Death
In 2019 I was a part of the team facilitating the final retreat for 40 people in a 18 month leadership program.
The final retreat was self organizing, and we dove into planning a weekend themed with death/rebirth. To me the symbolism and drama of death was alluring, and so I focused on elaborating that aspect of it.
At the time, Covid was latent in the casual fabric of our reality, but we didn't know. Encyclopedia/People/Michael Nagle, who I would spend the pandemic with, and I were just deepening our friendship. For the retreat, he helped me work out my ideas, and brought into the mix his own subtle genius.
In the years since, he lost his father to Covid and then developed metastatic cancer which took his life two years after the diagnosis, two years in which he deepened his beautiful engaged way of life.
I can't honestly say the content below helped me face loss or grieving. Yet, I know for sure that the relationships I developed in co-creating that weekend were the ones that have sustained and inspired my living, and that the practice of embracing life in it's terrible beauty is a guiding principle of my life.
The Mind Relating to Death
Abridged from Chogyam Trungpa's "The Myth of Freedom"
What is the meaning of this life?
Is it to put our effort and energy to higher goals? Should we raise the level of our civilization to the highest point? Should we make our world a fantastic place, a seat of wisdom, of enlightenment, of learning and the highest technological developments?
Have we considered the significance of death?
The very message of death is painful. From moment to moment, birth, suffering, and death take place. Birth is opening into a new situation. Immediately after birth, there is the sense of refreshment, freshness, like watching the sun rise in the early morning.
We struggle to maintain the new situation, but finally we cannot hold on to anything and we are dead. When we die, there is a gap between the death and the next birth; but still that gap is filled with all kinds of subconscious gossip, questions as to what we should do, and we latch on to a new situation and are born again.
From this point of view, when you give birth to a child, if you really want to cling to life, you should not cut the umbilical cord as he is born. But you must. Birth is an expression of the separateness between mother and child. Either you are going to witness your child’s death or the child is going to witness your death.
Egolessness
The effort to secure our happiness, to maintain ourselves in relation to something else, is the process of ego. But this effort is futile because there are continual gaps in our seemingly solid world, continual cycles of death and rebirth, constant change.
The process which is ego actually consists of a flicker of confusion, a flicker of aggression, a flicker of grasping—all of which exist only in the moment. Since we cannot hold on to the present moment, we cannot hold on to me and mine and make them solid things.
So we build up an idea, a preconception, that self and other are solid and continuous. And once we have this idea, we manipulate our thoughts to confirm it, and are afraid of any contrary evidence. It is this fear of exposure, this denial of impermanence, that imprisons us. It is only by acknowledging impermanence that there is the chance to die and the space to be reborn and the possibility of appreciating life as a creative process.
- From "The Myth of Freedom"
Psychological Death
Why do we cling and cling to things that are already passed? Not even allowing the process of grief to run its course, but avoiding that as well. Until it is drawn out in a half felt, numb pain. There is no room for joy or peace any longer. Your hand closed on a memento, nothing new can be touched and explored.
Ok then, let our egos die, and we could open up to life again. Take a hit of 5meo DMT. Learn the deep teachings of Advita Vedanta. And then be free? But now we are trying to force it. To release by pushing, soon there will be an emotional prolapse, another variety of suffering.
And we try every which way to alter the situation. It is a helpless struggle. At some point letting the helplessness in, it is possible to return to earth, with a flood of tears, on the ground collapsed. It's a beautiful release, odd we didn't allow it earlier.
Graceful Death
Every night you go to sleep and welcome it. In that state, all of the ego identifications are gone, your plans, your social status and opinions. All of that is gone and you welcome it. You welcome setting down that burden. What makes death different?
- Inspired by Rupert Spira
When death finally comes you will welcome it like an old friend, being aware of how dreamlike and impermanent the phenomenal world really is.
- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
As Zen Master Taji approached death, his senior disciples gathered around his bedside. Remembering that the master was fond of a certain kind of cake, one of them had spent half the day searching pastry shops of Tokyo to find it and now presented it.
Tired and smiling, the dying master accepted a piece and began to eat.
As he grew weaker, his disciples asked if he had final words for them.
He replied, "Yes" and the disciples leaned in, "Please tell us,"
"My, but this cake is delicious!" And with that he died.
- Graceful Exits: How Great Beings Die
Preparation for the Meditation
Death is right here.
I set up an actuary table for the forty of us
Within 8 years, the expected number of deaths is ONE.
What if you knew that was you, or the person you were talking to?
Everything you do, someone was doing during their last moment.
They died choking,
of a heart attack, of an aneurysm,
an accident, a mistake.
How would it be to live without a single thing in your heart that you’d rather be doing?
Without making compromises or playing games with yourself,
How would it be to live like were the last meal?
Meditation on Death
Inspired by The Death Sangha at SF Dharma Collective.
Welcome Guides
Now we will welcome our guides, the spirits of those who have died, who know the way.
We will split into four groups to do this. It’s going to be easy to ramble but please be concise.
To start us, with everyone,
I welcome _________ and __________ who are important to me because.
And you reply,
Welcome _________ and __________
Everyone invite at least one being.
Dying
Everyone gathered and wailing. They are given a blindfold one at a time.
"You are fated to die."
They lie down.
Chanting music is played -
The Gyuto Monks - Freedom Chants From the Roof of the World
with chaotic overplaying sounds.
Stomping around each person is marked on the forehead with ashes.
"You are ash."
We must surrender. We cannot control that we resist loss. We cannot control that we try and speed past it. We can realize that those are useless.
Underneath all this bubbles your dreaming mind.
DIE
Stage One: Autolysis
Decomposition begins within 4 minutes as CO2 accumulates.
Internal organs dissolve as the body digests itself,
Within 6 hours the body stiffens and appears with a sheen from ruptured blisters.
Your family and friends discover your death. Someone posts on your Facebook wall and your closest family is confronted with the logistics of disposing your dead body. Maybe someone you love is nearby, and they stay with it, maybe your culture performs a ritual.
Stage Two: Bloat
After three days enzymes from burst cells begin producing gases. The skin discolors as the body reeks with putrefaction, smells that linger long after your body leaves. Maggots and other insects begin to feed on your dead body.
By this time, if all is going well, you may already be in a funeral home, like most newly dead bodies in the United States.
Stage Three: Active Decay
Is your body put in a furnace? or buried in the ground?
At the service - Who comes to eulogize you?
Who still needs you?
If your body isn’t ashes,
then in the months that follow your body liquefies.
A casket will slow skeletonization but over the course of the next year the body begins to dry as decomposition runs its course.
Family
They live on without you
It still hurts when they remember you are gone
And it’s been years
Somehow it’s beautiful,
how it moves irresistibly on
And they die, those that held your memory
And the records grow old,
echoes of something inexplicable,
the light that has shown from you
Emptiness
-The music stops-
Open space
Emptiness
The sound where no sound is made
Awareness beyond words
What is left?
Rebirth
GONG Return to Body
Movements stirring in your body
Toes wiggling
Deep Breaths
Fingers flex
Stretching
GONG Beginning Latihan
Moving
Without knowing
Exploring
GONG Latihan is coming to an end
Preparing to take off the blindfold,
Take them off and behold
YOU ARE ALIVE