Do we suck the marrow from life in the fear of something …
losing something… losing what?
… a memory, a recollection
… of a life half lived, … of a death half died?
We put compassion upon the pedestal of righteousness.
Compassion, as a great force, to reckon with the apathy we feel for another’s misfortune, another’s sorrow, pain, suffering. All good Buddhists know compassion to be one of the highest percepts. Yet, perhaps it is essential to understand the base teaching before moving on.
It is easy to submit to cultural pressures and believe that to show compassion is to demonstrate sentiment or take affectionate action in an attempt to lessen one’s hurt. There is immediate reward for such belief, because the altruistic intentions are unmistakable.
None-the-less, in the Sutras, through parody & illustration, it is taught that we may simultaneously show gratitude, and admonish our parents, teachers, and sovereigns, for the sake of upholding the great Dharma; for in the great scheme of things, it is a fools errand to act within this lifetime as if it is the final opportunity to expound a teaching, or for oneself to attain enlightenment.
We are but tiny ants on an elephants back, yet, as small as we seem, crawling to those tender places, we may still manage to irritate an elephant. Yet, once sat upon, we will have to be patient for our next incarnation.
Can we die with compassion, or do we finally let loose what we hold so dear.
Is compassion merely food for the ego – an ego, no less, of the living?
We value life as if, to lose it. is to lose something. Is the loss of ours a gain for others. or do we all lose by the loss, as if an invisible thread passes through the lives of everyone and we feel the breaking of that thread – a tugging, a breaking-away – every moment a life ends? How can we suture the rip in our soul? How can we strengthen this thread so that no death leaves it frayed?
The grossest form of attachment is the love which remains attached to a thirst which satisfies but our own conceit. Only in sluing the very body we hold so dear can we realize an unconditional love within which there is the realization that the body has no substance; and death of the body is not death of the unconditional love; because the significance of attachment IS conditionality. So whilst the body remains, unconditionality may only be approximated or approached.
Perhaps … imagine thus, and imagine unconditional love as a co-requisite for immortality.