Jarāmaraṇa

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Translations of
Jarāmaraṇa
English old age and death
Pali Jarāmaraṇa
Sanskrit Jarāmaraṇa
Burmese ဇာတိ
Chinese 老死
(pinyin: lǎosǐ)
Japanese rōshi
Sinhala ජරාමරණ
Tibetan rga.shi
Vietnamese lão tử
Glossary of Buddhism

Jarāmaraṇa is Sanskrit and Pāli for "old age" (jarā)[1] and "death" (maraṇa).[2] In Buddhism, jaramarana is associated with the inevitable end-of-life suffering of all beings prior to their rebirth within saṃsāra (cyclic existence).

Jarā and maraṇa are identified with the Buddhist teachings in the following contexts:

Within the Four Noble Truths

Within the teachings on the Four Noble Truths, jarā and maraṇa are identified as aspects of dukkha (suffering, anxiety, unsatisfactoriness). For example, The Discourse That Sets Turning the Wheel of Truth states:[lower-alpha 1]

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of dukkha: birth (jāti) is dukkha, aging (jarā) is dukkha, death (maraṇa) is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha.

Jarā

Ajahn Sucitto explains that in addition to the physical discomfort or suffering involved in aging, jarā also involves mental discomfort:[3]

Jarā, the Pāli word for the aging process, means maturing—not only just getting old. Growing up is unsatisfactory because you start to get affected by all the stuff of a confused world. There’s a lot said nowadays about having been emotionally (let alone physically) damaged as a child. Is there anybody who hasn’t been damaged—by their parents, their uncle, their school, or their dog? Then what about falling under the influence of social prejudice, competitive behavior patterning, sexism, racism . . . whatever happened to our childhood innocence? It’s scarred and stained by something sooner or later, isn’t it? Psychologically we start to develop instincts and habits, and even good habits that provide comfort and security blunt the joyful wonder of childhood consciousness.

Maraṇa

Maraṇa refers to physical death and dying as well as the ending of experiences. Ajahn Sucitto explains the difficulty or suffering (dukkha) involved in maraṇa:[4]

Death and dying generally involve a certain amount of pain and degradation, as well as grieving. We imagine that death only happens to older people, but that’s not true—human beings are always surrounded by forces of destruction that can terminate their lives at any moment. Life involves a lot of stressful holding on, even for ducks and squirrels, let alone for human beings who have surrounded themselves with, or invented, fire, electricity, cars, and lots of weapons. These are all created to make our life more secure, yet they are all very common sources of wounding and death. The fear of discomfort or of loss of security fills our life with potentially deadly things. As the Buddha explained it, death may also refer to the disappearance of any mental or physical experience. When something pleasant ends, we can feel sad, or, if it wasn’t too important, we can remember it and form some kind of view or opinion about it. When it’s something you’ve created, perhaps a painting, for instance, you might feel critical of your work; or, maybe if you have no self-criticisms in the present moment, that feeling of success might set up a pattern of expectation for your next painting, or for someone else’s painting. This can happen with anything that you’ve done; you think back on it and see its flaws. Alternatively, if it was something you enjoyed doing and now it is finished—that also brings an unhappy feeling, a feeling of longing or nostalgia. Death is the ending of the known and the familiar. So when we come to the end of something, we reach out for something new to hold on to. For example, after a meal, we can go for a walk, or maybe have a rest, or there’s conversation in which we can bring back the pleasant past, or plan for a pleasant future, or create and sustain a pleasant present. All of that is the movement toward birth (jāti).

Within the twelve links of dependent origination

  The 12 Nidānas:  
Ignorance
↓
Formations
↓
Consciousness
↓
Name & Form
↓
Six Sense Bases
↓
Contact
↓
Feeling
↓
Craving
↓
Clinging
↓
Becoming
↓
Birth
↓
Old Age & Death
 

Jarāmaraṇa is the last of the Twelve Nidānas, directly conditioned by birth (jāti), meaning that all who are born are destined to age and die.

