Remembering death
(unedited excerpt from my yet to be published "Manual for Seekers, Students and Teachers of Spirituality")
Some people talk about their near-death-experiences, like of some special event that could have got them killed. I don't mean to belittle such experiences because they can be both shocking or healing, as well as spiritually reorienting often leading people out of the grip of the ordinary. However, to practitioners of dharma, every day life should be a near death experience.
One of the fundamental practices for students of reality (skt. dharma) is to remember one's mortality. To do this practice means to live with death and the fact that this moment could be our last. Doing this makes us see ourselves and the surrounding world in a clearer light.
Remembering one's mortality is a deeply sobering practice because it cuts right through our everyday fantasies, worries and whatever petty things we entertain ourselves with. Accepting the fact that we will all die and leave these bodies, is a forceful wake up call to many. Even thinking about death can be shocking to the uninitiated who happily sleep in their worlds beliefs and dreams but after some familiarization with death, it becomes like a therapist or a healer to oneself. Remembering death, that in our modern culture lacks true understanding, can make our lives matter, and that in turn makes our lives better, in terms of quality. It ignites genuine love and care in us.
What do I mean by living with death?
It simply means reminding ourselves that wherever we are or whatever we do, this might be our last moment in this body. It is to remember among our every day situations, that it might be the last.
This might be my last time tasting a meal, my last time seeing a friend or a loved one; my last time taking a walk, my last time making love or my last time drawing a breath. If we live this way, have a continuous near-death-experience, would it make us see our lives, our decisions, our way of life, our relationships and our use of time in a different light? Absolutely, and that's the whole point. Remembering our mortality makes us alive. That is the waking up that comes from doing this exercise. You sober up and stop wasting your time in meaningless things.
Remembering death is one of the so called preliminary practices that all practitioners should do but many skip it and don't take it seriously. They think it is something for the low-level practitioners, like an ABC for the kids or something like that. If you think so, please allow me to suggest a simple test to see if you have graduated this preliminary or not.
There is only one thing that leads out of suffering and that is dharma, or the teaching of reality that gives us self-knowledge. To practice the dharma, means to recognize one's enlightened nature for the benefit of all beings.
Someone who has mastered the basics or preliminaries of dharma-teachings, uses one's time and energy more wisely than those who live their lives invested and absorbed in their own beliefs, opinions and dreams. Someone who understands what is truly important in life, lives one's life with the intention of being of service and helping others in their existential nightmares. This can take myriad expressions but that is the basic idea.
If we are honest to ourselves, it is easy to see whether or not we live like angels, bodhisattvas or masters who have mastered the dharma of death and impermanence by never forgetting that our time is running out at every instant.
-Amrita Baba, 13.11.22
