In the West, we have generally not evolved a mature and insightful attitude towards death. It is a taboo, a fear, almost a hushed secret.

Of course, we know we will die, but we tend not to think about it. Consider the difference between our treatment of sickness and death in comparison to somewhere like India where death is celebrated on the streets, and cadavers are on display for all to see.

We try to hide the dead, to preserve them, as if to perpetuate a myth that internment is somehow going to preserve our life. Yet in coffins bodies are not preserved, and the body rots and turns to dust along with our attachments to it.

It is a great question to ponder on what will feel important as you begin to approach death. What will it have been important to you to achieve or do? What will not seem important? Many look back with regrets, many can know that they loved, that they gave, that they cared.

The Buddhist perspective is that death is to be reflected on, that it is the vehicle par excellence for insight. Through reflecting on the brevity of our time, and on the inevitability of our passing, life takes on new meaning, and we begin to see our time as exquisitely precious.

Our reluctance to look beyond our own time can be said to be the root of the short-sighted damage we have caused our planet. We don’t wish to face our mortality. It is one of the paradoxes of our time, we value our children, yet casually consume their future.

Yet it seems there is a new trend quietly emerging in the green fields and the quiet forests. People are asking to be buried naturally. People are considering the ecological impact of coffins, stones,  and embalming fluids, and deciding that as they are making efforts to reduce their carbon footprint in life, so will they in death.

It may seem insignificant, but it is the sum total of all of these apparently insignificant factors that causes so much pollution and production. Consider the number of people on earth who pass away every day, and the sheer volumes of fluids and coffins this demands. It is not insignificant.

As we all try to make more informed and ethical little decisions with our daily habits, spending and consumption, so we should consider the cost of our death.  Room is running out in cemeteries, and the high prices put many off. 

In Tibet, there is a ritual called a Sky Burial, whereby the deceased are left out on the barren slopes for the vultures to feed on. Thus their substance is spread and becomes a part of the landscape itself. There are of course pragmatic reasons for this custom, but many Buddhists would appreciate their body being used to benefit other beings in death.

It would seem then, that natural burial could become as much a part of the zeitgeist as recycling and solar power. Is it set to become the next major breakthrough in the beautiful unfolding of our learning to live once more on this earth in harmony?

Nicolas Croll – October 2015