Some concluding remarks for this series of posts on keeping our mortality in our consciousness.
Each of us has been given the gift of birth.
Each of us has been given an inevitable death.
That is an inescapable truth. It is reality as reality is.
When we keep it in mind, we align our lives with capital “R” Reality.
And as we’ve seen in this series of posts, our lives go better when we align with Reality.
Each of us comes from dust.
And each of us returns to the same.
Everything we touch, everything we experience, everything we possess – is impermanent.
The world we live in works hard to help us forget that demanding truth.
But the forgetting does not serve us well.
When we forget our own impermanence, we function in a world of illusion.
We create a skewed framework in which we live out our lives.
We make skewed attachments.
We attach to impermanent things as though they are permanent.
We chase things that are transient with the unexamined instinct that they will last – or that they really matter.
So for all of human history, it has been a deep spiritual wisdom, to face death rather than run from it.
– To remind ourselves that we are dust.
– To remember that the bell tolls for each of us.
Ancient wisdom enjoins us to regularly readjust our lives to reality as reality is – to regularly realign ourselves to the impermanence of the lives we live. Keeping our mortality in mind is a spiritual exercise that helps us bring regular correction to our priorities, values, and attachments.
Few things grant us the clarity of perspective that death-consciousness does.
Few things grant us peace – as does coming to peace with death.
Few things help us love deeply – as does coming to peace with death.
Few things help us discern what matters – as does coming to peace with our own mortality.
May we be at peace.