When Death Comes

[Tara]

My friend's mother died today. My friend and I are in our early 30s. It's an age where we look and act like grown ups but we feel like children a good part of the time and we still feel a deep need for our parent's support, guidance and love. At any age, to lose a parent is devastating. To have them taken away when we still need them so much. Who cherishes us like our mother? Who sees us through such tender eyes?

I am deeply struck by how the knowledge of impermanence penetrates through experiencing sudden and unexpected death. I feel it in a way that I haven't known before. I think about my parents and how much I take for granted. How resentments from years passed manifest through distance and frustration. I am aware that I have never truly appreciated how much they have given and sacrificed. I resolve to begin to rebuild these precious bonds.

I feel that somewhere, somehow, there is a place where there is no longer a paradox between loving deeply, and at the same time lightly enough to accept loss gracefully. But I don't know this place. My attachments are deep rooted and my love is fragile and conditional. But it is a bombu love renewed; touched by the tenderness of loss.

[Katrien Sercu]

Wunderfull! Namo Amida Bu

[dean haywood]

thanks for your kind words tara and every one else,i think of myself as one of the lucky ones,we all go thru pain and suffering,but not all of us find amida,it was the best day of my life when i found the buddhist house and joined the sangha,i have learnt so much in a short time and know that i still have so much to learn. Namo Amida Bu.

[Tara]

Dean, isn't it is amazing how everything can change when we know we reallly are accepted just as we are. Thank you for your openness, there is so much warmth in your story and much hope. Namo Amida Bu

[Katrien Sercu]

Dear Dean, i get silent from your lifestory. Namo Amida Bu. You tell about so much trauma and pain in 5 sentences. I would like to embrace you and all this pain in the love of Amida, to weaken it. It's wunderfull how you find Amida and the Pureland, that eases fear, anger, guilt...Yes, we're all so foolish, so limited, so little. Humbleness is right. But Dean, i think that life asked soooo much from you ( i had difficulties in life, but less hard) so i get silent about the way you went , to get able to find Love. We meet at the Bodhi retreat!

[dean haywood]

it may sound strange but i feel i needed to go through the pain in order to discover me,i can look at the past and still be brought to tears, but today they are tears of joy, i no longer av to live in a world of addiction and selfishness, but at the same time i realise i dont av to be perfect,pureland has given me freedom,and the acceptance that i only have to live in today,what the future holds no longer brings fear but joy,each day is a new adventure. Namo Amida Bu

[Modgala Duguid]

Thank you for sharing Dean, wonderful how you have come through all that pain. And that is the wonder of this path it can help turn around our feelings and perspectives. I know it did for me. I was angry with my mum and did not really know her because of all the prescription drugs etc. until 10 years beyond her death. a Nei quan retreat in my early days wirh amida helped me turn around and in the last 12 years I have come to know her and feel her by my side. And done a good bit of crying at my own foolishness because I screwed up pretty badly too! And with the tears has come faith in life and an opening up freedom and joy. so glad you have found our sangha. i look forward to seeing you when i am up for the Bodhi retreat. Namo amida bu with love modgala

[Robert McCarthy]

Dean Dean, Somehow Amida finds us through such a cloud of pain. I feel a real warmth that you write here in such trust and that you do so while your pain is so recent and strong. Yes with Amida there is no hiding, like we try to do with the drugs, but isn't it so beautiful to feel a turning from self toward other, the taste that there really is love. The passion roused from pain finds love. That is my remembering of my parents deaths Dean. with love Rob .

[dean haywood]

i have just read your comments about how we feel towards our parents and resentments we feel and how we should be grateful, in 2003 my mother died of alcoholism, and i was so angry that she had given up her life to an addiction,how could she be so weak, how could she have left my dad so broken and upset leaving me to pick up the peices, my children were so upset they had to have counselling. i brought my dads house of him and had him live with us this destroyed my marriage my wife had an affair i tried to kill her lover and spent some time in jail until luckily i was released on a technicality.not once did i see my part in this.how could i be angry at my mum i was an alcoholic too. my wife left me because i was so wrapped up in self i couldnt see her pain, my children needed a father i wasnt there, my father needed a son i became his jailer,today i see my bombu nature.i love my father we have a great relationship, i put my kids first,my exwife hates me but i can live with that. i love my mother and understand that her illness was to strong for her, and i love her and cherish her memory. but today i accept that we all have to die my time will come but i no longer fear it.its a part of life we should not feel shame to cry for our loved ones its natural. thats what i love about pureland we dont have to be perfect,we just have to have faith. and my faith is so strong i love the nembutsu and the happiness it gives me. i am alone, a single parent will i ever be in a relationship again who knows, today i dont care,because i know no matter what amida loves me, he tells me come as i an a foolish being.namo amida bu

[Tara]

Dear Franco, it is always a shock to hear of someone dying so young and unexpectedly. I wish much comfort to her family and loved ones. Losing someone dear to us and facing the reality of loss is very painful and something I am slowly learning more and more about. Thank you for yourkind words. Namo Amida Bu

[Franco Acquaro]

Thank-you for sharing Tara. My thoughts go out to you,your friend, and her mother.

This last week a young lady (16 years old) in our community passed away suddenly in her sleep...she was apparently in great health...just had a headache and went to bed early...then could not be awakened in the morning...such loss.

May the dead bless our lives as we continue for a while longer, then, we will join them in that unfathomable mystery of death.

Aloha & Namo Amida Bu,
Franco