Durning the online class I teach, and throughout the last...two weeks, at least? I think? I've been thinking a lot about my inevitable mortality. This flesh shall not last. To dust shall you return. Beware the ides of March. Does this taste funny to you?
It may surprise you, but as I taught the wisdom of death to my students, their comments were on the peace it brought, and the love it inspired. It did not surprise me.
Memento Mori is a primary dictum of the Stoics, and of the Sanatana Dharma. And of not just one, but several of my teachers. I think my favorite phrase currently is, "there are two things you should never forget; death, and God."
But there are many other good ones:
"I am grateful for the fact of my death: it has made my life possible."
and,
"...when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
I didn't suggest to my students that they morbidly obsess over death. Rather, I suggested they imagine looking back on their life, from their deathbed. From that vantage point, what is important becomes much clearer. For me, the only things that really seem to be the love I made and shared. The time spent warmly with friends and family. The choices I made that resonated with that iron string of truth and rightness in my heart. The ways I was of service to others, and the time I spend in earnest all-out endeavor to be living in the vast mystery and beauty of the Great Mystery, Brahmin, Godhead.
What really doesn't matter: the times I tried at something and failed. The dumb fluff I read and watched, the time I spend worrying about anything at all, the time I spent ruminating about anything at all, the time I spend being jealous or angry or petty or self-deprecating, the time I spent feeling bad for/about myself.
Wisdom from the deathbed: you never regret taking risks for things you care about. You always regret playing it safe because you're afraid of rejection or what other people will think or failing, with those same things you care about. You never regret letting those you care about know how much you love them. You (almost) always regret the petty vindictive things you do and say and think about others.
I could go on, but it's much simpler to just remember you will die, and take that death-bed perspective, and all the wisdom is yours for the taking, tailored to whatever specific event you're looking at.
In addition, lately, I've been trying to make a habit of using it to help me make tough decisions, to enhance my willpower. I imagine my deathbed self, rousing himself, looking at me with his piercing haunted eyes, and screaming at me not to waste the present moment. I've yet to implement it fully, I've been kind of busy and exhausted for installing new habits, but it's on the dock for super worthy habits to install. If you're curious of my list, it looks like this:
The very most important practices that I am working on turning into habits:
1) keeping an awareness of God with me at all times. Two main practices, namasmarana, and dedication of action
2) Self-compassion, and self-confidence
3) keeping awareness of Death with me at all times, especially when I am tempted to not practice the above two.
Number one has been ongoing for a while, number two is a bit new, and number three is even newer. Really, I only have the mental bandwidth to implement one new habit at a time, and number one is it. Three is in support of that, and two is right now just a short exercise I'm trying to do at least twice a day for a few minutes.
Live long and make each moment matter
-I
(In case you don't get the Blue Oyster Cult reference in the picture at the top)
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