Death. Why is it that we shy away from such conversations? That we celebrate Life, and birth and weddings and a variety of 'happy' anniversaries, but when it comes to Death we are considered morbid to even talk about it? But we will all die. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe today.
But death is inevitable. Death is Life. And this is why religions flourish - because to imagine YOURSELF DEAD is very difficult, and the more experiences people have with death either through the natural process of aging, or through the death of friends, family or even just dying strangers who happen to be physically near by, people tend to look for 'answers'. We aren't taught in schools what happens after Life; only in churches and mosques.
In the West the most common religious answer is one which contains beauty – an image of a luxurious place called Heaven or one which does not even exist by its very essence of absorption into nothingness - Nirvana. This image helps to balance the pain of Life – of the thought of losing it. According to one Catholic friend, without this, “Life has no meaning”.
There have been occasions during the past few years of my adventures that I have thought seriously about dying. These have not been relaxed musings or depressed daydreams, but rather times when I have been faced directly with the potential moment of my own death:
Once while I was free diving, while I was under the ocean that I worked in, lived next to and love, I had a few long long seconds of forced contemplation. I was diving down into the sea, swimming around feeling the water all around me, above and below me. Then I froze. I heard a speeding long tail rattle towards me. I was about ten meters under the water and had been down for over a minute. It was time to surface. I had no choice. My mind was willing my body to be able to stay down for longer. It was trying to convince my body that it would be more fruitful for its preservation if it could delay the biological need to breathe for just another minute. But my body needed oxygen. My mind had no choice but to concede. I kicked up towards the danger above me, trying to prepare myself for the pain which would come. The sound of the motor was so loud it was nearly on top of me. Now I would die I told myself. My body tensed in panic. As I broke the surface of the sea, the propeller skimmed the water in front of my face. I Screamed and Screamed. I screamed with all my heart that was still beating. I screamed in relief – I was still Alive. Another ten centimeters could have changed everything – that is everything in my small and relatively insignificant Life.
A few weeks ago I again thought about dying. But this time I had longer to think. I had the entire evening. I had recently had a neck injury, and for some reason on this evening when I laid down I felt as if my throat was closing. It was as if the neck was restricting the own airways it protected. I sat up gasping for air. When my breath had returned to normal, I tried to lay down again but the same sensation of suffocation fell back down on top of me: Booooom. And so it continued. Throughout the night. There was a post monsoon storm raining through my windows. The three month stream of tourists who had been renting the rooms around me had finally stemmed. The landlady and her family lived in a house below, but then when I actually thought about going to ask for her help, I realised there was nothing which she could do. I lay in my bed, trying fight suffocation. Maybe you think I am being melodramatic – unless you have already had a similar experience.
Yet all I could think during this long and painful evening was how it didn't really matter - to me. If I died, I would just pass on. To somewhere; to no where; to everywhere. Either way, the journey from life to death was one I had not yet any experience of, I had no idea what to expect, but what I did have was the experiences of Life. The knowledge which tells me that somethings are beyond ones control, and that attitude can make the difference between something amazing, and something destructive.
In Dharamsala, I attended several teachings at the Namgyal Monastery and the Tushita Buddhist centre. The teachings explored what we know and do not know about Death; about the fear which we attach to it, and about the ultimate balance in life – that of the physical body and the ego disappearing just like it once appeared at a time beyond our consciousness. Associated topics included the fact that we are born alone, and we will also die alone. Buddhism teaches of the importance of being Happy when we die. The importance of this means that the transition to the next life will be much more favourable. If we cling to what we 'had'; if when we are dying we refuse to let go of our attachment to material objects, our family, our friends, our own body, then it will be much easier for the self to move on. This is one of many reasons why Sky Burials were a popular way to return a used human body to nature in Tibet; because the crushing of the dead bones and stripping of the flesh before calling the vultures helped the family to dissociate the 'being' from the 'body'. When supporting a family through the death of a loved one, Buddhist try to encourage the family to tell the dying person that it is ok to 'Let Go'. Because this is the reality; that being dead is far more traumatic for the people still living than it is for you/I. And even if you are not a Buddhist, this advice still counts. Likewise, if your dying and you are struggling to live, it follows that the transition it going to be far more 'painful' than if you try to stay at peace. This is the challenge.
When we are dead we can no longer feel pain, we can no longer have regrets, we are quite simply no longer in the emotional and physical world of the Living. We are fulfilling the cycle of Nature, which blessed us with experiencing the beauty of Life. This is way Buddhist art is filled with depictions of skulls and the Lord of Death - gshin rje chos rgyal, who is the personification of impermanence and the unfailing law of cause and effect. These images act to remind the living of the fact of Death, and although I am not surrounded by these iconology, I still try to think of Death every day. I am not tempting fate because this is my fate – to die. Rather I think about death not only because today I have a good a chance as any other day of dying, but because it reminds me of how thankful I am to be alive now – this second. My meditation on Death remind me of how I cannot not do exactly what I want to, because there might not be another opportunity. Although I can reformulate the past in my mind, it has been lived. Although I can plan for the future – it may never come. All that is certain is Now and I do not want to have regrets. I do not want to form attachments to everything which is impermanent, and I do not want to waste the chance to laugh, or learn, or love - Now.
My mother died seventeen years ago today. I have spent seventeen years loving her Life. She has taught me how to love mine.
To read more about Tibet's Sky Burials see: Tibetan Sky Burial
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