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Sacred Tome
NOTE: Reading this journal may include but are not limited to:
Poisoning,
Getting sucked into the book,
Melting eyeballs,
Airlock failure,
Explosive de-compression,
Epic Failing,
Redness in the belly button.
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The interesting thing about death is how friendly it is.
I used to think that death was the ultimate enemy or the ultimate obstacle, but I've come to see recently that it's the ultimate friend. God is hidden in death.
Why is death so friendly? Because the contemplation of your own death will give you gifts that almost nothing else can give you.
For one thing, it will give you tremendous courage. When you meditate on your own death and begin to grasp that you really are going to die, relatively soon, an incredible courage will seize hold of you.
Since you perceive clearly now that you're going to die, why, what is there to fear? Who can do anything to you? What can be taken from you that isn't going to be gone relatively soon anyway?
"Soon" may be 30 years or 30 minutes, it doesn't matter. What matters is to clearly see at a deep level that you'll be gone soon enough.
When you see that, you'll find a courage that you didn't know you had. Courage to do what's right, courage to pursue your dreams, courage to express your love for others foolishly and recklessly.
One of the 40 classic Buddhist meditations is to meditate on a corpse. I never could understand that. Why not meditate on love or peace, or an enlightened being?—something positive and uplifting?
Those were the days before I knew that death is the most uplifting thing imaginable. The serious contemplation of death will give you an unbearable love for life that it's almost impossible to know otherwise.
Sometimes people think it would be great to live forever. I don't think so. If we lived forever we'd have no love for life at all, no sense of life's preciousness, and no courage-in-action of the kind that comes from knowing that your time is limited.
Now of course we do live forever—but not as separate beings. The totality lives forever, or more accurately, outside of time altogether, and that is who we actually are. And there's nothing but That, and all the sense of existing separately is a grand illusion—but that's another story. (Search, button at left, on "self-concept." wink
The contemplation of your death will make it abundantly clear in your bones that as this form, in these circumstances, in this apparently separate existence, your days are numbered.
When you see someone, you'll know that it might be the last time. You'll see them differently. When you look at the moon, you'll know that it might be the last time. You'll see it differently. You'll see everything differently. Even if you're just looking at a garbage can, you'll see it differently. It'll be precious.
As you look around you, or just look at the horizon, or just study a flower, something will break open in you continuously. You'll feel like you're falling endlessly without resistance or complaint, not knowing where you're going and not caring because you're always already here. It's like "falling in love," constant falling.
And if you've ever had a dream which you've been afraid to follow, just meditate on your death. You'll rise up with a strength and courage and passion that will amaze you.
When you meditate on your death, simply attempt to stare directly into the fact of your mortality in this separate form. Forget all of the notions about re-incarnation and going to heaven and so forth—all the notions that we use to comfort ourselves and run from our mortality—and just reflect on the fact that you'll die, that one of these days you just won't be here as this seemingly separate form.
Dare to confront the notion, as you meditate, that you may not be "saved" by anyone or anything from your journey to non-existence. That your death may be just like an ant that dies on the floor of the forest—it just winks out, and it doesn't mean anything that it winks out.
How horrible! you might think. But ignore the mind's fearful thoughts and just look directly at your death. Look directly. Feel it. Really feel your oncoming death, not from fear but just directly. Not thinking about it, but just being with it, spending time with the realization of it.
And it will transform you. You'll become like a raincloud pregnant with rain, grateful to the earth for receiving its gift. You'll be grateful to express your love for existence in any way that you possibly can.
And even when you seem to be having a bad day on the outside, inside you'll be aware of your secret—the secret of death. It's your ultimate friend, because it teaches about passion and compassion, about courage and the preciousness of all life.
God is hidden in death. See for yourself.
 Rosenkranz · Tue Jun 02, 2009 @ 09:20pm · 0 Comments |
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