Among the Buddha's many wonderful teachings, the law or fact of impermanence was the single most important teaching he offered. And he gave it over and over again. That which arises, passes away. Where there is birth, death must follow. That which arises out of causes and conditions cannot lead to anything that is unconditioned. The unconditioned is other than that.
And yet how often does the simple truth of impermanence catch us by surprise? So with my brother who died suddenly last week. He was the youngest sibling and first of our generation to pass away, and we all reacted with shock and the universal sense that it shouldn’t have been that way. He was healthy, comparatively young (although not a young man), had just retired to spend time traveling with his wife of 35 years, and had so much to look forward to. He was a sweet man with strong family ties who would do anything to help those he loved.
And he died in his time. Causes and conditions supported his life until Tuesday evening last when they abruptly didn’t. Was it the way it was supposed to be? Was it for the best? Was it not in the order of things? Was it too early?
These are the irrelevant questions and thoughts that naturally arise around sudden death. We humans need time to process and our first reactions in our shock are a form of denial.
There are many ways we honor and process the death of a beloved family member. Although there was no formal viewing, I drove to Maryland over the weekend to see him before he was cremated. It was my first tribute to him and an important part of my journey toward acknowledging the truth of his impermanence. And of my own.
“We shall be changed, in a moment, in a twinkling of the eye,” sings the bass in the Messiah, famous words from the Bible.
Changed into what? we may ask.
The Buddha was ever silent on this point because the teaching he wanted us to ponder was that attachment, clinging was the cause of suffering. Anything we grasp, cling, hold on to, “in the twinkling of an eye” will be changed and we will suffer. The Buddha knew that any answer he gave would inevitably lead to more thinking and more attachment - one way or the other. What he wanted us to learn and remember was that freedom lies in letting go.
When we let go a little, we get a little peace.
When we let go a lot, we get a lot of peace.
When we let go completely, we find complete peace.
Nevertheless, we grieve. But our task for ourselves is make space for our love, to grieve with compassion for ourselves and others, and to bring kind awareness to our denial and clinging to allow letting go to arise naturally from the depths of that awareness.