Learning How to Die – Part 2
I wrote this out on a message board, and figured I'd save it here. It's inspired by and has references to the song I posted yesterday, which you can find here.
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Learning how to die.
Key word for me is learning. If we're
learning how to die, doesn't that mean that we practice it? If that's
the case, we're not *just* talking about physical death here.
So
what are we talking about? Are there ways in which we die
metaphorically in our day to day lives? One author I read described
death not as you being ripped from the world, but as your world being
ripped from you. If we take that as our definition, then many more
situations apply. When you lose a loved one, part of your world is
ripped from you forever. Or when you realize that the principles you'd
based your life on were lies you'd told yourself, and you can't live
with that world view anymore…it's like your world was ripped from
you.
In short, we're talking about crisis. Existential
suffering. And learning how to suffer and die and be in crisis…this
is the most important lesson of all. Isn't that what the song seems to
suggest?
Why?
Because we have a tendency to ignore
and deny it. We have a tendency to say, "Please, don't talk about the
end. Don't talk about how every living thing goes away."
It
makes sense doesn't it? That we would avoid pain? That we would seek
things like life and not crying, bending and not breaking?
But
crisis is like a lion. If you run, you better run fast, because he will
give chase and hunt you down like the weakest link in the herd. So we
set up our lives as a race with no finish line. Just keep running, keep
ahead of it.
But eventually you'll be caught. You really can't
avoid it altogether. You can put it off, but when it gets you it will
tear you to shreds. It's like Tetris game. You know the end is coming,
but how far can you put it off?
But none of this is learning
how to die…it's learning how to avoid dying. And "The irony of man's
condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of
death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so
we must shrink from being fully alive." (Ernest Becker)
So in learning how to avoid death, we learn how to avoid life as a side affect.
Therefore,
when we look most deeply at how to live, we actually have to look at
how to die. How not to run in the first place. How to actually get your
hands dirty and deal with death/crisis. It's much easier to deal with a
lion when it's sleeping and basking in the sun rather than when it's
hungry and hunting you down.
But it's counter-intuitive to
approach the lion rather than to run away. It goes against all common
sense and worldly wisdom.
For Christians, doesn't this sound
familiar? Not our way, but God's way? Not worldly wisdom, but the
wisdom of the Kingdom of Heaven? The two types of revenge… The
infinite and all powerful Lord of Heaven and Earth choosing to suffer
when he didn't have to? To show us to face death patiently and
willingly and to let your love shine through the entire time? Did Jesus
ever run away?
For Buddhists and Taoists, doesn't this sound
familiar? To move willingly like water through every crisis that comes
your way rather than to treat life like a bull and grab it by the
horns? To recognize that life is suffering and that the only way out is
to enter into that suffering?
It reminds me of a children's song that people sing at camp:
Goin' on a lion hunt.
Goin to catch a big one.
I'm not afraid.
Look, what's up ahead?
Cave!
Can't go over it.
Can't go under it.
Can't go around it.
Gotta go through it.
What it's like to go through it, and how to navigate…that's a whole other topic. That's why we all have to learn how to die.
What do you think?
Light and Storm 