| Living Compassion

Living and Dying

Dear Cheri,

The other evening, while feeling kind of a low-level numbness, or perhaps dissatisfaction, what arose for me was, "What if I had just one more day to live? What if I had just one more week to live? What if I had just one more month to live? What if I had just one more year to live?" Quickly followed by a calm, "How would I be, and what would I do?" And for some reason, this just really struck me in a way it never had before. It wasn't anything new per se (I suspect that most people have this arise from time to time?), but for me, this time, it was new for 'who' was hearing it. It went deeply into my heart. So I pulled out a pen and paper and made four lists: Day, Week, Month, and Year. Then I sat very quietly and waited for things to arise. As they did, I would put them into one of the four lists. It was quite a magical and inspiring experience, and one that shifted my attention to a whole new realm of possibility for being alive to Life.

In the days that have followed, when I've found myself once again engaged in the familiar dissatisfied numbness of the voices, I've been using the insight from that night; "If today was my last day, how would I be? What would I do?" to bring me back Here. And it is proving to be an incredibly helpful, if not challenging, practice. Right now what that practice boils down to is that each time I wake up and notice that my attention has moved into a vague story of something being wrong (with me, with life, with anything), I'll simply say out loud, "Wow, if this was my last day, if this was it, no waking up tomorrow morning, would I, Really, be listening to this right now? Really? Would I, Really, give my life over to feeling this bad if this was going to be my last day? Would I, Really, listen to those voices?" Or, "Would I, Really, be spending my time doing this? Ticking this thing off a made up to do list? Really?" And apart from the obvious, "No", this line of questioning has brought my attention back to a direct focus on breathing, to being in the body, to being present to what is, and, most intriguingly, to a realization of this deep sense of aliveness, or oneness, that feels like a much more authentic experience of my true nature.

The amazing thing is that in the realization, and subsequent experience of "me" as something that is more encompassing than ego, it feels like I am afforded (who knows for sure?), a direct experience of Life. It's something like, "Yes, here I am again. I've come back to an authentic experience of Life, an authentic experience of "me". I'm here again, having the experience of feeling awake, alive, and totally reassured of the process of Life living Life, as, "me". And this is paralleled with the realization of, "Oh, that's right, the thing that is dying here is ego, not me. Authentic "me" doesn't die, only ego does. I just keep mistaking myself, as, ego, thinking that I am the thing that is dying." I was kind of seeing all this as a paradox of sorts. It is the very realization, and taking to heart, of the immediacy that I could die at any moment, that is leading me to experience myself as that which cannot die. Very fun indeed.

After a long period where I had few, if any, insights around the living and dying process, this experience has all been rather exhilarating for me, and something I feel very grateful for. It is also an experience that repeats itself. So before long I get identified again, begin to feel numb, mildly dissatisfied, unaware of "authentic me", but then suddenly remember, "Oh wait, what is this? Really? Would I, Really, be engaged with this if this was my last day?" And then just breathing, and feeling expansive, and feeling tuned in to Life as "me" again.

Gassho

Living and Dying

mainbuilding2

Dear Cheri,

My health has been outstanding recently and for that I have been feeling phenomenally grateful. While on two separate trips these past few months, I didn't so much as have a single cause for concern, as there were simply no incidents where my health felt compromised in any way-partially due to just the good health I've been experiencing, and no doubt partially due to more skillful caring for my body, both by myself as well by the kindness of those around me-to whom I feel deeply grateful. Since I've returned from these two trips however, I've had a two wake up calls health-wise that have both surprised, as well as re-grounded me into the priorities of my life.

The more severe of the two was today (the other was just after stepping off the plane upon my return). After a wonderful late afternoon/early evening walk, in which I hydrated myself well both before, as well as during the walk (fatigue and hydration are the two things I best avoid regarding my health situation), I had the scary experience of being on the freeway driving home when I just began to lose it. The black tunnel began to pull me into it as the part of the body that is challenged just lost its way. Now this experienced has happened many, many times since my very first incident, but never while I was driving, let alone driving on the freeway at the increased speed that one drives at on the freeway. I won't go into too much detail other than to say that it scared a part of me and that I cried a lot when I got home.

Through the experience, I did get to see something truly amazing. And that was, seeing how incredibly fortunate I am that each time one of these life or death situations happens, there is always this really big force of awareness that is simultaneously present. It has always been this way for me right from the very beginning. A complete absence of fear, panic and confusion, but rather, a total slowing down into a stillness where life feels like it is happening in slow motion, and an expanded awareness of what's available to me in those moments for the best possible outcome of the situation. It's like every ounce of wisdom and awareness of all that could be done in each given moment is available to me. And very clearly, it is not, me, who is thinking of what to do etc. This is absolutely Life taking over.

