Let's Talk About Death

Most people don't ever see anyone die. It used to be if you grew up in a family you saw everybody die. They died in their bed at home with everyone gathered around. Death is the major issue in the world. For you, for me, for all of us. It just is. To not be able to talk about it is very odd. - Cormac McCarthy

I love Jim Jarmusch's movie Dead Man because it focuses on the subject of death (oh, and because Johnny Depp is in it, of course!). Depp plays a character named William Blake, who travels to the far western frontier of America in the late 19th century. An American Indian named Nobody believes Blake is actually the English poet, and leads him through transforming experiences that prepare him for death. The entire plot can be seen as a ritual process that guides William Blake to the next world.

This morning, awake at 2 am, (the prescription-strength ibuprophen wore off, kids) I suddenly realized that Million Dollar Baby (rented during my "high" after seeing the doctor yesterday) has the same theme. I thought the movie was about a girl boxer succeeding in a male sport, but actually the boxing becomes part of the ritual preparing her for death. Like William Blake in Dead Man, she appears in a new place and forms a connection with a guide who leads her through necessary experiences (or ritual) and ultimately facilitates her death.

What a profound and wonderful thought that there is a guide who will prepare us and lead us through the door of death. Or that we may one day be a guide. I hope I am brave at the time of my death, and haven't been too brainwashed by our culture to experience it fully. If I am called upon to help another person on their journey I hope I have the compassion and wisdom to accompany them.

Maybe we create friendships, families, earthly bonds with other people for this reason, so we won't be alone in facing death. But perhaps the ultimate lesson is in releasing these bonds to take the hand of a "stranger" as we enter that common passageway we each will reach in our time.

Selfless compassion and penetrating wisdom are interdependent, like the two wheels of a bicycle or the two wings of a bird. Compassion unguided by wisdom will go astray, and may even lead to the opposite effect. Blind love or sympathy is not true compassion. - Ch'an Master Sheng Yen