Thing is, this is not bullshit. Not really bullshit at all.
It may seem like that, but any bullshit is all secondary. The bullshit is the "ism" in Buddhism.
The "Buddh" part is just to be awake, just to be fully alive in your experience - whatever shape it takes.
When we say "Im alive" that is a shape, a THING, a form. When we say "my death" that is a shape, a THING, a form.
Both of these are just elaboration on a theme.
The essence of the theme though, is not anything speakable, completely beyond words. In Buddhism they still try to express this though with words like "thus" or THIS.
You start to notice "thus" (THIS) when the doctor tells you that you only have weeks to live. THEN you pay attention to thus.
Mostly, we're not fully alive. We even die before we live usually. But then death puts this all into the proper perspective.
You and I are dying right now. We have terminal life disease.
Because we are born we get to die, we get to experience this great loss of utterly every aspect of our experience. Nothing really is analogous to what we will go through.
But this is right now how all this is.
How long do you have to live?
When are you going to die?
We fill our experience up with distractions, but the very nature of all this is itself un-distractedness. The very nature of this experience we are having right now is awakeness. We don't notice.
Dying brings this message home if we pay attention to our dying - which is right now.
There is no right way or wrong way to die.
I knew this guy who died of AIDS and he was extremely scared and angry almost to the point of insanity right up to the end. I felt sad for him because he couldn't accept his condition at all but then I also thought maybe I might be crazy like that as well someday.
I didn't however, think he was dying in a "wrong" way. He had the right to die in what ever way he needed to. We all do.
I witnessed a murder one time on the streets of Seattle. This man was stabbed (randomly by a crazy homeless person) in his heart and he basically died in my arms. He even looked in my eyes as he went. I felt that with him, in his case, there was some acceptance, some sense of "resignation" [as my old zen teacher once put it] as he went.
He earned his right to die in that way, but it wasn't right or wrong. Some people are quietly resigned, others fight as much as they can, who are we to interfere in such a moment with our judgments.
When will you die?
Is that a long time away?
Buddhism has a lot to do with death because death is completely intimate, completely sacred, completely personal, completely unyielding, completely real, and completely now.
There is a Tibetan saying that partially goes, "We are born alone, we will die alone". That hits home.
Just think about that for a second. Not about the philosophy behind it, because Buddhism also says that we are never alone. But just contemplate these words for a bit, not whether or not it is correct from a philosophical perspective, just let it sink in as it is..
We are born alone
We will die alone
Death is touching truth. Life is too, we just don't notice it. We need to find a realistic way to relate to this most intimate of experiences.
I new this other guy who died. While on his death bed his friend kept telling him to "follow the light, let go and follow the light..."
That really IS just bullshit! No one should "command" someone to do something while they are dying! The process of dying is too serious and too intimate for that. The dying guy finally yelled at him to shut up at one point.
Reading to someone who is dying or suggesting something yeah, that's ok in my book, simply listening to them is best of coarse, but trying to impose your phony beliefs on someone as they are going through the purest moment of their experience is a crime.
When you study Buddhism you study your death. Practicing Buddhism is practicing your death. Switch the word "death" to "life" and you see what I mean from a different perspective. Regardless of the words, either perspective is true.
WE ARE DYING
You think this is not the case but it is.
Buddhism is not bullshit because life-death is not bullshit. We make it bullshit by wasting it.
YOU ARE DYING
I read this story on line about the Dalai Lama:
"When the Dalai Lama turned 58 years old, a reporter asked him what he was going to do next with his life. He answered that he was going to prepare for death. The interviewer inquired about his health, and the Dalai Lama replied that he wasn’t sick, but that his body was impermanent."
It really is amazing that humans have come up with Buddhism.
Each moment of our experience includes every other moment. We just don't notice this! Meditating on our death removes the bullshit from our experience and replaces it with the "notice" part.
You don't have to necessarily "visualize" your dying process to meditate on death. Really, any Buddhist meditation, any Buddhist method is a meditation on death because Buddhism points toward truth - no matter what you name it.
Death is truth because it's opposite is usually avoidance, distraction, pre-occupation. Death rips this all away, or it removes it in a control manner if we face this moment as it is now by paying attention to our dying-living. Either way, truth gets revealed.
And because truth gets revealed this is why we almost universally, intuitively respect death as being so intimate, so sacred - at least we should.
Shutting down, letting go of, seeing thru, eliminating the cognitive distractions we so cling to is what Buddhism is about. Don't be fooled by the appearance of it as "just another religion", this is not bullshit unless we make it into bullshit.
WE ARE DYING NOW
What are you going to distract yourself with?
I know you don't want to face this (life-death), neither do I, but here we are, right now, what should we do with this? What should we do with our experience?
Life is suffering. Life is stressful and unsatisfying. Life is fleeting and ever changing. Life is loss. Life is death.
But because it is all these things it is precious too.
Life is that tree, that cloud, that smile, that taste, that joke, that comb by the sink in the bathroom.
WE ARE BORN ALONE
WE WILL DIE ALONE
We die each and every moment. We live each and every moment. We die each and every moment.
Right there
Right there exactly
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