Educational Applications of Buddhist Meditations on Death

Buddhist meditations on death, such as mindfulness of death (maraṇasati) and meditation on impurity (asubhānupassin), may have positive educational applications similar to those of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Terror management theory (TMT) has shown through numerous experiments that contemplating death can trigger psychological changes, such as prioritizing internal values like meaning of life and happiness over external values like wealth and fame, and increasing prosocial behavior. The article argues that these Buddhist meditations can cultivate an acceptance of death and be applied in education either as standalone meditation or combined with death-related education topics like the meaning of death, dying process, near-death experiences, and grief education.

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Abstract

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is applied in various fields such as medicine, cognitive science, business, and education. The mindfulness of Buddhism is at the center of MBSR, and this means that Buddhist meditation has a great effect on modern society. For Buddhist meditations on death, the Aṅguttara Nikāya suggests mindfulness of death (maraṇasati), referring to ten methods of mindfulness and meditation on impurity (asubhānupassin), which are expounded in the Dīgha Nikāya. In this article, I explore two meditations on death that could have a positive effect if applied to an area of education like MBSR. Through numerous experiments, terror management theory (TMT) has proved that many positive psychological changes occur when human beings contemplate death. TMT argues that when mortality salience is triggered, psychological changes occur, such as considering internal values, such as the meaning of life and happiness, or increasing the frequency of carrying out good deeds for others, rather than focusing on external values (e.g., wealth, fame, and appearance). The educational application of Buddhist meditations on death is used in the same context and has a similar purpose to TMT. In addition, I discuss that meditations on death also have the effect of cultivating “the power of acceptance for death”, which is gained by everyone, including those who practice and their loved ones. For educational applications of meditations on death, the mindfulness of death is related to death and temporality, and meditation on impurity can be applied by using death-related images. Moreover, based on the duration of a session and the training time per session, I note that these methods can be applied only to meditation or mixed with the content of death-related education, for example, the meaning of death, the process of dying, near-death experiences, and grief education.