There is obviously much about death we do not understand, and that is because we do not like to think about it. Yet we must contemplate death and loss the instant we perceive any moment of life, or we will not have perceived life at all, but know only the half of it.
Each moment ends the instant it begins.
If you do not see this, you will not see what is exquisite in it, and you will call the moment ordinary. Each interaction “begins to end” the instant it “begins to begin.” Only when this is truly contemplated and deeply understood does the full treasure of every moment and of life itself - opens to you. Life cannot give itself to you if you do not understand death. You must do more than understand it. You must love it, even as you love life.
Your time with each person would be glorified if you thought it was your last time with that person. Your experience of each moment would be enhanced beyond measure if you thought it was the last such moment. Your refusal to contemplate your own death leads to your refusal to contemplate your own life. You do not see it for what it is. You miss the moment, and all that it holds for you. You look right past it instead of right through it. When you look deeply at something you see right through it. To contemplate a thing deeply is to see right through it. Then the illusion ceases to exist. Then you see a thing for what it really is. Only then can you truly enjoy it, in-joy. (To “en-joy” is to render something joyful.)
Even the illusion you can then enjoy. For you will know it is an illusion, and that is half the enjoyment! It is the fact that you think it is real that causes you all the pain. Nothing is painful which you understand is not real.
Nothing is painful which you understand is not real.
It is like a movie, a drama, played out on the stage of your mind. You are creating the situations and the characters. You are writing the lines. Nothing is painful the moment you understand that nothing is real.
This is as true of death as it is of life.
When you understand that death, too, is an illusion, then you can say, “O death, where is thy sting?”
You can even enjoy death! You can even enjoy someone else’s death.
Does that seem strange? Does that seem a strange thing to say?
Only if you do not understand death and life.
Death is never an end, but always a new beginning. Death is a door opening, not a door closing. When you understand that life is eternal, you understand that death is your illusion, keeping you very concerned with, and therefore helping you believe that you are your body. Yet you are not your body, and so the decay of your body is of no concern to you.
Death should teach you that what is real is life, and life teaches you that what is unavoidable is not death, but impermanence. Impermanence is the only truth. Nothing is permanent. All is changing, In every instant, in every moment.
Were anything permanent, it could not exist on its own. For even the very concept of permanence depends upon impermanence to have any meaning. Therefore, even permanence is impermanent. Look at this deeply. Contemplate this truth. Comprehend it, and you shall comprehend God.
This is the Dharma, and this is the Buddha. This is the Buddha Dharma. This is the teaching and the teacher. This is the lesson and the master. This is the object and the observer, rolled into one. They never have been other than One. It is you who have unrolled them, so that your life may unroll before you. Yet as you watch your own life roll out before you, do not yourself become unraveled. Keep your Self together! See the illusion! Enjoy it! But do not become it!
You are not the illusion, but the creator of it.
You are in this world, but not of it.
So use your illusion of death. Allow it to be the key that opens you to more of life.
See the flower as dying and you will see the world sadly. Yet see the flower as part of a whole tree that is changing, and will soon bear fruit, and you see the flower’s true beauty. When you understand that the blossoming and the falling away of the flower is a sign that the tree is ready to bear fruit, then you understand life.
Look at this carefully and you will see that life is its own metaphor.
Always remember, you are not the flower, nor are you even the fruit. You are the tree. And your roots are deep, embedded in God. For God is the soil from which you have sprung, both your blossoms and your fruit will return to God, creating more soil. Thus, life begets life, and cannot know death, ever.
