Parents and Children
January 2009
Banner photo: © Frans Lemmens/Getty Images
Boston Research Center Explores Life and Death
From left to right: Professor Harding, Professor Laverty, Dr. Marsella, Dr. Kirchner and BRC Executive Director Virginia Straus Benson
[© Seikyo Shimbun]
For its Fifth Ikeda Forum for Intercultural Dialogue, the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century (BRC) explored perspectives on life and death at the center's conference facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on September 20.
This year's forum was part of the BRC's year-long exploration of the "deeper continuity of life and death that we experience as individuals and express as culture," a concept put forward by BRC founder Daisaku Ikeda in his 1993 Harvard University lecture, "Mahayana Buddhism and Twenty-First-Century Civilization."
During the morning session, the more than 100 participants engaged in small group discussions centered around two themes: "Share one experience with death that changed you" and "As you have had other experiences with death, how have your own views toward life and death changed?" A common theme became apparent: There is no experience more humanizing than death--both for those facing their own death and for those supporting someone who is dying.
The afternoon session, "Possibilities for Cultural Change," featured a diverse panel--hospice physician Pam Kirchner, educational philosopher Megan Laverty, psychologist Anthony Marsella and social historian Vincent Harding--exploring cultural changes that could accompany our increasing acknowledgment of death as something natural and potentially inspiring, rather than something foreign and threatening.
At a follow-up event on October 18, Yoichi Kawada and Mary Catherine Bateson shared insights on the theme "Enjoying the Rhythm of Birth and Death: A Buddhist Perspective." Dr. Kawada, director of the Tokyo-based Institute of Oriental Philosophy, lectured on how living in accord with the core Buddhist principle of the interdependence of all things (Jpn. engi) can enable a person to meet death in the most positive manner possible. "In order to confront and greet death with a sense of security and even joy," said Kawada, "we need to strengthen the compassionate bodhisattva tendencies in our own lives, remaining caring and connected with others right up to our final breath."
In her response, Dr. Bateson, a cultural anthropologist and best-selling author, explored how both birth and death are often experienced as forms of separation. If the parent's task after birth is "to take that moment of separation as a challenge for building a new integration, a new connection . . . through which both will grow in love," the same might be said of death. The inescapable fact of death, she said, gives us reason to live a more connected and altruistic life.
[For more, visit: www.brc21.org]
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