Before and after death, before and after life

[Seiko]

I am a just priest in training, so please take a few grains of salt with anything I say, I am no teacher.

In the days following Sylvia's death we reflect on her life. Sylvia, my mother-in-law, had her share of good times and bad, as we all do.

What emerges the strongest for me, is the idea that life is one thing. One life that we share and never belongs to any individual. And - perhaps - that life force does not expand with birth and does not diminish with death. I like to think of us borrowing a portion of the life force whilst we need it, and that portion returning to the whole when we die. Of course, it is always whole.

I don't know if this is strictly a buddhist way of looking at death, so please do not think of it that way. It's personal to me - a way of thinking that helps me when in grief.

In Gasshō
Seiko
stlah

[Tai Do]

Thank you for sharing, Seiko.

Tai Do
Satlah

[Ramine]

Thank you for sharing this, Seiko. I am sorry about your mother in law’s death. You make me think of a poem by Clare Harner. You may know it already. My father wanted us to read it when he died many years ago. It expresses a similar view.

Do not stand
By my grave, and weep.
I am not there,
I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
Do not stand
By my grave, and cry—
I am not there,
I did not die.

— Clare Harner


Ramine
Sat