Although it was a while ago I remember the call coming over the radio vividly, because it was so odd. The flat voice of the dispatcher came on the air for a patrol unit to respond out to a convenience store, giving the name and the address of a familiar location in the area, because “the caller states she believes she found a body.”

How do you believe you found a body? People find bodies all the time. That is not unusual and it is not an unusual call to hear over a police radio. People die alone at home and a family member or a neighbor will find them. People get lost in the mountains in bad weather and disappear in the snow until spring and are found by a passing hiker. People get hit by cars or are thrown from wrecks, get mugged in the park, fall off buildings, overdose on drugs, get sick at work, collapse in stores, there is really no end to it.  People find the body and call it in. It happens every day.

But in those cases those callers have no doubt about what they found. It may be shocking to them, or sad, or interesting, but there is no question in their mind about what they found. Like they say, you can’t be a little pregnant. You are or you aren’t.

Traditionally Buddhist monks would spend some of their training time in bone yards (in Tibet they couldn’t bury the bodies of the dead in the frozen ground, so they would lay them out to give the vultures a meal, and only the bones would remain) or monks would meditate through the night in cemeteries. 

This was not to be morbid or to be tough. It was to come face to face with the pervasiveness of death, and in light of this, to treasure the extraordinary blessing of life.

They did not experience the pervasiveness of death and dying in their day to day life in the monastery. Some of us do, although we may not use it as skillfully as the monks.

When someone dies alone the death is referred to in police terminology as an ‘unattended death’ and usually is investigated as if it were a crime, just to make sure that no crime was involved. Then the investigator and the medical examiner will make a determination: ‘accidental,’ ‘natural causes,’ ‘undetermined,’ or ‘suspicious,’ ‘suicide,’ ‘homicide.’ Sometimes the investigation will continue.

The officer responded within minutes of that radio call and met the store clerk who reported that she might have found a body. The clerk was standing outside the store when the officer pulled up and, he noted in his report, she seemed scared.

She led him around the side of the building, past the gas pumps, past a row of six parking spots, past the employee entrance to the back of the store, to the dumpster.  There, a few minutes before, she had been throwing out a black plastic bag of garbage as she was getting ready to close up for the night.

That bag of trash was sitting there on the ground, leaking something, in front of the dumpster. She pointed to the right half of the top of the dumpster. She told the officer that she had lifted it when she brought the trash out.  That’s all she said. She backed up away from the dumpster.

The overhead vapor lights covered the parking lot with bright pink light but the officer took his flashlight from his belt and lifted the cover of the dumpster and saw the bottom of a baby’s foot sticking out from between the clear bags of bottles and the black plastic bags. He moved a bag and saw the rest of the baby.

He reached in to check for pulse and breathing. The baby was in rigor, stiff and cold. There is a specific set of procedures that are followed in a case like this.  Call for medical and investigation. Secure the perimeter of the scene with yellow tape. Speak to people in the area. And so on.

The cause of death appeared to be suffocation, based on some distinctive hemorrhaging and other bruising. The umbilical cord was still attached. Based on the presence of rigor, the weather and other indicators the time of death was very recent. 

The baby had been wrapped in a blanket, as if someone was putting it to bed. There was plenty of evidence that led to where the baby came from and who the mother was, and that led us to what happened, and why she did it.

If this mother had killed her baby just a short time earlier, it would have been legal. She could have gone to a clinic, for free, and had the baby’s spine cut by a scissor, or had lethal drugs injected into the baby by a licensed medical professional. That would have been her right as a mother, to choose, legally. 

But she chose to kill the baby too late and now was looking at a charge of murder. Once that baby took a breath of fresh air and looked up at her, by law, she no longer had the right to choose. She felt trapped by the baby, as if her youth was being stolen from her. And she said she felt bad about it. She put it off too long. She was in denial. Hoping it would “take care of itself.” But that was not a sufficient defense, legally, to justify the killing.

Buddhist ethics teach us what to do to create stronger connections between people. The things we are taught to avoid are the acts which separate people from one another. It’s not arbitrary. It’s not old fashioned. It’s not designed to make people sheep. These ethical teachings are designed to reduce suffering, to provide a simple, peaceful life, and to allow us to create the conditions, for ourselves and others, in which we can live a decent and happy human life.

