Well Kurt Cobain may know by now…
But seriously folks, after my last post about dropping the falseness of our egos, I’ve been thinking a lot about death. As you do.
I don’t think I’m afraid of death itself (although I’d be pretty pissed off if it happened anytime soon thank you very much, I hope I still have lots to do and be). What scares me, what none of us can envisage, is the whole thing around perpetual peace and harmony afterwards. I mean (whisper it) wouldn’t it get a bit, er, boring…?
Buddhists teach that we don’t have to wait until we’re dead to experience that state of perpetual tranquility, that Nirvana can be found during life, and entered into after death. It’s described as a state of bliss or peace.
The Christian words Heaven or Paradise are in some ways more human, the first often being used as a synonym for sky (ancient pagan sky gods, anyone?), and the second with its connotations of the Garden of Eden before naughty old Eve did her thing with the apple and got herself and poor blameless Adam chucked out. But again, the whole perfection thing of eternal life is a bit worrying. It’s completely alien to us.
It’s like the very first time you hear a piece of beautiful music. The music itself is just as magnificent the second, third and fourth times you listen to it, but to you it begins to become less awe-inspiring. You begin to take it for granted.
Our whole experience of life is of contrast. We know what is beautiful because we can compare it with what is ugly. We understand joy because we are also intimately acquainted with sorrow. What if there were no ugliness, no sorrow? How would we recognise life as perfect?
I think that’s partly why we find it so difficult to drop our ego selves and uncover the essence of who we are, even for short periods of time. It seems like such a risk, such a loss.
Image by Tony the Misfit
(gotta love a name like that)
Elsewhere:
Via a comment on Lucy’s blog, I recently discovered omfghardware, by Howard, who works in a hardware store. Each entry is like a tiny, perfect meditation.
And a funny end note: just before publishing this post, I used the search function on my blog to remind myself what I might have said before about death. (I don’t like to bore you by repeating myself, dear reader.) The results came up under an enigmatic heading that made me smile: “You searched for Death”. Well no, not really…
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