The Last Act

Buddha in Saigon Restaurant, Wilmersdorferstrasse, Berlin, courtesy of Jack Miller

In Shakesphere's plays, the action in the last act differs depending on whether the play is a comedy or a tragedy. In the comedies, the couples who have been blundering through the woods, attracted to the wrong person, or otherwise behaving erratically all reunite, and are married by the lord of the estate, king, or whoever happens to be the relevant local political leader. In the tragedies, the hero and usually at least one of his friends end up dead, and the other friends or maybe enemies are left to carry the bodies off the stage. Life, no matter how much we would rather not think about it, is more like a Shakesphere tragedy than a comedy, and we can only hope that the last act doesn't become a prolonged, drawn out scene of suffering as we undergo a slow cognitive and physical decline.

While this might sound morbid, I've been thinking a lot about death lately, partially because its fall and the days are getting shorter, markedly so here in Europe where I'm living at the moment. But also, a good friend's brother recently committed suicide. I didn't know him well, but he was often around at parties and had a ready sense of humor that contributed to a lighthearted atmosphere. Last year, he received news that, like some people my age and older, he was suffering from a disease that would lead to an accelerating cognitive decline, followed inevitably by death. He decided to end it sooner rather than later, and while I can't necessarily agree with the way he ended his life, I can understand the logic of what he did. He really didn't want to become a burden to his family and friends in the end.

Early Buddhism had no explicit prohibition against suicide. There are numerous cases mentioned in the Suttas and Vinaya where a monk who is gravely ill commits suicide. The most famous is in the Channovada Sutta, where the monk Channa is suffering from an incurable disease and commits suicide. The Buddha declares that he has become an arhat after his death. The sutta concludes with the Buddha stating that if a monk kills themselves with the intent of being reborn in a better state they are "blameworthy" but if they kill themselves with the intent of not being reborn, then they are free of blame. Divorced from the philosophy/theology of rebirth, the real question is what the mind state of the person is when they die. Is the person depressed and morbid, or happy and looking forward to the end of their story? The latter attitude might be hard to understand, but in fact everybody's story has to end sooner or later, so why not look forward to it?

Apart from the very last scene in the last act, there's the run up. In most prosperous countries, the usual pattern is to retire, then spend your remaining days in pursuing leisure activities until your physical and cognitive health deteriorates. Golf is popular with men who retire in the US, and some people really get into going on cruises. People with more of a social conscious or who have hobbies that lend themselves to it often become enmeshed in volunteer work after they retire. In fact, many of my friends who have retired are even more busy after they retire than before. In India, older men and sometimes couples who can afford to often withdraw from the world and pursue spiritual practice more intensively, going on retreats and pilgrimages, etc.

Since I'm getting on toward that time when people usually retire, I've been thinking about what I should do. What's on next? And at this point I have to say in all honesty: I really don't know. For the next couple years at least, I'll continue working since I still find work challenging and interesting and I enjoy my colleagues. Now, they're all much younger than me which for me is a new feeling, since I was always the youngest person in my cohort. But after that, assuming my health is good (and it has been overall so far), I'm left with a feeling of having the potential to do something, but not knowing what.

Perhaps I should just leave it as an open question, like a koan?