“Ardently do today what must be done. Who knows? Tomorrow, death comes.” The Buddha

 I know what you’re thinking, this is going to be a very depressing story and you are about to do the electronic disappearing act on me. The Buddha’s message is meant to have the opposite impact, so give me a couple of paragraphs to straighten this out.

I need to get one admission out of the way right up front and then I can spend the rest of my time trying to convince you that the more you understand and accept your mortality, the richer your life between this breath and the last. I want you to know that I am not Tony Robbins. I would never walk on hot coals. I am Larry Feinstein, still stumbling along on my path and speaking with no authority at all, but with as much sincerity as I can sweep together for this subject.

Truthfully, I started this piece a few weeks ago and set it aside because it is so difficult to address. It changed when a friend of mine chose to end his own life. It was incredibly upsetting. The idea that someone could be in such pain is worst of all.   Emotions like this draw me deep inside myself. For many, the pain of living is so excruciating, there is no other way to eliminate the torture of the next breath.

Suicide bruises many because it reminds us of the tenuous nature of our own lives. It scorches us under our skin and melts away the Teflon armor we construct to shield us from the only certainty in our lives, our death.

I am sharing this with those of you who still believe you have a choice. All of us are influenced by our inevitable departure, whether we are conscious of it or not, it elbows into our actions. It is the great equalizer.

Absolutely everything is temporary and there are no exemptions. This truth can enslave or liberate us. As I have gotten older, my memories of events have changed. When I look at today and how I embrace it, I know it will be a different perspective tomorrow. We all create handles of security, so we can hold on to them and avoid a kind of free fall that can be terrifying, always having the rug yanked out from under us. I think our arrogance is one of those handles, somehow thinking we will defy the odds we are all subject to.

Although some would argue, humans are the only sentient beings capable of consciously changing their relationship to the world they inhabit. I am not talking about Pavlovian “learning”, like teaching a dog how to pull a lever. If this idea of impermanence becomes the spine of our belief system, what can happen? No matter where you look, change is the guarantee. It applies to one person and countries that hold millions of us. Empires change because they, too, are a reflection of the truth.

I wrote at the start that this subject is as depressing as shit, but there is more to it. In addition, blame it on my birthday, which happened a little over a week ago. I always punch introspective overdrive on the days just before and after.

If you can get a hold of this idea and press it in your hands without crushing it, humility and compassion are the only outcome. The arrogance of people and nations like our own wilt in the brilliant light of this delicate dance. What truly matters when absolutely nothing is forever? To me, it makes everything more meaningful and everyone more important. What is worth a four-year-old Yemeni boy having his legs blown off clear to his pelvis by Saudi jets bought from our country? How can any religion condone dropping men into a vat of acid alive, while their organs slowly dissolve? Living with true compassion changes everything.

Every morning, I sit on my cushion, the in and out of my breath punctuated by trying to float on that rug and not have it pulled out from under. I am not sure I’d even give myself a passing grade in the tug of rug department, but I am trying.

To my recently departed friend, I wish the light of change and possibility burned brighter in that dark, windowless room where you found yourself one time too many.