So there I was today driving along (in the middle of three lanes), the experience starts happening, and with no skill of my own, I am all of the sudden doing everything that could possibly be done for the best possible outcome. Life took over. On went the hazards, all the mirrors were checked, lanes were changed, reassurances were arising ("You're okay, everything's fine, you're okay"), coaching on how to breathe to maintain consciousness was happening, I was barely aware from one moment to the next when all of the wisdom, wherewithal, and awareness to get off the freeway safely was taking place. And once I was resting on the side of the road, Life continued to do it's thing: "Okay, great job, now, where's the nearest place to get you some food and hydration, slow calm breaths, you're doing fine, everything is okay, are you okay to drive right now, check in with how you feel Now, how's everything feel, okay? Do you need to call for help? ...and on and on it went. I was being totally cared for and totally looked after, perhaps even getting a glimpse of the magnitude of how life could actually be experienced all the time when Life is in charge?

For me, the experience today was a miracle. Everything about it was a miracle; from nobody getting killed, to Life taking the reigns when action was required, to me being available for Life to take the reigns. It was all just miraculous. The other way I would describe the experience today was that it felt like Life conducted a master symphony through this being today and I got to witness the symphony from a front row seat. It was very moving. I cried my eyes out when I reached home and realized what had happened. I think the tears were tears of relief, awe, thankfulness, and love. To be sure, conditioned mind was right there at the door to try and muscle its way back in with, "It was no big deal, don't be so drama, stop trying to make this mean something, etc.", but I cried my tears of thanks to/for Life nonetheless and was happy to be doing so.

Even though in our Practice I know we talk about Life always being in the driver's seat (no pun intended!), I often don't really experience it that way. It's not that I don't want to experience it that way, just that with a lifetime's (and perhaps many lifetimes actually) worth of practice acting out the self-will of egocentric karmic conditioning, it just doesn't happen that often that "I" gets out of the way long enough to have a direct experience of Life. However, it is in moments like the one I had today that I can get a real sense of what we are talking about when we say that Life is actually in control All the time; and how deeply grateful I am for that.

Gassho

Living and Dying

monsterytourrefer

Dear Cheri,

I was chatting with a friend of mine today when he started sharing about how he has been thinking about death and "what comes next" a lot recently. He was saying how he was thinking about mortality and acknowledged that some fear was coming up for him, ending with something along the lines of, "I need to upgrade my belief system about death and what comes next because the old beliefs of how I was raised no longer align with how I feel about things now." At the time, something struck me about what he was saying, but I couldn't think of what it was. However, just now as I was going along with some activities around the house, it came to me that, for me, it isn't a case of wanting to upgrade or create any new beliefs about death and what comes next, so much as wanting to see clearly the conditioned beliefs that are already in place.

I was pleased for the opportunity to have such an interaction because death and dying are not often brought up in everyday conversations I tend to have and therefore this gave me a chance to reflect upon the living and dying process in a more "public" setting. However, it wasn't that I was keen to get into an intellectual discussion about death and what happens after people die (I suspect that the only thing that would be interested in such a conversation would be the conditioned mind itself), so much as, as I mentioned above, that it moved me to reflect upon the conditioned beliefs and assumptions that are already in place for me regarding death and "what comes next". After listening to what my friend was looking at for a while, I simply said, "Boy, that would be a really great topic to ask someone to do some reflective listening for you so that you just might get to see what the heck is in there driving everything." He agreed and the conversation passed.

When I did sit and reflect upon the beliefs and assumptions that I was conditioned to believe about death and "what comes next", I drew a blank, as I often do. It seems to be an area that I have been conditioned to believe needs to be feared and is taboo in some way. The one thing that I do notice however is a conditioned reaction of feeling really awkward and uncomfortable when somebody brings up the death of, or the dying of, someone they know. What I experience in those situations is just a scrambling to "know the right thing to say", and often experience a real desperate looking for some kind of neutral, safe ground to stand on for the "right way to be". I often find myself giving a stock response of what I think I'm supposed to say, having very little eye contact with the person, and steering the conversation as quickly as possible back to an unemotional...and therefore safe, place. (I am highly suspicious of ego's role in all of this: the discomfort, the unemotional place equals safe place stuff, the right way to be, etc. Will have to look closer at that.) Basically though, I just feel this sense of scrambling happening inside me to avoid at all costs having to "be with" the feelings that arise for me in those situations. Hmm, again, this sounds more like conditioning is doing anything it can to distract me from experiencing or "being with" the feelings that arise in me when death or the dying process are present...perhaps even when the grieving process is present?

