Living Whilst Dying

   It's perhaps become a cliche to say that Buddhism (and other religions) teach us how to face death with equanimity. Some religions are doing this by reassuring its practitioners of the afterlife to come, while others help us to meditate on death as a daily practice. What I think is especially challenging is to recognize death in the midst of living. What I mean by this is that the things we work for now are all impermanent and are going to change to something else. It's inevitable and something about life that we need to face. But too much emphasis on "death" can lead to nihilism, despair, or even the desire to stop trying altogether. I have a feeling that his might have been what Freud meant by the "death instinct" (Thanatos). There is some part of us that no longer wants to continue the struggle of life; we even want to crawl back into the womb, because life can be so precarious, uncertain and harsh. Sometimes this even takes the form of not wanting to get out of bed in the morning! Here, I think the challenge is to embrace death as a living presence in our lived experience: to see that life and death are inseparable.

  Without death, there could be no change, and we wouldn't be able to let go of things. We would also ossify around a sense of self that can become quickly outdated. Letting go itself can be invigorating, because it can help us release painful attachments to things that really have nothing to do with who we are. Imagine one of those barbary sheep or reindeer carrying a head of dead horns or antlers--how it feels to shed all those dead accretions and start all over again. It's a relief for us to suffer the death of things that are giving us too much pressure or pain. However, we should also be aware that all of life is loaded with pain and responsibilities. It's important not to make death into a new kind of desire, such as the desire for "no responsibility", no pain, hassles etc, all of which is unrealistic and delusory. Instead, we should always be ready to do whatever we can to preserve the important things around us. This is not because these things are forever, but because going through the experience of cherishment and loss are the ways that we can mature and learn what interconnection is. To me, this is the experience of "Living Whilst Dying" or "Dying Whilst Living".