Understanding Death
Welcome to TFL Hmong shamanism, conversations on spirituality, topics of the universe, and Hmong shaman healing.
Ultimately all religions and spiritual practices do not prevent the end, it does not shield us from that final moment. It softens and opens us to meet everything that comes to us in that moment. Hmong shamanism understands that our spirit returns once and for all and we have to take any situation that occurs in this life and make it part of our karmic path in the next. Today's topic is the only certain thing in all our lives, death.
Death is the only certainty in our lives. Yet much of our culture, family, and society is organized to help us ignore death. To see it as an enemy. So from that point of view, a terminal illness brings fear, anxiety, depression. And no one wants to feel fear, anxiety, depression. But cancer and a terminal illness can be very helpful moment to our understanding of the totality of our actions, our life, the things we did and still want to do. But that leaves you with the questions of 'how do we come to accept our death without fear, anxiety, or depression?' For some, our reality is that cancer can in a way be of service to us, to see it as good for our understanding if you make it so, only if you choose to perceive it in that way. Cancer is, no doubt, bad for your life. We're talking about an infestation of our body, an attack on our cells by, ironically, itself. This opens up so many different kinds of questions and conversations of surrender and acceptance..of survival and fight.
Our body, my body, your body, we are essentially a corpse. But we are a corpse with a living and breathing soul capable of compassion. When we die our body is basically the body we experience right now but as a separated soul, an empty vessel. Our bodies are not made to be forever, in fact nothing is. I always say everything in life, the good and the bad, is temporary. Once our body gives, we're gone... We get to go back home, take the lessons and experiences we gained here, and go through it again until we learn what our spirit needs to.
There’s a quote—I think it’s Samuel Johnson—something about how death wonderfully concentrates the mind because you start to look at things and you know it’s not a question of “When I get this done” or “When this happens, then this will follow.” It's a question of things happening right now. And that’s what death seems to be about, continually bringing us back to "right now" no matter how much we try to think about our past, our mistakes, or regrets. Death gives us an insight or a sense of—obviously what’s important—but also what’s unimportant. You look at the world and see people suffering over such silly things. People fighting over things that don't even matter. Death is in a sense a way of introspection, a tool we can use to deeply look within, remember the past, and simply just be in the now.
Now, Hmong shamanism is aimed at focusing on spirits of the living, the dead, and of nature. We understand that after death comes reincarnation. We understand that reincarnation also involves karma. Life and death is nothing but a cycle. What have we done in this life is to be carried into our next life into our karmic path. For the actual shaman, as we begin our own journey, the knowledge and understanding of how life and death works, we come to disown the fear of death and disown the fear of the afterlife. I think for the first time in my life I've come to that stage. When shamans come to that realization, we truly begin our journey free of fear and limitations. We can overcome realms of the spiritual world because we no longer see death as a fear and we no longer see spiritual entities as something to be feared. Some spirits themselves still have so much anger and depression around their own death that they are unable to move on in their next phase. Death, as serious and sad as it is, is no longer something many shaman fear anymore.
Allen Ginsberg once said, “You will live or you will die. Both are good.” Most of us make death into the enemy. But death is not the enemy. It is a part of us and a part of every single living entity in this universe. Cancer, however, may be seen as the enemy. It is something that physically attacks our body. But death, itself, is not. Even the stars and the cosmos know death. One day our very sun that provides life on this planet will succumb to death as a part of its journey.
We all know that one day we will die. Knowing whether it's four months or 2 years, we do not really have an option but live until we can't. What else can we do? Our body will become a corpse in the Earth just like a star, still among the galaxy. We are going to live until we can't. And as we live, I think its important that we live life, not necessarily better, but more deeply, more fully, and more joyfully. I think this helps with experiencing life and I have no doubt it helps with death too because death is a part of life and dying is a part of living.
May we find peace in our understanding and may our understanding be with peace.
TFL