On Dying
Dying while we’re living, the sacred yoga of sleep, and the dream that is dreaming. “Llena de alegría danza la muerte a mi lado.”
I tried to write something rather brief on death for a course I’m creating. I found myself going and going—so we had to kill the idea that what wants to be expressed about death could be said quickly and neatly.
This funky Mayan astrology website told me that “I am moved by the power of death,” and that resonates deeply—without actively seeking it, practices for being comfortable with dying often find me.
It begins with the understanding that to be alive is to die. Our final death is inevitable, and to be alive means to die many times in one life. To die to our past selves, to let go of things we thought we would not be able to live without, to change and change again, and change so much that versions of ourselves pass on and new ones are born. It means witnessing the death of our planet, our loved ones, our home. Every time this occurs, we simultaneously experience the psychedelic medicine of rerererere—birth. Death is not the wrong part—it is not a failure or a fault—or even something to fear. As Ram Dass said “death is perfectly safe.”
Our existence is not a game of life and death, rather a study of the life and anti-life forces on the planet. Anti-life as in the energy that wants us on this planet, alive yet not fully living. Attacked by fear, stress, worry, and inauthentic hamster wheels and habits. Pervasive patterns that permeate the planet. Paradoxically, the antidote to living un-alively is to consciously practice dancing with death— letting go, touching emptiness, and then coming to our senses —coming to life. Death dancing is the practical application of fearlessness for our waking, sleeping, and eventual transition to the other side. For the way we live is the way we die. To welcome death is to welcome birth. Welcoming sensation— our ability to experience all capacities of pain and pleasure— and saying yes. Yes to creation Yes to destruction Yes to change Yes to this Yes to now Yes to life. To live with the awareness of death dancing by our side is to choose life.
We see death in the most vibrant aspects of life: Menstruation, the feminine monthly death, is also a substance that contains the components of the very creation of life itself. An orgasm, the climax of pleasure and vibration of creation, comes from French and directly translates to “little death.” The list goes on. We cannot forget, quite possibly the most important death practice of all. Occurring every night, the ceremony of dreams, REM, the daily death practice of nightly sleep. Enter Yoga Nidra. Defined as ‘yogic sleep’, this subtle experiment of consciously going into the in-between is performed through a simple, guided, thorough body scan in Shavasana. While the mind is actively following named body parts, the body goes into a deep relaxation, and the brain goes into an alpha state— a potent, healing brain wave that allows for full-body restoration and deep psychic clarity and liberation. In Yoga Nidra, we consciously practice going to the place between waking and dreaming that we most often slip into unconsciously. Although from the outside it would appear the practitioner is basically asleep, this practice is one of the most subtle and refined in all of Yoga. It is said that those who practice subtle and mystical arts like Yoga Nidra, are later able to experience their final death as a transcendental, pleasurable expansion, rather than a terrifying, unsettling and unknown termination. The practice of regularly releasing the literal and metaphorical grip on the body, mind, and life—trains the gross and subtle aspects of ourselves to lighten up, to detach, to enjoy what is here for now and set it free when it is no longer. For so much of our suffering in our lifetime can be traced to the act of clinging and controlling—attaching and latching onto pleasant experiences that we wish would go on forever, as well as fixating on the pain of wanting unpleasant experiences to end. Yoga Nidra in turn is the act of unclenching the fist, the jaw, the grip of life again and again and again. Letting life move through you—and with it the tides of fulfillment, joy, purpose—so that when death comes, it is welcomed with open arms. With a deep sense that the soul goes on, and that life and death are complimentary tones in the same song. What is most interesting about death, is that it brings us to life.
“Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, 'I haven't touched you yet.”
― Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan