This blog was an investigation of Life. My life. My disaster of a Life and questions that it raised. It is 11 years since it started and I realised today that almost no progress has been made. Blundering around wondering whether to form sexual relationships, whether to work, buy a house, become a monk, abandon myself to pleasure, find some magical Enlightenment that would lift me out. What?
But realising that almost no progress has been made is the result of considerable progress. I realised that I need go back to Death first to see what is this Life. So what is Death? I shall present some ideas, none better than the rest, but all insufficient to capture the miraculous nature of Death.
A common view is that it is lights out. Game over. Oblivion. But consider the smaller death of closing our eyes. The world goes out. There is nothing but blackness but we don't for a minute think that the world has ceased to exist. We can think ourself into confusion here, but that isn't productive, so lets step around that quagmire. With out eyes closed we know the world carries on as usual. Our body is still here, our heart keeps beating, the sun keep moving through the sky. So when we die what makes us think anything changes then? Obviously our heart stops, and our brain shuts down and lots of other changes, but nothing actually changes. The world goes on. So what is this "oblivion" people speak of in this view of Death?
Another view is that we remain aware and while our physical eyes shut and our mortal body shuts down our hidden eyes are able to separate and travel to other places unseen by the living. This is a comforting thought. I have witness from several people on their death bed of being visited by people to take them away. Near death experiences are scientifically recognised. There is much mystery here. But like Oblivion it doesn't quite capture the whole mystery. If this "spiritual" body is always there then there is no real Death so we haven't got any closer to Death.
A common problem with ideas of Death is focus on the time and the body. We say of a child when they die what a tragedy that they didn't get to live their whole life. We know they are a child because their body is young. Older people look in the mirror and know that Death is approaching and accept it much more readily - I am satisfied with my life, or I have regrets. Although I know of some elderly who at Death were afraid by it, and others at younger age who were not concerned by it. We worry also about health and whether this body will last or give up on us. But our bodies, like our age and time, is not really connected to the question of Death. All these concerns are a side show to what is really going on in Life.
The key to the mystery of Death is linked to the mystery of Life. When do we Die is like the question when do we Live? Do I live yesterday? No. Do I live tomorrow? No. I live right now. In fact if I look at it, I always live right now. There has never been a moment in my life when I haven't been alive right now. And, I have never been alive yesterday, or tomorrow, only ever now. That sounds weird because I remember being alive yesterday and I expect to be alive tomorrow. But the point is those are only a memory and an expectation. If I had lost my memory it would be clearer: I am alive now and only ever now. That is where life happens. Our common view of Time is exactly like a wall calendar... it isn't time as it happens as we know it.
It's an odd way to see things to begin with, this "Present Moment" as it is usually called. But with practice we start to get the hang of it. We have many movies playing in the theatre of the Present Moment carrying all sorts of memories of the past, plans, thoughts. Often like with TV we get stuck watching them. But if we step back and survey Our Life as it stands we see that it is only what is happening that is Real. Everything else is a movie we are playing ourself along side what is happening.
So what of Death? If we look in the private movie theatre we see pictures of us as kids, and sketches of us as old people, and then perhaps brief glimpses of a funeral or grave, or perhaps a disaster where we die, or a peaceful scene with our loved ones around. Perhaps we play a film of us floating off to Heaven and being in the company of ancestors and God. But from the perspective of My Life this is all movie, a piece of entertainment. It isn't Death at all.
What emerges in the Present Moment of Life is that actually there is no exact thing called Death. The nearest thing to the opposite of Present Moment is day-dreaming on auto-pilot and we do that all the time. Indeed most of us spend most of our lives not in the Present Moment. We spend most of our lives not aware of Life, not actually Being Alive, and so in a way we are Dead most of the time! Ironically particularly when we are day dreaming about death!
If we return to our bodies for a moment. Or great fear is that the body will fail. But if we look at the body we have seen lots of bodies fail. It is on the news all the time. What we mean is that "our" body will fail. That is the one body amongst all the others that is our major concern. And now we enter the rabbit warren of the actual cause of the problem that Death poses. It is not Death itself, that happens all the time, it is "our" Death.
If for a second we ignore "our" Death and look at all the other Deaths. It is quite remarkable that they don't really make much difference. 80 million people died in World War 2. It is totally incomprehensible but every one of them was a person like you are I worrying about their Life, trying to stay alive and live a happy life. And all of them perished in a way we cannot even comprehend. And yet today for all that tragedy and disaster it makes no difference at all. The Sun still rises each day as though nothing had happened. Planet Earth is still blue. Its almost as though Death didn't exist!
What is surprising is the observation that a life ending is quite natural and normal. It is no great disaster. Every living thing will end its life at some stage. It is not really an event worth mentioning. Yet when it happens to us, or our loved ones then it is a matter for profound concern. I won't complete this now but I shall leave it here at the glaring contradiction between seeing so much death and destruction in World War 2 and it leaving almost no trace on the world, and the feeling that our own Death will be some cataclysmic event that will knock the stars out of the sky and cause Game Over or perhaps a celebration in Heaven.
Perhaps I will add one note that while I push toward a balanced and simple view of Death, this does not distract from the fact that in its reality it is a very traumatic experience for most, and thus always demands our deepest sympathies and support.
Death is certainly a mystery. One as great, deep and unfathomable as Life itself.