We are instructed to not kill people in order to get what we want. Also not to steal from them, lie to them, engage in sexual misconduct or use intoxicants. These five things cause us to suffer. But in modern times we have been taught that these are not just okay but they are good.

In the past sexuality was considered an energy that, channeled properly, would hold society together. The attraction of a courting couple, bonding a married couple, and guiding the mores and shape of a community which could, on the foundation of family units, work together for the common good.

Now many people consider this idea of sexuality quaint or imaginary or oppressive. They believe that sex is ‘just sex’ and you are either repressed or free depending on the extent of your sexual activity and adventures. The destruction of families and of our sense of community, the decline of mutual respect and the ability to work together for mutual good has been accelerated by the misunderstanding and misuse of sexuality.

In the last post I mentioned two key ways in which Buddhists infer the continuity of life, based on the theory of causality and the phenomenology of mind.

The intermediate state between death to rebirth is called the bardo. In this intermediate state our next rebirth is determined, according to our karma, that is according to our past actions and our state of mind at the moment of our death.

A person destined for a human rebirth has a mixed karma, the result of both good and bad acts, and this rebirth is an extraordinary blessing. If a being is destined for rebirth not in the human realm but in a suffering realm instead they will have no choice but to endure their suffering until it subsides. Under the conditions of the suffering realm they will be unable to form a stable thought or practice the virtuous actions it will take to put an end to suffering for themselves and others.

If a being is destined to take rebirth in a heavenly realm they will experience so much pleasure up there that they will not be able to practice virtues properly, and since they are not able to act in ways which will cause their happiness to persist, eventually, as the effects of their past virtuous action is exhausted, they will fall and take rebirth in a suffering realm.

Only by taking a human rebirth can we have the intelligence and clarity of mind that we need to understand and practice.  And also, at the same time, have just enough difficulty and suffering to motivate us to take this life seriously and dedicate ourselves to putting an end to suffering for ourselves and others.

In the bardo, the intermediate state between death and rebirth, the being wants to come to life again. They want it with all their heart. Some beings are drawn to hate filled realms, worlds of battle, deception and torment.

Beings who are destined by their karma, their set of mental habits from their past actions, to take a human rebirth, look around the bardo realm and feel drawn powerfully toward a safe place, a place that is warm and secure and feels like love to them.  There will be many choices for them but there is one unique place they are drawn to. They do not realize it at the time but this is the womb of their mother.

The baby was taken from the dumpster and transported to a cold and sterile environment. That little baby’s body was laid out, like a patient, etherized, on the stainless steel table, and examined for any possible cause of death. Every crevice and concealed place on the body is examined for bruising, punctures, injuries, stress, drugs.

I could not predict whether this young mother regretted what she did right away, would regret it years later, or if she would be pleased with her decision.

She was kind of dull about it. Maybe she could not share her feelings very frankly in public because she had a legal issue coming. Or maybe she did not have much of any feeling at all. Maybe she believed what she had been told, that the baby was not a person but just a bunch of cells, or just 95 cents worth of chemicals. Maybe she was confused about the different things people told her.

The karmic consequences of taking innocent life are serious, as are the legal consequences. The aggravating and mitigating factors are also very similar. For example (karmically as well as legally) if the killing is done with malice that is worse than if it is done accidentally. If it is volitional but without understanding that is different from not caring at all. If it is done of necessity, in self defense or in the defense of others, it is not considered a crime.

In cases where a person feels regret for past killing there is a way to remove or reduce the karmic consequences of the act. First the person will need to feel regret, based on an understanding of the significance of the act; second they will need to tell someone (someone who can understand how they feel and who understands the significance of the act) about the act that you have done; third you need to do something to save the life of another; and fourth determining not to repeat the act again. That is called the four forces. It is used to prevent the negative consequences of any mental disturbance or non virtue. It is what Master Atisha was doing each time he got down from his horse on the long ride through the Himalayas. This is the best way to assure that negative acts, words or mental states do not cause you or others to suffer in the future.

Some people who do wrong enjoy it, repeat it, and decline through the course of their lives. But not all. Some of us do wrong and then learn from our mistakes.

It is easy nowadays to meet a mother or a father, someone who was once young but is now getting old and no longer emphasizes partying and hanging out or ambition, and who, not having anyone important to them by their side, wonders, half in a dream, who that little baby might have grown up to be. We cannot abandon them.