Fare Thee Well

I sit for one final sunset on my cherished Thai isle, my temporary home halfway around the world from where I was born.

I pray this isn't my last evening here, instead the most recent in a string of future stays to come. I truly feel at home here, where I've returned most often in the past few years to rest in my body and with my mind more peacefully than before. They still give me trouble, certainly less so now.

The sun blazes an iridescent orange orb through the haze at the horizon, sinking to rest after bronzing my skin, feeding the palm fronds around me, and warming the water that welcomed me earlier. I too often take for granted the glowing radiance of the sun and my body, my being, that each will rise the next morning like it did the last.

The current uncertainty of the Corona-scare provokes copious speculation and visceral reactions within and around me.

Perhaps it's a pandemic, a millions-killing scourge. Or it's a hyperactive, overhyped bug akin to the flu. It might be more deadly than that known entity, yet as its daily toll comes close to car crashes and heart disease, we are more inured to those occurrences by our commonplace acceptance of their assumed inevitability.

No matter the potential cause or imminence, the cessation of the precious gift of life is not to be trifled with, nor are our feelings around "the end."

I've had ample opportunity and time to contemplate death on a very personal level. Painful as the last years have been, some moments much more so than the status quo of my emotional baseline, my perspective shifted to help me recognize the gifts these happenings brought along with their devastating losses.

In the 35 years prior to my mom's death, and the year that followed with the passing of my great-aunt, I stepped into the realization that many have known and spoken before me.

I join my society, culture, and community in the struggle to reconcile our feelings and reactions to death, on individual, familial and species levels. Whether conscious or not, the reticence to sincerely reflect on the polar partner of 'life' creates unpleasant and avoidable spillover in our lives.

Many live their days in a waking dream as if death will not happen to them, walking aimlessly without agency, spending precious time on actions worth little to the enrichment of their existence.

The thought of death inevitably crosses their minds, triggering a response that turns their dream into a nightmare.

Fears -- false evidences appearing real -- suddenly stream through their consciousness, worst-case scenarios made worse by minds elaborating on endless inputs sent hurtling towards their eyes and ears.

If we look closer, it's often not death itself that stokes our primal terrors. Some people I know (and knew) see death as liberation from the untenable struggle of daily existence.

Surely there is a potent potential regret of imagined lives "meant" or desired to be lived, or the anxiety of what happens to the loved ones we leave behind.

More terrifying though is the fear of the process preceding the end, the steps necessary to take and the tribulations to endure, before death's sweet relief descends and ends all manner of pain. The agony of the physical and emotional ordeal that often accompanies leaving the body behind is something we're not prepared to consider, even though when our time comes, we might be shocked at how capable we are to endure this inevitability.

And so I stare too long on my phone witnessing the current pandemic of fear already infecting the world. FDR's words ring true again, that if there's anything to fear, it is fear itself.

I'm not here to preach we are wrong to experience fear. I encounter spiritual aphorisms prescribing living from the orientation of love. I acknowledge the potential bypass of saying fearful thought and action is the fatal flaw preventing us from enlightened existence. If only it were that easy.

In my experience, fear exists for a reason. We all encounter it, choosing to transmute it and grow from what it shows us within, or allowing ourselves to be swallowed and consumed by it. Both are valid experiences.

Fear indicates an opportunity to resolve an open question in our consciousness, or likely unconsciousness. It's an invitation to look at the aspects of our lives and personalities that some slice of our egoic survival instincts continually turn us from, especially those covered in cobwebs in the deepest corners of our shadow's closet. Rejecting each invitation likely ensures more will sneak into our awareness's inbox upon the inevitable arrival of the next scare.

I know one certainty: I don't know how I'm going to die. I know quite little, in fact, however hungrily my mind has sought to learn in this infintisimal speck of existence I've lived.

Sadhguru quipped: Don't make stupid conclusions thinking you know, whether about the current state of the world or the future. Allow that you know far less than you do know. Better to keep seeking the truth than to think you know it.

I'm on a path now pointing me towards resting calmly and comfortably in the unknown. I'm comforted by past knowledge that it is, and always has been, all OK in order to venture further into the darkness of the future; to surrender gracefully and gratefully to it is the goalless goal.

What "I know": I didn't know what I know now before I knew it. How often was that unknowing scary before whatever potentially frightening event was to come? Then, the thing happened, and I was fine after, albeit with a few scars on the outside and in.

Looking back to see what was, and what is, it has always been ‘all good.’ In the present moment, all is always perfect. Even if more scary shit is bound to appear on the horizon.

Observe for yourself: in this moment now, as you come into the awareness of your next breath, fully existing in the air filling your lungs, what is missing from this precise moment? And the next.

What more is necessary to exist in this moment, and the next? I propose: nothing. The moment has everything it needs, always.

Why worry about the future? The future is unknown, and yet we project into it like we know what will happen. Such projection is colored by the light of past memories, imaginations created from events that recur only when we retrieve them and hold them in our current awareness. 

What fruit does this bear? Often a stomach tied in fearful knots, or panic perforating the body.

I acknowledge it may sound like I'm writing from a privileged perch. Yet, I share in the experience of the rest of humanity. I inhabit a body and all the physical aches and mental worries that come with it. At their core sounds the ever-present, existential concern over what will happen to my body through the rest of my days until it dies.

The corporal pains are not what truly trouble me. Rather it's the mental suffering, formed from stories I create in the present and project into the future, that keep me from the peace I seek. The joy-filled experience of the gift of each breath is just within my reach. If only I could simply let go, over and over again. Then I could have it all.

Each living person on Earth possesses this same privilege: breathing, existing now. The more we contemplate that simple miracle, and give thanks for our next breath, the more we might appreciate our precious station on this planet, in this moment. And hopefully with less stress about where we will be in the next.

With growing awareness, I catch myself more often when I stray from this practice. I forgive myself for judging others, and myself. When I remember, I try kindness as a substitute, again to myself and others. It's the least and most I can do.

I'm doing my best to remember, and give thanks when I find myself back in paradise, particularly when I find it within.