Quite the tag line, huh? I couldn’t resist.
Funny enough, I arrived at my current incredibly positive take on death logically. I believe that life’s troubles are caused by an unhealthy relationship with things that are easily craved or averted, calling them unhealthy attachments. But, all attachments have a positive side. For example, a little beer makes you feel good but too much makes you feel bad. Craving beer when you aren’t getting it can also be a pain. But, none of that will change the fact that a little beer makes you feel good, which is GREAT!
In trying to find balance in my own life, I started to realize that being human simply means that you are stuck to an imperfect body. Things go wrong and it can kind of drag you down sometimes. There is definitely a “burden of life”, and through that down payment you get all of the wonderful things about life! (The “gift of life”) So, at the end of the day, our biggest and one most absolutely unavoidable attachment is the attachment to life itself – the deep connection between our soul and our body.
I have recently personally experienced some incredible releases of old attachments. The feeling of passing through critical doors that once seemed impossibly blocked is indescribable. When I think of death, I can’t help but think of how it comes with the release from the deepest attachment we will ever know.
It seems like there is a period of time just before a transition happens or an event ends where the mind accepts that the change is inevitable, and the release from the attachment begins. I feel this every race about 10-15% from the finish line. You can probably relate, the burden just gets lighter. I can’t imagine what that experience would be like when it comes to death.
“Remember the clear light, the pure clear white light from which everything in the universe comes, to which everything in the universe returns; the original nature of your own mind. The natural state of the universe unmanifest. Let go into the clear light, trust it, merge with it. It is your own true nature, it is home.”
– Tibetan Book of the Dead
What is really incredible to me is now this plays out in everyday life for you and me, just on a much smaller scale. That’s the magic.
