What if it's World War III?

Suppose the plane really is going down. How do you spend your last few moments? How do you spend the rest of your life?

Suppose you are on an airplane, tens of thousands of feet over the ocean, and the captain announces that all the engines have failed and that it will only be 25 minutes until everyone is dead.

On the plane with you are children, pregnant women, old people, Gen Z people, baby boomer people, white people, black people, poor people, rich people, straight people, gay people, different people, same people, people you love, people you hate.

Now what?

By the way, while you have been reading this, a minute has passed. There are now only 24 minutes left till the plane goes down.

The First Reaction: Fight the Circumstances

If I was on that doomed plane, I might first experience disbelief and a desire to fix and blame and fight the circumstances and rage. I’d shout questions. I’d try to get to the pilot. But with the engines gone, none of this can help.

In my agitation, I might have managed to get a bunch of other people agitated, too. Now, everyone is shouting and struggling, just when we needed calm.

22 minutes. Fuck.

Stop. Think. Be calm. Be quiet. Think. Think. Find some peace of mind.

That is what we do. We begin by fighting circumstances and trying to change them. We try to make our conditions to our liking. But then, if that doesn’t work, we try for acceptance, peace. If we are going to die, at least let’s find Nirvana, heaven.

21 minutes.

Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash

The Myth of Peace

Looking out the window and suddenly one of the engines actually breaks off the wing and falls away. I realize suddenly that, for all my calm, there is nothing that calm really changes. All that is different is that for these last 20 minutes, my body feels less tense. Who cares?

Fighting and struggling cannot help me. Peace of mind cannot help me. And besides, am I really going to be able to stay peaceful through this?

This idea of heaven, Nirvana, quietude. It is actually another human pipe dream. If we can’t get the car, the house, the love, the long life, then maybe at least we can have peace. But no. Besides, as I’ve said, if the plane is going down, who really cares if I am calm or not?

In the Lotus Sutra, a Buddhist text, it literally says that the idea of Nirvana is a trick to get people to start going down the spiritual path. That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is something better than Nirvana.

19 minutes. What do I do?

The People We Love

In these last minutes, I know what I want most, and I know I can’t have it. I want to be near my daughter. I want to help her know that everything will be alright. That every angry word I have ever said to her was a mistake. I want her to know that I knew that every angry word she said to me was also a mistake.

I want to forgive her. Be forgiven by her. I want us both to erase any regrets we have in our relationship. I want us both to know that anything like that was just static and unimportant. That all there is between us, in truth, is love and joy.

And the same with my ex-wife. And the same with every ex-girlfriend. And the same with my parents and my sister. And all my friends. And the same with strangers… even the taxi drivers and baristas and homeless people I have been rude to.

I take it back. Anything mean I have ever said. I take it back.

But I can’t.

15 minutes now. Fuck.

“You Are Loved.”

Or suppose I can. Suppose my daughter is actually with me on the plane. I tell her all the things. She tells me all the things. We talk it all through. We get to the place where we both know there is nothing but love between us.

11 minutes.

What now? Just wait? Wait till we crash? My daughter knows I love her. I know she loves me. But even that is not enough.

Around me, my fellow passengers on the plane, including friends, including enemies, are crying. Fuming. Shouting. They are having all the feelings and thoughts that I was having. Denial. Raging. First, wanting to hurt whoever caused this. Finally, wanting peace. Wanting to forgive and be forgiven. Wanting love.

Eight minutes left. There seems to be only one thing left worth doing. I don’t know how to do it but I try:

I turn to the passenger next to me. I say, “You are loved.”

And they mention their children or their lover or their parent or their lost loves. They talk about their fears and their regrets.

I say, “You are forgiven and they know you forgive them.”

And somehow this stranger can hear what I am saying and having comforted each other we both feel calm enough to turn to the next person: “You are loved. You are forgiven. Your love and forgiveness are known to all who need to know it.”

A Miracle in the Cabin

And the plane is quiet now.

It’s only four minutes until we hit the ocean.
But everyone is confessing to each other. Forgiving each other. Loving each other.

And promising that everyone loves them and knows they are loved by them.

Someone suddenly says, “We are so lucky. We are so lucky to have existed. We have seen so much beauty.” There is a shared feeling of loving existence and maybe some sorrow that we didn’t really know to love existence before right now.

Please forgive me. I forgive you. Please love me. I love you. I have loved. I am love. I will be love. Let me hold you. Will you hold me? Tell me about your love and I will tell you about mine.

One minute.

59 seconds.

58 seconds.

And we are holding each other and crying and loving each other. Something happens because we are aware of something that is more true about us than our bodies that are about to die. There is a feeling, a current. We aren’t our bodies.

We are love. And whatever happens now to our bodies as the plane hits the ocean doesn’t happen to us.

Because we are love. And love keeps going.

We are so lucky to have realized this before the end because we are love and so we cannot die.

There is nothing to be scared of. Nothing to punish anyone for.

This is what Buddhist scripture and Christian scripture and all our own hearts promised us. There is no need to fight.

The Human Catastrophe

Maybe it is World War III. But even if it is, this day was always coming. We were always the human catastrophe. We have all always been on our way to the death of our bodies.

You can get mad at the billionaires or the baby boomers. But they are in the same boat. Headed to the exact same place. We try to fix our circumstances. We try to find peace of mind. But we are all going to the same place, coming from the same place, in the same place.

There is one way to turn the catastrophe into a miracle. There is one way to turn those last few minutes on the flight from hell to heaven.

Love existence. Love your neighbor as yourself.

This is the place that is better than Nirvana.

Photo by Leio McLaren on Unsplash

If We Get to Keep Living

And now the plane has crashed and it is ok. Your body is gone and it is ok. Because as you died you became what you always were and always will be.

You are love.

That’s if it is World War III and it is the end.

But maybe it’s not the end.

And if it’s not, and it turns out we are going to live, how do we want to live?

Because maybe, this glimpse of what it is like to live these last few moments can tell us how to live our lives from now.

If we already know what matters in the last minutes… why wait until the last minutes?

Love yourself. Love existence. Love everyone. Forgive yourself. Forgive existence. Forgive everyone.

If we get to keep going, from that place, what could we be together?

Leave a comment below or just tap “like” to let me know you’re out there.

With love,

Colin

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