Life and Death Matter

Life and Death Matter

There is, it is apparent, no issue which is more central to our life than our death. It is an inescapable transition from the known to the unknown. As Shakespeare said, “We fear what we know nothing of.” It is in that which is known to us that we identify “security”; it is in that which is unknown to us that we identify “insecurity.” Conditioned, as we each have been from infancy, to view the world of “reality” in subject-object duality (me/you; us/ them; we/it; this/that; pleasure/pain; like/dislike; heaven/ hell; life/death; here/there; now/then; beginning/ending; cause/effect; unity/multiplicity; form/formless), death is viewed as a singular event, as a form or condition, which is opposed to life. Polarized as it is, death is considered to be a separation from life; the “self,” which presumed to be united with the living, is “separated” from the living in—“by”—death. Clearly, this can be a true proposition only if death is some thing which is, in actuality, separate (or divisible) from life. But there is not death which exists independently of life; there is an inseparable phenomenon, in which the very fact of one’s existence owes its reality to the fact of one’s potential nonexistence. So if, on the other hand of possibility, the existence of a “condition” called life is interdependent upon a “condition” called death (and vice versa) the true nature, or identity, of these “conditions” is the same.

With all that we define as death in this world (the last breath), that which we define as life (the first breath) is continually unceasing: death has not ended for man, life has not ended for man. We would likewise say that when

life ends for man, death ends for man: life and death are inseparable. If, as is being suggested, life and death cannot be polarized (“disunited”), does that not—in like manner—apply to others of our supposed polarities? Are you truly a separate, isolated subject in a world of unrelated, independent objects? If you and every other human being are dependent (as you are) upon the same basic conditions for survival— food, for instance—you are all interdependent. If there is no food for any human in the world, the result is the same for “you” as for “them.” Just because each human is “different” doesn’t mean that humanity is “divided.” The confusion between difference and division is an aberration in the mind of man. Life and death can be characterized as different conditions, without concluding that they are divisible. The sky is filled with different clouds but they are interdependent upon the same condition.

Though we need not be the victim of divisive thinking, we will always be cognizant of differences—as long as we identify each “thing” or “event” by a particular, or separate, name. As soon as we declare, for example, that something has “form,” we imply that there is some other thing which does not have form. And each form which we define by a separate name becomes a “different” form: steam is hot water, ice is cold water, both are water. We say there is life, and we go beyond that to say that life has different forms: plant, animal, me, you. But—being a form—we (conveniently) tend to forget that “form” is, by definition, at one end of a (supposed) polarity, the other segment of which is “formless.”

Put another way, the condition of form is dependent upon impermanence. Were it not for impermanence (whose manifestation we call change), all form would remain frozen as it is: if all human forms remained eternally unchanged in their present condition, both “death” and “life” would be empty of meaning. Any thing which man identifies is merely a form (“me”). All forms come and go. And, so far as we can ascertain, the coming and going (change) is end-less. All that is or is not is “actuality.” Anything which we can identify as living or dead is actuality. Given that there is no distinction, no exclusive value, assigned to life over death— by that which transcends all separative distinctions—how then is the dead different from the living? Are not both forms of the same actuality? Is the “self” not a form? (Even an idea of the self is a form.) The body is not permanent; is the “self” permanent? If the self survives after death, and all things change, what would the self change to? If the self is impermanent, what is maintaining its separate form right now? Thought? Memories? Suppositions? Illusion? And could these be subject to change? Death is the release, the relinquishing of form: the form of the body, the form of the self. The whole of life culminates in this movement. This is a moment of inescapable transition, of trans-form-ation.

If there were any way that you could assist someone in the transition of life, it would be to help them let go…to freely let go of all the “things” and “events” they had realistically

or unrealistically considered themselves attached to, that they considered “theirs.” In contemplating our own death, that is what we will do. Sooner or later, we will relinquish our attachment to each and every thing or event—past, present or future. Death is, by any measure, the central fact of our life. The letting go—whether we yield to change or resist it—is the inexorable movement that is common to each and every life. And we need not wait, until we have no choice, to “unify” or align our existence with the nature of that which transcends permanence. We can, any of us, die now in each moment, by relinquishing our attachments— particularly our subjective attachment to a sense of an objective “self.” We can come to know now our true identity—as impermanence. At a deathbed, Krishnamurti held the hand of a friend who said, “I’m dying.” He replied, “And I’m dying with you.”