Living and Dying

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds.
To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance.
A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,
Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.
-The Buddha

One of the great books of all time is Sogyal Rinpoche's Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Living and dying are the sole jobs of humans on this earth. You would think we would be pretty good at them since this is all we have to do. Yet, we often make them into a struggle. Nonetheless, it does seem that when somebody dies, people know what to do on a very deep level; it is so fundamental to human existence that it is as if it is genetically encoded as to what to do. Ancient cultural and familial traditions also dictate how to respond. When my brother, Jay, aged 42, died last week from complications due to diabetes, including kidney failure, it seemed that a whole community knew just what to do. People offered their support and food and spiritual direction. They came to a service to honor his life not only because they cared about Jay and the family but because this is the way that communities have always taken care of each other.

When somebody dies, we face grief, an experience that all humans share. As I grieve, I have the sense that I am dipping into a vast universal grief that is beyond my own self. It can be so scary because it feels like you are drowning in an ocean without even a raft to support you. I think of Jay's beautiful, smiling face, and his voice that was so often filled with loving words. It seems impossible that the world could even be without him in it. But, the sadness we all feel about it is actually a beautifully human thing that connects us. This grieving is a part of living and one can only try to do this kind of living well, in the same way that Jay practiced the art of dying.