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Episode 5: What happens after you die?

TAI: I want to talk about death. It's a downer, I know, but it's just I've kind of been curious about it. About two years ago, my grandpa died. I miss him a lot. He always had this distinct smell. It was just such a welcoming smell you know and he wore this dark green sweater. I can just remember you know like all the hugs in that sweater. His apartment always had this distinct smell that I feel like always emanated from that sweater. My mom has the sweater. Someone bought the apartment. It’s such a weird thing. My grandmother tells me that in the Vietnamese tradition, after a person dies, their soul is just kind of disoriented. You know wait what's going on for exactly 49 days, but like what happens after the 49 days? Where does he go?

[THEME]

Tai asks why. I'm Tai and this is my podcast, Tai asks why. There are so many good questions that you just, you want to get answered. How do we fix climate change? What is love? Why do we dream? Should you trust your gut? And what happens after you die?

KIEN: I don't really know where my grandfather is.

TAI: this is my brother Kien.

KIEN: I think his body’s gone and like his consciousness is just gone.

TAI: I think he's right there. His box of cremated ashes are right in front of me.

KIEN: Tai your voice is getting like. Your voice is getting like that thing. You’re getting sad Tai. It’s okay. He's alive in a way. Not as like a ghost, but as like as like something. Scientists will never be able to know because like let's say they need someone to die so that they can make data on that. How would they make data on that if the person’s dead

TAI: Kien’s right. There isn't enough data. Yes, some people have these near death experiences and they talk about like the lights at the end of the tunnel, but the fact that they've told us about this means that they didn't die. I kind of feel like science isn't really going to work this time. So I thought I might turn to religion for some answers. I want to interview a Buddhist because my grandparents, they’re Buddhist right and you know my dad is technically Buddhist, although he doesn't really celebrate it. And like I'm just interested to see what Buddhism has to say about death.

ZENJI: There is no real short answer for a question that is so profound.

TAI: This is Zenji Nio. He's actually a chaplain for Olympians and not only has he met the pope, he's also met the Dalai Lama. So like this guy must know a lot about Buddhism.

ZENJI: The main belief in Buddhism, it’s a very scientific way of looking at things. Energy does not disappear, it usually assumes another form. And the belief in Buddhism is that when you die your spiritual energy does not just disappear, it assumes another form and that form can either be in hell or it can be on Earth or it could be in heaven. In terms of hell, hell is not a permanent place in Buddhism. Hell is like jails. If you've got really, really bad karma, you go to jail and then you have the chance of being pardoned and you have the chance of probation. So in Buddhism, nobody goes to hell forever. Then comes Earth. Now Earth of course is the most interesting part of it. If you are reborn on Earth, you can either be reborn let’s say as an animal or you can be reborn as a human being. There are certain criteria, which would help decide what would be your form you’d adopt.

TAI: Yeah, like maybe if you're an ant, but you were like a really really good ant, maybe you’d come back and this time like be a beetle and just maybe work yourself up.

ZENJI: Excellent. You've got to learn seven spiritual lessons in this lifetime.

TAI: Like in the same way that like a punishment itself isn't necessarily all bad. You get punished so you can learn from that.

ZENJI: Absolutely. And if you with deep genuine remorse ask for forgiveness, they will give you a chance to go directly to heaven which, we called Jodo in Japan or Sukhavati in Sanskrit. Basically it's heaven.

TAI: Now I like to think a religion as a system that helps guide you in things like decision making and values and virtues, but I also think it's a method to help cope with some of the world. How would Buddhism comfort and explain death to people who are like grieving or people that are close to death?

ZENJI: The language of love is universal and so is the language of pain and suffering and loss. Too many people are scared and they're petrified and when they die, they die in such a negative state. You know, full of sorrow and anger and dreams that did not come true and that's not the way you want to leave. So our first mission would be at that time to try and generate within that atmosphere, as much positive energy as is possible and say we would try and tell him don't worry, don't be scared. It's a part of the journey you know and it's going to be alright.

TAI: But at the same time, you don't, you don't want to lie to them. I like to think that I'm an atheist and I don't believe in some sort of like God or afterlife, I like to be very, very scientific. But like I was born as Buddhist from my bloodline and like I think it's cool. like I think all religions are cool, but I just don't really think I'm ready to just like choose one. Would it be possible that I was reincarnated, but I might have been reincarnated from someone who believed in a different religion and my old life, maybe I was a Jew or a Catholic. Maybe this one I'm following the science path because maybe I just want to try them all out for a lifetime

ZENJI: Perhaps in a previous life you had many questions, you had all this curiosity and you were not satisfied with the answers and so maybe you've come back right now to complete your journey.

TAI: I don't know if my grandad was reincarnated, but like he was a fishing extraordinaire, who’d just come back after a little bit of fishing and he would bring back dinner for himself and the entire neighborhood. He would bring back like a hundred fish. And I remember when he took us on a fishing trip, I was like a puny little Tai and the fishing rod almost like fell in so I would grab it and the fish almost ate the rod. He helped me grab on it together just yanked it out just. It just flopped around and he said you catch such a big fish. It was a good memory. Like I wonder what my mom thinks happened because it's her dad. I wanted to ask her where she thinks he is now.

NICKY: I don't really know, but I do spend quite a lot of time thinking about that.

TAI: Oh.

NICKY: Yeah you know when Mate died, when my dad died and his ashes are just sitting in our house, I like to think that when I finally get around to sprinkling them in the ocean, which is what he wanted us to do in New Zealand, that a shark will eat them and so he'll become part of the ecosystem, part of like the fish life and the sharks. He'll live on. I don’t know maybe when we die, we just die. What do you think happened to him?

