Gazing in the Mirror

January 26 - Taoist Perspectives On Death

While we mark death as
enormously significant, however,
it is not an ending – just as
one year rolls into the next.
~ Deng Ming-Dao, The Lunar Tao

The experience of dying is but
the laying off of an old garment,
and the donning of a new one.
~ Ernest Holmes

The date for the Chinese New Year varies from year to year as it follows a lunar cycle calendar. I am writing this day's essay in 2014 and based upon the lunar calendar for this year, today is the 26th day of the twelfth moon, if I understand it well enough. In The Lunar Tao, Ming-Dao notes this with the realization that one moment cannot truly be distinguished from any other moment. When a new year arrives nothing has really changed though we mark the moment with great celebration. Even if our particular universe were to come to an end and "die" what we now know about cosmology tells us that something somewhere would still be continuing on.

I desire a graceful, dignified and conscious death. My story's end has yet to be written. I am very well aware that my death may be unlike the kind of death that my heart desires. Still I have long been preparing my own perspective to face that final letting go. I see people around me dying all the time and some are younger in years than I am. Therefore, I am feeling successful at living even though I know that at any moment my end could come and the truth is I would have had a complete life. Even had I died as an infant it could not have been defined as an incomplete life. Life has no set length for us as human forms.

Though I only feel my own slowing down in minor ways at the moment I know that process will continue to take a greater toll on my life as the days continue on for this bodily form. At some point I suspect that I may be fortunate enough to know that my death is truly imminent. I have seen that realization in other people who were on their way out. That sense that there is no coming back to a more active, more vital self than we were in our youth. So if I am so fortunate as to be consciously aware of that impending death, then I hope that I am able to cope with whatever physical discomforts such a process includes without whining or complaining. I hope to bravely face the death that is coming as only the next adventure my soul is to experience.

I know that eventually my body will stop living. Then it will begin to decay and every part of me will become something else entirely. I personally believe that my Spirit will continue to exist even without a material physical vehicle to make me "obvious" on Earth. I believe in a vast realm which is known as "the Tao" by some and that is where I believe my consciousness will "return". I don't know whether that "consciousness" will still be aware of itself individually or will it be in part, just as my physicality will have become at that point. Perhaps I will merge with All That Is and have no sense of individuality left at all. I freely admit that I truly don't know what "that" will be like as I write this. Death is a very emotional occurrence for the loved ones who remain in form after we have left our own behind. The ego self that has served this lifetime is intimately related to our birth and death as that self.

The old, dying Taoist Lai declares in a story from Zhuangzi – "Yin and Yang are like my parents. If they bring me near death and I do not obey, then I am disobedient, with no one else to blame. There is the great mass of nature. I find support for my body in it; I've spent my life toiling in it; in my old age I seek ease on it; in death I will rest in it. Whatever made my life good will also make my death good. Once we understand that heaven and earth are like a great melting pot, and the Maker a great founder, where can we go that isn't right for us ? We are born as from a quiet sleep, and we die to a calm awaking."

In Taoism death is neither feared nor desired. A Taoist enjoys living. The after-life is within life itself. We are eternally of the Tao when living and eternally the Tao at death. Death is the point at which what we have been during a lifetime becomes a non-visible being on Earth. That expression of our life is always within Life itself. Our lifetime will continue to exist in the memories of other people still living an incarnated life or even in those persons yet to be born, if our story is shared with them after their birth. Just as I understand that many Taoists do believe, I believe that we find in the after-life whatever it is that we expect to find. I have no proof that this belief is valid. It is simply what I choose to believe. If we simply return to Tao when we die but we are already in Tao while living, then a change in form can't really be a very big deal. As Chuang-Tzu described the "true men of old" – "Unconcerned they came and unconcerned they went."

~ perspective

Life and death are simply parts of
a continuum and I cheerfully accept
the life that I have and when
my time approaches may I be patient
while awaiting the end.
I seek to remain centered in the
natural cycles of Life.
May I always be free in mind and
calm in demeanor no matter what
I must face in my life's unfolding.
I shall live to be nothing more than
the self that I am.
If I make my life all that I want
it to be now then I will rest in
the calm assurance that it was good.

#acceptance #bravery #consciousness #cosmology #dignity #ego #grace #nature #outcome #wholeness