We are dying every minute—nothing remains the same. That is why I did not capitalize the word–it is not special. It is living, breathing reality.

I am not the same person that I was the moment I typed “dying.” We come and go. All of us–that person you connected with today, the people we cherish, every curious thought, that crazy dream that faded upon awakening this morning; our most precious vision that we have told no one, even our very own seeming self will drop away. Here and gone. Here and gone. Painful thoughts, ecstatic sensations, your sweet cat, the goldfinch at the birdbath, the maple in your backyard, Mt. Shasta, suns, galaxies–all of these extraordinary manifested forms bow to this truth. Yet most 7,000,000,000 humans resist this fact. Hence we create stories, unreasoned terror, hope, meaning, and…  we suffer.

The last ten minutes we spent with our Scottish deerhound, Maggie, were a teaching for me. She knew, without words or a mind, that death was near. Truth hung in that room, thick enough to touch, completely transparent. She met that truth with an open clarity I will never forget. She was simply… wholly present and unconcerned.

All those other beautiful life forms I listed are also unconcerned with transition. They live what we overlook: we are not only the wave, we are the ocean. We are not only this unique body, we are the very nothing at the core that cannot be seen, tasted, perceived, sensed, or spoken of. We are THAT.

The real question is–can you bear knowing what you truly are?

© Amrita Skye Blaine, 2012