Social Service: Rural Development, Care for the Dying

When we have worked in rural development, we have learned not to impose our urban knowledge on people. Even if we are engineers or doctors, we need to look and listen deeply to see how people can heal themselves and their situation. Then we try to adapt and add our knowledge and experiences to what they already have. We help people to help themselves; we don’t just throw money at them and say, “Here, take this and set up a medical center.”  We come to learn, and build from the strengths that are already there. The question we  ask  is,  “Can we do something here, using the knowledge of the village elders and experts, to help them set up their own school or medical center?”  If they are blocked in some way, then we offer proposals for them to discuss. When they say they need money, we ask, can we find materials from here? How about a bamboo thatch-roof school? Our financial aid is just for the last part, and this way, people feel it is their own project and they will care for it. It is a true cooperation between trained experts and the local people.

When  we  have  practiced  and  taught  about  caring  for  the  dying,  we  don’t  advocate  describing some kind of paradise to which the dying person is going. We remind the person of what is wonderful from the life they have lived, because the Buddha said that when we leave this body, we take with us the consequences of our actions. If the person can speak, we ask him or her to tell us what were the most wonderful things in his or her life, so we can water the person’s good seeds, to be carried forward upon  leaving this life. We revisit positive times with them, such as when they saved living beings. We show them that the talents that manifested in their own life are not now lost, but already have been reborn in new forms in their sons and daughters, and they can see they don’t have to die for this rebirth to take place.  In this way, many people have been able to die peacefully and lightly.