The Art of Dying is the Art of Living: Rationality in Theravada Buddhism

Throughout the millennia smart, sensitive thinkers, including the Buddha, have argued that the art of dying is the art of living. All life involves decay. We live better, with less fear, if we see things as they are. But such a view contradicts liberal culture, including that of academia. It challenges popular ideas of knowledge and identity. Understood properly, that is, as freedom and philosophy of existence, not as religion, Theravada Buddhism shows ordinary views of rationality, taken for granted across the academic and political spectrum, to be unscientific. They are ultimately disempowering because unrealistic, defying the cause-and-effect laws of nature. It is argued here that rationality in Theravada Buddhism is an idea that is currently urgently needed in struggles for global justice because truth is urgently needed, including the truth about death.