be [not] afraid

You don’t have to be ageing, terminally ill, or desperately unhappy to fear — or resist to even think about — life’s end. Sooner or later death will find us, ready or not. “Studies show that 100% of people die,” writes a cheeky columnist in today’s Guardian. What to do?

Looking back 22 years, a lifetime’s ignorance began its slow erosion when I set out to walk the ‘unsui’ path — a Japanese term 雲 水 from a Chinese poem which reads, “To drift like clouds and flow like water.”[1] Monastic Zen training flowed into to end-of-life spiritual care, volunteering in geriatric settings, and teaching mindfulness meditation (face-to-face and by zoom). Along the way, my heart-mind began to befriend its own mortality. Experiencing a diagnosis of blood and bone marrow cancer (early stage) and a near-fatal encounter with Sepsis may have contributed — albeit subconsciously — to an appreciation of my destiny.

Which brings us to today’s main feature: A 23-minute documentary about the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead narrated by Leonard Cohen (1994). Please set a quiet half hour aside to view it. I watched for the third time today and gained a new level of understanding.

Tibetan scholar Robert A.F Thurman writes,

“The Tibetan attitude to death and the between is neither mystical nor mysterious. … On a human level they see it as we do, a tragedy at the end of life. They have methods of anticipating and warding off untimely death, for cheating even untimely death and for prolonging this precious human life. On this human level, they are even more afraid of death than we modern materialists and humanists, who expect an automatic, painless oblivion. . . .

On the more spiritual level Tibetans have learned to view the ordinarily fearsome death as a strong force close to life, a powerful impulse to the good, an intensifier of positive attitudes and actions.” [2]

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[1] “The term can be applied more broadly to any practitioner of Zen [who attempts] to move freely through life, without the constraints and limitations of attachment, like free-floating clouds or flowing water.” In: (2002). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Zen Buddhism. [2] Thurman, R.A.F. (trans). (1994). The Tibetan Book of the dead; As it is popularly known in the West. p. 18-20.