"Misunderstanding may arise by confusing the Buddhist..." - Quote by Dalai Lama
Misunderstanding may arise by confusing the Buddhist and scientific definitions of death. Within the scientific system you spoke quite validly of the death of the brain and the death of heart. Different parts of the body can die separately. However, in the Buddhist system, the word death is not used in that way. You'd never speak of the death of a particular part of the body, but rather of the death of an entire person. When people say that a certain person died, we don't ask, "Well, which part died?"
More by Dalai Lama
“If someone does not smile at you, be generous and offer your own smile. Nobody needs a smile more than the one that cannot smile to others.”
“The truly good gaze upon everything with love and understanding.”
“Although it is difficult to pinpoint the physical base or location of awareness, it is perhaps the most precious thing concealed within our brains. And it is something that the individual alone can feel and experience. Each of us cherishes it highly, yet it is private.”
More on Death
“What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.”
“I need silence, and to be alone and to go out, and to save one hour to consider what has happened to my world, what death has done to my world.”
“I could still be forgotten when I'm dead. I don't really care what happens when I'm dead.”
More on Philosophy
“My guideline has always been to avoid a focus on me personally. Not because of any deep, dark secrets. Rather just a sense of privacy.”
“I don't like realism. We already know the real facts about li[fe], most of the basic facts. I'm not interested in repeating what we already know. We know about sex, about violence, about murder, about war. All these things, by the time we're 18, we're up to here. From there on we need interpreters. We need poets. We need philosophers. We need theologians, who take the same basic facts and work with them and help us make do with those facts. Facts alone are not enough. It's interpretation.”
“Paradoxes are the only truths.”