This is the transcript of a talk I gave to the Zenways Sangha on 27 November 2022.
In three days’ time, on the 30th of November, it would have been my mum’s 74th birthday.
My mum died suddenly in September, and since then I have found myself reflecting quite a lot on practice, impermanence, life and death.
We often talk about bringing practice into our everyday life. It is relatively easy to think about this when we are walking, eating, working, washing the dishes or doing something else ordinary. But what happens when life presents us with something we desperately wish were different?
What does practice mean then?
When my mum died, there was nowhere to go.
There was no way of changing what had happened. There was no alternative version of events available to me. There was simply what was happening and everything that arose in response to it.
In Italy, traditionally, the body of the deceased can remain at home until the funeral. My mum’s body stayed in the house for two days, and during that time I spent long periods sitting or standing in front of her coffin.
It was a very strange experience.
Only a few hours earlier I had been talking to this person. Now I was standing in front of her body.
My mind moved in many directions. There was disbelief. There was sadness. There were moments when I wanted things to be different, even though there was absolutely nothing I could do to make them different.
At times I tried simply to notice what was happening.
Rather than trying to explain the emotions or escape from them, I brought my attention to their physicality. What did sadness actually feel like? Where was it in the body? What happened when I stayed with the sensations rather than immediately following all the thoughts surrounding them?
This did not make the sadness disappear. That wasn’t the point.
Practice did not provide an escape from what had happened. If anything, it seemed to ask the opposite of me.
Stay here.
This is happening.
There is nowhere else to go.
I don’t mean that we should become passive in life or that we should never try to change difficult circumstances. There are many situations in which action is possible and necessary.
But there are also moments when something has already happened and cannot be undone.
My mum was dead.
That was the reality in front of me.
I could think about yesterday. I could wish for another version of today. I could imagine what should have happened instead. And all of those things naturally appeared in my mind.
But every time I came back, there was the same room, the same coffin, the same body and the same breath.
There was nowhere to go.
Since then I have also found myself contemplating life and death.
My mum died. I have no doubt about that. And yet sitting there in front of her body opened questions that I don’t know how to answer.
What really are life and death?
What exactly has disappeared?
What remains?
Can my mum be dead and, in some sense that I cannot easily explain, not be dead?
I don’t know.
The contemplation continues.
Perhaps that is enough. I don’t feel any particular need to turn what happened into an answer about life and death. For the moment, the questions themselves seem more interesting.
And perhaps this is also something we can explore in our practice together.
During kinhin and zazen, things continually arise and pass away. Thoughts appear. Emotions appear. Physical sensations appear. Memories and plans appear.
Sometimes we are carried away by them.
When that happens, perhaps we can return to something very simple: the physicality of this moment.
The feet touching the floor.
The body sitting.
The breath.
Whatever sensations are present.
Not because we are trying to make something disappear or create a particular state of mind.
Simply because this is where we are.
During the next period of practice, perhaps we can notice what arises and what passes away. And whenever we find ourselves somewhere else, we can gently return.
To the body.
To the breath.
To what is here.
Nowhere to go.
Thanks for listening.
