This week’s topic for reflection is life and death. Being alive, do you view death as an existential threat? Does it seem as though death takes away life. Or is it you’re either alive or dead, two equal ways of being. Do you belief in an after life of either heaven or hell. It seems to be natural for human beings to cling to existence and fear death. There is a fear of our own death and the death of those we love or are attached to. When my first wife and I separated and divorced it was very difficult for me. I had come to identify as the two of us and then I needed to create a new identity when we were no longer together. It felt as though I had somehow died when the relationship no longer existed. I questioned, who am I? How do you create a sense of who you are?
We say, “My hand, my eyes, my sight and my mind.” There are things that we consider mine with a sense of ownership or in which we are included or identify with. For example my country, my family, my gender role and my religious affiliation. What are the things that you see as me, my or mine? Do you have a soul or something like a soul? Does your “self” have a location? Does your awareness have a location? What happens to “you” when your body “dies”?
What makes something alive? What makes something dead? Once I cut down a maple tree that was alive. I then cut it up into 16” logs to be split into firewood. I left a few of the 16” logs in the field on the ground in the sun for a few months and they started to grow new branches. I thought this tree was dead when I cut it down and I was obviously wrong. When I visit the forest it seems like a large, complex living organism which includes death, continuously changing. Nothing is dead if that means no longer changing and separated from the living functioning of the forest. I breathe in the oxygen split off from the carbon dioxide that I breathe out for the trees to breathe in. Where is the line that separates me and mine from everything, anything else?
How comfortable are you, how integrated are you with this natural process of continuous change? Where and how do you belief in a self that is real and separate, somehow not subject to continuous change? Directly seeing that the separate self does not exist reveals the seamless identity of everything functioning together as the true self. Death is not an end. Death is a step along the path integrated with life.
How good are you at being alive? How do you approach your life and being alive? However you approach living is how you will approach dying. If you are afraid of life you will be afraid of death. If you are full of life, curious and embracing life, when at your last day you will be curious and also embrace death. What a wonderful way to be, appreciating every moment, just being yourself.
Please join us on Zoom for morning zazen from 7:00 to 7:30 Tuesday and Thursday, in person Zen meditation in Eugene Saturday morning at the McNail-Riley house from 8:30 to 11:00 and Sunday morning Zoom zazen and discussion from 8:00 to 9:00 Pacific Time. Here’s the Zoom link:
Meeting ID: 811 6100 3357
Passcode: 278259
Gassho,
Futai
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