About death

Medical treatment saves lives, but I think lengthening lives is different.
Please see here if you don't mind.
http://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/6538475/
This is a story about a person who works as a full-time doctor at a nursing home and has seen off hundreds of cases of natural death.
Humans are bound to die. But the reason they try to prolong it is probably because people around them don't want to accept that person's death and farewell.

Toru-sama. My name is Tetsuya Urakami from Nagomi-an.

A 90-year-old relative was hospitalized, wasn't it?
What I felt when I read the question was that Mr. Toru doesn't have a sense of trust in the health care provider he is in charge of may be a major factor.

I wasn't there either, so it's just a story from Mr. Toru, but I think both your family and Mr. Toru were hurt and outraged by the dry words “it's fine because it's over average lifespan,” “if you can't eat it from your mouth,” and “let's pass away in two or three months.”

If it's a doctor you trust who you've been in a relationship with for a long time and says, “○○-san, you've been working so hard until now. Why don't you say thank you all for your hard work and send it to them.” If that's the case, isn't it also a different way to take it?

As you said, doctors and monks have different views on death. But I thought that doctor had a close feeling to a monk.

The doctor denies death. This is because, originally, medical treatment denies death. I think the original way of medical care is to heal illnesses and injuries and be well.
However, the monk said, “No matter how much medical care develops, life will always come to an end. I think there are many people who think “how we die, and that in turn makes life shine.”

As Mr. Toru says, if that doctor has an easy idea that “it's fine because the average life expectancy has passed, isn't it?”, I think that ignores the feelings of patients and families too much.
However, I feel that “no matter what age you are, connect a gastrostomy or various tubes and prolong life no matter what” is more arrogant about life.

Anyway, I think the 90-year-old is a happy person who is taken care of by Mr. Toru and his family. Please calmly and carefully discuss with your family what will happen to that person in the future and decide what will happen to you in the future. Once you use a gastrostomy or ventilator, you can't stop it halfway.

＜Additional Notes＞
Seeing the thank you, I didn't notice that Mr. Toru was thinking so deeply that I couldn't get far, and I felt sorry.
I think both I and Toru-san's family have been taught a lot by people who are 90 years old. People who have often died are called Buddhas, and I felt that they have already taught and guided us as Buddha.

I won't put out the fire of life that will continue to light even if I run out of wax and wick and give them support.
I want to do the best I can for lives that have the potential to live. It's natural for families to think that way.
I don't think the line between “lives to be lived” and “lives not to do so” is not measured by age or medical condition.

No matter how hard you or those around you try to “live, make the most of,” people's lives will always run out. I think that is the real life span. Wouldn't that be a good time to accept death?

Please make sure you don't leave any regrets.

Toru-sama

This is Kawaguchi Hidetoshi. This is my humble answer to the question.

I understand that you are in a very difficult position... in a state where you have to think about life prolonging treatment, euthanasia, and death with dignity for someone close to you.

As for the pros and cons of life-prolonging treatment, I have answered the following questions until now... but... I'm very sorry that I still haven't been able to have a clear answer...

Question “Every Day of Regrets”
http://hasunoha.jp/questions/172

Question “What does it mean to suffer at the end of your life”
http://hasunoha.jp/questions/95

Especially in Buddhism, which preaches the precepts of immortality, how should we think about euthanasia and death with dignity...

What exactly is proper care...

What exactly is the right way to face death...

Anyway... death isn't over. This is also addressed in the question “I think about death” (http://hasunoha.jp/questions/318).

Please, in addition to reminding me that my grandfather (grandmother)'s heart (inheritance) will have a definite connection with the Buddha, be at peace, and that there will be guidance for enlightenment, I also stated in the question “I don't know how to treat a father with terminal cancer” (http://hasunoha.jp/questions/227), “... when you die, be in a state of calm, peace of mind, and calm your mind I think it is necessary for caregivers to let them pass away as peacefully as possible by saying kind and warm words, conveying feelings of gratitude and retribution, and making it possible to get rid of the grief of guardianship in order to be able to preserve them. “...”, and I hope you will continue to speak kind and warm words until that time.

“Doctor's arrogance and fear”... the dilemma of life-prolonging treatment... how can Dr. Black Jack always face “life” sincerely and seriously in such a case...

My son is also a monk, and I want to keep thinking about my worries from now on...

Kawaguchi Hidetoshi Gassho

Hello Toru-san. I'm worried every day, isn't it?

About euthanasia and death with dignity.
As a Buddhist, I cannot take a clear stance.
At the same time, as a doctor, we must take a clear stance.
Doctor and Buddhist. Where do they all end up? I think it all comes down to “saving lives.”
Maybe it's like “saving a life” after death is something...
I don't know what happened after death. If you don't understand, you should be able to try to understand, imagine, and act. It's also something we can do, not medical professionals or anything.

As a doctor, you are involved in treatment, so you must take a clear stance. As relatives and family, we must show our determination to get involved as a part of ourselves.
I believe that the path will always be paved through a relationship of trust and compromise between Toru-san and the doctors.

Dogen Zenji gave a hint on this issue.
In the volume of Seiho Genzo: Life and Death
“This life and death is, in other words, the Buddha's life.
If this were Itohisuten, then it would be like thinking of Sunahachi Buddha's life as Ushinahan.
If I stay with this and write about life and death, this is also about the Buddha's life.”
(translation)
The life and death of our individual lives is our own life, but it is the “life of the Buddha.”
In other words, it is not something that should be made into oneself, or owned by individuals; it is a drop of water in the ocean that should be left to the flow of the great river of life in heaven, earth, and nature.
Hating this yourself, and throwing it away, is also damaging, losing, or destroying the Buddha's life activities.
Conversely, being obsessed with this life also causes the Buddha to lose the way life was.

Therefore, even if it is an individual life, being artificially lengthened or shortened due to individual intentions, it can itself be taken as something that deviates from the major flow of the Buddha's life, from the public way of being, and makes it exist as a private way of being.
Dogen Zenji does not directly indicate “do this,” but I feel that this teaching explains the attitude that people in every world should have, that the state of life is not something that should be made by me.