6. Approaching Death: Watching & Understanding the Mind

Sometimes the hardest part about writing a blog post or article or book for that matter, is the title. If the title doesn’t grab your attention you may just skip over it. It’s really tough. And when I try to come up with a clever title, so that you’ll be motivated to read, I feel torn between creating a compelling title and wondering if it really makes a difference at all. I used to just title my posts something like “Latest Blog post from blah, blah” and a few people would be interested enough to click on it and read it. But now there is a better way. When you clicked on this article a popup window appeared after a few seconds. It asks you for your email address so we can keep in touch. If you do that you’ll get an email notification (not spam) whenever I publish a new article. And not all the articles will be about my impending death 🙂 For example, I have plans to travel to Malaysia for a month this summer, with a side trip to Cambodia. I’ll be writing about that. Plus, I’m always interested in sharing more about my experiences with meditation. I’ve also added a few things to my new bucket list as the old one is complete. So, starting with my next article, no more clever titles to get you to “click”. Just an email alert occasionally when I’ve created something new for you to read. So go ahead and get on board. Type your email in the box. I’m not selling anything except maybe some insight into our current experience here and now. 

Now on to this week’s topic, the intersection of death and meditation. 

In 2018 I switched up my approach to meditation from mantra to Vipassana. I began to realize that meditation can be used to gain insight, not just to cultivate a calm, clear and tranquil mind. I learned that who or what we really are is a combination of five components of life: consciousness, body, memories, perceptions and feelings. I’ve learned that the mind is also one of our senses just like our other five senses that we’re already familiar with. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to shut your mind off to meditate. In Vipassana meditation we watch the mind, all the time – whether we’re meditating or simply going about our lives, and we learn from that. We can see what causes our mind to think – thoughts, memories, perceptions, etc. Our past (memories) and our future (perceptions) are experienced as thoughts in the present moment. When the mind becomes active it attaches itself to a memory or perception. The longer we allow the mind to be attached – minutes, hours, days, weeks or longer – the stronger the attachment becomes. This prolonged attachment creates feelings and emotions in us. Feelings and emotions are not things that are floating around the universe, searching for unsuspecting beings to pester. They are created by us. And now we can see just exactly how we create them. This work of investigating the mind is not easy, but it can be truly liberating if you spend time with it. It leads us to be more tuned in to emotional changes in our daily life. 

When we think about death we can experience fear and anxiety. Now we can understand these feelings of fear and anxiety originate from allowing our mind to be attached to the thoughts about death, whether it’s our own death or the death of a loved one. But what if we could explore it more deeply? I mean nothing is permanent. So there is no way out of this. So maybe take a look at impermanence. Everything is temporary isn’t it? It’s one of those universal truths or laws. Our childhood was impermanent. Our cars are impermanent, someday they will end up in the junkyard, but sometimes we are attached to them. Our pets are impermanent, but sometimes we are attached to them. The weather is impermanent, but sometimes we are attached to a nice warm sunny day. Everything rises, changes, and then disappears. And we go on ignoring this truth. Even our thoughts are impermanent. The key is to realize this. A thought you had years ago on some random day is now gone. It rose up in your field of consciousness and now has disappeared. Your first car is long gone, recycled in a junkyard somewhere. That first kiss, also gone. Family members, also gone. We too will be gone someday. Ignoring this truth will not help us. Investigating this truth may help us understand and see things as they really are. This leads to knowing impermanence. A systematic daily practice of this type of meditation leads to the realization that even all of our thoughts are impermanent. Death is inevitable. If we allow our mind to be attached to the train of thought about our inevitable death, then that will create a feeling. And that feeling is usually fear, anxiety, etc.

I know that’s a lot for today. Type your email into the popup and I promise no spam and no more clever titles to get you to click. If you’re interested in meditation feel free to get in touch.