Dying Man and a Different Phase of the World
It is said that more than 100,000 people have died every month in Japan nowadays (not including victims of the corona-pandemic).
He thought how dying men would see the world and what they felt. And he checked various books including ones written by past prominent Buddhist monks, Christian scholars, and poets to find that some dying men saw some kind of beauty in the world around them. Even some felt light in the space.
But his wife did not like the profession of her husband to cleans dead bodies, as she thought people would look down on such a profession. His uncle also despised him. But when his uncle was dying in a hospital, he went to visit him for the first time in many years. His unlcle showed gratitude for his nephew's visit from the bottom of his heart in his dying bed, and soon after it, he died. On the occasion, the funeral company man felt light with unusual color around him. The gratitude his dying uncle showed to him moved something in his mind, although he had been long despised or rather hated by his uncle as his profession had been regraded as throwing dirt at his clan. Every business related to death, except religion and medical services, has been socially despised or looked down on.
Through these experiences, the funeral company man deepened his thought about death. Eventually, he wrote a book based on his experiences and his quest on death. It became a best seller in Japan, and TV station staff came to make an interview with him. He talked hours especially focusing on Buddhism, but in a broadcast program, all his talks about religion were cut out of the broadcast.
Without religious sense, he concluded, death could not be understood. And every death could lead a dying man to a different phase of the world or situations around him. No matter if it could be medically or biologically explained why dying men saw unique light and smiled, it must be a phenomenon that could be understood only from a religious point of view.
In this way, the funeral company man has become a unique writer and been invited to lecture presentation 2,000 times in 20 years in Japan, although he did not launch any religious organization or cult.
One piece of his advice is to let children see a dying family member and make them have a concrete image of death, so that such children would not run to extremes and could respect life and living things.
All I can hope is that dying people due to corona-viruses would not forget seeing light and smiling beyond their pain, since any death would show a dying man a different phase of the world, like Andersen's "The Little Match Girl."
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John 9 King James Version
16 Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.
17 They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.
18 But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight.
19 And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see?
20 His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind:
21 But by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself.