Organ Donation after Death in Mahāyāna Buddhist Perspective

Abstract

Nowadays lots of countries are encouraging organ donation after death. With the
global organ shortage, and the increasingly sophisticated organ-transplantation techniques,
this practice is becoming popular. In Buddhist circles, especially in today’s Buddhist circles
in Taiwan, there have been some Bhikkhu and Bhikkhunī who have been sparing no effort
to advocate organ donation after death. Meanwhile, there are also some Buddhist masters
who disagree or even oppose organ donation after death. Generally speaking, those who
advocate organ donation after death are keeping pace with the times by answering the
government’s call and are occupying the moral high ground. However, most of the Chinese
mainland Buddhist masters are still rather conservative about organ donation after death.
Actually, both the pros and cons of organ donation after death can fi nd their theoretical basis
recorded in the texts. This article is a research on organ donation after death in Mahāyāna
Buddhist perspective. There are three objectives of this article: (a) to study the belief of
organ donation (dāna) in Mahāyāna Buddhism; (b) to study the pros of organ donation after
death in Mahāyāna Buddhist perspective; and (c) to study the cons of organ donation after
death in Mahāyāna Buddhist perspective. This research examines two primary cruxes: (a)
the fi rst crux of organ donation after death involves the problematic criteria for death1; (b)
the second crux of organ donation after death involves different understanding of death and
how to take care of dying people.