If we could think of it in this way - No one ever dies

[Guest bean_si (Not Active)]

................If you were to love a cloud, with this insight, you would know that the cloud is impermanent. If you love a human being you can know that he or she is impermanent. If you were to become attached to a cloud you would have to be very careful. You know that, according to the law of impermanence, very soon the cloud will become something else. It might become rain.

You might say to the cloud, "Darling cloud, I know you are there and I also know that one day you will die. I also must die. You will become something else, someone else, I know you will continue your journey, but I shall have to look deeply in order to recognize your continuation so that I will not suffer so much."

If you forget about impermanence and are attached to the cloud, when the time comes for the cloud to be transformed into rain, you will cry, "Oh dear, my cloud is no longer there. How can I survive without her?"

But if you practice looking deeply, you can see the cloud in new forms like the mist or the rain. The rain is smiling, singing, falling down, full of life, full of beauty. Yet because of your forgetfulness you are not capable of recognizing the presence of the cloud in this new manifestation. You are caught in grief. You keep crying and crying and meanwhile the rain is calling you. "Darling, darling, I am here, recognize me!" But you ignore the rain while all the time rain is the continuation of the cloud. In fact the rain is the cloud itself.

-

From No Death, No Fear

Thich Nhat Hanhm copyright 2002

[Elaine]

Cat

Thank you for posting this. It is our human frailty that causes us to become attached to a singularity of things of this world. Since Dx, there have been fleeting moments when I have been able to accept the impermanece I (we all) face. Most times I am stuck in grief, desparately wanting to hold onto the way things were or at the least the way things are now. My children's faces, the touch of a beloved's hand. "If only" this or that.... We have to pray for a strength that is inevitably within us to rise, so that we may accept, I think, so. What do you think? It must be within us, I pray.

Elaine

[john]

Quite Zen.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

[MO_Sugar]

I came to realize early after dx that I was not afraid to die as I do believe that God has something much better planned for me. That is not to say that I am not sad about it because I know it will cause pain for those I leave behind. I spend a lot of time talking to my kids and friends about the fact that I don't want a "funeral" I want a CELEBRATION cause by then I will be in Gods home and will have no more pain or worries! I think they all understand that and I know my Pastor and his wife will help see that it happens like I want.

I believe we leave this world but the next place we go is sooooooooooooo much better it can't be a bad thing!

God Bless,

MO

[Guest bean_si (Not Active)]

Ah yes. Deep inside we harbor the knowledge that death is impermanent; that we will never die. But we also know that we will lose contact with all we see around us and all we love. While I can understand the idea of being a spirit moving through life - most of the times I am caught up with the thought of never seeing my children again to such mundane worries as how to pay the doctors, how to endure the treatment or am I never going to be able to visit Ireland, see The Louvre and on and on. Our society distances us from our own spirits, our own inner knowledge. It is hard on a day-to-day basis to even believe in this knowing spirit who realizes death is just as impermanent as life.

Cat