On Facing Death while Being Alive
It has always pleased me to believe that I was born twice. I was born in February 1979 in a Parisian suburb, through a painful delivery, pulled out from my mother’s womb. I thought I was born a second time in April 2012, in a Buddhist monastery located on the hills of Kathmandu, in the salty sweetness of my tears.
In reality, my life has been a series of simultaneous deaths and births. I died a thousand times.
I died, crying, curled up on the lap of a multimillionaire in a car in Sri Lanka knowing that the business I had created in Singapore was over — all right, this is bad bragging, but let me just say that the glamorous circumstances didn’t make the experience any less painful.
I died in pain each time I had to leave places or people behind, not knowing if I will ever meet them again.
I died when I had to let go of everything I worked for to become the person I wanted to be.
I died each time I shifted my views dropping beliefs and perspectives that no longer served me.
I died sometimes on my yoga mat, too, in shavasana, while letting the weight of my body sink and melt to the ground beneath me, releasing blockages and healing wounds within me.
I died looking for meaning and certainty when there was no meaning and certainty.
And I died in that Buddhist monastery when I took the firm decision to clear out the old to make way for the new, in the process, embracing the ephemerality of life.
My life has given me the opportunity to give up things I cherished the most. It has introduced me to the world of non-attachment and holding on to nothing. It has been a slow and long succession of experiments with my diet, relationships to others, and myself.
We have all been taught that, if nothing else, death is the end of the end. The end [horror gasp]. Damn! We fear it. Birth and death, the coming and the going of things, are the most dramatic scenarios of our existence.
On a personal level I have come to know that death is not an ending. I have found more peace in all those little deaths experienced than in any temptation of the material world.
The little death. La petite mort. An apology to the dirty-minded here, but I’m not actually referring to anything sexual here. I’m talking about this brief momentary release (still not sexual) from our minds and egos; when for an instant the world vanishes, and we become open to an ecstatic union with something beyond ourselves.
Those little deaths are not like the ones where people report their lives flashed before their eyes or that they saw a bright white light before they crossed the river to the other side. Nope. Those little endings are a doorway, a transition into a different inner world.
Mind you, the time when one part of us must die before another part comes to life can be a very confusing, disorienting, and unsettling moment — especially when relating to people. As a human in the midst of reinventing yourself, no question produces more boredom and angst like the typical conventional: “So, what do you do?”
I struggle to come up with a punchy one-liner reflecting my current state of nothingness: “I’m in transition” when the real answer could have been “I’m sort of in this weird kind of combo twilight zone of the last bits of my previous career, although it belongs to my past.”
Erm, pause.
Rewind.
“I’m in transition.”
Those little resets represent some sort of emptiness where your ego is confronted with blackness, swimming in the abyss of non-existence.
As a person who walked in the darkness for a substantial amount of time and survived, I know that the world does not fade out. It continues in all sorts of ways, including the persistence of conflicting emotions and personal doubts — I am afraid and I’m not afraid. It matters and it doesn’t matter. I know and I don’t know. It’s real and it’s not real. I am nothing and I am everything. I am this and I am that. I am not this and I am not that.
Despite all these mixed thoughts and feelings, there hasn’t been anything greater than simultaneously facing the beauty of life and the reality of the death of my old self. I look at my past self as a completely different person. Ah! I was so much older then. Now, I’m growing younger year by year! My habits have changed; my dispositions and emotional reactions to things are different, and after letting go of almost everything the ego holds dear: personal pride, social status, financial wealth, individual accomplishments, … and after stripping away almost anything that was inauthentic and false in my identity, now, I just want to BE.
Marcus Aurelius, one of the most brilliant and influential philosophers I live by, tells us in his personal writings Meditations, “Soon you’ll be ashes or bones. A mere name at most — and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, trivial (…) Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.”
What Marcus Aurelius is imploring himself and in the meantime us to do is to view ourselves as dead because it is a powerful tool to improve our lives in the present. So, following his advice, I just want to BE and have the courage to LIVE this one-time offer (aka life) in my true essence.
This winter, I’m shedding another little part of myself, dying a little more. I have been brought back to life and given a second chance.
Second chances are rare.
If you found out that you had an opportunity to live again, what would you do? Would you do the same as before or would you approach life in a different manner?
For me, I want to maximize every aspect of my life.
I believe the end of the year represents one of the most important moments of the year, it’s a time for reflection and going inwards. It’s a great time to assimilate the past, recharge ourselves and look ahead. Twelve months have gone by — too fast or too slow? No matter what side of the fence we sit on, it’s likely all of us will agree that 2020 has definitely been a challenging and tumultuous year. The chaos might have been pivotal for those of you seeking change. There is no better time to ponder on the impermanence of life — everything is change and nothing can be held onto — and on this eternal saying:
“Live like it’s the last day of your life!”
Because you can only die well if you understand that your disappearance is part of the natural process of life.
And so, friends, with the upcoming New Year, let’s all die well!
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