroyed by death. It is something we can trust and rely on. However we connect to our heart the result is always the same: “We find a great reservoir of wisdom and courage … This resting in the heart is total simplicity. The heart at rest in this experience embraces the ‘pain’ of death and does not blank it out … To rest in evenness at death would be to rest in the indestructible compassionate heart of our being.”

Whatever everyday spiritual practice we are used to, is the one we may confidently use at our death, writes Shenpen. It probably would not be must use trying to do a special exercise that is unfamiliar. Even if we are not able to do much we are still connecting to the Path of Awakening.

Mantras, rebirth, karma and ‘Awakening’ are all usefully described, and the closing chapters deal with many practical issues surrounding death and bereavement.

May you find the courage to welcome

  The thundering storm of reality

         that is your being

With the confidence of an ancient warrior

  Resting in the mysterious light of the timeless joy

          that knows no birth or death.

(Extract from a prayer Lama Shanpen wrote for her brother after his death)