Thursday, February 3, 2011

Life and Death

I think and talk about Life a lot and I also think and talk about its corollary death a great deal. I'm even part of a memorial society and regularly talk to people about doing some thinking and planning around their deaths. As you can imagine this isn't a particularly popular topic in our culture, which is interesting given it is the only inevitable consequence of living in a body (taxes are regularly avoided).
So why think or talk about death, isn't that negative? I've actually had people say they or their family members didn't want to talk about it because that would somehow make it happen. We really haven't gotten far from some very primitive beliefs have we? I'm not much into the only think positive movement these days; if you really look closely you'll find the same old superstitions wearing new clothes there. Besides, I don't regard death as a bad thing. Bodies are material things that come and go just like everything else in the manifest world.
I used to believe strongly in reincarnation which actually got me past a very intense fear of death when I was in my 20's.I'm not particularly sold on that or any other teachings about what came before or what comes next and why we should all be good little children so we don't have a bad experience in the next life anymore either for that matter. Truth is I don't know what happens after I die (or tomorrow for that matter) and I no longer feel the need to insert some kind of belief about an afterlife in order to be OK with being in this one. What's the point other than to make ourselves feel better somehow or reinforce the idea that we are bad and undeserving for some unknown reason? It's also a great way to avoid being present to death.
We have a million ways of avoiding the reality of death, the great unknown, in our culture. I love watching crime shows on TV. I love the humanness and in particular the puzzle solving process. What is obvious however is that all the puzzle solving activity around why and how people die and who to blame for it is really just another way of avoiding death even though it seems to be all about that. It isn't; it's yet another distraction that's about anything but being with death in its raw, incomprehensible beauty.
I remember reading about the contemplation of one's own death by meditating on actual skulls and bones as a practice of free masonry in The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. I was impressed and thought that was an incredibly powerful practice. I don't care if imagery is used or not, it seems to me the contemplation of our death and confrontation of the innumerable beliefs we generally suppress around death is a fundamental aspect of being able to fully be in life. As I sit here even now contemplating my death I feel the energy of Life flowing more fully throughout this body.

No comments:

Post a Comment