MY BLOG TITLE

Even Buddha Died may strike the random reader as some sort of pubescent Goth declaration. "Why aren't you getting ready for school today, Ashley?" a parent might inquire of a black-clad teen. "'Cause even Buddha died, Mom." would drone the whining answer from frowning lips. 

Not what inspired my use of the title. The passing of the old year, 2017, triggered my awareness of the finite nature of time. Yes, I have read enough physicists' hypotheses about how time is an illusion. That everything that will happen in The Universe has already happened, but we just cannot see it all from our minuscule, light-based perspective. Whatever. The simple fact remains that the two common characteristics that all life on Earth have are birth and death, the bookends of our mortal existence as individual beings. Even Buddha, despite his claims of glimpsing infinity (enlightenment), was born and eventually died. 

What would happen if we all kept this reality in mind all the time ... a constant track, like our heartbeats, running at the back of the busy and cacophonous soundtracks of our minds as they progress and then eventually regress and then eventually fall into the silence from which they erupted? What kind of human world would that be? 

My writing here is based in that question, explicitly or implicitly. I have been trying to run that constant track at the back of my mind for about 30 of my 68 years. It all started when I immersed myself into Buddhist practice and study within a Japanese Buddhist subculture. As I do with most things, I took it very seriously for a time, and I devoured what I could digest of it. Then I let it metabolize into new mental tissue. Sometimes I have found that new tissue, built from new ideas and practices, can be more tumorous than muscular when tested. In the case of Buddhism, I found it built a kind of mental muscle which has helped to sustain me through long years of AIDS and cancer recovery. My Japanese altar sits here in my room as a constant reminder of the esteemed source of that strength, even though I no longer bow and chant to it twice a day.

Yes. Even Buddha died. And so am I also dying as much as living in every moment. My death is statistically more proximate to me than death is to those younger and healthier. I do not know at this moment whether my death will be natural, gradual, accidental or self-inflicted. I do know simply that I am approaching it more swiftly than I ever imagined in my younger years. The acceleration of the perception of time that comes with age is stunning. Sometimes quite horrifying.

So, if you stop by my blog because of the title, I want you to know that it is neither whimsical nor designed to catch your eye. It is a statement of my mental track which pumps along as I expend my ever-diminishing bank of heartbeats, one by one. You might try developing your own constant awareness of your mortality. You might be surprised by its effect on the person you will become.