The Buddhist Voyage beyond Death

I imagine that few readers will have heard of the work and teaching of the Chinese Buddhist monk Hsin Tao, but this book is a real jewel. Born in 1948, Hsin Tao put himself through an intensive training, including two years in a cave and meditating in a graveyard. This is not for the fainthearted. The fundamental truths of Buddhism are clearly articulated – suffering, emptiness, impermanence - but also the cultivation and promotion of self-less-ness and goodness. Life and death alternate as we are reborn in new though impermanent forms with opportunities for further transformation: 'death and rebirth is one thing. Death itself means the rebirth of life'. (p. 39) Hsin Tao translates some teachings into modern metaphors, for instance the memory matrix and the idea that death is a change of channel. It is this memory matrix that is reborn, and we are constantly sowing new seeds as thoughts as we create and recreate ourselves. Individual lives are like files or folders.

He has a very interesting teaching on time and space, which he says appear different at first sight but in the end are not so different: 'space is unmoving time and time is moving space.' We can easily get caught up looking at changes in time, 'rather than looking at the stillness of space, an unmoving space…. which is also emptiness.' This sense of emptiness and spaciousness seems to correspond to pure consciousness. The first part is devoted to deathless spirituality, then the second to death and dying, and the third to the creative now. Some of the valuable teaching about death and dying is given in the form of a dialogue, along with the lessons in detachment that we will have to undergo. Hsin Tao emphasises the importance of preparing for death, which few of us address. In his view, meditation is a key preparatory practice that can also bring us to a state where our mind is more ordered and less fluctuating. This means that we will be able to face death with greater equanimity. The ultimate development is that of the bodhisattva embracing all sentient beings. This is precious teaching for our time.