Within the discourses

Jarā and maraṇa are identified within the Buddha's first discourse, The Discourse That Sets Turning the Wheel of Truth, as aspects of dukkha (suffering):

"The Noble Truth of Suffering (dukkha), monks, is this: Birth is suffering, aging is suffering..., death is suffering, association with the unpleasant is suffering, dissociation from the pleasant is suffering, not to receive what one desires is suffering — in brief the five aggregates subject to grasping are suffering."[5]

Elsewhere in the canon the Buddha further elaborates on both terms:

"And what is aging? Whatever aging, decrepitude, brokenness, graying, wrinkling, decline of life-force, weakening of the faculties of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called aging.
"And what is death? Whatever deceasing, passing away, breaking up, disappearance, dying, death, completion of time, break up of the aggregates, casting off of the body, interruption in the life faculty of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called death."[6]

In the Buddhist Pali Canon's "Subjects for Contemplation Discourse" (Upajjhatthana Sutta, AN 5.57), the Buddha enjoins followers to reflect often on the following:

I am subject to aging, have not gone beyond aging....
I am subject to illness, have not gone beyond illness....
I am subject to death, have not gone beyond death....[7]

In the Pali Canon, aging and death affect all beings, including gods, humans, animals and those born in a hell realm.[8] Only beings who achieve enlightenment (bodhi) in this lifetime escape rebirth in this cycle of birth-and-death (saṃsāra).[9]

Late in his life, the Buddha expresses disgust with aging and death in the Jarā Sutta:

I spit on you, old age —
old age that makes for ugliness.
The bodily image, so charming,
is trampled by old age.
Even those who live to a hundred
are headed — all — to an end in death,
which spares no one,
which tramples all.[10]

Echoing the Jarā Sutta's verse, the closing couplet of the Soṇā Sutta records the words of a newly enlightened bhikkhuni, celebrating her transcendence of saṃsāra:

I spit on old age.
There is now no further becoming.[11]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ In this translation by John T. Bullit, Bullit leaves the term "dukkha" untranslated. The main article that presents this translation is The Four Noble Truths.[web 1] Links to each line in the translation are as follows: line 1: First Noble Truth; line 2: Second Noble Truth; line 3: Third Noble Truth; line 4: Fourth Noble Truth.

References

  1. ↑ See Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 279, entry for "Jarā," retrieved 19 Nov 2008 from "U. Chicago" at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.1:1:1721.pali. More than simply "old age," the PED provides the additional meanings of "decay, decrepitude"; and, these additional translations are reflected in the Buddha's reputed words in the Jarā Sutta (below). However, for the sake of semantic conciseness, the compound term jarā-maraṇa is here represented as "old age and death."
  2. ↑ See Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 524, entry for "Maraṇa," retrieved 19 Nov 2008 from "U. Chicago" at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.2:1:3896.pali. The PED further contextualizes maraṇa with "death, as ending this (visible) existence, physical death...." That is, in Buddhism, maraṇa does not refer to death of the conscious process or the end of the associated suffering.
  3. ↑ Ajahn Sucitto 2010, pp. 38-39.
  4. ↑ Ajahn Sucitto 2010, pp. 40-41.
  5. ↑ Boldface added. This formula can be found, for instance, in the Buddha's first discourse, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Piyadassi, 1999), as well as in his famed Mahasatipatthana Sutta (Thanissaro, 2000). (Note that the former sutta also includes the phrase "... sickness is suffering ..." which has been elided from the quote used in this article to reflect the common text between the two identified discourses.)
  6. ↑ See, for instance, SN 12.2 (Thanissaro, 1997a) and DN 22 (Thanissaro, 2000).
  7. ↑ AN 5.57 (trans. Thanissaro, 1997b). Elided from this text is the recurring phrase: "... one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained"
  8. ↑ In other words, a significant distinction between Buddhist and Judeo-Christian-Muslim cosmologies is that, in Buddhism, even gods and hell-born beings age and die in their respective realms and are destined to be reborn, possibly in another realm (whether hell, earth, heaven, etc.).
  9. ↑ In the Upanisā Sutta (SN 12.23; e.g., trans., Walshe, 1985), the Buddha describes a set of conditions that leads one from birth to enlightenment. In this "transcendental" sequence that leads out of saṃsāra, birth leads to suffering (dukkha) – instead of aging-and-death – which in turn leads to faith (saddha), which Bhikkhu Bodhi describes as "essentially an attitude of trust and commitment directed to ultimate emancipation" (Bodhi, 1980).
  10. ↑ SN 48.41 (trans., Thanissaro, 1998a).
  11. ↑ Thig 5.8 (trans., Thanissaro, 1998b). For this nun (bhikkhuni), "there now no further becoming" (Pali: natthi dāni punabbhavo) because she has become enlightened.

Web references

  1. ↑ Four Noble Truths

Sources

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Preceded by Twelve Nidānas
Jarāmaraṇa		 Succeeded by
Avidyā
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