The Great Equalizer - a meditaion on death

My old coworker Pat is very conscious of con men, greed in general and classism in our society. He refers to death as the "great equalizer". "Doug", he says, "Someday these bastards are going to be laying there, helpless as the rest of us, taking their last breaths, and then they might be wondering, was it all worth it?"

I have to admit I enjoy that thought a little.

I had this zen teacher. This zen teacher was a Japanese gentleman who although small in physical stature, almost always had a big smile on his face when I was around him. He was kind of a caricature to me at that time.

On this occasion he had just visited a dying friend in the hospital and was now giving a talk about this experience.

It was very quiet in the lecture room. His usual smile was gone. Then, out of the silence he uttered a pretty serious question.

"When are you going to die?"

The room stayed silent. The question was a shot that went directly into the hearts of everyone there.

This teacher who was usually such a joy, such a gas to be around, was not there at that moment to play around - and we all could feel it. Quietly, calmly, seriously, almost sternly he said:

"When are you going to die?"

He then seemed to correct himself with a follow up statement:

"Not when, but NOW. Probably NOW."

He wasn't correcting himself. He was stating the fact that death is not only 'on the way to you' from some seemingly distant future moment, it is something you will experience as a NOW moment.

Death is not an abstraction. It is real. Trying to delay it, or put it off is like trying to never let the next moment of time happen. When you experience death it will happen as your present moment, as your present experience - not at all like in the movies, or in a video game, or in any other abstract manner. Death is real and it is NOW.

People often think of death as a "morbid" or depressing subject. It's never really been that way for me. I've always kinda had this outlook that death is a big challenge that I'm really gonna have to face. This outlook I now think is equally misconceived.

It is death 'as a concept' that terrorizes us. If death is 'right now' then life (which is also 'right now') and death are not that far apart are they?

In order to dissect and release the tension that the concept of death brings to my mind I have repeatedly used a method of visualizing myself as well, being dead.

WARNING:

This 'death meditation' is not for everyone. Many people have been brought up to avoid these thoughts or view them as something akin to evil. Some people just freak out when they consider the death of someone they love.

If you are such a person then what follows below is probably not something for you to read. This meditation CAN be very powerful and moving - it has brought me to tears. It is meant to be powerful and moving in order to bring home the reality of our grabbing at what isn't real.

A MEDITATION ON DEATH AND IMPERMANENCE

In a quiet dark place, sit upright with eyes slightly open - eyes may be closed at times.

Relax.

At first, just recognize that mind is experience. Mind is "to experience". Mind is "the experiencing of.."

Now again relax and settle in and imagine this:

The mind is a field.

This field contains and is made of all of our, perceptions, all of our thoughts, all of our experiences, all of our emotions, history and possibilities.

All of our hopes, dreams, fears and realities.

Everything possible and actual - both known and unknown.

All phenomena and all potential phenomena.

A vast field extending from horizon to horizon.

From beginningless time to endless time, the store of all experience, all knowledge, all times, everything - the entire universe is nothing other than this field.

Hold this image for a time.

Within a portion of this field is all you have experienced personally, as the life you have known.

All you have known and done, all you've dreamed of, hoped for and feared.

In seeing this portion of the field, you notice the remains of a life that has now passed.

Looking closer, you see that it is your own life that you are seeing.

This vision becomes clearer with time.

With attention drawn close, you are shocked to see your own corpse.

Jaw fixed open, eyes dark and void, teeth missing, skin rotten, maggot infested.

You recognize your own torn and filthy clothing on the corpse.

Dwell on this image - your death is inevitable. Feel this experience, let it become clear. Let it penitrate your core, and in quietude, dwell there for a time.

Scattered about in the field among the dirt and grass you see your once valued possessions - now broken down and degrading. You see these clearly and even feel the sense of loss.

Don't think that this is "only a vision". Think that this experience is actually the case at hand.

This experience is not fantasy, these things will come to pass.

You look further and notice the remains of your loved ones, your family, your siblings, your children - their bodies are contorted, decomposed and have become merely bones and rotten flesh.

You know it is the very people you once loved, your closest friends and relatives.

Now you can actually see and feel that they are gone. You know and really feel the loss.

Dwell on this.

This is the loss that all living beings will feel without exception.

Multiply this loss, this experience, by the billions of beings that have lived in this world.

Think this, "My own suffering is unbearable, but it is small when compared to the many beings who are suffering."

All who live will someday die, time will not change the moment of death, the agony of being torn apart from what we cherish.

All who live will suffer the loss of everything.

Think on this for a moment, it will happen, it has happened from time immemorial.

Gazing at the field again, you see the home you grew up in, but now it is collapsed, charred and tattered.

You see all of your possessions scattered, broken down, rusting, decomposed. There is little left of any of it, and what is left is merely refuse.

You clearly recognize all this.

In the field you go over a small rise and there find more destruction and rotting relics from your past.

Even your precious thoughts, your desires and aims are strewn about, detached, pointless and fading.

All the things you once knew, all you once valued and were attached to, all you once considered important, your inner values themselves, your hopes, your dreams, your job, your school, your neighborhood, your country, all these things are now gone or laying before you in utter ruin.

All of this is in the field before you and this is happening now as your present experience.

All of these things, all those you have attached to and regarded closely, all of this has crumbled to dust - mere scattered worthless relics - you see this, you feel the wind, you feel the chill.

This vision you're now having is both sacred and true - do not diminish it, do not turn in fear. Dwell upon it - your only salvation.

Considering all this in totality, you see now all at once, the vast sea of suffering, the vast sea of beings who have lost, and who have now perished.

If at least, their cries of suffering could be heard there would be something - now not even their cries remain, not even their legacy.

Your heart weeps.

The amount of loss is beyond calculation.

Beyond calculation.

And yet nothing was truly lost from the beginning.

You gaze out from one horizon to the other, in every direction and see only this field of change, of impermanence, the passing of time and of all that time contains.

The infinite sky merges with the edge of an endless ground - without distinction.

All of this is impermanence.

All of this passing ever away.

Now meditate like this for a time.

Before you conclude and rise from the meditation, dissolve this vision into pure light at your heart. Let this light then spontaneously radiate outward to benefit all beings.

The point of this meditation is not to be morbid and dwell on the misery of death. We create the "misery" of death by keeping it away from us, from our experience. Out of sight, out of mind.

But in life (and in death) you can never really get away from this present moment. And this moment - right now - is the ONLY place where experience happens. That is why this very moment - right now - contains every other moment you will ever experience. That is why we should consider death. Because life and death are the same moment.

Can you see this?

If you can see this, you will not be so afraid. That tension that is there, that fear, that gets released. When that release happens it's a kind of blissful experience, not a morbid one at all.

D