Day 11/30 - What Really Matters?
The art of living and dying.
Although I’m entering an era that I’m attempting to take more responsibility and be more serious, I sometimes get these nudges reminding me that in the end - it’s not “having it all together” that matters.
I keep getting winks from the universe - through TV shows, the message on my tea bag, the writing is on the wall…
The thing is, we’re all headed towards the same destination - death. This is not me being dark… It’s not my fault we have collectively decided that death is taboo, when in actuality, it’s the most normal thing and inescapable thing which will happen to all of us.
Anyone who has either come near death, or experienced the death of a loved one, knows that truth, despite attempts of numbing ourselves to it.
The gift of recognizing the truth of death is that you (hopefully) learn what really matters - and it turns out, what really matters isn’t what many of us spend most of our time worrying about and focusing on.
Yogic and Zen teachings are actually centered around this truth of death. It’s not really sexy to talk about, so it isn’t what people first think about when getting into yoga… When you get more serious about yoga - you find out it’s not about the downward dog lol
Some teachers say “Meditation is preparation for death.” In Vipassana, the teacher says that learning meditation is not only about the “art of living, but about the art of dying.”
Spirituality in general - it’s about death.
I’ll keep saying the forbidden word. Death. Even I cringe every time I write it. Why are we so afraid? I like to think about the Pink Floyd song that begins with “I’m not afraid of dying. Why should I be?”
I lost my dad to brain cancer, and watched him slowly become a very thin human being until he passed. It was the most excruciating time of my life, and I did not yet have the emotional capacity or tools to deal with that difficult time. I was 24.
Losing him still sometimes hits me like a giant ton of bricks that I cannot handle the weight of.
He was only 57, in good shape, we never expected that to happen. He passed away 1.5 years after being diagnosed. There was 1.5 years of knowing he was headed towards the gates of heaven, it was unbearably painful.
When my dad was processing his immanent death, he shared some quotes about how “You can always make more money, but you can’t make more time.” He was confronted with this sobering reality in ways which most of us cannot quite fully grasp.
Time is the most valuable thing we have. Time is all we have, and we don’t actually know how long we have. The ways in which we choose to spend our time are therefore our true richness.
In the Zen ashram I stayed in last winter, there was a sheet of contemplations for everyone to ask themselves throughout our time there. Many of the questions were related to what I like to call the “death bed question”.
When I feel conflicted, I often ask myself the death bed question. Perhaps this is why my life has been incredibly “chaotic and irresponsible”.
It depends on the situation, but I ask myself one of these two questions :
“When I’m on my death bed - what matters to me most?”
“If I were to die in X amount of time, what’s most important to me?”
Now, when my dad died almost 6 years ago, my answers to these types of questions are a lot different to what I’d answer now. And they are likely to continue changing through time and where I am at in my life.
When my dad passed away, I thought to myself “My dad worked a 9-5 job his entire life, and he didn’t enjoy it. I don’t want to do that, I am going to travel the world and be free from that.” I didn’t want to repeat something I thought made my dad unhappy.
I now know that what brought my dad the most joy was my mom, my brothers and I, and I know in my heart that my dad simply did what he needed to do in order to provide us with everything we needed and more.
Now my mentality with the death bed question is closer to: “I just want to spend as much time as possible with the people I love.”
And as it turns out, traveling all over the world alone and living on the other side of the country trying to create a new life, didn’t exactly meet my needs of being near the people closest to my heart.
It took me a long time to figure that out, because I rejected the idea of living back at home or even closer to home.
Contemplating death doesn’t disappoint though and I soon figured it out.
I knew I couldn’t live across the country anymore, and here I am back at home, around what matters most.
And… taking responsibility and making good choices. (Let’s see!)
- Daniela
