Death - just a word?
Perhaps a frightening topic.
But it cannot be denied.
Joan Didion starts her book "The year of magical thinking" with the words.
Life changes fast
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
The question of self pity.
She writes about the year of grief when her husband and then her daughter died. Her husband very sudden.
I guess this is things you never come over...
They will never leave you
My father also died very suddenly. But he was sleeping then and he was quite old, at least over 70.
My mother had to live alone more then 20 years after that. But even more hard for her, was when my brother died some years later. He was an adult with his own family. But to loose a child seems to be a catastrophe even if the child is old.
My brother had a handicapped child, and now his former wife takes care of her. Of course I keep the contact with them as often I can. But I cannot do much.
A handicapped man that I helped, died i his sleep in his thirties. I was the one to phone his mother.
A goal keeper in soccer in an elite-team in Stockholm died just some days ago - 32 years old.
You cannot avoid death - it´s everywhere around you.
I famous Swedish painter, Lars Lerin, (see below) recently said in radio program : from childhood you have to live with the sad awareness that you one time will die. It seems that the rest of your life you have to coupe with this fact.
In western mindfulness training we seldom talks about death.
But Buddha did.
There even are mindfulness exercises to learn to cope with death.
But i think it´s first good to meditate on non- self, anatman, and interdependence.
According to Buddha we have no separate self. The absolute truth, and the wright view, is that we instead are interconnected with everything else... So, for instance, when you look at water you look at yourself; you are about 70 % water.
In that way there are no birth and no death. Water will be before you are born, and after you have died. The question is NOT to be or not to be, as Thay (Thich Nhat Hanh) use to say.
In his book, "The Miracle of Mindfulness" he writes about when he was 19 years old. An older monk wanted him to meditate on the image of a corpse in the cemetery. He first resisted it, thought it was better for older monks to do that.
But later he understood it could be be good to be prepared for death even if you are young. He had seen soldiers not elder than 15, lying dead on the ground. Probably victims of the war in Vietnam.
It seems that Buddha wanted us to be aware of everything, even death...
But, as I have pointed out, the question of death is connected to the question of non-self and the non-existence of a separate self.
And to get a grip of these questions, I think it's necessary to meditate, and then, at least for some minutes, stop the endless chatter in our heads...
There is a chance that you then will loose at least a bit of the fear of death.
There is a chance you will look at the world with the view of no coming - no going:
You loose thousands of cells each day, and new are born. So everyday a part of you dies and are born again. When you take your last breath it´s like when the tree looses it's last and dry leaf at the beginning of winter.
This more sophisticated and probably more true view of death that mindfulness can give is very helpful. Fear of death, for yourself and others, is often the root of other anguish. And with this wisdom in your heart, you probably will slow down and be more peaceful...
But it cannot be denied.
Joan Didion starts her book "The year of magical thinking" with the words.
Life changes fast
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
The question of self pity.
She writes about the year of grief when her husband and then her daughter died. Her husband very sudden.
I guess this is things you never come over...
They will never leave you
My father also died very suddenly. But he was sleeping then and he was quite old, at least over 70.
My mother had to live alone more then 20 years after that. But even more hard for her, was when my brother died some years later. He was an adult with his own family. But to loose a child seems to be a catastrophe even if the child is old.
My brother had a handicapped child, and now his former wife takes care of her. Of course I keep the contact with them as often I can. But I cannot do much.
A handicapped man that I helped, died i his sleep in his thirties. I was the one to phone his mother.
A goal keeper in soccer in an elite-team in Stockholm died just some days ago - 32 years old.
You cannot avoid death - it´s everywhere around you.
I famous Swedish painter, Lars Lerin, (see below) recently said in radio program : from childhood you have to live with the sad awareness that you one time will die. It seems that the rest of your life you have to coupe with this fact.
In western mindfulness training we seldom talks about death.
But Buddha did.
There even are mindfulness exercises to learn to cope with death.
But i think it´s first good to meditate on non- self, anatman, and interdependence.
According to Buddha we have no separate self. The absolute truth, and the wright view, is that we instead are interconnected with everything else... So, for instance, when you look at water you look at yourself; you are about 70 % water.
In that way there are no birth and no death. Water will be before you are born, and after you have died. The question is NOT to be or not to be, as Thay (Thich Nhat Hanh) use to say.
In his book, "The Miracle of Mindfulness" he writes about when he was 19 years old. An older monk wanted him to meditate on the image of a corpse in the cemetery. He first resisted it, thought it was better for older monks to do that.
But later he understood it could be be good to be prepared for death even if you are young. He had seen soldiers not elder than 15, lying dead on the ground. Probably victims of the war in Vietnam.
It seems that Buddha wanted us to be aware of everything, even death...
But, as I have pointed out, the question of death is connected to the question of non-self and the non-existence of a separate self.
And to get a grip of these questions, I think it's necessary to meditate, and then, at least for some minutes, stop the endless chatter in our heads...
There is a chance that you then will loose at least a bit of the fear of death.
There is a chance you will look at the world with the view of no coming - no going:
You loose thousands of cells each day, and new are born. So everyday a part of you dies and are born again. When you take your last breath it´s like when the tree looses it's last and dry leaf at the beginning of winter.
This more sophisticated and probably more true view of death that mindfulness can give is very helpful. Fear of death, for yourself and others, is often the root of other anguish. And with this wisdom in your heart, you probably will slow down and be more peaceful...
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