You can read or watch this post. The written version below leaves out some of what is in the video, so if you are intrigued, watch the video or read the transcript as well as the post below.
My dad died six weeks ago. Or a month. Maybe two. I don’t really know.
So death is on my mind.
And you know, there’s this Jane Goodall video that’s been going around on the Internet. Jane is the primatologist who passed at 91, a hero in the environmental movement. She’s all over my feed.
In the video, she talks about death as “my next great adventure.” She says either nothing happens—or something does. And either way, she finds that exciting.
Thoughts vs. Death Itself
I’ve never greeted thoughts of my own death the way Jane did.
I say “thoughts of my death” carefully—because I haven’t met actual death. I don’t know it. I don’t know what it is or what will happen or if it is awful or great.
What I am very familiar with—if not death—are my thoughts about death. I have death thoughts a lot. All the time.
I was talking to my Zen master—he’s 81 or 82—and he said that, unlike me, he doesn’t think about death much. Occasionally he’s caught off guard, suddenly realizing, Oh my God, I’m old. I’m going to die soon. But not often.
Me? Thoughts about my death are frequent. I don’t always feel frightened by them. But I don’t feel the way Jane Goodall does either. I don’t think of death as a well-anticipated, exciting adventure.
Maybe it will be. I don’t know. I just know that, for now, I much prefer being alive. I don’t want to die.
Even Jesus Wasn’t at Peace With Death
And I’ve carried shame about that—not being chill about dying. Shouldn’t I think about it rarely, like my Zen Master?
I’m an authorized Zen teacher. I’ve received Inka. Shouldn’t I be at peace with dying? Shouldn’t I greet death with spiritual elegance, like Jane Goodall?
But even Jesus didn’t greet death in a sanguine way. On the cross, he said, Father, why have you forsaken me? And then, in the last moment, Into your hands, I commend my spirit.
Like, he wasn’t jumping around excited at his death. He was scared and unhappy. As the story is written, he didn’t let go because he felt at ease. He let go, at the last minute, when he realized there is no other choice.
Awe and Sorrow: Two Sides of Living
There are three Zen stories I think about here. I’ll summarize.
One story is of a woman teacher, Sol, from centuries ago. When her granddaughter died, Sol cried and cried.
Her followers were shocked. Why are you crying? You know there’s no such thing as life and death. She stopped and offered some teaching—even as she felt her grief fully.
Another story is of a 19th-century Japanese monk on his deathbed. We die alone, we die alone, he said. He also set himself aside for a moment when his students asked for teaching.
A third story is of a Zen master saying, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die. Like the others, he let go of his despair to attend to students who asked for his teaching.
Each of these ancient teachers expressed sorrow and regret. Yet each also stopped and taught, when students asked, even from within their despair.
Though the teachers weren’t excited about their deaths like Jane Goodall, they didn’t cling to their despair. That’s maybe part of what spiritual understanding offers—not avoidance of sorrow, but presence through it.
Of course, I’m not yet dying. So I can’t say for sure. As I said, I don’t know death, only my thoughts of death.
But I appreciate those stories. They make room for awe and sorrow, perhaps the essential ingredients of human experience. Awe, like seeing green leaves around me as I write. And sorrow—because the experience of those leaves will soon pass.
What We Have Is THIS
We are born and we die in every moment.
There’s not a seamless continuity to our experience. It’s one moment—then another. If you pay attention, that’s how it feels. We’re here. Then we’re not. Then we’re here again.
So I was talking with the friend who sent me the Jane Goodall video, and thinking: maybe one day I’ll feel excited about the adventure of death. But right now, I don’t want to die.
And I realized: both are okay.
There’s no enlightened stance on death that says you should be unafraid—or you should be afraid. What matters is being present to your experience, whatever it is.
Here we are, in a human body. And this human body wants to stay alive. Mine does, anyway.
So, what’s it like to want not to die?
What’s it like to just be with that?
Oh. It’s like just like THIS.
If you have gotten to here you have plowed through a bunch of words. I worked something out while I was writing—that I am ok with what I am and how I great death.
The words mean something to me and are consoling to me.
I hope, somehow, they mean something to you too.
If so, maybe you could say so in the comments?
Maybe I am on my way to the void, but you would be doing me a great service if you helped me feel I am not shouting into it.
Comment! Please! LOL
With love,
Colin
