Tag: death

A Blessing, Not a Promise

A funeral for a satin bowerbird at the end of a retreat.

The clothes we wear to bed at night to sleep is just pyjamas
This flesh we roam this earth in is a blessing, not a promise
I bow with those who bow to the creator and pay homage

— Jay Electronica, A.P.I.D.T.A

I hear a crash. Looking up from my tea, I walk over to the source of the sound. On the path outside the meditation hall is a female satin bowerbird. Having flown into one of the windows, she now lies twitching on the ground. I check if she is still alive. My heart races and my mind scatters. I think about what I need to do in each given scenario: if she is injured; dying; dead. When I see that she is badly injured I find my two close friends who are holding the retreat with me. We are all shaken up together. My thoughts go to the suffering that she might be in and what we can do to help alleviate that pain. One friend offers the wisdom that we let the wildness of nature unfold in its own way and only interfere when necessary. We hold this space of uncertainty as witnesses to the transition from life to death.

A female satin bowerbird (photo).

A memory arises of another speckled satin bowerbird peeking out at me from the broad leaves of a longan tree while I ate breakfast at a long silent retreat. At the time I felt like I had lost my way and the cheeky, monkey-like sounds of these birds felt like an invitation into the cosmic joke.

We go to move her away from the main building and realise she has died. She is so frail in my gloved hands. A delicate arrangement of green speckled feathers, a short beak, two dark eyes, two limp legs. It seems ridiculous that this creature was only minutes before creating a racket as she flew in and out of the plum tree, finding food and evading the retreatants who sought out her beauty. I feel a wave of sadness. As we close the retreat, I lead a guided mettā meditation where I invite everyone to sense into a love for the wildness of nature, for nature’s freedom. On listening back to the recording, I hear my voice crackling with my unfolding emotions, strained through my own sickness and weariness.

After the retreatants leave, the three of us hold a short funeral. We find a patch of land away from the main house where we can bury her and allow her to return to the earth. A rosella watches from a nearby tree, a witness to this sacred transition. I dig a hole and place her in the ground. She has become stiff and dense, seemingly already hardening into earth. The ants quickly move in to begin their work.

I’m nervous as I haven’t led a funeral before. I say a few words that a teacher passed on to me:

Let this bird’s life and death remind us of the preciousness of life.
Aniccā vata saṅkhārā.
All formations are impermanent.

I notice a peacefulness, an otherworldly quiet stillness. I recall seeing my partner’s grandmother moments before she died and moments after, and how I had noticed this same sacred stillness.

I’d always wondered when I heard that people go to a better place after they die. In this moment, I feel open to something more than an acceptance of death as fact, more than the promise of another life.

The birds have Buddha Nature.

A bower (photo).

The death of the individual body doesn’t mean the end of us when we are “actualized by myriad things”, as Dōgen says.[^1] Yet we forget our connection to the divine, this great gift of life bestowed on us. We forget that we move and speak and dance as part of this great body, the total interdependence of all phenomena.

Each moment of life, each a step in the transition to death, is another opening to walk this path of great wisdom.

She is in the ground now. Somewhere nearby a male is still arranging his blue things — bottle caps, beetle wings, flowers — setting his stage, waiting.

Vejjasala, our retreat home, shrouded in fog.

This song continues playing in my head and in my playlists, each time unravelling a little more.

I go to my Lord quietly, teardrops on our faces
Teardrops on my face, it’s like teardrops become waterfalls by the time they reach my laces
My eyelids is like levees but my tear ducts is like glaciers
As I contemplate creation, the salt that heals my wounds pour out my eyes just like libations

— Jay Electronica, A.P.I.D.T.A (​listen​)

[^1]: Dōgen, Genjōkōan: “To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away.” Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi’s translation is here.

Uncle Chwan: A ghost monk

I never met my Uncle Chwan. I’ve only seen a small sepia-tinged photo of him on the altar at my Aunty’s house, next to photos of Ah Ma and Ah Kong, my paternal grandparents. The second youngest of eight siblings, he was kind and gentle. My Dad and Aunty talk of their little brother as the nice one of the family. I can sense the truth in this.

All eight of my Dad’s siblings moved from Malaysia to Australia to go to university. After graduating with an accounting degree, Uncle Chwan decided to become a Buddhist monk in the Thai Forest tradition. This was the time — the family was healthy and well, he’d finished his studies, and something called him to live a different life.

He travelled to Thailand to ordain in the Ajahn Chah lineage at Wat Pa Nanachat — known locally as the monastery for westerners. The details are cobbled together from stories I’ve heard from family and from a monk who was there at the time. To ordain he was required to arrive with few possessions and no money, taking motorbike rides through jungles, giving up everything he knew to live with strangers. He turned his life upside down at 24 for a chance to dedicate himself to something greater.

Uncle Chwan’s Dharma name was Nyanaviro in Pali — meaning “courageous in wisdom” or “one whose courage is knowledge”. This Thai Forest tradition is characterised by austere, relentless dedication to the path.

A couple of years after ordaining, Uncle Chwan became ill. The abbot of the monastery had encouraged the monks to be equanimous with their illnesses rather than seek medicine, a reticence to which Uncle Chwan was already inclined. When his illness got worse, he continued meditating in his kuti. After he didn’t come to the morning chanting and meditation, he was found dead by another monk.

It was incredibly rare for a monk to die so young. The monastery held a special ceremony and dozens of monks travelled from the surrounding towns to pay their respects. But almost all of my family couldn’t travel to such a remote place at that time. The cause of death was said to be encephalitis caused by malaria or rabies. If caught early, this could have been treated. Death by equanimity.

I’m haunted by his ghost. He first came to me in meditation cautiously, hesitantly. I was unsure of opening to this dimension and the image flickered and faded in turn.

Eventually I allowed the image to come. Uncle Chwan visits me — adorned in ochre robes, shaved head, thin-framed glasses. He sits by me. Sometimes he offers me a smile, or a gentle hand on my shoulder. I sense that he is always with me, a phrase I’d dismissed when hearing others talk about these presences. I feel held in a kind embrace, watched over. During a month-long retreat, I experienced so much pain and mental anguish that I felt close to giving in, but I continued on, comforted by his presence in my imaginal sangha. He sat among my field of support.

I can’t explain the tenderness and kindness I feel from this image. What I feel is love. I feel heartbreak. I feel a family that was shattered at his death and maybe never recovered. I feel both endless grief and limitless compassion. I break down into tears when I see his half-smile. I’m held in his Loving Presence.

— In loving memory of Uncle Chwan and Kow Ee Poh.