TAI: Well I think that the energy that he possessed, due to physics, didn't just disappear. Maybe just went on and did something else. It's cool to think of the idea that maybe it became a star. The soul shouldn't just be wasted you know, it should be repurposed.

NICKY: Yes. I don't know. You know I've never dreamed about my dad since he died. He hasn't come into my dreams even once and that has surprised me because I had this thought that he would like his energy would visit me in my dreams. But he hasn't come once in almost two years. So I don't know. I'm questioning what I believe now.

TAI: Or maybe he's just like busy being a star.

FATHER MCGROARTY: We as Christians know that our loved ones who have died and gone to heaven are going to a better place. that they'll never suffer again and they've actually gone to the place that God created them for.

TAI: This is Father McGroarty. He's a pastor at the St. Peter's Parish.

TAI: How does Catholicism help people deal with the loss of another person?

FATHER MCGROARTY: The great theologians of the church who talk about God, they say that in heaven there’s no such thing as time because time is something that you and I know because we live in this finite world and so time is not something in heaven. I almost like to think that if and when we get to heaven, we'll say hi to all the people we know, we'll see God take our seat and as soon as we're ready, the people are going to be coming in behind us that we left behind. But it's the ones on Earth who know time, who live within time, who suffer that loss of the person that they care for and can't be with.

RABBI TINA: So now we are in the sanctuary. The inscription here is [Hebrew speech] loosely translated for love is stronger than death.

TAI: I went to Darchei Noam synagogue to ask Rabbi Tina Grimberg about death.

RABBI TINA:When God creates the world, God creates animals and nature, but it is only human being that is created with God's breath blown into its nostrils. So that is the breath that Nechama, the eternal part of us that lives with us while we're here and also lives on after we die.

TAI: But then what happens to the soul after that?

RABBI TINA: Soul returns to God. And overall I spend very little time of my day thinking of what the world looks like once we die. Actually Judaism, in general, concentrates very little on that part of reality and the reason is that we have too much to do here. At the funeral of a Jewish person, you do everything to take care of the one that died. Everything with great honour lowering one into the ground and then covering by your own shovel, not by shovels of strangers. But soon as the grave is filled, you concentrate and put your attention towards the living. They need to be comforted. They need to have a purpose to go on.

TAI: How does Judaism help people who are in grief or sorrow of death?

RABBI TINA: I think there’s several stages of grief and we don't know those stages till we enter them. I've buried many people and I work as a rabbi. I buried many spouses, but I've never been a widow and this year I am. So it's different.

TAI: It's hard to bury someone, just try to understand and comprehend that concept of how they’re just, they’re not with you.

RABBI TINA: On the back of everything I do is the face of my husband, throughout all the day. That this hard. Right, our rabbis write in one of the wonderful stories in the Talmud about the student who misses his rabbi so much after he dies and he cries for him and cries for him. And then the rabbi comes to him in a dream and says to him, don't worry. Don't worry. Live a great life of learning.” And the student asks him what is it like to die? And he says in the end, it's easy. It's like taking hair out of a cup of milk, just silently and he says, but the fear of death is so great that I would not come back to this world.

TAI: You said God gives us his breath like a part of him that gives us our soul.

RABBI TINA: Yes.

TAI: Do you think our date of death is determined because of how God needs to breathe? He gives out his breath and then he needs to breathe again? Or am I taking it too literal?

RABBI TINA: I don't think God needs our breath. I think God has enough breath in his oxygen tank.

TAI: OK.

RABBI TINA: Right. I don't think so. But you’re asking something that is a mystery. There is something we need to do here and when we're done, we're softly, softly entered the night and hopefully move towards a greater light. But what we do here that we do well, that lives forever.

Everything that has an end has a meaning. So for example, you and I have only short time together right now because you have to go back to school and I have to go back to my appointments and because we have this precious hour or half an hour or maybe few minutes, we want to say to each other, which is truly authentic. We don't have all the time in the world.

TAI: If we didn't die, if we just lived forever like life would get really repetitive and eventually just get worn down because it's just it's lost its meaning.

RABBI TINA: I think you got it right.

TAI: Now the Dalai Lama is said to be a person that has so much compassion that after he dies, he chooses to reincarnate himself again and again just so he could help people over and over again. If the Dalai Lama doesn't think death is bad enough that he doesn’t want to do it again, maybe death is as easy as Rabbi Tina said. It is just pulling hair from a cup of milk. It's just everything around it that's hard. The fear of death and missing the people and the things that you left behind. No matter where he is..I love him

TAI: Kien, I have one final question. Do you not want to think about death any more and appreciate each other with our life?

KIEN: Yes. I’m not crying. Yes I don’t. Death is like, death is like bad.

TAI: So let's not worry about it and just treasure what we have.

KIEN: Okay.

[TAI SINGS DEATH SONG]

I’m not afraid of death. I’m just afraid of leaving.

Dying is easy enough, but the buildup is hard.

I’m not afraid you’ll die. I’m just afraid you’ll leave me.

Dying is easy enough, but the let go is hard.

Fourty-nine days by your side, but now my soul is leaving.

Dying is easy enough, my love never fades.

Thank you so much for listening. I'm Tai Poole. This show was produced by Veronica Simmonds and Yasmine Mathurin. Our digital producers Olivia Pasquarelli. Today my guests were Zenji Nio, Father Michael McGroarty and Rabbi Tina Grimberg. Thanks to Crystal Duhaime for the editorial assistance. The theme music is by the legendary Johnny Spence. Also big thanks to Johnny for helping me write and record the death song.

KIEN: Next time on Tai asks why: Dreams

CLIP:And this wall that felt so cool and nubby just like a brick wall should, it was actually made of dream stuff.

TAI: Till next time. I’m Tai. Keep asking why.

TRANSCRIPT: Tai Asks Why - Season 1, EP 5

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