Death

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.

Can you imagine being dead at the end of 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

A future/present/past date with Buddhism

Leaving McLeod Ganj has been hard. No where as hard as it was to leave Kolkata or rather leaving all the little buddha's which it held, but hard in the sense that I felt that I was leaving unfinished business. I arrived in McLeod Ganj in mid June. I arrived with aspirations to learn more about the Tibetan community in exile, to do some social work which would provide the opportunity to really gain an insight into the democratic organisations evolving outside of China's dominating grip. I wanted to practice yoga during the day and sit with the nuns and other ex political prisoners in the evenings, participating in a space for them to share their stories and facilitate a dialogue which would not only help me to communicate their reality to you, but where they could develop their English conversations skills. I wanted to volunteer at the Rogpa Baby Care Centre for the children of newly arrived refugees, who still had to find new friends to look after their young ones while they tried to build a new life. I wanted to read every one of the books of writings and meditations by the Dalai Lama, Indian Swami's and Krishnamurti which framed the trillions of bookshop windows. I wanted to go to the Tibetan Library and attended their daily meditation classes, to attend Tushita Buddhist Centre's twice weekly movie seminars led by a truly international group of nuns. I wanted Dr Palden to teach me the 157 Tibetan Pressure Points using his wall of human maps and enjoying the constant interruptions from his four year old son. I wanted to learn Tibetan massage, become a master in Reiki, have a once in a life time Ayurvedic panchakarma. I wanted to teach yoga to the local children and to hike up to Triund the mysterious 2827m peak which hides behind Dharmasala's eternal clouds. Basically I wanted to do to much, and in comparison I did very little.

On the other hand, I know that I have achieved something which has been a very old dream. I have dedicated three months to practicing and studying very little apart from yoga. I have since taught a month and a half of free yoga classes and assisted an Indian Guru every day for two months. I can finally do asana's which I could not even do five years ago. I have had incredible releases of energy which I had no idea had existed. I have found the sense of grounded-ness and connection with the Self which (for me) is the hidden key to Yoga. In addition to this, I have met some fabulous people.

I have talked with young Tibetans who have grown up in exile and have shared 'stories' with Tibetans of all ages who have just recently escaped into exile. I have met with Travellers and seekers from all over the world, who paths I would not have crossed had we not been searching for something in some way connected. I have laughed with Buddhist Monks who I practiced yoga with, who I pushed and pulled and dropped backwards and swung forwards, who would teach me new scientific words for the human body while they practiced their English, between playing with their new mobile phones and after sliding in a snippet of ancient Buddhist wisdom. I actually even think that I might have heard a complement from Vijay while he was saying goodbye. I have definitely watched more documentaries in three months than I have ever watched since Palestine. I have had the opportunity to develop a well rounded understanding (and intense practical application) of 'alternative' medicines. The list continues..

So I am leaving, knowing that I have taken with me a gift of yogic energy while releasing the ocean of learning taking me to new areas of exploration.

My journey began with a blessing from a new yogi monk who I have been working with for six weeks. He approached me apologising for his lack of gift, and then produced a beautiful white Tibetan kata (silk scarf). He bowed his head to mine as he placed it around my neck. He took his hands to prayer and held them there while my instinct overruled my socially instilled respect of convention and I hugged him. The new yogi monk, my new friend and old colleague, told me he would pray for me.

Meanwhile, the Young Wrinkled Man was waiting for me outside of my afternoon yoga class. We walked up the street together. I gave him my last bundle of bandages. He gave me a long Namaste as he bowed his head towards me. Again, I brought my hands together and pushed my palms and fingers next to one another, wishing he could feel the power he had shared with me – not just today but through each of our daily interactions.

A crazy professional sushi chef, snowboarder and base jumper and now Vijay's newest student carried my new Om yoga bag and tattered dry bag to the bus for me. She gave me a hug so tight I can still feel it.

The bus which carried me down the road which a stuttering Royal Enfield motorbike had pulled me up three months ago, was filled with a mini Tibetan sangha. Crammed amongst this maroon crowd was as a French nun who lived on Holy Island in Scotland. The most restless of the passengers were two well dressed Indian tourists complaining about the gung ho attitude of the driver as we careered around each hairpin bend, with the wheels only casually connecting with the rocky asphalt before bouncing back into the air again. I also bounced around on the back row; fighting the will of the seat to inflict me with whip lash.

And then the bus broke down. It was fixed. We stopped for chai in the middle of no-where at some-where which didn't sell chai and then finally, arrived back in the country's capital three hours late and right in the middle of the festival of Dewali. We piled off the creaking bus at Majnu ka Tilla the Tibetan neighbourhood in north Delhi. I verbally fought with a rickshaw driver and then a Royal Ambassador driver over how much they would charge me for a ten minute ride. I remained morally victorious and economically defeated. And then I experienced the phenomenon of Culture Shock all over again.

Coloured powders scattered the bursting streets, flower petals mixed with street garbage, and sticky sweet greasy smells wafted into the humid air around me. Limbless men and children hobbled towards me hands outstretched, and surrounded by the fallen petals of the festive turmeric tinted garlands. I left Delhi and India that same night.

It is three years since I was last here, and six years since I first arrived: I am now back in Nepal. It took three days of travelling and many many hours of pensive perseverance. But at some point in the next month I will try to renew my Indian visa although as always I am still firmly attached to the present and surrounded by a 'new' Nepal – Republic, Communist, 'Democratic', Peaceful land waiting to be re/explored.