Constant endings and new beginnings

Learning to live in peace with the flow of life

These regular recommendations are full of lovely things that can help us to live and write more mindfully and find moments of peace and joy no matter what we are going through.

Photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash

How We Live Is How We Die

By Pema Chödrön

Pema Chödrön is an American Tibetan-Buddhist. She is an ordained nun, former acharya of Shambhala Buddhism and disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She has written several dozen books and is principal teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia.

What I love most about Pema Chödrön’s books is that she is so honest about how hard it is to find peace and joy when we feel so afraid most of the time. When we are fearful of change and what it might bring, of not knowing how things will turn out. When we distract ourselves from looking inwards to find answers and the source of unshakable peace we all seek, as that means facing the suffering from our past. And the biggest fear of them all — not knowing what comes next after we die. She shares the times when she struggled with all of these things herself. But then she shows us how we can live more happily, find courage and strength, and be prepared for whatever comes our way. That we live through constant endings and beginnings in our everyday lives, and that leaving these bodies behind is just another ending in that eternal cycle, before another beginning.

When I was younger, I was so afraid of dying, of there being no way of discovering what might happen when this life ends. I haven’t felt like that in quite a long while now, and having had to deal with so much loss in the past seven years has made me confront the reality of death head on. But when this book was recommended to me earlier this year, I thought it would be good to help with the ongoing grief I feel for my lost loved ones and I was intrigued by the title. I ordered the paperback online and it took many weeks to arrive. When it finally landed on the doormat, it was two days after the sudden death of my mother-in-law. I felt like the delay had been meant to happen so that the book would turn up when it was needed the most.

It’s prefaced with this statement:

“Contemplating death five times a day brings happiness.”

I don’t know if that is true, but I do know that in the past seven years I have lived through the sudden deaths of sixteen people. Many of whom were younger than me. Of these sixteen people, two were my best friends when I was in my early twenties. We lived together, partied together, travelled together, laughed and cried together and although we went off in different directions, our love for each other always remained in our hearts. One was my oldest and dearest friend’s mum (who was a stand-in mum for me as my relationship with mine was so fraught) and another her little sister who I’ve known since she was ten.

Three married couples make up another six. Two of these couples were some of my closest friends in my thirties and forties that I spent a lot of time with. The third couple were newer friends who I was just getting close to. My mother-in-law’s long-term partner, then my mother-in-law herself eighteen months later. These losses were significant people and yes I have been grieving, but during this time I have also become the happiest I have ever been. So for me, contemplating death has definitely brought happiness.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the belief is that when we die we go into the Bardos and it’s what happens there that determines what happens in our next cycle of life. And what happens there is influenced by how we think, behave and react in this life.

In this book, Pema Chödrön doesn’t say with any certainty that this belief is true — after all there really is no way we can know until it happens — but she asks us to open our minds to the idea that we are already living in a bardo of continual endings and new beginnings. We live with constant change and it’s how we deal with that in this life, that will influence our experiences when we die.

I don’t know what I believe about what happens when we die (it changes often!) but I do know that reading this book made me laugh out loud several times. That contemplating the questions she poses and opening my mind to everything she shared, made me braver and more lighthearted. It made me more open to embracing the unknown and to stop always seeking comfort and familiarity. More accepting that the plans I make won’t always unfold in the ways I expected.

The biggest message I got from this book, which I am carrying with me from now on, is that there is great joy to be found in the unknowing if we just let it in.

With love,

P.S. You can read an excerpt from the book here.

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