Death

I have recently finished a year-to-live practice and wanted to share with everyone what little knowledge, and insight, I have gained in my short investigation of death.

First, and foremost, death is the one thing that we cannot control. It is the one thing that we cannot barter or plead with. We cannot overcome it with title, accomplishments, money, or status. We cannot defeat it by being either a saint or sinner. It encompasses all. It is a universal law; if it is born it must also die.

Knowing this to be true, it is our habitual tendency to fear it, fight against it, and deny it.

I have learned that death is the house of all fear. If we take a moment to really think on fear, we realize that, all fear, is really the fear of death. Fear of heights is the fear of falling to our death. Fear of spiders is really the fear of receiving a fatal bite. Even fears that do not directly relate to death find their source in death. Fear of losing all one’s money, fear of being paralyzed, fear of public speaking, are all one’s fear of being unable to act, unable to live and participate fully in life.

The most important thing I have come to learn it to approach death in the same way you would approach life. By opening to it, and allowing whatever Is, to just Be. In death and in life, a myriad of thoughts, emotions, feelings, and perceptions, will arise. Some of them are pleasurable and some are very painful. But, whatever happens, it is the Truth of the moment and should not be rejected.

There is a story, in Tibetan Buddhism, about a master telling his student about two arrows of pain. The first arrow we are struck by is the actual experience of pain. It is the inevitable experience that we will all have because we are a sensitive, sensing being. The second arrow is the one we create for ourselves. It is the suffering around, the reverberation of, the pain of the first arrow. This suffering usually manifests as anger or some type of ‘why me’ experience, where we are fighting the pain at hand. This second type of pain is the one that our mind usually resides in and is often more lasting and morose than the original experience. But the good news is that we do not have to be struck by the second arrow.

The way to do that is to open to the moment, open to whatever is going on. The present moment requires awareness; pleasure invites it and pain demands it. But our experiences is always a result of exactly how much awareness we give the moment.

When painful experiences arise, we usually close around them. We become ultra-focused on the acute sensation of pain and in doing so intensify its effects. Ironically, we also lose sight of the entire picture of what the pain is comprised of. In becoming angry at our partners for doing something we don’t like, we tend not to think of our behavior that contributed to the action of our partner. Not to mention the effect of the environment in our lives and how it affects people differently. It is always beneficial, even if our anger or hurt is justified, to take a larger view and to consider multiple perspectives.

We see here, that a skillful approach, to any moment, is to provide as much awareness as possible. If we can open our heart and mind to whatever is going on we can take more fulfillment from pleasure and put pain in its proper context. We can see that pain is not a fixed, menacing, enemy, but that it is a dancing of sensations. Anger can be tainted with pain, frustration, guilt, vengeance, even love. Just as pleasure can be wholesome or vindictive.

All experience is incessantly changing; always moving. Thus, it is not beneficial to cling to specific viewpoints or experiences. Nothing last forever and we are only hit with that second arrow when we cling to one specific instance. When we long for things to be the way we desire and not the way they are. And the viewpoint that causes us the most strife, the most pain, is the general fear of death.

I have come to learn that open awareness is the proper way to approach death. In this way, all things have their place and all things can become integrated. In actuality, all of Life, is interconnected and mutually dependent. And the more we can expand our view to be aware of that interconnection, the more skillfully we can deal with suffering and live more fully in-love. Indeed, in all of the people lying on their deathbed’s, the ones that were most at peace were the ones that had fully opened themselves to life. Nothing was excluded from their lives even their deaths.

At some times it feels that I am beginning to attain wisdom into the nature of life and death. And at the times that I most feel like I know what is going on, I am always surprised and humbled by the spontaneity and infinite expression of the Universe.

The notions and views I have expressed in this essay are solely my own and are only true for me. I encourage anyone reading this to see for themselves what is true. To be courageous in the face of fear and uncertainty. And to plunge fully into all aspects of life with a tender, but open heart accompanied with an inquisitive, yet open mind.