Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Life, Death, and Rebirth

A friend's mom passed away recently. It has gotten me thinking about death and life. Mostly death. What's more, I just finished reading "The Wisdom of No Escape" by Pema Chodron. In it, she speaks of death as a privilege. It is weird how these little coincidences have been happening to me more often lately (friend's mom passes while I am reading a book that talks about the privilege of death - co-inkydink, savvy?). But coincidence is not at all what this post is about; it is simply what brought it about.

We have all lived a couple different lives. Even if you only see your lives as your progression from child to teenager to young adult to full on grown-up, you can see that you've lived more than one life. Some of you will look back and see different chapters of your life as different lives you've lived. Either way, you will recognize what I mean. We have all been through a birth, life, and death cycle at some point. Sometimes, these cycles are really difficult to deal with and we sink into a deep depression. Sometimes these cycles are uplifting and we rise to our full potential.   I guess the point that I am trying to make here is that I do not look at death as morbid and frightening. I look at it as something to learn from, a way to better myself and help those around me.

I will argue that after death comes rebirth. After you have moved on from one thing, you start another. Death and rebirth. After you are given the privilege of a death, you are given the privilege of being born anew. I am in the midst of a re-birth right now. My life at the Board of Trade is over. I gave it a shot. It didn't work out. I have been reborn into something that gives me peace: yoga. From death to re-birth. And so it goes.

I spent most of this weekend around people I love, doing things that I love to do. It occurred to me how privileged my current life is. I don't mean from a monetary perspective (trust me), but rather, from the perspective of the caliber of person near whom I have been allowed to spend my time on this planet. It occurred to me as I looked up at the end of the day on Saturday, to see the moon completely full, that I was truly living just then. I just stopped and stared for a minute or two.

Peace and love,
Rich

1 comment:

  1. I really enjoyed that. I have tried to have that out look for a while now. Thanks for the reminder.

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