“If you want to have merits, that is having a good feelings from your giving, then you have to do it while you are still alive. It is like giving blood, when you donate blood, you have good feeling from giving blood.”
Question: I was told that it is better not be an organ donor as upon death the mind will take some times to depart from the body. So, one can still experience pain when the doctor harvests the organ and that causes pain to arise and the mind will be disturbed. Can Ajahn explain?
Than Ajahn: Sometimes doctors cannot determine whether you actually have died or not yet. If you have the wish to harvest your organs, they might presume that you are dead and you might suffer if you are not dead yet. I don’t know the real situation whether it is true or not. But it’s up to you. You can give up and donate your organs but you don’t have to.
However, if you chose to donate your organ after you die, you don’t get any result mentally, you don’t get any merit. If you want to gain merit, you have to give it while you’re still alive, like you give one of your kidneys to someone else, then you can experience the joy of giving. When you already died, you don’t experience that joy of giving.
If you donate it before you die, you will experience the joy of giving. Like if you share one of your eyes for somebody else or share one of your organs or share one of your lungs for somebody else, you can enjoy that joy of giving. This joy of giving will go with your mind, it will send your mind to go to a better realm, a good realm. If you donate it after you die, you don’t know anything, you won’t experience any joy from giving.
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Question: Do people who leave inheritance for their children after their death gain merit from giving the gift, or do they have to give the gifts away while they are alive to receive the merit?
Than Ajahn: They have to give them (the inheritance or gifts) when they are still alive because when they die, they don’t know whether their inheritance will go to these people or not. If they want to have the merits, that is to have good feelings that arise from giving, they have to give them away when they are still alive, so they know that they have given these gifts away.
It is the same thing with giving your organs to people, if you want to receive the merits, you have to do it while you are still alive, like sharing your kidney with someone or sharing an eye with someone. When you know that the eye you donated goes to another person which makes the person happy, you will feel happy too. If you give (donate) when you are dead already, you won’t know which organs will go to other persons or which organs remain with you, and so this is not a merit anymore.
If you want to have merits, that is having a good feelings from your giving, then you have to do it while you are still alive. It is like giving blood, when you donate blood, you have good feeling from giving blood.
By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto
Youtube: Dhamma in English
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