Savoring in Bereavement: The Javanese Journey Through Death

Abstract

This chapter examines the Javanese practices of bereavement through the lens of emotional refinement (Frijda & Sundararajan in Perspectives on Psychological Science 2: 227–241, 2007). The principle of emotional refinement posits that all experiences, including negative ones, can be savored, if one knows how to properly cultivate one’s emotions. Central to Javanese spirituality is cultivation of detachment which constitutes a life long journey for the Javanese. For illustration, the first author gives a detailed account of her father’s death and the process of bereavement she went through. The chapter concludes with a cross-cultural analysis of bereavement based on the theory of strong-ties versus weak-ties societies (Sundararajan in Understanding emotion in Chinese culture: Thinking through psychology, Springer, New York, 2015).