Several issues come up for me in Chapter 26 Levine’s book A Year to Live. For example, in the first sentence he states that “we go through life pretending to be real.” It seems to me that most people are not pretending that life is real so much as that they believe that life in a physical body is real, and in fact that that is all there is. What we have been exploring in these blogs is the concept that life in this physical body is not all there is, that we have a spiritual life that most people ignore or deny. We focus on the physical aspects of life as being all there is. For me, in order to die peacefully with complete acceptance, it is important that we turn inward to find and investigate this spiritual life.
And in paragraph three, Levine continues with statements that we examine everything with a don’t-know mind, and that we begin to ask ourselves if we were born and what indeed is it that was born, and therefore, who dies? It seems to me that these questions don’t come automatically. Most people don’t even consider them. They are, however, part of an exploration of the wisdom that Buddhist teachings bring forth. I don’t remember them being part of the Christian teachings I learned early in life. Since our culture and most humans are denying or ignoring the mortality of our physical bodies, we don’t see the need to ask ourselves questions about being born or dying.
Paragraph four begins an investigation of the question: “Who dies?” within the context of consciousness. From this point through the rest of the chapter, it seems to me, Levine offers profound things about dying and death. For example, if we contemplate the impermanence of thoughts we come to the realization that every thought, emotion, sensation, and experience of a lifetime is impermanent. Every thought, feeling, emotion, sensation, and experience arises, stays a moment in consciousness, and then fades away. What is not impermanent is the non-physical spaciousness in which all things reside. This spaciousness is the Awareness that we discover during meditation. Awareness of this life that is within all life is the life of Spirit. It is a permanent fixture of life, and the foundation of all creation.
Years ago, at the Center for Attitudinal Healing, we used as a text a book by Stephen and Ondrea Levine called Who Dies? An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying. I have quoted it in previous blogs. Over the course of the next few years I re-read the book seven times when I joined a teaching team that led Facilitator Trainings. I underlined the book so much that there is hardly anything left that is not underlined.
Twenty-five chapters include topics from philosophical discussions of death and dying to the nitty-gritty of living and dying, such as the importance of finishing business, forgiveness, working with pain, grief, children dying, suicide, rituals, the physical aspects of the dying moment, near-death experiences and what happens after death. I came away from those studies believing that Levine was answering the question Who Dies? in three ways.
The first way is that we all die. That is a fact of life in a physical body. We might try to deny it or ignore it, but the truth is that each of us has been born in a physical body, and this body will die one day. Most of Who Dies?contains information for those of us who want to face the truth of dying and death and figure out how to do so gracefully and peacefully. The subtitle of the book s Conscious Living Conscious Dying is what I hope to accomplish in this lifetime. That is true as well for this book A Year to Live. I want to live consciously and die consciously. With love, not fear.
The second way is that no one truly dies. We live beyond the moment of death in consciousness. How or what that will be like, I can only contemplate. Every religion has some form of explanation for this, whether it be the concept of heaven or hell as in Christianity, or merging back into the earth as in earth-based religions, or being reincarnated in another body as in the Hindu religion and some Buddhist traditions. Modern day sceptics poo-poo these explanations, believing that when our bodies die, that is the end; anything more is wishful thinking.
A third way relates to a different but similar question: who is the one asking the question who dies? Ram Dass described a spiritual practice taught to him by his guru Neem Karoli Baba in India as well as a “self-inquiry practice” of Ramana Maharshi, another guru in India. I was taught the exercise once in a workshop with Ram Dass and another time at a Buddhist retreat. Sitting with a partner who asks the question “Who are you?” over and over again, we answer whatever comes to mind. This usually involves working through answers about roles we play, or sensory experiences of ourselves, or mental constructs of who we are. The end result is that we come to a space where we have no more responses. This is described by Ram Dass as a place where we go behind our senses and beyond our thinking mind. When we are able to do that, we go through a doorway and enter into what in Zen is called Satori, in Hindu Samadhi and what is known as Satchitananda. These three terms refer to the state of awakening to our true nature – Consciousness or Bliss − through meditation. When we have gone through these stages, we come to a place where we are synonymous with a kind of energy that we identity as consciousness. Identifying with that energy, we become one with consciousness – we know that the universe is consciousness; it is not self-consciousness, it is Universal Consciousness. It is this Consciousness that is the basis of all beingness, pure awareness, infinite love.
Life in a physical body is what we know because of our sensory experiences, but this life is not all there is. Awareness of what is beyond this limited awareness is a consciousness that is indescribable. Levine ends the chapter with these words and a little levity: “We have gone mad looking for a solid center but there is none. Our center is vast space. Nothing to die and nothing to hang your hat on.” I can see him smiling, can you?
Self-inquiry questions:
1. What do you think about this chapter?
2. What concepts fit your understanding of living and dying? What parts do not?
3. What do you think of Ram Dass’s description of Universal Consciousness?
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