Death. Why is it that we are so afraid of death, not just death, but the thought of death. I don’t understand anymore, if I ever did. I think I have some recollection of being afraid of this notion of dying. Maybe frightened of not knowing what was to come next, if anything. Now, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what happens when I wake up after I have gone to sleep. The next day is the next day, what it brings is what it brings, and what I bring to it.

Death, is sleep. Death is rest. Death is slowing down and stopping. Death is nothing to fear unless you are afraid of these things. There is no need to go on. There is no need for anything more. If there is something beyond death then so there is. We will be there when we get there. If there is a hell as some believe, then it will be no worse or better that this I imagine.

We all suffer, this is the first noble truth of Buddhism. This is a wonderful noble truth, this is a wonderful belief to embrace as what it means is that you can always see in another their suffering. Everyone suffers, no one is exempt. So although it may not appear so on the outside, every single person is the same as you, inside they suffer. They doubt, they fear, they worry, they are uncertain. This is the human condition: to suffer.

Being ready to die is not the same as wanting to die. Being ready to die simply means that perhaps I have acknowledged that we all suffer, I have acknowledged and accepted that I suffer, and perhaps that I can do without that, that I am ready to be still and stop, and if needs be, if the reincarnationists are right, I’m ready to start again. To try again.

I have done so much it seems. I have seen so much. and now I worry, like a dog with a bone, about the same things over and over and over. I will keep worrying this same bone until I die, and then perhaps I will start worrying it all over again. I’m happy doing this, although it is tiring at times, and there is a sense of impotence and frustration attached to it. I know that maybe I would be happier not worrying, but there you go.

Ready to die. Something we could think about a little more. Death. Our own mortality. It could happen tomorrow, or the next day, or perhaps in a month, or a year. We don’t have to be old to die, we don’t have to know we are dying to die. Death can come all of sudden, in a rush, unexpected.

Although it does not need to be unexpected. Rather it can be expected, as it is the one certainty in this life. We all die. So being ready for death is in one way just about acknowledging and accepting the inevitable. I have no fear of leaving – I’m not sure whether this is something that people worry about, whether this is a part of death that people have fear of. For me I am not afraid of leaving. In many ways I feel tired, weary of this continued existence, this struggle to make sense of it all.

I no longer have an attachment to the ideological imperatives of capitalism. Thankfully I seem to have spewed these from my body, I have detoxed myself and no longer struggle with ‘making it’ in this capitalist world. I do not get much satisfaction from the trappings, from acquiring things, things that reflect back at me, and tell others who I am. Thankfully I seem less and less entrapped in this way. No, this is not what I struggle with, I am happy with my place in the world. My life is one largely uncluttered and unaffected by the sway of capitalist enterprise. I buy little, own less and desire even less. This is not what I struggle with.

My struggle is with myself and my need to understand. A fish out of water is increasingly how I seem, and in that …. My pain and my suffering stem from my attachment to knowing and to finding something or someone who will confirm for me what it means to breath. I kind of know there is no one out there who can do this, and so my search and my desire and my despair is futile. So I am ready. To give up? I guess so. To end the search and rest.

I want to leave a message for my sons Tobias and Max. This is not a suicide note. This is simply a message to my sons. I know I could die tomorrow, or the next day, so in knowing that I want you to know that you have been the brightest lights in my world. You are a light that has never dimmed, from the moments you were born to now, you have remained all there is, and all there ever will be, to me. It has been the greatest blessing to know and experience a feeling of love so strong, so consistent, so deep, that it never wavers, never falters, never diminshes.

Thank you for letting me love you. Thank you for being so so wonderful, for being perfect, for gifting me with the experience of unconditional love.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

Caroline and I watched ‘Coach Carter’ the other night. The first time I saw it I was in NZ staying with Tobias and Kate in March 2010. I had never heard of the movie before then; Kate suggested we watch it. Thank you Kate, for once I had watched it, it became one of my favourite movies, and it is one that still brought tears to my eyes the other night. One of the reasons I love the movie is that it introduced me to these beautiful, inspiring words by Marianne Williamson.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

The last 3 days have passed without comment.  On Friday we were let out / let off early, around mid afternoon. The others stayed and did prep work for the following week. I didn’t. I felt tired and disinterested and took myself home to complete another job application, this one for a teaching position in the UK.  After that I hung out with the weekend and we didn’t do too much studywise.

It may have been wise for me to have done something as I realised just before lights out last night that the 2nd assignment is due today. Doh! So it was a 3.45 start this morning and I’m about 3/4 done. I’ll complete the rest today some time – as well as completing my lesson plan (LP) and preparation for today’s lesson. Ah yes, back into it. I am pleased there are only 9 days to go -  I know I will make it, all I have to do is hang in there!!

And after the 9 days? The plans remain a little roller-coaster, though it does feel as if the ride is losing a little momentum; I forsee no further big dips and dives in the future.  After talking with Cari I am now fairly certain of my return to the UK soon after I complete the course. I think this week I will book my plane ticket, a step that will collapse a raft of potential realities and make my future a little less ambiguous.

Tobias finishes work this coming Friday – this is something that creates some uncertainty for me. It seems ironic that it was his phonecall that triggered within me my desire to return here – to reassure myself that he was ok.  And I was reassured within hours of arriving, and yet now, as I contemplate my departure, I am less so…

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

‘He is without ambition and he has no desire for fame: to become anything of a public figure would be deeply distasteful to him; and so it may be that he is satisfied to lead his chosen life and be no more than just himself.  He is too modest to set himself up as an example to others; but it may be he thinks that a few uncertain souls, drawn to him like moths to a candle, will be brought in time to share his own glowing belief that ultimate satisfaction can only be found in the life of the spirit’

Somerset Maughan : The Razors Edge : 1944

 my son, my most wonderful friend and kindred spirit

may you always share in my dharma

may I always share in yours

and may we both be liberated

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

We are born, with two people as our parents, well usually anyway. There is a randomness to this selection of parents as there is a randomness to everything that happens to us after we are born. These two people that came together to create us could have been any two people.

And these two people who are my parents, the two that are yours, are mine and yours for a reason. It is the fact that they could have been anybody, and it is a fact that they are not. They are specifically and uniquely who they are, that is what makes their presence in our lives so meaningful.

So I was thinking as I walked towards Morden this morning, why me? Why am I (this specific, unique and utterly complex bundle of discourses that make me ‘me’) in my sons’ lives. I don’t know. God knows / Nobody knows.  What I did discover this morning was that I hope that through knowing me (and I guess knowing me as their father) my sons have come to know that they are never ever trapped. That life is not a cage. It is the opposite. Life is a release.

Birth is a release. A setting free into a wild, safe, limitless and infinitely expansive playground. What we encounter, all that we encounter is simply part of our adventure. We are never trapped, always free, potentially re-creating ourselves every day. Today we choose who we are, and tomorrow we can be someone completely different if we so wish.

My life, through my childrens’ eyes, through my eyes, has been one of incontinuity, of change, of transformation. For whatever reason, whether we understand this lack of continuity as good or bad, it is as it is. So in this moment, Toby and Max, I just want you to know, you are always free.

Free to explore who you are. Free to walk away. Free to settle down. Free to start something new. Free to let it go. Free to follow your heart and listen to your head.

Anything that appears to stand in your way is simply a reflection. Step through the mirror and you will once again be on your way.

Free. Like the fox.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x