This is all really helpful to see and on so many levels too. To be aware of just how much discomfort there is (for me?) around "being with" someone who is confronted with the dying process feels invaluable right now. It feels invaluable to me because it brings my attention to a place of looking more closely at the relationship that I have with the part of me who is confronted with his own dying process (and therefore his own living process too). What arises for me is, "Am I able to simply "be with" that part of me who is confronted with death; his feelings, his fears, etc.? Or, am I unknowingly (until now) avoiding him at all costs?" That feels really worth exploring and I feel grateful to have seen this just now.

Gassho

Living and Dying

arches

Dear Cheri,

I had been planning on taking this morning to sleep in and just rest the body. This had come to my attention because recently I've been adding some extra exercise into my days and the cumulative effect led me to feel that it was time to give the body the gift of rest. When I awoke however, I got hoodwinked into dismissing that good guidance from the mentor, in order to "not miss out on doing my routine". About fifteen minutes into my first sit, I suddenly realized that so much fatigue was present that the part of my body that struggles with the ailment I live with felt physically compromised. (Not compromised due to just sitting and breathing, but due to, how, I was sitting and breathing, which was doing so with immense effort.) So without hesitation, and with no voices of resistance (that I was aware of), I simply got up off the cushion and walked gently back to my room to lie down and rest as per my original plan.

As I was walking back to my room, it occurred to me that I felt completely cared for and loved in that moment. This really struck me as it is so much my practice to never get up off the cushion once a sit has started, that doing so this morning, which may have been the first time for me, was being met with overwhelming compassion and not with self hating voices (And of course on any other occasion, I might not have chosen to get up off the cushion. It was just the appropriate thing to do in that particular moment.) And so I rested, not for my usual 10-20 minutes, but for the next four hours. During which time, I barely moved a muscle. And even though my eyes were glued shut, and I was motionless, I only fell asleep but for a moment or two here and there. Otherwise, I lay still as can be, totally relaxed, awake and alert to my breathing, mostly aware of where attention was moving to, and really just felt totally at peace. It was total bliss.

The one rather prominent voice I did keep coming back to as I rested was, "this feels so kind, and I feel so good right now". It was just this beautiful space that seemed available to me to turn my attention to. There was a story of disbelief as to how I could be resting like this and somehow not be getting beaten up for doing so, but this disbelief was consumed by pure acceptance that this was the perfect experience to be having.

When I did arise some four hours later, there was no fuss, no fanfare, and most importantly, no consequences. Instead, I experienced just a calm, gentle, relaxed feeling of being very present to my whole being and grateful to be so "in" the body. After becoming aware of this, the first thing that came to me was, "What's the point of all the striving in my life? Where do I think I am going? What is it that I am trying to attain? What am I trying to get away from? Who is the "I" in all of this? What the heck is in charge of my life that makes me feel like I need to live a life that makes sense and has a purpose that is defined by urgency and striving? By how productive I am each day? Why am I being run like a corporation, striving for its/my survival in a 'tough marketplace', playing by rules that are make-believe? If I knew I was going to die tomorrow, would I really choose to strive so hard to do life in the way I am doing so now?" Just a series of questions that brought some clarity to the absolute silliness of the constant striving, the constant urgency that tends to dominate my life.

What occurred to me on the heals of these questions was, "I have identified myself with something that is terrified of its own death. And in doing so, I am racing around in life striving to avoid something, death, that I have no evidence that would be anything to actually be afraid of. Where does fear and striving come into death and the dying process anyway?"

The craziness of this whole paradigm, is that the more I am being led to avoid "my" fear of death, the more I am being led to strive away from the only place where I might come to peace with death and the dying process; through living life in the present moment. (It occurs to me as I am writing this that the inseparable oneness of the living and dying process co-exists beautifully in the present moment.) It's like one perpetuates the other; the more striving there is to avoid life in the present moment, the scarier death becomes. And I suspect (especially based on my experience this morning), that only through opening fully to life in the present moment will I ever be at peace with death and the dying process.

This morning, without any self-hate present, I realized that I have somehow allowed conditioned mind to come in and take charge of what would otherwise be a very compassionate daily routine I have arranged for myself; A routine that supports me in being present as much as possible right now. By simply taking today "off" so to speak, what I did was discover that what I was actually taking "off" were conditioning's standards and beliefs about my life. And in doing was much more "on", or in tune with life. In other words, in tune with the needs of this human being. For a week now I had been avoiding writing a blog, striving to do everything other than to sit still and pay attention to what has been arising for me around the living and dying process. I was under the illusion that I was living life more fully (which at certain points no doubt I was) by adding more activities to each day. But what I am aware of now is that without the mindfulness to match it, the more activities that were being added were, in essence, turning into more striving, more urgency to get through the day without ever being Here. It is clear to me now that the urgency, the striving, is ego's agenda and that this past week (most of my life actually) I had simply been identifying myself as it, as ego, and therefore neglecting the true needs of the human being. This morning however, I took a little step towards coming back to being with the kindness of the present moment, the kindness of Here, and with that, I feel a little more at peace with the living and dying process.

