Some 40 years ago, upon landing in Northern California, I took a course in Death and Dying based on the book by Stephen Levine, Who Dies, and the work about those themes by American guru Baba Ram Dass. It was a fascinating study over the period of about a year or so, focused on a Tibetan practice of teaching and engaging in mindfulness meditation with people, for the most part total strangers, who were going through the process of dying and the outcome of facing and living with their inevitable demise. What I learned of most value during these periods in traveling down these paths with others was an invaluable lesson in keeping my mouth shut, listening to other voices, withholding judgments, about them and myself in rather long periods of total silence.
Death seems to be a lot in my mind of late, but that’s no surprise when you’ve clocked 84 years and have had a few medical close calls. It’s funny how with every new ache and pain that pops up on a seeming daily basis, my mind immediately jumps to brain cancer, or impending heart attack or some other deadly disease short of leprosy or elephantiasis.
Oddly, when it comes to dying, I feel less afraid than I always have since early on. It’s not like I’m welcoming the dance, but then again there are times when I’ve just felt like I’ve had enough of life, I’ve done the best I could in the time allotted, sort of, and I’m ready to “move on.” Whatever that means.
It’s not like I have no regrets, hell, they’re legion. Decisions I’ve made, things I’ve said in anger or wheedling, or actions taken in regard to some stressful nonsense or other. Over time I’ve tried to clear up lousy karma, but I can’t seem to get ahead of the past stuff fast enough to clean that slate. It’s not that I believe that someone or something is keeping score and I’ll be presented with a tally at the end of my run, with some sort of major penalty slapped on me. I don’t generally ride those trains of thought.
So, like everyone, thoughts about life and death bounce around in my brain, and even though the fear factor has dissipated somewhat I’m not exactly opening my arms to it and inviting it in. Quite the contrary, I’m rather still enjoying the whole bizarre song and dance, as maddening as all that gets from time to time.
Which brings me to the paradox, that ever-tricky deal life seems to present on an ongoing basis. You know, like good and evil, right and wrong, or whether light is made up of particles or waves, that old conundrum that seems to stump all of science, even those science geeks who pretend to know so much. Maybe it’s all wavy particles that just can’t decide what the hell they are, and probably if asked don’t care anyway. I’m just glad, amazed actually, that light suddenly appears when you flick a switch.
What could be more paradoxical than the very existence of life itself, which beckons us to live every minute to its fullest, while meanwhile we’re hurtling toward death? Seems rather contradictory, eh what? But that’s the game, so better get used to it.
Then my mind goes to the advice of Carlos Castaneda, in the “Teachings of Don Juan,” to always keep death on your shoulder, either one, as the ever-present reminder that your next decision just might be the last one you ever make. It definitely works as a prompt. Then again always schlepping death around with you and questioning it with every choice one needs to make, just might leave you stymied far too often.
How is one to hold contradictory conclusions without weighing every valence interminably, without being dumbstruck and permanently stuck in indecision? Like when to hold on or let go, be it life or death or whatever happens to pop up?
If any of you readers has an answer to that, please drop me a line or tell me to buzz off and stop writing about death and other buzz kills. Life is far too short to waste any more time contemplating life and death when you’d rather be watching football or be caught up in some other critically important pastime.
Getting back to life or death, the latter in particular, I admit to not believing anything about a God or an afterlife. Contradictorily, I still worry about Shakespeare’s admonition about that worrisome “rub” problem posed by jolly old Hamlet, about dreams and such after we die. If so, I hope not, as the very thought that there might be that possibility scares the blank out of me. So, that’s about where things stand for me and death, and once again I’m lost and floundering in a sea of paradox. No God or Son-of to assure the weary traveler through life that the only thing that awaits him is the endless and peaceful rest for eternity at journey’s end. Devoutly to be wished.
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