On Facing Our Own Mortality

Keanu Reeves on Stephen Colbert's The Late Show

What do you think happens when we die, Keanu Reeves?

That’s the question Stephen Colbert asked the latest Internet’s boyfriend, Keanu Reeves, during his appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last May. A question to which he answered after letting out a long, deep, audible breath, “I know that the ones who love us will miss us.” He did it in a way that left the host and whole audience lost for words.

Whatever your answer will be, it is probably the common question we have often found ourselves contemplating in moments of silent reflection.

We see and learn what death looks like every day; on the news, on the street, on our loved ones’ bedside, going through or even facing up our own mortality. Each experience is unique, but death always provokes us a growing sense of unease.

That’s because we live in a culture that doesn’t discuss death; it is considered taboo (we think death is a misfortune) and it’s best to keep the subject at a distance. When the idea came across our mind, even the slightest bit, we would try to avoid it. That’s why, the idea of death (especially of our loved ones) brings anxiety or even depression when it comes to our mind. I do.

Come to think of it, those reactions are pretty natural. As we’ve gotten older and as people we love slowly running out their time and facing up their departure from this world, we’d think about death more often. But how about ourselves? The thought of us have to come to the end of our existence is never easy —in fact, it always makes me shudder.

As long as I remember, for me —quoting The Bible— death (always) comes like a thief. Three most significant deaths of my dear ones happened before my eyes. My Late grandfather exactly died beside me inside The Church, and I didn’t even aware of it because I was so sleepy to attend the earliest Sunday Mass until his false teeth fell off the ground.

The death of my Late uncle happened so sudden; none of us knew he had congenital heart disease. And I ignored his last Facebook message and his wish to attend my master graduation (most probably because he knew he wouldn't be able to attend his own little daughter's graduation ceremony) --simply because I felt not in the mood to go to my own.

But only the recent death of my another significant other, which happened just a couple of months ago, truly made me realize of my own. Will it also happen before my own eyes?

In psychology, there’s this Terror Management Theory which suggests that a large part of all human behaviour is generated by unconscious fear of death. According to this theory, death anxiety drives people to adopt world views that protect their sense of self-esteem, worthiness, and sustainability and allow them to believe that they play an important role in a meaningful world. It comes to our senses that becoming aware of death can have such powerful transformational effects, like radical shift in attitude and perspective, or probably the ability —quoting a friend, Sam—to actually live in the present.

I have read a lot of quotes suggesting us, as human beings, to “Be Present”, “Live in The Present and Make It Beautiful”, or even define happiness as a result of “living in the present”, and so on. But how to actually live the life with presence?

“By a lot of practices.” —said Sam. He is a Buddhist, coming from an adherent of Nichiren Syosyu Indonesia, a form of Mahayana Buddhism, which strictly maintains and preserves the purity of Nichiren Daisyonin’s teachings.

Nichiren Syosyu has a conception called Ichinen Sanzen. This is a principle that every life moment [Ichinen] possesses all three thousand possible worlds, the totality of the world of phenomena, which exist in only one instant of life. 'Ichinen' indicates life essence and 'sanzen', the phenomena it manifests. At each moment life experiences one of ten mind states; Hell, Hunger, Animality, Anger, Humanity or Tranquility, Heaven or Rapture, Learning, Realization, Bodhisattva, and Buddha. Each of the ten mind states has its own characteristics which fall into three groups - the four evil ways, the six ways and the four noble ways which come from instinctive conditions to high spiritual conditions.

These ten mind states are dynamic processes in human mind, inherently jumps from one state to another moment to moment. Nichiren Buddha realized that ones need to strive to fully aware of their own mind and aim to grasp Buddha world as the foundation of the mind; the best state or quality of a human that could be identified as pure, strong, free from detachment, and tranquil mind. Nichiren Syosyu’s adherents believe that by chanting ‘Nam-myoho-renge-kyo’ whole-heartedly and discipline, they could hone their Buddha state (Buddhahood) and in turn transform their life into a more fulfilling and essential one.

I will not go far with each of these mind states individually this time. But I’m very interested with the state of Realization, which apparently refers to acceptance of the impermanence and mutability of life and its phenomena. Impermanence, one of the distinct marks in the reality of existence according to the Buddhist philosophy, along with suffering and non-self. The idea of impermanence helps us to understand the nature of life, as well as death, that everything, be it an object, person, or place, is all ultimately temporary.

Thus, we suffer because we desperately seek permanence in an impermanent world, whether it is a desire to have Instagram popularity of more followers/likes, more money, more branded bags, or even continue to live with our dear loved ones. Every moment we experience will inherently be shaped by past memories and is similarly subject to future expectations, never be defined by and cherished as our present lives.

In his essay in The Guardian, “Zen Buddhism teaches us of the importance of living in the present”, Tim Lott explained about Zen Buddhism views of all life and existence is based on a kind of dynamic emptiness. That means, everything is viewed as dynamic events, not merely stuffs. Every thing in the world is, in fact, happening. He wrote, "The emphasis on the present moment is perhaps Zen’s most distinctive characteristic. In our Western relationship with time, in which we compulsively pick over the past in order to learn lessons from it and then project into a hypothetical future in which those lessons can be applied, the present moment has been compressed to a tiny sliver on the clock face between a vast past and an infinite future. Zen, more than anything else, is about reclaiming and expanding the present moment." —which I believe the key to living our present lives, wherever we are in the world.

And yet Tim Lott continued in his explanation, “It tries to have you understand, without arguing the point, that there is no purpose in getting anywhere if, when you get there, all you do is think about getting to some other future moment. Life exists in the present, or nowhere at all, and if you cannot grasp that you are simply living a fantasy.”

One of many practices to living a life with presence that Sam said earlier is taking a moment to reflect once in a while. “Sometimes I do it before I sleep. What if I die tomorrow? I feel a mixture of feelings that is hard to explain. To think that I will enter the realm of unknown. More often than not, it brings me back to my senses; sensing my fear, anxiety, anger, regret, hope, and try to look it in the third-person perspective. It helps me to cherish the moment as well and get ahold of myself,” he spilled his method.

I remember at one of our conversations, during the funeral I attended, Sam responded to my fear of not being enough to the deceased, “Sometimes we think things we do not want as anomalies of ourselves and we try to reject them. But actually those anomalies also arise from us, consciously or unconsciously.”

And rejecting these things will make us even more disappointed.

“Life is indeed a constant dynamic where we tend to seek balance; between what we need and what we want, what we are expected to be and what we inherently wanted to be. In a world full of distraction, we often lose sights and life’s purpose. We regret, letting go, and start over. It’s a life long process and we better embrace it,” he continued.