Whatever our view of how long, or not life is, it’s good to at least be awake for it as much as possible. It’s important to live as if we weren’t going to be around very long – and this isn’t morose, it’s a great way to appreciate everything we have and don’t have. Living like we could die at any moment allows us to live fully and as we wish, not as someone else dictates, or as we may have been told from an early age.
My Mother passed away a few days ago. She had lived too many years with dementia and so her passing was really sad mixed with relief. I was very close to my Mother, and have missed talking to her for a long time, but I have etched in my mind how she encouraged me to live.
She was fully behind my life decisions even though they weren’t the normal linear paths and certainly not how she was brought up. She supported me being an artist, a Buddhist, a freethinker and free spirit as she called it –she was fully behind my experiments, my questions, my way of turning things upside down and backwards.
She loved meeting my Buddhist teachers, and got a kick out of the Rinpoche’s and Monks that stayed with me in New York. The idea of her daughter cooking for them, walking around Manhattan with them was delicious to her; she had an affinity with the philosophy and general way of being that they carried.
Precious are our lives, tender are our hearts and fragile are our bodies. Let us not forget to remember to be in our lives and with the lives of ethers while we are able, and to the best of our abilities.
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