Die before you die
lobster
Crusty Veteran
From another thread:
Dying before death is allowing that which has arisen to cease. This teaching is about the mind; we’ll let the body die when it’s time for it to die. If it lives another minute, or another fifty years, or another eighty years, or whatever – that’s up to the body. We’re in no hurry to die, nor are we trying to live longer than necessary. We allow this body to live its lifespan, because it’s not self; it does not belong to us. However long this body breathes and lives is all right. It’s not mine anyway. But during the time that it’s alive, there’s an opportunity to die before death: to die to ignorance and selfishness; to die to greed, hatred, and delusion; to let all these things die; to let them go and let them cease. So one is observing death as it’s really happening, as the ending, the cessation of these things we tend to regard as ourselves, but are merely mortal conditions.
Ajahn Sumedho
This important and realistic approach is expressed in the Sufi saying, 'Die before you die'. The same understanding is expressed in the above quote. I would suggest that as we stop grasping at our life, nirvana, practice, study etc, something happens. What does it take to die in this spiritual sense? The truth is very simple, when you are ready, 'you' will start to die. However do most of us still have living to attend to? Are we ready yet?
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It's not a question of whether we're ready yet.
It's a question of realising that we NEED to be ready, because sometimes, such events and matters are totally beyond our control.
If we ready ourselves and completely adopt the Mind-Set of KNOWING it is necessary to 'Let Go', then both Spiritual 'Dying' and physical 'dying' will be less of a shock, less of an ordeal, less of a challenge.
We need to realise we need to be ready. It's not a choice, it's a necessity.
In so many ways, we often feel there is something we need to do. I believe it is more passive than that. I get into trouble when I get busy. When I am trying to lay the groundwork for perfection. Reality is perfection because it is what we have. I only need to accept death or the end of greed or prejudice on their own terms. It is natural, if I only stop struggling with it.
"This world’s existence is one night long. There’s a great lively gathering that night, but some people sleep through it." ~Rumi
I'm just being the best bit of us I can while it lasts. I know I am not forever but it will likely seem that way. I don't remember being born so in a way it's like I've always been here and since I don't remember dying before it's like I'll never die. But I will die.
I die every minute of every day. Most I don't even know about. My parents died, aunts, uncles... My first wife and love died, my little brother died... Now I work at two retirement homes and people I care for die every month usually.
I see reflections of me smooshed on the pavement and wilted in the gardens left untended... TNH says that it's easy to see the tree in the piece of paper but harder to see the sun, rain and suffering of the papermaker.
Yes, I die many times a day. I hope I am ready to let greed and other symptoms of disease die today but it was the same yesterday, hehehe.
I am also born every day so that makes it harder to see death as absolute even though inevitable.
I admit that with an 8 month old daughter, I'm not as ready to die as I was before but I'll try not to bitch too much to set a good example.
'Let Go'
So could you say what you mean by "let go"? How do you do it in practice?
OK; let's say I have something bothering me. Let's say someone is being rude to me on-line, or is using my stuff in my home, or is constantly leaving dirty plates in the sink....Can I do anything about it that will be non-vindictive, non-retaliatory, and that will not cause equal or greater upset in return (ignore said cyber-bully, put my stuff where it can't be touched, clear the plates out of the sink and stack them neatly to one side)...?
Then I'll do it, but I won't give it another thought. Don't cling or attach to the feelings of resentment, animosity, vindictiveness, retaliation. It's done. Deal with it in the most mutually-constructive way possible, then move along. Let go.
The other aspect is to do with physical belongings; like stuff in storage. I can't retrieve it. No point having sleepless nights trying to devise ways of recuperating what at present is unattainable. Why worry about unsolvable stuff? It's gone. Face it, release it, accept it, let it go.
And my broken back, gammy lef and useless foot.
No more pretty frocks and high heels. It sounds trite and superficial (because ultimately, actually, that's exactly what it is), but we ladies like to dress pretty now and then, and there are just some dresses, frocks, skirts or outfits with which high heels are mandatory. A good half of my wardrobe is also redundant, then.
There was a time when seeing all these adverts on tv (aimed exclusively at women and how to make themselves look better, younger, fitter, thinner more beautiful) used to bother me, because invariably, models wore heels. And that stuck, and sucked.
Now? Let go. It can't be remedied. it is what it is. Give in gracefully, accept, acknowledge, release, let go.
Bottom line: What the hell do I do with all of this anyway, when I'm dying?
Don't cling or attach to the feelings of resentment, animosity, vindictiveness, retaliation.
I find this easier than I used to, but it's still quite difficult sometimes. I notice it's much easier when my meditation and mindfulness are going well!
Trust me, even 6 months ago, I wasn't "where I am" now..... The crap hit the fan in the worst way possible.... I felt a bit like this guy!
I think the hedonistic axiom, "Live it up, die right and leave a good looking corpse" is equally important.
This reminds me of my first meditation instruction from a meditation instructor trained by Chogyam Trungpa. Right off the bat, she explained that the meditation technique she was about to teach us, Shamatha, was actually for preparing for one's own death. People, she said, suffer when dying because they cling to life and won't let go. Shamatha is all about letting go and is perfect practice for your own, inevitable death.
Later on I recieved teaching about the the 12 links of interdepence, or Nidannas. It was explained that this causal chain cycles in every moment and includes both birth and death. So in everymoment we exxperience both birth and death. Not in a physical sense of course, but in every moment "we" are born and die.
So we "die" before we "die".
Contemplating death has helped me already, it ads a certain fire underneath my practice.
Goenka said that well practiced meditators never cry at death, they smile
_"Shame on thee, wothless age,
That maketh colour fade!
Thus the delightful form
By age is trampled down.
Who lives a hundred years
Is natheless doomed to die.
Naught can avoid Death's tread,
That crusheth everything."_
(Samyutta-Nikaya, v. 216 - F. L. Woodward translation, 1925)
I agree with @ourself in the fact that having a seven-year-old boy, I'm not ready to die physically yet.
But whoever has lived long enough, has also died many times.
I have died with every farewell to beloved ones, I have died every time my attachments were cut loose, I have died in the process of growing up... and have been reborn in a lighter, hopefully wiser, version of that self with every shed skin.
"Impermanent, alas! are all compounded things..."