Currently I’m studying Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones with a Dharma friend, the Venerable Tashi Nyima.

This is my contemplation on the first line of verse 21 of the root text of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones.

“Even if you die today, why be sad? It’s the way of samsara.

Even if you live to be a hundred, why be glad? Youth will have long since gone.

Whether you live or die right now, what does this life matter?

Just practice Dharma for the next life—that’s the point.”

 

 

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

“I’m really sad. The sun’s out right now, but later it’ll be sunset, then twilight, then night will fall.” If we heard someone say that, we’d think it was absurd. If it were said by a child, we’d explain how sunset is just part of how things are.

But don’t we kind of live our lives this way? Aren’t we in a constant race to outrun death? Even though we know it’s inevitable, we find it all but impossible to face the prospect of our own death with anything but anxiety, fear, and maybe even resentment. It’s not fair I should have to die and leave all this behind, we say; why does it have to be this way? Our laments over death are endless.

But none of this does us any good. If we wake up on any given day and say to ourselves, “Today before the sun goes down I’m going to help at least one person.” Or if we begin our day with the aspiration that whatever we do in the course of the day will bring benefit to others, then at night we could go to our rest knowing that we at least aspired to be of benefit.

What’s true of one day is also true of our lives. Dilgo Khyentse points out that once we start to practice the Dharma, then however long we live, we will know “…that there is nothing more worthwhile than the Dharma and that practicing it to perfect yourself is a precious investment…”.

Does this mean we should spend our lives in one long meditation in a cave someplace, making the investment? I don’t think so. Knowing that the road from birth to death is one way; knowing that our death is certain and the hour is unknown; knowing that at the moment of death we will be utterly alone—we ought to take each day as a precious chance to do no harm, do good, and purify our minds.

***

Apply to a past situation (how would it have been different?)

About fifteen years ago, something went horribly wrong with my thyroid. I’m not sure exactly what the thyroid does, but I’ve never been so conscious of my heart. I’d be sitting perfectly still, and it would race along. I once clocked my heart at 150 beats per minute. I wasn’t even standing up. I couldn’t sleep. I could barely stand to eat. I couldn’t stand the smell of food cooking. I lost weight so fast, I had no clothes that fit. I poured sweat. Even though the endocrinologist told me I wasn’t dying, only a tight rein on my temper kept me from calling her a liar to her face.

Then the treatment took hold. You go through…I don’t know—some kind of ‘tuning’ to get the hormone balance right. Oh god. That was worse. I was exhausted all the time. I had blinding headaches. I could barely keep my eyes open, but I still couldn’t sleep. All I could do was lie in a stupor and feel my heart pound so hard in my chest actually hurt. At those times, I was certain Death, with his cold scythe, was just one bare step behind me. If I turned, I was sure, I’d see his grinning skull-face.

I was terrified. I couldn’t die. Not now. Not yet. I’d wasted my whole freakin’ life!

Looking back on the whole thyroid episode (which lasted months), I can notice that not once did it occur to me to simply say, “Yes. I could die from this. What can I do to prepare for the moment of my death?” Had I noticed this was an option, I could have shifted my perspective. Instead of spending those long weeks of forced inactivity in mortal terror of dying, I could have worked with understanding that even if I survived the whole thyroid thing, I would eventually die.

The only options I had, I might have noticed, were to go to my death kicking and screaming…or not. I could have used those long hours and days in bed as a precious opportunity to examine the nature of mortality, to come face to face (as we so rarely do) with the simple fact of death as the inevitable outcome of birth. Had I been able to do that, a few harrowing weeks could have turned into a really cool chance to hang out on Death’s turf.

***

Apply to an (ongoing) present situation (how does it matter today?)

The biggest ongoing situation in my life as I write this is the Pilgrimage of 62. At eighteen days into it, I feel as though another dimension has been revealed in my life. It’s not that it wasn’t always there. It’s more like now my vision is clear enough to see it. It’s kind of like when you get an eye exam and they play with the lenses on that big machine. When they get to the right lens combination for both eyes, everything suddenly snaps into focus and you think to yourself, “Wow. Those are letters on the screen, not  shapeless black squiggles.”

