Not Dead Yet

 

A good friend is dying of cancer.  Seeing her struggle with the problem of birth and death is, in some way, her gift to all of us around her.  What a price for this gift!

 

When she says "I am afraid", she is the fear.  When she suffers from physical pain, she is the pain.  When she cries saying "I will miss my children", she is impermanence.  

 

When I say "Then what am I?", I do not even see the finger pointing at the sunset.

Imperminence

It has been a difficult several weeks, with the unexpected death of a good friend and close colleague, another unexpected death of the young daughter of a co-worker, and a destructive flood in my office at work. It is one thing to ruminate about imperminence, another to directly experience the suffering from attachment to that which is gone. Attachment to people, all of whom will die one day; attachment to things that water permeates and destroys; and attachment to oneself.

I can understand leaving behind attachment to things, but to people? Yes, love, friendship and family ties can all bring suffering, but to renounce these seems to make us less human, less alive, less engaged. After all, the Ox herding series ends with a return to the marketplace; did we ever truly leave it? What does the Buddha's child say of the suffering he experienced when the Buddha abandoned him and his mother?

Only Mu?