QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"There is obviously much about death I do not understand.
Yes, and that is because you do not like to think about it.
Yet you must contemplate death and loss the instant you perceive any moment of life, or you will not have perceived life at
all, but know only the half of it.
Each moment ends the instant it begins. If you do not see this, you will not see what
is exquisite in it, and you will call the moment ordinary.
Each interaction "begins to end" the instant it "begins to begin." Only when this is
truly contemplated and deeply understood does the full treasure of every moment-and of life itself-open to you.
Life cannot give itself to you if you do not understand death. You must do more than
understand it. You must love it, even as you love life.
Your time with each person would be glorified if you thought it was your last time
with that person. Your experience of each moment would be enhanced beyond measure if you thought it was the last such
moment. Your refusal to contemplate your own death leads to your refusal to contemplate your own life.
You do not see it for what it is. You miss the moment, and all it holds for you.
You look right past it instead of right through it.
When you look deeply at something, you see right through it. To contemplate a thing deeply
is to see right through it. Then the illusion ceases to exist. Then you see a thing for what it really is.
Only then can you truly enjoy it-that is, place joy into it. (To "en-joy" is to render something joyful.)
Even the illusion you can then enjoy. For you will know it is an illusion, and that is
half the enjoyment! It is the fact that you think it is real that causes you all the pain.
Nothing is painful which you understand is not real. Let Me repeat that.
Nothing is painful which you understand is not real.
It is like a movie, a drama, played out on the stage of your mind. You are creating the
situation and the characters. You are writing the lines.
Nothing is painful the moment you understand that nothing is real.
This is as true of death as it is of life.
When you understand that death, too, is an illusion, then you can say, "O death, where is thy
sting?"
You can even enjoy death! You can even enjoy someone else's death.
Does that seem strange? Does that seem a strange thing to say?
Only if you do not understand death-and life.
Death is never an end, but always a beginning. A death is a door opening, not a door
closing.
When you understand that life is eternal, you understand that death is your illusion, keeping
you very concerned with, and therefore helping you believe that you are your body. Yet you are not
your body, and so the destruction of your body is of no concern to you.
Death should teach you that what is real is life. And life teaches you that what is unavoidable
is not death, but impermanence.
Impermanence is the only truth.
Nothing is permanent. All is changing. In every instant. In every moment.
Were anything permanent, it could not be. For even the very concept of permanence depends
upon impermanence to have any meaning. Therefore, even permanence is impermanent. Look at this deeply. Contemplate
this truth. Comprehend it, and you comprehend God.
This is the Dharma, and this is the Buddha. This is the Buddha Dharma. This is
the teaching and the teacher. This is the lesson and the master. This is the object and the observer, rolled into
one.
They never have been other than One. It is you who have unrolled them, so that your life
may unroll before you.
Yet as you watch your own life roll out before you, do not yourself become unraveled.
Keep your Self together! See the illusion! Enjoy it! But do not become it!
You are not the illusion, but the creator of it.
So use your illusion of death. Use it! Allow it to be the key that opens
you to more of life.
See the flower as dying and you will see the flower sadly. Yet see the flower as part
of a whole tree that is changing, and will soon bear fruit, and you see the flower's true beauty. When you understand
that the blossoming and the falling away of the flower is a sign that the tree is ready to bear fruit, then you understand
life.
Look at this carefully and you will see that life is its own metaphor.
Always remember, you are not the flower, nor are you even the fruit. You are the tree.
And your roots are deep, embedded in Me. I am the soil from which you have sprung, and both your blossoms and your fruit
will return to Me, creating more rich soil. Thus, life begets life, and cannot know death, ever."
Conversations with God
an uncommon dialogue book 3
by Neale Donald Walsch
