There is not a day that goes by where I am not intimately aware of death. It’s been this way for me for over ten years. I wake up each day not knowing but expecting to find out who has died now in my sphere of living awareness. Will it be a stranger? Will it be someone close and dear? Every time they are out of the house without me, I think about my family, having to remind myself to trust life and fate as it unfolds – practicing mindful acceptance. I walk past the doors of each room every night, several times a night, just to see that the breath of peaceful and restful healthy sleep is happening. Just so I can get myself to go to bed, and brave the period of sleep where the ‘self’ briefly disappears every night – or day, depending on your internal clock. And I go to bed each night hoping that there will be a tomorrow for me and for those I love – whispering this quietly into the air – knowing that life grants no promises or special dispensation to anyone, period.
It’s a crap shoot for everyone and all the time, for while the breath of life remains within each of us. I am intimately aware that life just happens, briefly for each of us, and ends, eventually for all of us. That life, the unfolding of the universe, is endless ever changing. That there is only this present moment in the form that it is, in the form of who is living and who is not, what is happening and what is not. That the memory of past events and the anticipation of the future is experienced only here and now, in this present endless ever changing moment. That before the energetic spin up of our individual self-awareness – what so many humans call a ‘spirit/soul’ or ‘true self’ – mentally formed by our cellular body collective – at about age two to three for human primates – there was no individual “I”. And that there won’t be after the breath of life ends, the cellular body dies, and the energy that was “I” for a living moment dissipates back into the physical universe.
I am aware that our only hope for a future beyond death is in the memory of those who remember us. And, like all humans, I hope desperately inside that what others remember of me is positive and meaningful, pleasurable in it’s sadness that this living experience has its ending moments. I am daily aware that ultimately “life sucks” and “it’s not fair”, from a human perspective and, yet, that – despite this – “we go on” living, for as long as the breath remains in each of us. Most of us, anyways. I know all this of which I write within every cell of my body. And I accept that we individual “I”s, even humanity as a whole, didn’t make this universe, nor do we get to decide its outcomes. We only get to live our brief part, experiencing the joy and sadness of it simultaneously – trying not to cling to our insecurities and self-made sufferings about life – and then this process passes on to those still breathing.
There is not a day that goes by that I am not intimately aware of our fragile reality and our human condition, knowing that all any of us can do is to simply live our part of the endless universal play of living objects interacting that is unfolding around us. Some choose to rationalize this ‘wrestling with our awareness of life’ through absolutist human fictions about “knowing what is true” and, ultimately, filling this in with some kind of eschatology that explains life’s disappointments, gives a human perceivable purpose to life and, to address the fear of death, fictionally assures us of a life of “I” beyond this life. And some choose not to explain it, choosing to just “observe” this unfolding of universal life at play, just as it is, without human explanations. Life really doesn’t require one, an explanation. Some choose to explore life and strive to manipulate it, testing the natural limits, and some choose to sit in meditative practice of being mindfully and truly present, while we have life. When it comes to human fictions about life, everyone is right and everyone is also wrong. But, reality itself just simply is, regardless. Reality does not need our thoughts about it, only the actions that we engage in as a result of our thoughts.
I feel deeply every day for our human condition. And I, like all humans, go through the emotional ups and downs that come with living and relating with others. Sometimes I am joyful, and sometimes I am sad or afraid. Sometimes, I’m just outright panicked or overwhelmed. Sometimes I am in the zone of meditative oneness and quiet peace of mind, simply attentive. I don’t show much of this inner storm on the surface. For me, the expression of emotion is a deeply personal thing. But, that is being human. Underneath that emotional reaction to life and/or our perceptions about life, there is the ever present awareness of our human condition as it is – regardless our feelings about it – for while we have the breath of life within us. It is attuning to this quiet peaceful space within us where all is okay, just as it is. Maybe for some, this makes sense. I’m done with this expression of thought … for now.
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