Why Do We Profane the Stunning Profundity of Life?
Life, most particularly human life, is the single most amazing and beautiful aspect of the entire colossal Universe. Yet we take every opportunity to take it for granted, to cheapen it, to destroy it.
A 10-year old boy lies dying. There is no coming back. He has not spoken for days. Then, suddenly, he sits up, throws his arms around his mother’s neck and speaks, “Mommy, I love you.” Not long after, he is gone.
This happened. I read about it in a New York Times article about what people say on their deathbed.
It turns out that in the fading twilight of life, the deepest truth of that experience often comes flowing into, and out of, the experiencer. All chaff is removed. The stark meaning and purpose stands revealed. After years, decades, even a century, of taking living for granted, the process of dying, at long last, zeroes in on how wonderful it all was.
And is.
The dying have visions. But they are usually not about any afterlife, any otherworldly paradise, nor any religious tropes or figures. They are most often about mundane existence, the simplest experiences with family members, friends or even pets. These waking dreams take them back into their own lives, finding episodes of importance that the subconscious self has held on to all this time, and now, before the end, seeks to revisit or resolve. In this fragile clarity, the deep brain finds pennies left behind that all along were gold.
There is rarely fear involved in these visions. Which seems a bit strange for those steeped in cultural and/or religious notions about the “sinner” (which is all of us) going straight to hell for eternity, or in Eastern orientations possibly returning as a dung beetle. I take this as further evidence that few people actually believe in such afterlife fairytales. They want to believe. They can convince themselves to believe. Cultural authority figures can tell them it is the only way to believe. Everyone around them can seem to believe. But deep down, our intuition tells us it’s not true. This is it. There is one life. No more. When it’s over, it’s over. You go back to where “you” were before you were conceived. To where “you” were for the past 14 billion years of the Universe. Which wasn’t so bad. There is, literally, nothing to fear. Indeed, death is beautiful. It rescues us from dying while making room for others to live.
But why should we have to go through the traumatic dying process to have these profoundly beautiful visions? Why can’t we see those “pennies” for the gold they are while we are alive and well? Why can’t we perceive the stunning sacredness of life, all life, long before dying may, or may not, bring us around to this central truth? Why can’t we fully comprehend how wondrously creative this Universe is, and how even the most simple lifeforms are masterpieces, and that the evolution of more and more complex brain patterns and connections, culminating (so far) in the ability of at least one species in the Universe being able to contemplate, study, know — and surely most importantly — love all of this represents unimaginable meaning, purpose and goodness?
Juxtapose this glowing vision with what humans are doing on this planet right now. There are hotspots where literal genocide is occurring. There are stockpiles of weapons that could destroy life as we know it on Earth. There are greed-driven corporations selling technologies and pills and potions and platitudes and quick-fix-happiness gadgets that are worthless if not poisonous. Almost all of us are contributing in our ways, large and small, to the destruction of the biosphere — the sphere of LIFE! War. Overconsumption. Materialism. Grotesque Disparity. Division. Disaffection. Disinterest. Disillusion. Depression. Despondency. Squabbling and feuding and hating over, in the larger scheme of things, NOTHING!
There are eight BILLION people loitering in this paradise, and 7.9999 billion of them haven’t a clue of what is actually going on, or even where or who they are. They think they are this or that, when, actually, they are LIVING MEANING and BEAUTY! They think they are too cool for school, or they are undeserving wretches, or something in between or both. They are living a delusion. They are in fact, by objective measure, shards of the sacred! They are a masterwork of the universe. Paradise is right here. And they have been gifted the most precious thing of all… the breath of life!
This becomes crystal clear to many of the dying. But why wait until you are gasping your last breaths to recognize this?
It’s not entirely your fault. Our culture does not teach this. Our schools do not teach this. Our religions do not teach this.
But this message, this epiphany, this wisdom, is out there. And has been in human culture for millennia. If you haven’t discovered this thread, well, yeah, it is your fault.
I know. It is so easy to get indoctrinated and conditioned and compliant, essentially become robotized, by culture and religion and societal expectations and peer pressure and the driving impulse to want to belong, and so very difficult to get out of this addictive conformity. But it’s not that hard. If a schlub like me can do it, anyone can.
The article on the dreams of the dying reminded me of a video I saw a few years ago about a philosopher, Herbert Fingarette, who only toward the very end of his life realized how meaningful and beautiful trees are. He explains, “I look at the trees, blowing in the breeze, and I’ve seen them innumerable times. But somehow, seeing the trees this time is a transcendent experience. I see how marvelous it is. I’ve had these trees all along, but have I really appreciated them? And the fact is that I have not.”
