In my meditation school, we have a practice called “night practice.” It looks in many ways like a number of similar full-body relaxation techniques in which you systematically put your awareness in different parts of your body.
The other evening, with my awareness in my skull, I became aware of the bone structure of it. My skull. Bone. Flesh and blood over bone. It won’t last… The temporariness of the temporal body struck me. One day I will leave this body.
It’s with the fulcrum of pending death that life is–almost ironically–put into perspective. Maybe it’s just the power of deadlines to force organization, but death is sort of the maha deadline. Unfortunately for most of us, that means maha denial (until it’s impossible to deny any longer). It’s an incredibly passive denial–”I don’t really have time to think about death”–but I can feel there is a covering up there.
The nature of duality is a fascination. It’s through contrasting “life” with “death” that I can’t help but come alive. And yet, in this place called a body, on this living planet called Earth, “life” and “death” are both concrete, and, not so concrete. I open myself up to the reality of impending death and life fills me up. I sit here, fingertips tapping plastic keys, eyes tracking pixels, breath moving silently–almost unnoticed–in and out, and one day, it just won’t be anymore.
In Eckhart Tolle, I feel that immeasurable peace that emanates from openness to death. In contrast, then there is everyone else. We grasp desperately at EVERYTHING. Our minds are like chickens pecking at every teeny, tiny little granular nothing, squawking and flapping when something disturbs. Oh, how to be the ground and the sky, as well as the pecking chicken.
There have been forces at work as of late–astrologically and in terms of the season–that have been very interesting to tune in to. This has definitely been the most “visionful” holiday season of my life, largely because my metaphysical vision has improved. There has also been duality in another sense: momentum toward awakening, and intentions for horizontal life improvements. A focus recently on moving forward with focused, certain aspirations for more money, more organization, and a more materially rewarding temporal experience in general. But this is the bit that needs attention: at the same time, openness toward experiencing and “creating a clear space of peace” (ET) around the parts that balk at such aspirations. Guilt, shame, self-consciousness, rejection. “Thou shalt not be materialistic.” But I am made of material…and yet, not.
Perhaps, in the end, it’s more about being open to the unknown. And, what could possibly be less known than death? I think I’ll start here. 
