I was in a friend’s vacated house in Bowie, Arizona. I was in the process of completing a month-long lerung, a solo meditation retreat in the Tibetan tradition. It was winter, it even snowed a little. I was excited to skip the entire holiday season, from December 14th to January 14th, more or less. Timing depends on keeping up with a certain number of practice sessions and recitations. Anyway, two things happened that had a huge influence on me, and where I am today.
In the middle of the retreat, which is most the most powerful part, in the evening session, which was most powerful for me, something happened. I had been focusing strongly on identifying with a particular meditational deity, taking on their characteristics and appearance. It was vivid and intense, like I was made out of light.
I came out of the session, looked down at my body, and laughed. “Jim Dey? hilarious!” Maybe a little crazy, but I had the strong impression that my body, my appearance, and my mind were all existing in one of many possibilities, including the possibility of being an Enlightened Being. I knew I was not that, but I was not NOT that. It’s hard to explain. Maybe that is why we did retreats.
The second thing that happened, the next morning, is that I suddenly knew I was going to die. I had what I later would understand to be a panic attack. After the morning session, coffee, and yoga, I was sitting there with my heart racing out of control. The vision of knowing what it would be like — either an accident, a disease or condition that doctors couldn’t fix — I knew I was going to die. I got a hold of myself eventually, went on to my second session for the day, then completed the retreat a few weeks later.
Two ideas stuck with me, that our bodies are maybe infinitely malleable, and that eventually they will stop working. The two ideas are related. You can tune your body systems to work well, giving you health-span and lifespan, but it won’t last forever. We’re losing the battle one minute at a time, every minute of our lives, until the last minute comes.
So, we might as well get started while we still can.