It is not easy to “call up” our actual fear of dying. Like Buddhist or Christian monks of old, we can remind ourselves each morning when we wake up, “Death could come at any time. Don’t waste time.” This is useful, though somewhat abstract exercise, though with repetition it sinks in. As one psychiatrist said to me, “You can talk to your unconscious, and it is always listening.”
An anomalous medical test or the news of a friends’ sudden illness or death can surface our deeper anxiety about “ceasing to be,” and like any primary emotional energy, that anxiety can be useful and workable. One of the principles of Buddhist practice is that negative emotion—when we turn toward it rather than avert from it—itself is the path. The apparent unpleasantness of negative emotion is somewhat illusory. The actual “taste” of anxiety is in the just a sensation, like the sourness of a lemon; our conditioning and karma tell us it’s bad, but actually it’s just what it is. Like a lemon, anxiety has its uses.
So this is ‘mindfulness of dying’ at a deeper, more fundamental level. A Buddhist practitioner welcomes these strong emotional states. They are our teachers. “Hello, teacher,” we can say. “What have you got for me today?”
When my sister died at 51, I was 47, in the midst of a busy life, raising two daughters and establishing my career as a college professor. When people said to me, “It will take you a while to get over her death,” I always responded, “I’ll never get over her death. It has transformed me.” I didn’t really know at the time what that transformation would look like. Four years later, I found myself at a residential care hospice, taking the training to be a volunteer. Eight years later, I am still there, four hours a week, talking to dying people and their families, listening to their fears, their sorrow, and reminding myself that death comes to us all. It is an amazingly meaningful practice, and it’s helped me come to terms with my enormous fear of death. Being with dying in that ongoing way reminds me of the importance of today.
My practice uses this principle of accepting what is with little spin or interpretation. I have found it very useful to apply this practice especially to good news. When it looks like good fortune is coming my way, I practice welcoming it neutrally. Good, bad so what? What is, is what is here, now.
It is my egocentric contraction and interpretation which causes me to suffer. And we are here (hopefully) to end suffering.
Thank you. This is a beautiful teaching. I will carry it with me.
“You can talk to your unconscious, it is always listening.” I’ve only begun to get a sense of this, but it is very intriguing.
“The actual ‘taste’ of anxiety is just a sensation, like the sourness of a lemon…” Well, this is what I hope for and I think I can see that I might get there, but I’m not there yet. At least, I don’t berate myself for feeling anxious any more and that’s a step forward.
Last night I learned my favorite English teacher died from cancer a year ago. I was deeply saddned by this news not so much that I would miss her but that I wonder if she knew how much she affected my life and how appreciative I am for our interactions as student and teacher. This morning my meditation took me to the space of imagining I was recently diagnosed and only had a short time to live. My mind became very focused, clear and vivid. What an unexpected gift from saddness. Thank you Mrs. Underwood.
Benjamin Franklin is famous for having said (in connection with signing the Declaration of Independence, which made all the signers subject to execution by the English crown)
“The prospect of the hangman’s noose focuses the mind wonderfully.”
I didn’t think of this as a spiritual or meditation instruction, but it could be! The practice of “Mindfulness of Death” is a venerable and traditional meditation practice, very much as PattyE has described. Thank you!
Got up this Saturday morning, later than usual, slept in to 0715, foggy outside, not the cause of my rest… got out on the deck, collected an armload of firewood, and loaded up the stove to get the house warmed up over 68 degrees F. Went into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee ( I’m gettin’ there ) looked up on the ceiling, for some reason, and saw a spider. Got a container, with a lid, caught the eight legged wander, and released it out side. One life is like any other, if treated that way.
Hi,
I work as a nurse in an ICU, and death is something that people deny, continually, otherwise we wouldn’t be there, or here, as I have just brought it up as my “touching dying” experience, is experienced each time I set foot in the hospital, to help heal body/mind/spirit, if one in the same, mine is as yours.
Death is our constant companion. So is life.
“Hello, teacher. What have you got for me today?”
Lew, thank you for this. I’d like to memorize and repeat daily what you said in your blog about not averting from negative emotion. As you note, this teaching can help us with more than fear, more than the five defined fears . . . .