Seminar on
‘Living and Dying’

           The Education Section of The Malaysian Buddhists & Sangha Association organized a seminar on ‘Living and Dying’ from 20th to 25th October at Than Hsiang Temple. The seminar was well received by both the sangha and lay followers. The participants either bhikkhu, bhikkhuni, upasaka or upasika, get an opportunity to explore and understand and become acquainted with the various views and approaches to death and living from not only the religious but social and psychological aspects.

          This seminar will help the participants develop a framework for dealing with questions about death. Having a religiously grounded understanding of end-of-life issues can be a process that will help us live well for how can one know how to live without knowing how to die. Life and death must be viewed and explained together. Only then can we understand life thoroughly and be able to establish our directions and perspectives of the world and life with wisdom.

          It is rare to see seminars using ‘Living and Dying’ as the main topic in the Chinese society. As such, we owe our gratitude to The Malaysian Buddhists & Sangha Association as well as the chief abbot of Than Hsiang, Ven. Wei Wu, for these special conditions. The six-day seminar will address practices around the time of death and rituals for the three traditions namely the Mahayana, Theravada and Vajrayana. This seminar sheds light that although their paths are different they all lead to the same destination. This stimulated the participants to cast aside their prejudice and embrace the thinking of the various Buddhist schools and sects.

          In this seminar the topics include : <Where to go – Kamma, death, rebirth>, 《中阴转世》、<The cause and effect of life and death from the perspective of Mind Only>, <The management of near-death and death from the view points of western psychology>. The above topics were presented by Aggacitta Bikkhu, Geshe Kelsang, Ven. Hai Chin and Mr. Prelema (培乐玛) respectively.