Why Not Be Ready?
Our everyday life is our spiritual life. If we have awareness to be able to use our everyday life as practice, then our lives have meaning. Otherwise, the days go by—impermanence, as we know—moment to moment to moment, day after day, year after year, and suddenly, there we are, faced with death, and what have we done? We don’t know when we are going to die. Every breath we take could be our last breath: we don’t know. When we wake up in the morning, we should say, “How amazing that I lasted this whole day and I haven’t died yet.” Who knows when we’ll die? We honestly don’t know. All these people killed in accidents on the road—did they think they were going to die? Death comes without respect for age or success or beauty or health. When we go, we go. So we have to live each day as if it were our last. If we really thought, “Tomorrow, I’m going to die,” what would we do with today? Surely we would really start to re-evaluate our whole situation.
Once when I was in my cave, there was a raging blizzard and I was snowed in. The blizzard blew seven days and seven nights non-stop and the cave was completely covered. When I opened the window, there was just a sheet of ice; when I opened the door, there was a sheet of ice. I thought, “This is it,” because the cave was very small and I would surely run out of oxygen and die. So I got myself all ready [...] and I went through my life. I regretted the things I had done wrong, and I rejoiced in the things I had done right. It was very salutary because I really believed that I only had a day or two left at most. It really put things into perspective—what was important and what was not important; what was important for me to think and what was totally irrelevant for me to think. Normally our minds are filled with non-stop chatter, the running commentary of totally useless soap-opera dialogue that we present to ourselves. But when we believe we’ve only got a limited amount of time to keep thinking, we become very discriminating in our thoughts, and much more conscious of how we’re using our time and of what we’re doing with our mind.
If we live thinking that each day is our last, it helps us appreciate each moment. This is not being fatalistic or gloomy. If this was our last day on earth, we would be careful of our time. We wouldn’t create more problems; we would try to solve the problems we already have. We’d be nice to people. If we’re not going to see them again, why not be nice to them? Wouldn’t we be kind to our family, our children, our partners, and the people that we’re leaving, if we thought we were never going to see them again? Because, who knows? We might not. One day, we won’t.
Why not be ready?
-- Tenzin Palmo, excerpted from "Into the Heart of Life"
What would you be thinking of if today was your last day alive? How do you relate to using this style of thinking as a tool for our evolution? Can you share a personal story of a time that you thought or were forced to think this way?
"2. A certain young man came to Mother with some peach and plum stones in his hand, and asked her if he might plant them? 'Yea,' answered Mother, 'do all your work as though you had a thousand years to live, and as you would if you knew you must die to-morrow."
From pp. 242-3 of the 1888 edition of Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations and Doctrines of Mother Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers.
Appreciate the message and reminder not to take time and life for granted.
I specificall enjoyed learning from few lines within different comments :
I fail everyday but i try again
we are living and dieing every moment
'I will never say anything that couldn't stand as the last thing I ever say.'
I have just listened to an extraordinary interview of Andrew Harvey titled The Death and the Birth. I warmly recommend it to all. ( sites: Jason Elijah/ Andrew Harvey or andrewharvey.net
When I chose to be the best care giver I could be for my husband, three years passed by quickly. Suddenly, I was a widow. After realizing each breathe he received was a blessing, I knew my life would be filled with thankfulness and grace. Pretending to realize the true meaning of Aloha! Hello or Good -bye helped me to live each day with true thankfulness! Time travels fast, and can be fleeting away quickly. Make the most of each breathe!
I was confused when my father said he was grateful for his pain. He couldn't sleep from the pain caused by cancer in all of his bones, from his skull to his toes. He said the pain reminded him of time, reminded him to be the person he had always wanted to be, now. It took me many years, after his death, to understand his gratitude and the message that he received from his pain: NOW; love now, live now. I knew he gave me a gift, but it took me years to understand how valuable it is. I now try to see the message in each fleeting feeling, including pain, then reach out to love and life, letting go of the feeling or pain, after it has served its purpose. I fail everyday, but keep practicing. That exercise is what will make me ready for anything in life and for death.
The feeling that I have time is certainly something we most 'naturally' take for granted. Time is the factor that has us think of death as something far away. So that, unconsciously, one has dissociated life from death and doesn't see anymore how both relate to the present. Time-thought, as J.K. would say, to signify that time is thought and reversely: would there be a sense of time if I had no memory, no thought? And our action results from this thought-feeling that I have time. If I could contract that span that is supposed to separate life from death, that would arouse in me that sense of urgency that is often so terribly lacking in my every day experience and resulting action. Time acts as the greatest of our 'shock absorbers' as Mr.G. would say, and is cause of all procrastination.
Seeing that and yet not acutely feeling the imminence of death, can I consciously bring dying in my every day experience? (P.S.: no time, presently, to elaborate!)
A beautiful way to look at this piece is the story of the resolve of a Holocaust survivor to do better. Her story is told in the 2008 TEDtalk by Benjamin Zander (Classical music and shining eyes) about how after her parents were 'gone' and she and her little brother were on the train to Auschwietz. She looked down and noticed her brother had no shoes, and she chided him for always forgetting everything and how stupid he was. This ended up being the last thing she said to him because she never saw him again. She said she vowed after she survived her ordeal in the concentration camp this...'I will never say anything that couldn't stand as the last thing I ever say.'
I am so amazed to read this passage today. Just last night my mentor started me on my journey of 'conversations with death'. Yesterday was the first time I was told to prepare for death. I saw myself dropping my dramas one by one as I began to live my truth, moving from rejection to compassion, anger to acceptance and slowly many more such realizations dawned on me. This was just the beginning of something very profound. The process is on and the journey on the path has just begun.
