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At a time when many people are still happily welcoming 2018 and approaching the traditional Chinese New Year, I am writing about this topic of death, so if you are squeamish about it, please take a detour; if you also feel that life needs some thinking and exploration, we can come together to exchange ideas.
(Note: Hui Ying public number has issued a "life and death" and "life and death", inadvertently put together a series of it, life goes on, the topic of "death" will not stop). (Life and death big question ~ ~ public number link.
In the past ten years, the relatives around me have gone away one after another, and I have not been able to say goodbye to any of them or see them off, including my grandmother, who loved me the most; on the contrary, my mother-in-law, I accompanied her throughout the process of a little bit of her life passing away, and looking at my mother-in-law, she looked like my grandmother in the memory of my grandmother's face, which can't help but call me to lament the meaning of the Buddha's " The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on a new one, and you'll be able to do that.
A person's life can be so fragile and tough! So fragile that a mouthful of phlegm can't be spat out, and breathing gets stuck. The word "phlegmatic" has its original meaning in the state of life; so tough that, as long as there is still a breath left, the life it is the remnants of the breath, want to go can not go.
Mother-in-law was kind and gentle all her life, always eating vegetarianism, Buddha, also believe in the local folklore of the gods, children and grandchildren live and work in peace and happiness, are quite filial. The children made a correct decision, in the hospital no better way to make the old man better case, no longer let the old man suffered lCU cold medical equipment, unanimously agreed to choose to take the old man home, back to the birth of her nourishment of her native land, back to her familiar room, back to the relatives of the children's bedside guarded by day and night.
I've never seen what kind of appearance a person would have at the moment of death, and since I was a child, I've heard of legends, movies and TV stories from the adult world, all of them are relatively horrible, and there may also be an inherent collective unconsciousness of the genes, and there is an instinctive fear of death, and a fear of the appearance of the dead. During the last three days and nights of my mother-in-law's life, I watched her in a coma, heartbroken and calm. I was heartbroken by her pain; I was calm in the belief that my mother-in-law would die a good death, even though I couldn't imagine what it would be like when that moment actually came.
When it did come, it came so quickly! After a third night of the most unsettled state between midnight and 3:00 a.m., my mother-in-law fell into the same sleep. The following day at noon, I expected my sister to give my mother-in-law boiled rice soup should be ready, went to serve a small spoon to, the bowl was just brought to the bedside, I heard my mother-in-law's grandchildren and children called out loudly, only to see my mother-in-law's throat as if stuck something, a breath of half a day to spit out, gently like a sigh, and then my mother-in-law's eyes closed, her face serene. The first two minutes were just a couple of minutes.
At that moment, in the sadness of the relief, the heart of the rise of the mother-in-law's infinite gratitude, grateful that she actually with such a peaceful face to say goodbye to their loved ones. In the three days and two nights that followed, her face was always peaceful, as if she was asleep. I even imagined that if I could say goodbye to this world with such a peaceful face on the day of my departure, it would be a great blessing.
These days, I can't help but think about death, about living, about the dignity of life and other related topics.
I made a verbal will with my husband and my son (I have mentioned it in the past two years, and I am afraid that they may think it is a joke, but this time I am very serious) ～～ If one day I can not be cured, don't resuscitate me; if I suddenly go away, please send me off in a Buddhist way, I want to say goodbye to the world quietly and with the greatest environmental protection. The greatest success and happiness in this life is if one can truly understand life and death and be able to say goodbye in an open and peaceful manner. Other so-called worldly endeavors, money, fame and fortune, etc., in front of life, really are very small, very small.
Over the years of practicing Buddhism, I have become more and more aware of the relationship between life and death, and have come to realize the nature of "birth and suffering" and the importance of the practice of "good death". I have been able to realize the nature of "birth is suffering" and the importance of "good death" practice. Although I still do not have a deep enough understanding and realization, I still crave for all the pleasures of life. The greatest thing about Buddhism is that it solves the ultimate problem of human life and death, but I am not wise enough to understand it.
I can't help but think back to this nearly half a lifetime of growth, in fact, "death" is the most faithful, no matter how you avoid it to avoid it afraid of it, or only now began to know how to face it.
