Not AWalk in the Park
By Michael Erlewine
[First, a quote from SpaceWeather.com today: “X-FLARE CHAMPION OF SOLAR CYCLE 25: Active sunspot AR3663 produced another X-flare today, an X1.0 category blast on May 8th (0145 UT). This makes it the most active sunspot of Solar Cycle 25 so far. Since May 3rd, the active region has tallied five X-flares, more than any other sunspot in the past 7 years. It may continue to run up the score as it approaches the sun’s western limb later this week.”]
And now, please forgive me for some fire & brimstone thoughts about rebirth:
As the poet Milton put it:
“… And trip it as ye go,
On the light fantastic toe.”
More commonly known as “Trip the light fantastic,” or, for me running the gauntlet.
Whatever in us is not going for rebirth is just that, not going for rebirth and ends here. However, whatever part of us ’IS’ going for rebirth is also doing just that and even if I don’t wake up as ‘Me, Myself, and I’ is going to be someone somewhere else — still a precious cargo.
At this late date in life, I can’t worry about what’s going on to rebirth and what’s not, what’s packed to go and what’s left behind. “All ashore that’s going ashore” is my refrain.
I see the coming demise of my personality as a hindrance I have to overcome at this point. I wrote this verse back in my twenties during what I call my “Shakespeare Period.”
“Who could let such a bargain pass,
As this poor century will allow,
On coming in I’m asked to leave,
And when asked to leave, I bow.”
Or this one, same time period:
“Look at yourself, first yet first,
No better, and yet not worse.
Now get yourself together in a bunch,
And call what carriage as you may your hearse.”
And there is always Wordsworth’s poem “Intimations of Immortality” and the line “But trailing clouds of glory do we come…”
Anyway, from whence we came, here we are, and from here we will go on again, or some part of us, if only our karma and traces of attachment.
You know and I know that this kind of talk is mostly conjecture. We have no memory of previous lives, at least I don’t, and experts on this are few and far between, and I have had the good fortune to meet a good number of Tibetan rinpoches and have not retained much from those contacts about this particular topic — rebirth.
The high rinpoches vouch for the validity of all this, but what filters down to folks at my level is a bit like sand slipping through the fingers and the hourglass of time keeps running.
About the best thing I come away with is to do some exercises to get my mental and physical bodies supple, more flexible, and be prepared for anything or at least for something, because something is coming.
And so, while we battle the onslaught of old age and learn to deal with it, at the same time we have an eye out for what’s coming next, after death. To think that dying will just turn a switch from on to off is, in my opinion, wishful thinking. It’s not over when it’s over; there’s more.
How much we should consider or prepare for the ‘more’ that’s coming is up to us. We can whistle in the dark and trust that we will do what comes naturally to us at that time, or we can at least examine our options and the alternatives as to what does come after death.
I choose the latter approach, to examine my options, yet so little is known and apparently, so few know this area of the mind that it’s hardly worthwhile to inquire. We are mostly left holding our own opinion which is ignorance.
Of course, we can always wing it. However, there is a whole subtext in the dharma teachings that encourages us to prepare now, early on, before death, for what will come then.
And I’m urged on by understanding from a study of the sacred teachings that travelling the bardos is not going to be a walk in the park.
And so, the best advice I know is to relax and be still.
Being still and stillness is always present and right here waiting for us to settle down and shake off our attachments and self-consciousness. Letting go is the issue, the problem, and also the solution.
The way to think of it, IMO, is our letting it go on, whatever is already going on, as if we could stop it anyway. Standing in the way of progress, ‘progress’ being the flow of life itself, is impossible and any attempt on our part to get in the way only further implicates us. It is a fool’s errand.
Instead, bending with the wind is in order, going with the flow, and as mentioned, not getting in the way of the progress of the Samsaric world. We are not traffic cops, but more like petitioners.
[Photo by me today.]
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As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.
