July 17, 2017. 7 to 8:30pm
Prana Wellness Center, 1428 Commercial Street, Astoria, OR
We have been working with Mindfulness of the Body for several weeks. The First Foundation of Mindfulness: Mindfulness of the Body comes to a conclusion with this sixth session, and we contemplate the reality of our own death.
The Buddha asked us to reflect on what happens to a body after death in the last section of the First Foundation of Mindfulness. He takes us to a charnel ground and describes the transformation of a body as it loses the elements of life one by one. We experience the body swelling, losing its fluids, being eaten by vultures and insects, becoming sinew and bone, then scattered bones, and finally disintegrating.
This contemplation is far from how we experience death in our society. We shield ourselves from the reality of our own deaths, and when a loved one dies, often we do not stay with the body after death, but the body is taken away and cremated or taken to a mortuary where the undertaker makes the body look as lifelike as possible. Often we do not have conversations about the end of life with our loved ones, which leaves us unprepared for our own deaths and unable to fully support a dear one who may be transitioning in the process of dying.
Death can come at any moment, yet we often live as if we will live forever. When we don’t understand how close death is, we lose a sense of the preciousness of our lives. Everything that lives will eventually die. To be alive is to be on a one way street toward our own death. This understanding can shake us to our bones, but it also can help us wake up to living life more fully and well.
How can we experience more gratitude for the gifts of life and energy? Reflecting on the reality of our death is a practice that can be liberating, helping us understand how precious life is, which brings more joy and gratitude into our minds and hearts.
Recently a friend of mine, who is a man in his fifties had quite a scare. His heart just stopped suddenly, and he fell to the ground, unconscious. His son was with him, and the son immediately started CPR, which saved his father’s life. After this happened, my friend has become newly appreciative of life, and he is bubbling with gratitude and joy for being alive.
We don’t need to have that kind of a scare to feel joy in our lives, but the story illustrates the value of reflecting on and acknowledging the real possibility of our death.
Mindfulness practice shows us how things are changing all the time. We notice how our own bodies change from moment to moment. Thoughts arise and pass away, as do sensations, experiences; everything is continually changing. When we understand how change and transformation continually happen, each moment can become new and fresh. We can understand that death is a transformation that is not a complete ending, but may give us a new beginning in some mysterious way.
The First Foundation of Mindfulness: Mindfulness of the body brings us home to the reality of having a living body, and the practices engender greater peace and happiness. This final session explores what it means to know the body will one day come to an end and die. This helps us open to feelings of joy and renewal that are possible when we appreciate being fully alive and aware of the preciousness this very life.
“Dreading death we do not see the obvious–
that which has the power to renew itself is eternal . . . .
Without the play of life and death, life would be stagnant,
like a scene in an art house movie shot with a still camera.
. . . How wonderful and refreshing it is to have these momentary changes:
to be blessed by impermanence!”
(mind beyond death, (2007) by Dzogchen Ponlop, published by Snow Lion of Shambhala Publishing.)