I remember when I was a child, I heard of death, always associated with the terrible ghosts and monsters. There was a period of time, a group of children a few years older than their own always like to tell ghost stories together after dinner, and is turned off the lights, the dark night, in the colorful tone of voice in the cold out of a claw to grab you or flashlight suddenly shot straight into the eyes of a person with a long tongue in front of you! You were scared to death, but you still had to listen to it every night, and then you walked home at night with your scalp numb, listening to the shivering sound of your pants legs rubbing together with the wind, and then you ran all the way home with your heart in your mouth. At that time, it was believed that when people died, they would turn into ghosts and monsters, and they were all kinds of horrible ghosts and monsters. As a result, I was afraid of ghosts for many years. It was not until I attended the Bon Festival of Saionji Temple that I realized the true meaning of ghosts and monsters.
There were also other deaths that I read about, always related to fairy tale legends stories of warmth and malevolence, joy and sadness **** existed. I remember rummaging through the bookcase at home to find "Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tale Collection", "Grimm's Selected Fairy Tales", "Greek Myths and Legends" and Dante's "Divine Comedy", or the traditional Chinese version. So I held them up and read them in traditional Chinese, even with guessing, about honesty and lying, goodness and evil, loyalty and betrayal, life and death, and so on and so forth. The main characters who died alone, sadly or heroically, became the greatest comfort of "a good life even after death", such as the possibility of ascending to heaven after death, or turning into a flower or a tree after death; or going to hell after death (the contrast between the nine layers of hell and the nine heavens in Dante's book is really stark) as a deep memory symbol.
Growing up a bit more, death began to be exalted. "The greatness of life, the honor of death"; "Life and death are as heavy as Mount Tai, or as light as a hair"; "Bow down with all one's heart and soul, and then one's life"... ... so on and so forth, but it seems that these deaths are just essay or exam in the topic and material, is the behavior of heroes, worthy of tribute, but has nothing to do with you.
Into the adolescence, but also into the life of the first most rebellious most confused most helpless and most restless period. At that time, "death" has become a young man strong words, Xu Zhimo Tagore's poetry, Eileen Zhang's novels, Shakespeare's plays; into the Confucius, Mencius, Lao Zhuangzi said, six ancestor Huineng Zen enlightenment; into the Plato Socrates dialog; into Nietzsche's spirit of wine God, Schopenhauer's pessimism, Sartre's existentialism and so on a mixture of the simply don't understand but also pretend to understand the philosophical words. The philosophical word ...... death, but also became from time to time out of the idea of wanting to personally experience it, thanks to then too small and too much love of beauty, thinking that there is no one know how to die can make themselves not afraid and look very beautiful, and finally give up.
The developed information in this era makes the world's natural and man-made disasters into a common occurrence, the daily morning news broadcast of the death of the news in addition to attracting the occasional long pause and sigh, you are buried in the so-called busy struggle for love for the cause of the children for the family for the parents for the money for the ......, all the desires in the red dust rolled through the borrowed In the name of others, death seems to have begun to become a synonym for numbness and heartlessness, although your side is always no shortage of so-and-so gone news.
What day was it? You suddenly realize that any position in the world where there is a living person to be made can function just as well without you. In the workplace, there will be someone to replace you; in the family, your family can live without you; only "death" (the disease and suffering before death, the situation and state of death), no one can replace.
Once again, the Buddha said: "The king of death is inevitable and unavoidable; the life span is not increasing but decreasing; the body is extremely fragile and the date of death is uncertain; (when one is about to die) although surrounded by loving relatives and friends, none of them can be retained. Even if one has all the pleasing possessions one can't take a speck of them with him. Even his own flesh and blood, which are inherent in his life, must be abandoned, let alone others."
More and more pre-mortem illnesses and sufferings around us have been manifested in this life that no one can avoid or escape, but so far, we haven't learned how to give up the curtain.
This article is in honor of all my loved ones who have passed away, but also for myself to send a New Year's gift of life. For the rest of my life, I will continue to try to learn to "live with death".
2015.01.15