Gassho

Living and Dying

Dear Cheri,

The last time I met with my doctor he remarked that, "The way things look with your health situation as of now, it may be that you could live for a good number of years to come." He spoke in a fairly vague manner, not even looking directly at me. However, what I projected was that it was his most sincere attempt at expressing cautious optimism regarding the medical opportunity I am facing and I appreciated what he had to say. This was a few months ago now and for some reason, just today that conversation came back to me and triggered a number of insights surrounding the living and dying process that I hadn't really looked at before. So I thought I might write to you about what was coming up for me.

The main insight that came to me was this; "There is such a difference between the dualistic notion of life and death, and the oneness of the living and dying process." I really saw a lot in that when it came to me so let me see if I can articulate how I was interpreting it.

The first thing that struck me was the duality of life and death. To me, it feels like there is a whole belief system that I have been buying into which always concludes that there is an I who is a separate entity from life, having at a fixed point in time been born into life, and will, at some other fixed point in the future, die from life. In other words, at one point, I didn't exist, then, when I was born, I began existing, and when I die (i.e. when the physical form is vacated), I will once again cease to exist. Perceiving life from within this paradigm seems to orientate me towards a life dedicated to fear and suffering. My whole life feels like a fight for survival. There is somehow this belief that if I just work hard enough to be the right way, if I just make the right decision each time, that I might just have a shot at not dying, i.e., that I might just have a shot at not ceasing to exist. Identified as the one who believes this life/death system, the whole experience of being me is terrifying.

And when living this life death duality out, my life is rendered one harrowing situation after another, each moment becoming a "life or death" decision full of angst, worry and confusion (make the "wrong" decision and death is imminent, be the wrong way and death is imminent). And of course nothing I do, nothing I say, or no way that I am will ever be enough in order to survive. As I had been looking at in a previous writing, the vacating of the physical form seems to be all the evidence that ekc needs to prove my inadequacy to the task it has laid out for me: to survive that which cannot be survived. The perfect set up for a life of suffering. It feels rather absurd to even think about it like this, but indeed this seems to be what life feels like when I'm living from the dualistic notion of life and death.

The living and dying process however feels like a completely different experience altogether. For me, the living and dying process feels deeply rooted in the process of learning to care for the human being who is going through an unnerving opportunity in life. It just seems to me that embracing the dying or decaying of the physical form is inseparable from waking up to living a fully engaged life. The follow-up insight that came to me about the living and dying process was this, "Embracing a living process that includes the dying process, while simultaneously embracing a dying process that is part of the living process, is all the healing I will ever need." There was just this beautiful continuum to the way I was interpreting the living and dying process, as opposed to the finality life and death.

There were a number of other things that were coming to me too that I was tempted (by the voices) to leave out of this writing, but I've chosen to leave them in. Here is what was coming to me with regards to the living and dying process: "There is nothing finite about any of it. The decaying of the physical form is as interesting and challenging as just about anything else in life. My happiness isn't defined by getting what I want, but by realizing that I can be present to whatever is arising in each moment. That truly is joyful. There is nothing for me to survive, because there isn't a separate me to survive anything. Furthermore, that there is no need for me to be a certain way, no right thing to do or say, in order to be okay. When I embrace the living and dying process as a continuum, there is simply nothing to worry about, nothing to stew over. I'm not actually going anywhere, I'm simply being alive to each moment as it arises. There are endless opportunities, moment by moment to participate in life, but the outcome of my participation never has the consequences of life and death. It's all just one possibility for noticing something new after another. Life is wonderment, not survival, a gift, not a curse of angst and worry." How very different I am seeing life and death, from the living and dying process.

I suspect that what my doctor was saying to me was coming much more from the perspective of life and death, rather than from the perspective of the living and dying process, although who knows, and nor does it matter actually. As I said above, I was simply appreciative to hear him say what he did. And from my own perspective, when I am not under the illusion that there are these fixed points in time that demarcate when I came into existence and when I will cease to exist, but rather, when I am just embracing a living process that includes the dying process, and simultaneously embracing a dying process that is part of the living process, I am finding life to be a lot more fun.

Gassho

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