That’s how I’m starting to feel about my life. I’m starting to realize that countless things I’d thought were insignificant are actually important indicators, signs along my path. Tomorrow I turn fifty. My pending birthday was the driving reason behind the pilgrimage. I felt I needed to do something both to amplify my practice and to celebrate it in my life. I felt I needed to take a journey whose outcome I couldn’t possibly know.

What I didn’t realize eighteen days ago was that the pilgrimage is also a gradual, gentle way for me to come to terms with the inevitability of my own death. I’m finding that as I walk this road of pilgrimage, samsara’s illusions and delusions become more and more transparent. As that happens, I find that I can clearly see where the road of my life—everyone’s life—leads.

I never thought that death would be something I would want to know intimately. But as more clarity arises in my mind, I’m beginning to think that maybe the best way to live in samsara is to live cheek and jowl with the inevitability of your own mortality.

Eighteen days ago, I would have thought this a terrifying prospect. But today, having made the journey of this pilgrimage more than halfway now, I find the process of coming to terms with my own death very liberating.

It would be a lie to say my own death doesn’t frighten me. But, who wouldn’t be frightened knowing you have to take a journey to a far place, all by yourself, and that you could be thrust into that foreign land at any time without so much as a pocket translator? It would be insane not to be afraid.

Lately my perspective on death has changed. It’s almost as if I can say, “Yeah. I’m gonna die. I’ve lived longer than I have left. Yes. I’ll be scared. Yes. I’ll be alone at the moment of death. But I’m not dead yet. I’ve got things to do: do no harm, do good, purify my mind. That’s why I’m here. Let’s get to it.”

***

Apply to a potential situation (bringing it home to play)

On Sunday I baked a test bread (Applesauce Oatmeal) and it came out pretty good for a bread with no bottom. It was so moist, most of the bottom stuck to the pan. I brought samples to work because the folks in my office are very willing taste testers.

When I got to work, I consciously offered Salem the very first piece. This doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it was for me. I knew the best pieces were on top because I’d cut unevenly because of the bread falling apart. I made a conscious effort to offer her the best of what I had. After eight long months of working with what began as an extremely adversarial situation with Salem, to make that gesture of offering her my best felt incredibly good. I did it without resentment, without pushing myself. When the thought arose, I knew it was the right thing to do. And I wanted to do the right thing.

Ever since then, I’ve been wondering if doing the right thing is the best way to prepare for our death. I think it might be. Even if I do die today, it wouldn’t be an occasion for sadness if I knew that right up until the moment of my death, I had done the right thing.

In my early years in Texas, after escaping a fiasco of a relationship, I did what most women do. I started what was basically the same relationship with a different person. Of course, it ended up being a total and complete disaster in my life. After that, I went through a time when I believed I had no chance of ever doing the right thing. I believed I’d messed up my life so badly, it would be better to get a sharp knife and slash my wrists vertically. At least, I thought, I’d get that right. In fact, there was a time when I was steps away from doing that. I didn’t have a sharp enough knife, but I had a whole bottle of heavy duty sleeping pills. I was overwhelmed at the prospect of ever getting anything right in my life again.

I think that happens to a lot of us. We may not go so far as picking out the right knife or hoarding the sleeping pills, but we sort of sit back in the mess of our lives and say, “Oh well. It’s too late. I’m too stupid. I’m too old. I’m too ____[whatever] to do the right thing.”

We are so wrong about that. Our Buddha Nature is always right there, just dying to come out, if we’d only give it a chance. Keeping this in mind, knowing I can’t be Mother Teresa in every single moment of my life, it is my intent today to look for the opportunity to do the right thing. Even if it’s only once. Even if it’s only offering a smile to someone who looks weighed down by samsara.

In doing this, it is my intent to prepare myself for the moment of my death so that when that moment comes, I’ll know that I did the right thing, at least today.

And perhaps tomorrow, perhaps on the rest of my pilgrimage through life toward death’s territories, I can live each day as a precious investment in doing the right thing.