Aloha Sangha

ancient wisdom for crazy times

Category: death and dying

  • this is why we meditate

    this is why we meditate

    In the present moment we discover a spontaneity beyond time, where there is no aging, no measuring, no comparing to what was, and no worry about what will be.

    Perhaps I get a little carried away with Buddhist contemplation?

    I mean, just the other day I felt compelled to pull over while driving to ponder whether in light of the radical teachings of impermanence, do I continue along as usual, making coffee, going to work and streaming my shows when I get home?

    Perhaps I am ruminating on mortality as I recently had a birthday?

    Aging. It kind of sneaked up on me.

    Am I old? Well, according to John Shoven, a professor at Stanford University, someone age 65 is now considered old. No wonder so many nurses at work ask me when I am retiring.

    I guess I am officially old at 68.

    Woody Allen once remarked about his own mortality:

    I don’t want to live on in the hearts of others. I want to live on in my apartment.

    We know we are going to die. It’s only a question of when. Yet we console ourselves we have lots of time, much of which is spent planning on some better version of now.

    Christopher Titmus recently gave a talk in which he quipped,

    Taking an exam in chemistry is a picnic compared to taking chemotherapy.

    Ulla-Carin Lindquist, at the height of a successful career as a newscaster in Sweden, was diagnosed with ALS. She kept of journal of her few years, published as Rowing Without Oars: A Memoir of Living and Dying, in which she wrote:

    There is no bright future for me, but there is a bright present.

    Reflecting on her line, I suspect life itself let her in on a little secret–that her mortality is not a problem to be solved, but a “brightness” disclosing itself right here, right now, in the present moment.

    Even though I started studying Buddhism when I was 22, the depth of the teachings is really hitting me much deeper now. I appreciate aging as at the heart of the Buddha’s message.

    Suzuki Roshi, whose talks in the 1960s became the classic book Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, taught that each breath was like a whole life, with a beginning, a middle and an end.

    And that each exhale is a kind of dying.

    In our practice, we especially get to know our out-breath, fading into a “sheet of white paper” as Suzuki Roshi described it. To which his student Mel Weitsman adds,

    When the moment of death comes, our last breath is familiar and comfortable. There is no need to be afraid.

    As we journey through the pages of our human story, our practice encourages us to be softer, more vulnerable, more caring, and loving.

    And to flow with change.

    In the present moment we discover a spontaneity beyond time, where there is no aging, no measuring, no comparing to what was, and no worry about what will be.

    Ulla-Carin Lindquist, suffering from a terminal illness, was spot on:

    There is no bright future… but there is a bright present.

    This is freedom. This is love. This is peace.

    This is why we meditate.

  • Buddhist death meditation: letting go of regrets

    Buddhist death meditation: letting go of regrets

    Buddhist death meditation encourages a gradual letting go of regrets.

    In her most recent book, Alive Until You’re Dead: Notes on the Home Stretch, the 81-year-old Zen teacher, editor and writer Susan Moon relates an ordeal she went through while riding on public transit from Berkeley to the San Francisco airport.

    When she got to the airport, she realized that her carry-on bag, which had her IDs, credit cards, cash, appointment book and teaching notes, had been stolen.

    She writes she felt “stripped of everything.”

    She could not board her flight to her teaching gig without her ID, but she still had her round-trip public transit ticket. So she took the train back to Berkeley. And on the way home, she had an epiphanic insight.

    Yes, she lost some valuable stuff, but she suddenly realized she still had her life, her body, her family, and her friends.

    “I touched my own knees in amazement, and wanted to jump up and down in the train, shouting, `I’m alive! I’m alive!’ She writes:

    The theft was a strange gift. I lost some objects, yes, and I gained a sense of gratitude for my life that is still with me. I often forget how amazing it is to be alive, but if I concentrate, I can open a drawer in my mind and find the memory of that train ride.

    My life feels more complicated each day, with a ridiculous number of choices to make and noise to filter out. I get stuck in overwhelm mode. My system gets bogged down, flooded with sticky memories triggered by the media.

    As much as I try to practice culture war pacifism, the news still gets to me. But then I reflect on the words of the American Buddhist monk, Ajahn Nisabho:

    There is a role for political discussion, for talking to people about what is meaningful. But it’s very important to understand that as practitioners of this path, you have stepped into a higher order narrative and received something which is far more important than the political debate of the day.

    Reading this, I take a breath and try to connect with this “higher order narrative.”

    I appreciate the late Indian philosopher Krishnamurti’s words here:

    You think you’re thinking your thoughts. You are not. You are thinking the culture’s thoughts.

    Yeah, and many of us even take our cell phones to bed with us. I admit to being guilty as charged (or maybe guilty when charged–my phone, that is.)

    what is this higher order narrative?

    The other day I sat in meditation, turning Ajahn Nisabho’s phrase over in my head: what is this higher order narrative I have stepped into? And as nature would have it, I had my own epiphanic insight.

    I’m not sure I can describe it in my own words, but a few lines from the poem “When Death Comes,” by Mary Oliver kept coming up.

    When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

    perfect just as it is right now

    Our simple mindfulness shows us this amazing, crazy world is perfect, just as it is right now. It couldn’t be otherwise.

    Yes, even my life as it is right now: overweight, under-exercised, and not looking forward to the long drive home in heavy morning traffic from my night shift job.

    I used to feel quite depressed. A part of me was consumed with fantasies and expectations: my kids, my marriage, my meditation practice, my crazy job.

    I’m much happier now.

    letting go of these fantasies of some other life

    Finding happiness was about letting go of these fantasies and realizing that life is truly amazing without them. I would even say–especially without them.

    My higher order narrative is just this: when I lie on my deathbed, can I let go of any regrets for having just been me?

    Thank you Suan Moon, for the gift of having your bag stolen on public transit, and for sharing it with us.