Why Can't We Talk About Death

Where do you start with a topic as profound as death? Well here goes.

Most people think Buddhists are pretty morbid, as we talk about death and impermanence a lot.

As a Buddhist I have to agree, at least on the fact we talk and contemplate death and impermanence a lot. But studies have shown that Buddhists like Matthieu Ricard (Said to be the happiest man in the world) are indeed incredibly joyful and happy people. So why is it that they are so joyful and happy, if they think about death and impermanence a lot?

Well from my understanding, thinking about death is incredibly scary, but what happens when the fear settles is that it can shift your prospective and can make you see life in a completely different way. For me, I've always woken up and got on with my day, planning my day, week, month, year and even years ahead. But day after day I still wake up thinking that I will reach the end of my day and this although normal, really isn't intirely true. It's logical to plan I agree, but not once do we contemplate or feel, I could die today or my lover, mother, father or friends could die today.

When we contemplate death it makes us aware of how at any given second we can loose, not only our own life, but also the lives of the most precious people in our life too. 

Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water here, I'm not saying give up your jobs and spend life with the ones you love trying to protect them from any dangers, or become a full time meditator, monk, although if you wanted to do that, that's also fine. What I am saying is that if we get over the initial sadness of the thought, what is left is a feeling of "wow my family and friends won't be here forever, I should really spend more time with them and forgive them more for the small trivial things". But also when we realise we won't be around forever too, we start to forgive ourselves for mistakes more too. It affects everything.

Thinking about death and impermanence for just a few minutes a day can make life seem more precious and wonderful. Have you ever watched a sunset and been amazed at its majestic beauty and thought, I wonder how many of these I'll see in my life?

Life seems to us like it will go on forever, we very rarely give life a second thought. It's the most precious thing we have and it can be gone in an instant. 
To me It's incredibly interesting to observe that we plan everything out in our life down to the last detail. We plan seeing friends and going to places and yet we never give a thought of our own death when it's more certain than anything else.

My life was changed the day my Dad (who was the healthiest person I knew) was diagnosed with incurable cancer. I could see that he felt robbed of his life, having been so careful, not to smoking or drink and always having check ups with the doctor and eating well. He died within ten months and it shock me to my core. It forced me to see that a long life wasn't guaranteed. It made me question my life and led me to go on a quest to understand the nature of reality, but that's a story for another time. 

My father’s greatest gift wasn't that he left me some cool stuff or that he loved me dearly. His gift was showing me my own mortality and that gift is priceless, and for that I am eternally grateful.

The main point here is that seeing death up close, shock me into seeing that we all die and that we never know when it will happen. Who knows, we may argue with our loved ones and storm off and have a heart attack and die. Our dearest friend, we fell out with over some silly trivial thing may die and we will regret not trying to resolve our differences for the rest of our life.

Equally as important, is that we feel that we can put things off and off until later, thinking we can do what we want when we retire, and so on. Thinking about death can give us the kick you need, to do the things we have dreamed of, like traveling or a career change or something else we dream of doing. Overall I find a lot of positives for contemplating my own mortality.

I attend the Death & Dying day at Samye Dzong Buddhist Center in London every year, for a day of reflection on death and dying and it's not limited to Buddhists, there are all sorts of great people and things going on, from the Death Cafe's,Will writing talks, Funeral Planning down to Buddhist approach to death and dying.There are also exhibitions on certain aspects of death too, so its very interesting.

A friend of mine Charlie Morley, who happens to be an amazing Lucid Dreaming teacher and author on the subject, is often giving a talk (despite a very busy worldwide tour). One year I forget which one, he did an incredibly powerful meditation.

We listened to some calming music and he talked us through the meditation. He asked us to imagine we had been given a week to live. There was a pause, as we took this in and reflected on it. He then asked us to think of things we would like to do in that week, including connecting with long lost friends, forgiving family members etc. He then finished by saying that what we had thought of doing in the meditation, we should try do in the following week or weeks. It was an incredibly powerful experience for me and I'm sure many others. Heaps of people had tears in their eyes, including me.

Charlie then shared how profound it was for him when he first did that meditation.

It allowed him to find a good friend he grew up with who went to prison for murder. Charlie had lost contact with him as he couldn't come to terms with what his friend had done.

Having reflected doing this meditation, Charlie decided to track down and visit this old friend in prison, having searched and found him they reconnected after many years and Charlie said it was one of most amazing experiences of his life. How incredibly profound. 

This, I think this is another clear sign of how incredible reflecting on death and impermanence can change our lives.

When I talk to people about death, their reactions are often very similar, saying “its morbid and depressing”, but I wish I could show them the amazing production going on behind that dark curtain of fear, and that’s what has prompted me to do this post.