Henry Gross wrote "Shannon," a song about the passing of Carl Wilson's, of the Beach Boys, Irish Setter.
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Some 60 years ago, Jim lived to almost 100. I am just a little boy, too small to look into the casket at the corpse. Dad lifts me up. I look at the body of my dear great-grandpa. Now, writing this, tears flow. Tears of grief? No. Love? Yes. Well, okay, maybe both. We do not have to examine our tears. We can just let them flow.
I am so thankful for that moment. Precious memory. Glad my dad introduced me so soon to the look of death, trusting his little boy could see it and be okay.
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The Buddhists have a tale for how to enjoy life fully... fall in love with it... taste it thoroughly ... and it is the opposite of the way we have been taught -
A guy is running from a tiger. He stops at a precipice. Having nowhere else to go, he begins to slide down. As he is sliding, he grabs hold of a branch of a bush. He looks down. He looks up. If he slides down, he slides to his death. If he somehow climbs back up, the tiger will feast on him. He knows the branch will give way sooner or later. What does he do?
He looks at the bush and sees it is a berry bush. Holding onto it with one hand, he plucks a berry with the other hand, puts it into his mouth, and tastes it. The berry tastes so sweet! In the taste, he forgets all about himself and his coming fate. He picks more berries and enjoys them.
Anthony De Mello shares -
And as the story goes, "It tasted so sweet." Isn't that marvelous? I know friends of mine in the past - two of them at different intervals - who were dying, and who said to me, "I began to truly taste life and see how sweet it was when I let go. I realized that life was ending. It was then that it began to taste sweet."
He continues -
So, paradoxically, we're doing all the wrong things to be happy.
*Rediscovering Life: Awaken to Reality.
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There is a tradition in the East that Buddhist monks end the day by turning their drinking cup downward. They are acknowledging they may not live to arise to see the next day. They are practicing death before it comes. Does this sound morose? It is not.
Another tradition is of Christian monks who place on their study desks the skull of a past monk of the community. Again, this reminds them daily of death. Again, it is not a morose practice. They are practicing death.
See, to practice life is to practice death, and to practice death is to practice life. This is one practice, one lifestyle. Yet, we are not encouraged to practice death, we are taught to deny death, to ignore it as long as possible. In this, we forfeit something precious of life, of the gift of this moment.
Practicing life-and-death can enhance our relationships. I once read of this mindfulness practice. Sometimes, when you look at someone you feel love for, recollect, "One day she (or he) will die." Rather than the word "die," I prefer "pass on" or "not be here."
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I used to go to rest at night, assuming I would awaken in the morning. I have known too many to die in my age range and younger, especially when in hospice work, to make that assumption. I have lived with a sense of mortality for most of my life. It has been integral to the spiritual path I have been devoted to. This awareness is stronger now; the shift occurred at age 60. I am thankful for it and see this awareness as a blessing, not a curse.
I have never markedly grieved the death of those close to me - human and animal. This includes my parents, for whom I officiated their memorial services. When we relate with death from spirit, birth and death and all between does not fit into the parameters of a psychological worldview. This does not mean the death of others does not affect me. It does. The major heart-note I feel, however, when someone I dearly love dies is gratitude. I do feel sadness, but that is way overshadowed by appreciation. The relationship does not end then, either. Wise are the words, "Do not grieve as others do, having no hope" (I Thessalonians 4.13). But it is not wise to suppress grief, either. Grief is a sign of love. Grief, like all things truly human, is beautiful.
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See, what if De Mello, as well as many others of like view, are correct? What if we have it all wrong? What if we enjoy and cherish life in this body more by living in recollection of its brevity? And what if birth and life are not opposites, but the opposites are birth and death? That is, how would our lives be transformed by realizing birth and death are not the beginning or end of life?
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
