Today, as I browse through the news as usual, the following news makes me so happy and wish fulfilling.
The news of "Bhutan embarks on eye band venture". Since the time, I knew about use of cornea if donated even after one's death, I have always thought of and have been contemplating on donating after my death. I shared such thinking with many of my friends and family to explore this opinion on such gesture. I have experienced that there are certain traditional views to
restrict to donate any body organ after death. But now I feel glad that government would help me and such other people with same views to make a way.
Bhutan is one of the only countries in the world that embraces Mahayana Buddhism. In fact, we are born and die with Buddhist values and traditions. The basic principle of any Buddhist value or a principle is helping others. We read in schools, told at homes and preached by great lamas, so many stories or biographies called Namthas of supposed enlightened men and women who sacrificed everything including their own body before death. There is a strong Buddhist belief that the greatest sacrifice one can make is donation of our own body (Sha Thra ghi Phungpo) and sight (eye) is considered to be greatest offer one can make in life to accumulate merit as we belief in life after death.
This reason of sight can be experimented by any of us in our own daily lives. When even a microscopic dust gets into our eyes, how painful is it for us to stay our eyes closed even for few seconds without seeing the world. Imagine, a life without sight for days, months and years and even lifetime. Imagine, if that person sees even for a second with our donation of cornea, the happiness and smiles that can bring to him or her.
Unfortunately, there are traditional belief that if one donates any of his or her body parts, that person would be reborn without those parts. Thus, especially, the people in the rural areas would not like to even touch one's body after death and they strongly belief that tradition. Such beliefs are infact contrary to even the basic principles of Buddhism.Therefore, to shun such beliefs, only religious bodies can achieve as they can convince those orthodox beliefs and not anyone else.
This noble initiative of Ministry of Health must be supported by all citizens, young or old, rich or poor. This is because, although date of death is uncertain, the death is certain and hence, earlier we commit to give, better it would be. All of us can contribute to this kind of cause because we would be able to give a life a person among 10000 or so people completely blind due to cornea. We won't be losing even a single penny yet we would be able to accumulate the greatest merit in our life upon our death.
Today, government spends millions to procure and get cornea donated from other countries especially from Nepal who help to give sight to our people in Bhutan. Nepal does not manufacture or nor it is artificial cornea which we get here. It is indeed disheartening and shame that we as strong believers of Buddhism rely on other people from other countries for such simple help when everyone one of us, the Bhutanese are capable of, irrespective of our status, position, ethnicity or religion. And greatest strength for such organ donation is that, cornea transplant never gets rejected if it harvested on time and transplanted. We must thank those unknown people for whatever reason, for helping our parents, friends, colleagues and above all the Bhutanese people to see the world again.
Therefore, we must first pledge ourselves to donate and join hands to strongly advocate on such initiatives as we may be one receiving such donation as we travel the journey of our life, filled with uncertainty. Don't think, we would be only giver, we may land up receivers as well.
The news of "Bhutan embarks on eye band venture". Since the time, I knew about use of cornea if donated even after one's death, I have always thought of and have been contemplating on donating after my death. I shared such thinking with many of my friends and family to explore this opinion on such gesture. I have experienced that there are certain traditional views to
restrict to donate any body organ after death. But now I feel glad that government would help me and such other people with same views to make a way.
Bhutan is one of the only countries in the world that embraces Mahayana Buddhism. In fact, we are born and die with Buddhist values and traditions. The basic principle of any Buddhist value or a principle is helping others. We read in schools, told at homes and preached by great lamas, so many stories or biographies called Namthas of supposed enlightened men and women who sacrificed everything including their own body before death. There is a strong Buddhist belief that the greatest sacrifice one can make is donation of our own body (Sha Thra ghi Phungpo) and sight (eye) is considered to be greatest offer one can make in life to accumulate merit as we belief in life after death.
This reason of sight can be experimented by any of us in our own daily lives. When even a microscopic dust gets into our eyes, how painful is it for us to stay our eyes closed even for few seconds without seeing the world. Imagine, a life without sight for days, months and years and even lifetime. Imagine, if that person sees even for a second with our donation of cornea, the happiness and smiles that can bring to him or her.
Unfortunately, there are traditional belief that if one donates any of his or her body parts, that person would be reborn without those parts. Thus, especially, the people in the rural areas would not like to even touch one's body after death and they strongly belief that tradition. Such beliefs are infact contrary to even the basic principles of Buddhism.Therefore, to shun such beliefs, only religious bodies can achieve as they can convince those orthodox beliefs and not anyone else.
This noble initiative of Ministry of Health must be supported by all citizens, young or old, rich or poor. This is because, although date of death is uncertain, the death is certain and hence, earlier we commit to give, better it would be. All of us can contribute to this kind of cause because we would be able to give a life a person among 10000 or so people completely blind due to cornea. We won't be losing even a single penny yet we would be able to accumulate the greatest merit in our life upon our death.
Today, government spends millions to procure and get cornea donated from other countries especially from Nepal who help to give sight to our people in Bhutan. Nepal does not manufacture or nor it is artificial cornea which we get here. It is indeed disheartening and shame that we as strong believers of Buddhism rely on other people from other countries for such simple help when everyone one of us, the Bhutanese are capable of, irrespective of our status, position, ethnicity or religion. And greatest strength for such organ donation is that, cornea transplant never gets rejected if it harvested on time and transplanted. We must thank those unknown people for whatever reason, for helping our parents, friends, colleagues and above all the Bhutanese people to see the world again.
Therefore, we must first pledge ourselves to donate and join hands to strongly advocate on such initiatives as we may be one receiving such donation as we travel the journey of our life, filled with uncertainty. Don't think, we would be only giver, we may land up receivers as well.
nice one gabu
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