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'Our lives touch each other'
Our existence is always ready to disappear. ... All I can say is that we are truly beautiful but extremely fragile. Please remember that we are ready to fall apart at any given moment.
*Anam Thubten. Embracing Each Moment.
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A Buddhist story tells of children on a beach. The children made sandcastles and said, "This one is mine. Don't touch it!" They defended their mounds of sand and would not let another child near.
One child came to another's sandcastle in curiosity and kicked it over. The boy who had made the sandcastle began beating this other boy. He called out, "Look, my castle is destroyed! Help me punish the rule breaker, giving him what he deserves!"
The other children joined in the beating. They hit the boy with sticks and kicked him until he lay motionless. Then, each child returned to his own sandcastle, continued building it, and kept saying to any child who came near, "Stay away! This is mine! Don't touch my sandcastle!"
Evening neared, and darkness began to settle. The children turned from their sandcastles and thought about going home. The children forgot about their sandcastles or lost interest in them. Some kicked over their castles, while others used their hands to smash them. Others walked off and left them.
One by one, the children returned home. By dark, the tide had come in and washed the sandcastles away.
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I was intrigued by the title of a book by a Buddhist monk and so read it. The book is Tai Sheridan's Relax... You're Going to Die. One could say, too, "Relax, you and everything you hold dear is already dying."
The above story illustrates how we invest much negative energy in what is washing away. We cling to an illusory sense of ownership, also. To adhere to persons, things, ideas, religion, political party, country, ... or - yes - ego is futile. This is a denial of death. This denial is a moral disease in the nation of my citizenship.
When I see how many Americans behave after the 2020 election in the country, I see men and women acting like the kids in the Buddhist tale. Many of these citizens behave as though they and what they believe are immortal. Many of them act violently or threaten violence against other fellow-citizens who voted differently or fulfilled a civic duty as election officials or volunteers. Yet, the evening is coming. Time, like the tide, washes everything away, back into nothingness - dust to dust.
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One of the chief character traits encouraged in Buddhism is non-harming. When one lives in the light of her death, she lives wisely, and she wishes to live free of harming others.
Yet, not-harming is not enough. We need to be positive presences in the lives of others, not only non-harming but a blessing. After moving from a community, a community member wrote - Thank you for your presence, your joy and your willingness to be with us, each of us, including the four-footeds, in a way that reminds us we are children of Light.
To live among others in this world and remind them they are, like you, a child of Light, that is both a choice to not-harm and be a blessing - blessing not so much by what you say or do but how you embody the Light within you by being you.
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Yes, relax. What you call your life is a fleeting, precious life. Live to honor the gift and respect others whose lives are as precious and brief as yours.
And to encourage a wise and caring way of being in this world, remember... You do not have a sandcastle; you never did and never will. You do not have anything, not even yourself. And what you think you have - well, that is only a fiction society told you and sold you.
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As Anam Thubten reminds us, we are each fragile and beautiful. What if we treated everyone we met with this awareness - he, she, is fragile and beautiful? Also, what if we treated ourselves with that same respect? Indeed, those who heartlessly harm others act from a dislike, even hate, of themselves. When we lovingly embrace ourselves as a holy, lovely being, we treat others with the same recognition.
So, we can exist together enjoying and blessing each other, respecting, even reverencing each other. Or we can act like childish kids fighting over sandcastles. It is our choice. Living with death awareness inspires us to relax and enjoy life, likewise respecting others - human and nonhuman - who share this Earth with us. Life is a gift to all; let us act like it - in so doing, we enjoy Love's beatitude.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2020
*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. The book is a collection of poems based on mystical traditions, especially Christian and Sufi, with extensive notes on the teachings and imagery in the poetry.
*To contact Brian, write to LotusoftheHeart@gmx.com .
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