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
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
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