Death.
This whole idea of “impermanence surrounds us” is easy enough to conceptualize. Still, nothing hits home quite like death and the realization of impending death. Yes, I can acknowledge this blah blah about reincarnation, but honestly there is no “self” so it truly isn’t like the reincarnation in the comics and movies and such; “you” don’t really come back. Your volitional actions in turn set the table for the next set of causes and conditions at all times, from birth to birth until final awakening. That is the extent of it as far as I’m aware.
However, this body. Our bodies. That which does ultimately cease to exist. That’s the hard part to reconcile.
After being given some very disturbing news about the health of a loved one (just last night), death is something I’m simply more cognizant of at the moment. Reconciling detachment, impermanence, attachment, and empathy is quite difficult. I’ve conceptualized sickness, old-age, and death but have yet to make peace with it. I don’t yet know how.
In addition to last nights concerns, on my way to work this morning, I had to stop my car in the middle of the road due to a pronounced episode of suffering. A bird was twitching in on the road, and grasping for life in its final moments of it. I’m assuming someone ran it over as the neck was horribly twisted (180 degrees) and there were feathers smushed in the pavement. Miraculously, there was no blood. I enabled my hazard-lights and move toward the injured, dying, life with equal concern, and compassion. Picking this life up, I carefully moved it off the road and on to some grass beside the road. The fact this life allowed me to pick it up and move it without struggle proved to me the enormity of its suffering; distorted neck angles, narrow eyes of painful torture, hidden blood stains and only one functional wing. I stayed with the life for as long as I could, gently touching it, chanting for it, hoping it may recover from its horrifying circumstance. Despite great efforts and with a violent twitch, life ceased to inhabit this bird’s body any longer. With a heavy heart and solemn prayer of metta, I stayed for a bit longer noticing the quality of life slowly fade from its eyes.
One more prayer of metta: May this one be free of suffering.
I returned to my car, unsettled, concerned, and upset at the carelessness that caused such an eventful circumstance. In the next breath, I felt a wave of gratitude, having been there to at least be with the bird it its last moments, having cared for it, shown it compassion in its final moments, rather than dying alone smushed on cold pavement.
May we all be free of dukha.