Circumnavigating the pain of loss by dying small deaths
When I fear loss, all that to which I am attached appears to me. I foresee the loss of my relationships, my wealth, my esteem, and my life itself. The fear is honest. It tells me what I am afraid to lose.
Ah, but in order to lose, I must first have. Do I actually have these things? How is it possible to have a relationship? To have wealth, esteem, life? None of it is owned by me. It is all transitory. It all passes, just as I myself pass.
Why do I attach myself to what is transitory? Because it is beautiful, because I love it. I desire to have. I pursue. For a brief moment, I do actually have. And then I fear loss of it. Sometimes I do actually lose. My fear is realized and I feel pain. This pain of loss is balanced by the ecstasy of attaining.
I have always played this game of attainment and loss. At first, I did not know it was just a game. I thought it was the only way. But now I know there is another way. If one does not desire, then one does not attain. If one does not attain, then one cannot have. If one does not have, then one cannot lose. In this way, I could no longer feel ecstasy in exchange for no longer feeling pain.
Is it possible to still feel ecstasy if I were to live in this non-desirous way? I have seen statues of the Buddha that portray his face smiling. What is the source of Buddha’s happiness, if not satisfaction of desire? The joy of just being, perhaps, as I have read somewhere.
But I am skeptical of this joy. Can it be as the first night with a new lover? Can it be as the come up of a drug high? Can there be joy without suffering? Can I have the loving relationship without the breakup? Can I have the drug high without the come down?
I am afraid. I have so much. I fear to lose it all. Ah, but I will lose it all no matter what. It is time for me to start to die already. It has come so soon. Not too long ago I was still a boy. I still thought it would never end. I still thought I would find what I was looking for in this life. I thought I was myself. I thought my soul would persist.
But I am not who I thought I was. I am part of all this. I do not own it. I cannot have it. I can desire, I can grasp, but it will run through my fingers like sand. There is beauty to the grasping, there is a dance to it. I have seen the dance, taken center stage, watched others, had partners. I have loved the dance. But the music will stop.
Over a door at St. Paul’s Monastery on Mount Athos, it is inscribed:
“If you die before you die, then you won’t die when you die.”
I fear death. I fear to lose my life. From this, I realize that I am attached to my life. Perhaps "to die before you die" means to let go of this attachment.
This applies to more than just my final, physical death. There is constantly birth and death in my life. For example: I meet someone new. They are born into my life. Then they leave. And that relationship dies.
It is the attachment that is the variable that intensifies my eventual pain of loss. How can I experience the joy of something without becoming attached to it?
I can practice this in the small birth-death cycles in my life, which may prepare me to practice non-attachment to my own life, so that when it comes time for me to die my final death, my pain of loss will be less.