[Vision2020] Death as Friend: Steve Jobs Meets Moses in Heaven

[Nicholas Gier]

Greetings:*
*


This is my commentary/column for this week.  The full version is attached.


Although I'm a PC man and own nothing but HP products (including a new HP
Slate), I believe that Jobs was a genius.  Who knows, I still might buy an
I-phone.


Nick

*DEATH AS A FRIEND: *

*STEVE JOBS MEETS MOSES IN HEAVEN*

* *

By Nick Gier



As death, strictly speaking, is the goal of our lives,
I have for some years been making myself familiar
with this truest and best friend of man.


~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

* *

With the passing of Steve Jobs one cartoon got my eye.  It pictured St.
Peter  introducing Jobs to Moses: “Moses, meet Steve. He’s gonna upgrade
your tablets.”  Interestingly enough, Jobs’ wings are almost as big as
Moses’.

            Does “upgrade” simply mean a change of hardware (from stone to
silicon chips) or a new version? Many Christians would be offended by the
thought of a revised Ten Commandments, and they would also be shocked to
see that the Buddhist Jobs has made it to the Pearly Gates.

Instead of Ten Commandments, the Buddhists have five precepts: do no
violence, do not steal, do not be sexually promiscuous, do not lie, and do
not take intoxicants.

            In addition to telling his disciples not to deify him or write
down his words, the Buddha also wanted no statues made in his likeness—no
graven images.  Four hundred years would pass before the Buddha was
worshipped as God, scriptures compiled, and images in stone, wood, and
pigment appeared.

            Most Buddhists would embrace all the other Ten Commandments.
Parents and holy days must be honored, and becoming attached to material
things (even our own) is one of the greatest sins.

For the Buddha the most dangerous form of attachment is “craving for
views,” and believing that you have the complete truth about any matter.
The Buddha would have been very sad to learn that sectarian divisions arose
in which one faction claimed to know the real truth of what he preached.

As the Buddha said: “Do not accept it because it is in the Hindu
scriptures; and do not accept it because it was said by a holy monk such as
I; but if you find that it appeals to your conscience as being conducive to
your happiness, then accept it and live up to it.” The Buddha’s last words
were: “I have given you the Dharma (moral law), so now work out your own
salvation.”

Steve Jobs was a Zen Buddhist and this tradition does not deify the Buddha
and does not make idols of his words.  Zen is distinctive in holding a
direct transmission from the Buddha “outside scriptures, not founded on
words or letters.”

The fear of idolatry was so great among Zen Buddhists that a provocative
metaphor was suggested: “If you see the Buddha on the road, you must kill
him.”  In order words, the temptation to worship him would be so great that
people would forget to “work out their own salvation.”

Japanese Zen Buddhists are famous for their “death” poems, which are
essentially sermons on the elimination of our deepest attachment.  Most
people cling to life so fervently that they constantly deceived themselves
about their own mortality.

Citing the passage above from Mozart’s 1787 letter to his father as
evidence, one could suggest that his magnificent Requiem Mass in D Minor
was his own “death” poem.

Most Asian philosophy acknowledges the natural truth that life leads to
death and then to new life.  Christianity views death as the enemy of life
rather than the inevitable result of life itself.

In his famous 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Jobs said:
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the
trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There
is no reason not to follow your heart.”

If there is a heaven, then Steve Jobs has not only met St. Peter and Moses,
but he is also been pitching his great ideas among all the saints of human
history.  They will learn a lot from him, and perhaps they will teach him a
little humility.

Nick Gier taught Buddhism for at the University of Idaho for 30 years.
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