Death came to me in many forms…
I constantly think of the greatest teacher in the history of Buddha. He was a prince who saw physical death and affected him so much to the point he had to leave his home to find answers. While searching for answers, leaving his family, his identity, his family, and the comfort of his home was nothing short of death. He too had to experience death while living.
I am not as brave as him nor have I done anything worth remembering or even close to it. But I have a sense of that process and how difficult it was for him. Because sometimes you don’t get answers easily available, there is a journey you have to take to the depth of your inner core and cross thousands of mountains on foot. He was rewarded for his journey and named Buddha the enlightened one.
I remember like it was yesterday. The burial ground was bright with ablaze.
Fire bigger than the brightest star. I saw flesh and bones disintegrating and melting to become one with the fire and turning into ashes. The pigeons flew as the fire gave out blackened soot floating around the burial ground.
The dead wanted to seep inside our body through our eyes but our eyes bidding farewell with tears spilling. They leave creating an emptiness.
The ones who are left behind are to deal with it. Time is the only remedy.
Death is so strange, You fear it and sometimes you want it, you run from it but you know it’s certain. You think you know it all, yet you know nothing at all.
Death is a journey, a journey we all must take and cannot escape. It is a constant lingering word, it brews heaviness in the soul because of what it does to a physical form. When a human body dies, there is mourning. Mourning for physically being absent, disappearing from our sight, but present only in our memories.
All the while learning about death I don’t wish it upon anyone. I am constantly holding my breath when loved ones are involved. I fear for their life and safety. When I hear or see news that someone has passed away on the way somewhere back home. My heart sinks.
Last year I looked at death closer and the fear of losing my life was nothing short of a traumatic feeling. Seeing people die was even worse. Death came to many people and I feel it brushed off me, giving me a whiff of its presence.
I grew up in an environment where death is considered a part of the spiritual process. I am from the last-Shangrila, a Buddhist nation. Death is seen as part of our identity, not a separate entity. Death is not seen as the end but a continuation, because death is followed by rebirth.
“Long is the cycle of birth and death to the fool who does not know the true path.”
The journey of your physical form has come to an end but not your soul. And we have to take this journey until we are enlightened and reach nirvana. So in Buddhism, you are born over and over again until you cease to exist in the samsara (earth). There are guidelines for a proven path to reach nirvana. These are taught in our schools from an early age; for example, the four noble truths and the eight-fold paths.
I can go on being philosophical about death but I still find it hard to get a grip on something so traumatic.
All the while I have seen loved ones perish and their transition to a different world. Death sometimes isn’t always physical but the ones we experience while living.
I will tell you how in chaos I found my sanity, through the darkening Moore, I saw the moonlight. While going through the dusty road I found clarity, while being lost I found myself, I will tell you how I lived on this earth covered with flesh and bones.
Death came to me in many forms and I wasn’t prepared. It came to me in the form of a friend, a family, a breakup, showed up as anxiety in my teens, and going through adulthood.
Leaving the comfort of home to come to the U.S. The guilt of not living up to the expectations of myself and others. Feeling burnout while trying to do everything and be everything. Those little deaths now and then.
I had lost all the autonomy to my body. I had anxiety every single day when I went to school. And in school, the teachers were not my sympathizer, instead of making me feel safe, they fueled my anxiety. When I look back, I empathize with these people because they did what they were asked to and accepted by people following a broken system.
I walked to school every day knowing I was not welcomed and I felt didn’t belong. Maybe this is why I find it harder to walk away from things I don’t like. I linger longer than I should.
I was that child who wanted to spend time outside more than being in school. I rebelled because I didn’t want to go to school almost all my life. At every stage of my life going to school didn’t come to me naturally. I remember when I first went to school, I howled and I wanted to stay home instead.
I went to school to meet my friends and to feel that sense of belonging, and to be part of the community. The only space that had people of my age group was school. It would have been so amazing if that space allowed me to flourish, to experiment, nurture me to my fullest, and help create a community where children were allowed to be themselves. I still seek that kind of community.
I was afraid. Afraid that I wouldn’t seem normal enough for the people around me. While trying to please others I forgot my own needs.
I was spiraling in that deep empty pit of nothingness. Who would I have confided in? Words don’t come to my tongue easily. The stigma of seeming different than normal was too heavy a burden to bear.
Being born in a country where silence was acceptable and even deemed noble.
I wasn’t encouraged to be comfortable in my skin. My body was rebelling. Rebelling to be acknowledged and not feed into the toxic outdated culture.
Writing has become my solace and companion in this journey of self-discovery.
I lost the sense of belongingness one more time while experiencing a breakup. A breakup not only breaks your heart but it breaks your spirit. The world came tumbling down and it left me in a rumble.
I trusted my heart and life with someone, it took me a long time to try to come to terms that no one should be given the freedom to come and destroy one’s life. I learned to stand up for what I deserve and who deserves my time and energy.
Life kept asking something from me that I could not deliver. I was at war with myself most of my life. The battlefield became my home. A home that never lets me rest.
I had to pick myself and learn to be content with my life again. My old self had to die for the person I am today.
Time is linear but we all have our perception of time, when I think about the past it keeps changing shapes and emotions.
A newborn coming to consciousness and learning to take their first step all over again. I used to beat myself up and sometimes I still go through those phases. Why me? But, for lack of a better answer, I have been granted this life for a purpose greater than I know.
I had to shed my old skin to rise into my truth. Unlearn the shame, the feeling of unworthiness, and the guilt. A burden, which is not mine to carry.
Experiencing death while living gave me a new perspective on life and an eye-opening experience.
To reconcile with what had happened in the past is a lesson my body is still learning. I am reclaiming my body and my sanity, unlearning the cycle of abuse. Relearn how to speak to me kindly, come into my existence, and not be in a survival mode.
I have been gifted with this self-awareness as a human being. I feel more connected now that I am bringing this awareness into my life.
To morph into a better version is a commitment I made to myself. The beginning of an end has already been commended.
I constantly think of the greatest teacher in the history of Buddha. He was a prince who saw physical death and affected him so much to the point he had to leave his home to find answers. While searching for answers, leaving his family, his identity, his family, and the comfort of his home was nothing short of death. He too had to experience death while living.
I am not as brave as him nor have I done anything worth remembering or even close to it. But I have a sense of that process and how difficult it was for him. Because sometimes you don’t get answers easily available, there is a journey you have to take to the depth of your inner core and cross thousands of mountains on foot. He was rewarded for his journey and named Buddha the enlightened one.
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Thank you
Peggy.
