Sudden Death

George Clark, 02 February 2008

Yesterday there was news of a double suicide bombing in a pet market in Baghdad. More than 70 people were killed and many more were injured. Had a religious adept been one of the mortally wounded would their last thoughts have been different from those of ordinary people? Perhaps.

It is said that when Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, he raised his hands in prayer, inclined them toward his attacker, recited his mantra, and died – such presence of mind.

I think of these things as I lie in bed avoiding the Saturday morning snow. 'I' am not in control of the thoughts and feelings that pass through 'my' mind. But I may have graduated to the stage of being a sometimes watcher.

"Meditation does not involve trying to change your thinking by thinking some more. It involves watching thought itself." (Kabat-Zinn (1994))

This morning I have been watching re-runs of my various near death experiences - motor bikes crashes, potentially fatal tropical diseases, the bombing incident in Zambia. But memory is a poor guide to the past. I have no clear and certain view of where my mind went during those crisis times. There is only speculation. Let it go.

"Awareness is not the same as thought. It lies beyond thinking although it makes use of thinking, honouring its value and its power. Awareness is more like a vessel which can hold and contain our thinking, helping us to see and know our thoughts as thoughts rather than getting caught up in them as reality."  (Kabat-Zinn (1994))

The time will come when the last thought will occupy my attention centre. Will 'I' be present for it?  I might avoid suicide bombers and assassins and more or less graciously slip into old age. But, one way or another,  the time is coming when the off switch is flicked. We all face sudden death.

Busy doing nothing

George Clark, 27 January 2008

Over the festive season I met many people in what passes for relax mode. We were unhooked from the immediate demands of work and had 'time on our hands'. But what did we DO with it? There was not much enthusiasm for Thich Nhat Hahn's recommendation –

"Don't just do something, sit there".

I was aware of how 'busy-ness' allows an escape from stewing in our own juices. It is easy to get 'lost in work' and to one-pointedly move beyond space, time and ego. But it is not a good idea to stay in that state too long. It is all too easy to becomes obsessed with, and addicted to, busy-ness and to become a busy-body and workaholic. It is all too easy to fritter away your life with 'busy doing' and thus reach its end with no experience of 'peaceful being'. How many of us could sing along with Bing Crosby and his crew -

We're busy doing nothing, working the whole day through,
trying to find lots of things not to do.
We're busy going nowhere, isn't it just a crime?
We'd like to be unhappy but… We never do have the time.

From "A Connecticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur"
(Video clip)

BUT –withdrawal can be tough.

When you have made a habit of busy-ness it can be hard to embrace stillness and to face the frantic ego that looms large. A lot of buried mental stuff comes to the surface and has to be dealt with. Spiritual journeymen from times past talk of the 'dark night of the soul'. The road to peaceful bliss involves a roller coaster ride with  many ups and downs. There are cases of people having epiphanies and thus being suddenly 'born again'. But those people have usually gone through a long period of mental churn in gradual preparation for the turning moment.

I have been going through the mental churn for many years. There have been highs and lows along the way and I still don't have full confidence in a permanent shift to the brighter outlook. Old habits die very hard. The battle for mind control has to be waged thought by thought and minute by minute. It sometimes seems like pushing a boulder up a mountain – you cannot afford to stop or it will roll back down again.

So why bother?

I cannot speak for other people but I seem to have two reasons. (a) I have personal experience of sudden shifts of mood so I know that 'reality' is a mind-made thing and that it can be transformed in an instant (the blues are a state of mind) and (b) I am intellectually enthralled by the world view of the various mystics and by their psychology of perception . I am enamoured with the idea that the sunshine is always there and that the clouds can be blown away. I like to believe that there is a cure for the blues and that it is never too late to change your mind.

So what might we have DONE over the festive season? We might have made ourselves busy doing nothing and perhaps tasted the peace that passes all understanding.

Sitting quietly doing nothing
Spring comes and the grass grows by itself
(Zen Proverb)