What’s up with Life & Death – Living & Dying?
My first real experience with death was when a dear friend of mine died from ovarian cancer about 10 years ago. As I grieved, I learned a very interesting thing – my grief spoke to depth of the love. It was fascinating to discover that grieving actually helped to maintain ego structure and identity, but attending to the love would absolutely disappear me. That continues to be an enlightening realization.
A couple of years ago, I became very interested in pain – what exactly is pain? Not physical pain, but emotional, or psychological, or existential pain. I can place all kinds of labels and understanding on pain – sadness, angst, terror, raw, sharp, dull, intense, etc. But none of the defining addressed my basic question. As I probed deeper into this over the course of many months, what I finally arrived at was this – pain is separation from being. I continue to explore this thread of interest as it arises, but, so far, I always wind up at – ultimately (fundamentally), pain is separation from being.
When I am in a state of being, I notice that emotional, psychological and existential pain seem to disappear. I say seem, because events are still happening, but my relationship to them and my reaction to them changes profoundly – my experience of my experience transforms. The Sufis say the journey is only one step – you step out and IT steps in.
My exploration into pain also led me to the observation that only the past can hurt me. What I notice is that whenever I am experiencing pain, I am always in the past. I may seem to be in the present, in a situation with someone in current time, but in my psyche, the present situation is reminding me of the past – pulling past pain and trauma into the present. In actuality, I am dancing with the past not the present moment. Engaging the projection of the past onto the present always leads me to a state of deeper being and being in the moment always seems to be pain free.
For the past year or so, my primary thread of interest has shifted to ME, the “I.” It is becoming more and more curious to me that I am always in the center of my experience. This “I” I am speaking of has a consistent sense of familiarity through time. There are constellations of attitudes and beliefs that are part and parcel of this sense of self. I am extremely curious as to why I am so addicted to this sense of self. Why does “my” experience revolve around this me?
I am quite aware that the body can continue on in good health without me in the picture, so what’s up with me always having to be here in this familiar way – historical identity?
Death & Dying – Life & Living… Who lives? Who Dies? What is life? What is Death?
These simple questions are so engrossing!
Soon The Wisdom of Life & Death will be available.
A perspective on living:
Life, Death or Both?
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