Oakville Zen Meditation
DIALOGUE with STUDENTS: What if……?
Setting: Sheridan College campus 2013. Dialogue between students and an invited Zen teacher.
Student:
You wrote somewhere that when someone is talking to you, in person or on the telephone, always remind yourself this: “ This person …..or myself could die anytime”
Don’t you think that your thought is depressive, quite morbid, and not very friendly at least?
Reply from the teacher:
Indeed, many people find this advice quite morbid at first, but they have to think out of the box.
When we talk to people, especially people we see daily, we are easily distracted, sometimes only
half connected, half listening, and not 100% attentive to what she/he is saying as we should be.
Our mind wanders quickly during any event, especially when perceived as being boring.
However, if we follow this advice, we discover that, when we become aware of impermanence including our mortality, our attitudes change, we listen and pay attention to others in a more mindful way, focusing better on the moment, and, eventually, with practice, we look at life differently.
Our heart opens up because we realize that it could be the very last time that we will interact with this person alive, including myself. ( laughing out loud from the crowd).
We become more receptive, more patient, kinder, nicer, even gentle.
The flaws of that person, and what we dislike about her/him become secondary.
Another student:
Nevertheless, thinking of death is quite gloomy, and unhealthy.
My reply:
Our Oriental philosophy including Tibetan Buddhism and Zen views physical death in a far more positive way than yours. It is not the end, it is not a loss - which, by the way, is a selfish feeling -
but rather a normal back-and-forth step in the endless cycle of Life and Death called Samsara.
Look at an acorn carefully. A giant oak tree cannot exist without the death of this tiny acorn.
Nothing is permanent, only impermanence is.
This is why we must be mindful, experience, and be grateful for every precious moment of our life regardless of its content. Why is that?
Again, and I am repeating: because everything is transient, and everything may happen anytime, totally out of our control.
I am not asking to wish death on someone which is dreadful, and absolutely against one of our precepts, but rather to fully appreciate any moments of interaction with someone, or something.
Conclusion:
Becoming mindful of the impermanence of all things including the death of living beings opens wide
our awareness of each single, vivid, precious moment of Life, one by one, whatever exciting, boring, and painful they are. Mindfully appreciate each of them.
