The mind is a strange and wonderful thing. When I stop to notice what my mind is doing, I usually have to smile because my mind seems so perverse. It seems as though whenever I get something figured out, my mind turns itself upside down, and I come up short once again. That reminds me of a poster I bought years ago that showed a huge friendly gorilla saying: “Just when I think I know all the answers, someone changes the questions.” This time when I finished writing Blog #4, exploring fear of death and fear of dying, I THOUGHT I had come to terms with fear, again, somewhat. However, I woke in the middle of the night overcome by fear, my heart pounding as if I had just had a nightmare. I lay there and asked myself – what am I fearing now? What I discovered was that this time the fear seemed to be focused on my feeling pressured to get it done, or rather that I didn’t have enough time to finish what I had started—to complete my project—to get through Stephen Levine’s book A Year to Live and share my thoughts and feelings about that with all of you.
It’s true that we don’t know when or how we will die, but if I assume that I have time to finish the book A Year to Live, then I will live another year. But that is not necessarily true since I don’t know when or how I will die. What if I don’t have another year to live? What if I don’t have time to finish Levine’s book and write the blogs and share my life, thoughts, and feelings with you?
What came up for me was the question: how am I actually dealing with the fear of death and the fear of dying? It’s all well and good that Attitudinal Healing has taught me that I can choose between love and fear at each and every moment in my life, but what about middle of the night when everything seems dark and scary—is my mind playing tricks on me?
I ask myself: do I really need to finish this book again? Do I really need to write blogs about it? Do I really want to share my life’s story with everyone I know and anyone else who might benefit from reading it and/or wants to read it? Is this fear telling me that I need to re-examine my motives? Is this another challenge of my life-long struggle with “self-doubt” raising its ugly head again?
This brings up another question: why am I doing this?
Levine states that present fear is actually attachment to past fears – our minds bring us back into the past, and we get stuck there. Therefore, fear is resistance to what is here in this present moment. Buddhism teaches that life is filled with suffering. It defines suffering as resistance to what is—this could be the fear of knowing that I am going to die and not liking the idea that I will be no more, that there is nothing else after death—or it could be the fear of dying and not knowing what that will be like for me.
Buddhism also teaches that fear leads to suffering. Being stuck in fear, especially in the middle of the night, is suffering. And Buddhism teaches that there is a way to free ourselves from suffering. One way is through facing the fear, examining it, making a friend of it. Another way is meditation. In mindful meditation, we learn to observe, name, and acknowledge thoughts, and let them come and go naturally. It is the nature of thoughts to arise, be there briefly, then dissolve back to where they come from. We can change our fear by noticing it when it arises, facing it, and making a friend of it, or perhaps, at least, the idea of it. In addition, through mindfulness we can learn how to intentionally change the direction of our thoughts – to move from negative unhealthy thoughts to positive healthy ones, from fear to love.
Suffering is also caused by expectation or attachment to outcome. If I am writing blogs for a response from the readers, then I will be disappointed when I don’t get a response. I will suffer. Deepak Chopra, among others, teaches that it is better if I act without expectation of outcome. That is not so easy sometimes to do. And, certainly, when I do expect not only a response but a positive response, I will probably be disappointed. I will suffer. Maybe I can shift that. Maybe I can write my story just because I want to write. Just for myself. For my own learning and healing. No other outcome is necessary.
I can’t control my time and manner of death. I can’t control what happens to me after I die, if anything. And I can’t control whether I will finish my memoir before I finish my life. Or write about it. Or prepare for it. I can’t control the response, or lack of, to my blogs. I can’t even control each moment except to notice what is happening, accept it as it is, or change it if I can. Truly I can only live for today, for this moment. Maybe that is what Levine is reminding me over and over again in this book. I live each year, each day, each moment as if it were the last. Then, maybe, I will be ready for the moment of death when it comes, however it comes. Maybe, that is my purpose in reading this book again, and writing about it, and sharing it with my friends and family, those who want to read it. And, maybe, that is enough.
Self-inquiry questions:
1. How do you react or respond to this blog?
2. What fears do you have in the middle of the night and what do you do about them?
3. How can we help each other when this happens?
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