FromChapter 1: A One-Shot Deal

Life won't wait. It just keeps moving along, and in a blink, it is gone. It is continually changing. Because of that, we may feel as if we are always playing catch-up. Just as we begin to figure out how to deal with one stage of our life, we are on to the next. We might think, "If only I could go back and do that again"—but we can't.

Our life is a journey that begins with birth and ends with death, and once we begin that journey, we are on our way, nonstop. There are no breathers, no time-outs. It is a one-shot deal. So we should relate to our life now, while we still can—but to do so, we must also learn to relate to our death.

What is this journey all about? No one can tell us. It is up to us to find out for ourselves. If we recognize that we are on a journey, one that we share with all living beings, we can look into that journey and learn from it. But most of the time, we are so caught up with everyday hassles that we lose track of our life. It is too threatening to look at the big picture, so we hole up in our concerns of the moment. We are afraid to look beyond that; instead, we keep busy and avoid the whole issue. Meanwhile, our life is slipping away.

For the most part, we are not aware of actually living a life. Instead, the whole thing goes by in a blur. We lose touch with the preciousness and mystery of the cycle of life and death and our connection with others. It is easy to take life for granted, as though we had all the time in the world. But in cutting ourselves off from the reality of death, we lose any sense of urgency, and life has less value. It does not feel quite real, as though we were in an endless rehearsal for a play that never opens. We cannot quite commit to our life as a journey that has already begun and only happens once.

Our journey is well underway already, and soon it will be over. The starting point is birth and the end is death, and we are in the middle somewhere, between our birth and our death, faced with the question of how to relate to the whole thing. We find ourselves in the midst of life, and fundamentally, we have no clue how we got here or where we are going. That is the context, it is our path, we cannot change it. And how we walk on that path is now up to us. It is entirely up to us.

As children, we may have asked, "Mommy, where did I come from?" If our mommy tried to answer us, we may have learned a little about the birds and the bees and about our parents and grandparents. But fundamentally that question has no answer. Our existence can only be traced back so far. Eventually we hit the mysterious border separating our life from whatever came before; and looking ahead, to the time of our death, we encounter a similar boundary.

Cultivating a personal awareness of death begins by cultivating an appreciation of our life as a whole. With this as our basic view, as we go about our business, whatever we do takes place within the context of that entire journey. So cultivating an awareness of death is at the same time cultivating an awareness of life. We are reconnecting with the experience of actually living a life.

How do we work with this journey of life and death? The starting point—the only option, really—is to begin in the middle of things, where we are right now. We can learn to appreciate our journey, knowing that it will not last. Although we have not been here forever and we will not be here forever, right now we have something to work with.

Contemplating Birth, Death, and Life

Take a few moments to sit quietly.

Reflect back on your life to the point at which it first began, when you first appeared. When did you appear? Where were you before that? Where did you come from? Contemplate the mystery of birth.

Now go forward in your life to the point at which it ends and you are no longer here. What will happen to you then? Where will you go? How is it possible for your life to end and you no longer to exist? Contemplate the mystery of death.

Reflect on your life now, sandwiched between your birth and your death and utterly unique. Where are you now? What is this all about? Contemplate the mystery of life.