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February 14, 2022

The Nonduality of Life & Death

Continuing on with my lessons learned from Roshi Joan Halifax’s “Being with Dying, it’s interesting to read what Roshi Joan has written about the nonduality of life and death. Just like suffering and freedom from suffering are really borne from the same cloth, so is life and death. Here is a paraphrased excerpt from the book (page 84):

– We only exist through an interconnectedness with those in our life
– You are in relationship with literally everything in the phenomenal world, past, present and future
– You are nonduality itself because of this interconnected web
– Everything that happens in life is because of the reality of this interconnectedness
– Even though we can deduce this logically, we must experience liberation to make this truth real to us

By the way, my friend forwarded me this short essay – “On Death and Love” – by Melanie Challenger. Check it out…