Moving on, down the road, bring in that rascal Suzuki Roshi. Dharma transmission at age 22. But he didnt really need it according to some folks, right? So is he worth listening to?
I think so. Anyway, he said:
"Life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, nor actual difficulty in our life."
Course that's another tall order. I know he's right that life and death, are the same thing. I think that was kinda like my odd dream - oh, death as adviser is me! That seems to be a creepy revelation. I shoulda known better. Don't we all know that? How else can we get that tap so easily. "Okay, lets go!"
Course, life and death. We can't have life, without death. We'd have an overpopulated planet, if nobody ever died. No new life could come through. We'd have overpopulated the planet several thousand years ago, stuffed the planet, practiced cannibalism, we'd be finished. So we have to have a death in the equation, to keep the balance. Death, keeps balance. Life does too, it keeps things going as well.
Still though, while I know the man is correct, Life and Death are the same thing, at the same time, taking a death, the thought of it, is still a scary thought. Its a scary meditation! Ive been catching myself lately, in that death has been creeping up in my mind daily. At odd times. Not just when I see the news, and 'so and so died in a car accident,' or glean the obits. In just weird, odd ways. Walking through the grocery store, thought creeps up, one day, all of us in this store, will be no more. Buried. Cremated. We're all strangers passing. Some people I may see again somewhere else, others, first and last glimpse. Just 'gone.' Everything in the grocery store too. Eaten, tossed out, whatever I buy, its impermanent. All those dead animals in the meat department. We buy dead things, eat dead things. Plants uprooted, in the vegetable section. Cause they're uprooted, technically, while they look all fresh and good, they're technically dying vegetables and fruits. Think about it. An entire vege and fruit section, of dying stuff, for us to eat, so we can avoid death, a little longer. We're keeping ourselves alive, on dead shit.
Walk through the cereal section. Rice crispies. Those were rice stalks. Now, puffed rice in cereal. Corn flakes. Now dead corn. Frosted Flakes too. Even the Trix. All of its dead.
Maple syrup from pancakes. Maple taken from a tree. Sucked the blood out of it, we pour its blood on our pancakes. Flour, that too.
Vitamins. All those herbs supplementals taken out. And the eggs, oh no, the eggs! All those baby chicks, stuck in a little purgatory state, in a dozen and a dozen and a half sized containers. They didnt stand a chance. They didnt even get a shot at living before they died. And hot dogs? Thats parts of, all sorts of crap leftovers from the animals guts, ground up in a grinder, and some stick those in between buns and eat that crap. Organs and brains and stuff. Gross.
The grocery store, death all over. People who will die. Oh yeah, if your local store has a pharmacy, the elderly going to get their prescriptions, too. Just trying to keep alive a little longer. Blood pressure medication. Antibiotics for sick little kids, too. Pain killers for those who cant deal with pain. Way it goes.
We're going to die, and we eat dead things so we can stay alive longer. Or dying things, etc. Isnt it a strange way the cycle works?
So in a strange way, an irony, death actually gives us life, therefore death is life, too. Funny that.