It seems the philosopher spent his life dedicated to his professional work and dutifully to his beloved wife. Those two aspects of the world were his world. When she died, part of him died, as well. And he would follow closely behind her in actual death. But not before, while immersed in dying one way or another, he had this peak experience, a glimpse of the real world we are blessed to inhabit.
Herbert did not believe in heaven, but in his last days he wished there was such a place. For myself, I need more extensive data than the sketchy bits formally put forth.
Are there trees in heaven? How about birds? Clouds? Does it rain in heaven? Is there water in heaven? Waterfalls? Are there rainbows in heaven? Does it thunder and lightning in heaven? Does the wind ever howl in heaven? Does heaven have a sun? A moon? Meteor showers? Can you see stars from heaven? Are there oceans in heaven? Rivers? Lakes? Mountains? Forests? Jungles? Plains? Deserts? Does heaven have ice caps? Do you breathe in heaven? Can you swim in heaven? Can you skinny-dip? Does anyone have sex in heaven? Is anyone really related in heaven? How does that make sense in a “spirit” realm? Do we meet again our loved ones? Are there any children in heaven? Are children born in heaven? Do they ever get to grow up? Can anyone evolve, as a person, in heaven? Are there any kind of games or sports in heaven? Any comedy? Any kind of entertainment at all? Are there books in heaven? Are there schools in heaven? Is learning a thing in heaven? Do you have a body in heaven? What do you wear in heaven? Can you go naked? Do you have eyes in heaven? What do you see? Are there animals in heaven? Do puppy bites draw blood in heaven? Does heaven have strawberries? Peaches? Mushrooms? Cheeseburgers? Ice cream? Chocolate? Anything at all to eat? Or drink? Coffee? Lemonade? Wine? Beer? Whiskey? Are there bicycles in heaven? Motorcycles? Airplanes? Besides harps are there any other musical instruments in heaven? Banjos? Electric guitars? Kazoos? Are you allowed to sing bawdy songs around a campfire in heaven? If it does not have all of these things, why think of it as paradise?
OK. You get the picture. This is the real paradise.
Or is it? Life is suffering goes the Buddhist tenet. Suffering is caused by attachment. The cure to suffering is to release your attachment. The path to achieve this is the right way to live.
It seems probable that the lives of the bulk of humanity have been short, uncomfortable and brutish. No doubt, there are millions, perhaps billions, living today who are suffering acutely, often daily.
Yet most of this suffering comes not from the Universe or the planet or the biosphere, but rather, mostly, from human culture itself. The ugliest and most dangerous and most terrible things on Earth today are manmade.
I think the Buddhists are wrong. And so, apparently, do the dying. The right and proper path of “Enlightenment” leads to… attachment!
Not just any attachment. Stupid, shallow, cheap, flimsy, greedy, lustful, selfish “attachment” leads to suffering, even if, initially by way of pleasure. I’ll grant that. But the greatest and most noble “attachment” is… love.
What makes us humans most different from all other life forms, all of which are precious and sacred, is that we are capable, with a little bit of work, to understand enough about this world to see just how precious and sacred it is. In doing so we recognize our kinship with all other life, our dependence upon the planet, our gratitude for the long and winding road the Universe took to create it… and us. We gratefully embrace it all, the full dynamic, living system, as our own, as our family, as a child does its parent. We want to nurture and protect it… for as long as we live. We revel in what pleases our loved ones. We hurt when our darlings hurt. That’s love. If love for something is good, love for more things must be better. The ultimate love is not love focused singularly (even toward some “God”), but love for the ALL.
The little dying boy, when asked by his mother where he was, answered, “Heaven.”
He wasn’t in that heaven. It was this heaven. This world. The one with his mommy, his daddy and all else that he loved. It was the realm where he had his arms and legs and eyes and ears and mouth and breathing lungs and beating heart and thoughts and dreams. It’s the “marvelous” world of the old philosopher’s trees, that he could not begin to properly perceive until his love had broadened beyond that just for his wife.
This is the world we inherit. The world we are now destroying with our selfishness and bickering and divisions and bad education and bad religion and insipid cultures with their clarion call to Conform! Consume! Repeat!
We all, each of us, have an infinitely higher calling. Don’t wait around for that deathbed epiphany. See the trees. Listen to the birdsong. Get bit playing with a puppy. Drink in the world. Revel in each breath. Awaken in heaven. You are there. Now.
