Revelations of a Death Meditation
For the first twelve or so years I spent as an appreciator, student, and practitioner of mindfulness meditation I thought, or should I say, believed that my goal or intention was to have less thoughts. Thoughts obscure my connection with the present moment, the only moment that truly exists, I told myself after devouring Eckart Tolle’s New Earth and then working through Jon Kabat Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living. All these thoughts are interfering with my life, I would fret, as I read through Kabat Zinn’s Wherever You Go There You Are and listened to Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Art of Mindful Living. While perched atop one of many cat-hair covered meditation cushions, or slipping awkwardly on yoga mats, if not panting along dusty trails on nature walks, I’ve been dutifully minding my own thoughts, as the directions instruct, with the hope that over time I would get better at having less of them. And sure, while attending and immediately upon returning home from meditation retreats through which I sat, I have enjoyed some blissful moments— made so lovely by the temporary cessation of thought. As a result of simply watching all the thoughts, feelings, sensations, stories, memories, and whatever else happened to pass through my awareness, I’d say there’s been a reduction of overall thought. There’s also more awareness around my thoughts and feelings in general. Awareness helps reduce automatic reactions and allows for more intentional responses to even the most activating challenges. What I’ve continued to struggle with, however, is concern— I’d say fear on a bad day, more like wonder on a great day— but let’s just say “concern” that I am somehow ruining my opportunity to enjoy this precious gift of life because I’m STILL having so very many thoughts. Then a death meditation turned my whole understanding of this practice on its head.
Recently I accepted a friend’s invitation to experience a living funeral/death meditation wherein I was guided by a death doula through a visualization of my own death. I practiced, whilst sobbing great slobbery tears of grief, bidding farewell to all of my worldly attachments— the loves of my life, my hopes and dreams, every tenant of my very identity all had to be released. Then I visualized and rehearsed watching my organs all shut down, one by one. My physical body, now lifeless, was instructed to return, at least in my imagination, wholly and completely to the earth from whence it had come.
Yes, if you’re wondering, it was fucking terrifying. I could only partially comply with the facilitator’s guidance because I began to panic at the thought of letting go of my life. In that moment, I realized how extremely and entirley attached to my life I currently am. I was startled to realize the severity of my own resistance to that around which I understand I have very little control. Who has any control over death?
Regarding the mindfulness epiphany, what I also came to realize during the aftermath of this death meditation, in addition to how much I deeply love my own life, was that when all is said and done, I will actually miss the drama of my own mind. All these thoughts I’ve been trying to minimize in the name of enjoying my life— they’re actually a very much a part of my life. Sure, they’re maybe not the very best part of my life, at least according to my current judgement. They’re not the high of ecstatic presence or the peace of here-and-now awareness. But thoughts are an integral part of this existence nevertheless. How was I missing this key point for so long? It’s a good thing I decided to practice death as a healthy thirty-six year old, or how long might it have been before I figured this out?
From this experience I’ve gained a newfound and wholehearted appreciation of my own sometimes spinning, often drama-laced thoughts and story-telling machine of a mind. My worries, memories, fantasies, plans, reflections, confusions, and even my rumination are all gifts of being alive, as the human that I am, on this particular journey at this particular passage of time. And if it was all taken away from me tomorrow, I would miss even the aspects that I thought of as problematic today. I would miss getting to fret, remember, dream, imagine, rehash, and wonder. This shift in perspective has drastically changed how I relate to these observations in real time. Like when I notice that I’ve been lost, or maybe just wandering, in any of these thoughts, I’ve stopped saying fuck, I checked out again, I’m missing my life! If only I had more control of these thoughts! Instead there’s gratitude that I get to have the exact experience that I’m having. (Sort of like Tolle, Kabat Zinn, and Thich Nhat Than had always pointed towards in all my very weathered references.) I feel appreciation and relief for the fact that I’m not dead. When reminded of and suddenly re-experiencing as if in a time machine some of the more brutally stressful, confusing, and lonely times in my life, while I used to feel so sad to remember having been through all of that, I just realized that those experiences were also a gift of being alive. Careful with this piece, because I’m NOT saying that I feel grateful for trauma, exploitation or abuse. But those awful times, having come to pass the way they did, were just as much a part of my life as the joyful times. And when I am forced to let go of all of the experiences and thoughts that have made me, me, well I’ll be sad to have to say goodbye.
I don’t know if the point of the death meditation was to make me so deeply grateful for every aspect of being alive. I was under the impression that I was beginning the work of becoming less terrified of death, meanwhile my actual take away is feeling more intensely grateful for this life than ever before. Maybe that gratitude will actually help me let go when my time has come to actually die in real life— to have a real death. I (thankfully) don’t get to know that just yet. Much to my surprise, this peace and acceptance is not because I finally got rid of all the pesky narratives and distracting meanderings of the mind. I feel happier because I finally learned how to include and embrace them all as layers of my existence. Who knew even an imagined brush with death would bring such a radical shift of perspective?