Buddhism, Death and The Dharma - Remembering Jane: 1970-2014

Nothing can be better to illustrate impermanence than owning a pet as they live their lives so quickly compered to us. Thus every day of this young man's life is filled with joy, fun and belly rubs.
Occasionally, he likes to dress up as an extra from Quadrophenia too.

"I'm bored" I announce with a resigned sigh, to no-one in particular, or indeed at all. Well, not unless you count the small Shih Tzu sat next to me on the ever deepening, hand-me down sofa. The green leather is reassuringly stained and besmirched, it's various sags and folds not unlike the bags under my eyes. I am at home, alone, and finally, inevitably, I can watch no more TV. I have been running away from writing for two weeks now, although I'm sure that you find this no surprise, dear reader. If you have been following our recent explorations into the unknown, firstly, let me thank you. The positive feedback and kind words of encouragement from beings of startling generosity and widely varied locations is inspirational. It is this inspiration that drives me through the maelstrom of emotions and wrings each word from my fingertips. My wrists and arms feel heavy, much like my heart. It is a stillness, a deep and profound silence that fills it. Or possibly an absence of something? I don't know. The pain suddenly rises up again inside my chest like a car jack being violently cranked, prompting a slow inhalation of breath. It subsides, but lingers faintly, malignant and sour, like stale eggs in urine, in an old microwave, somewhere in an unlit warehouse. Thats actually kinda how it feels right now. The familiar no longer seems so. The norm is not the norm, work is disproportionately daunting and even social gatherings are an unsettling thought. How to convey the nightmare of the last few days, weeks, and months? How to express and convey the truth honestly, neither being dismissive nor indulging? 
How do you grieve your sister dying? 

Our human lives are as brief and as beautiful as the splash of a raindrop,
and just as hard to try and capture properly...

On Monday January 27th, at 8:30am, my alarm went off. I arose and stumbled over to confront it on the far side of the room, a necessity to engaging my pre-shower cognitive faculties. I checked my phone, for the millionth time that weekend. I froze and time stopped. I could read the message before I had even turned it off. The alarm was the Padmasambhava Mantra by my dear friend Mahasukha, and i can't tell you how far it played before I killed it. The silence was deafening. I blinked hard. "Jane has just died, very peacefully. Xx"......

The Thursday before, on the 23rd, my world was turned inside out and upside down by the news that my father had gone down to London to be with my big sister Jane and her family in the hospice for her final hours. We knew she had been living with cancer, supported and sustained superbly by her husband and three children for 17 months, but when the end came, it came very fast. She was a fighter, until the last. I was informed by him that she was ok, and that she was being well looked after by a group of loving, dedicated and highly skilled nurses. We both took no small comfort in knowing that the pain management was second to none, and the best a person could wish for. I found out later that she had slipped into a coma on Friday, had suffered not at the very end, and passed away surrounded by loved ones. 

In this day and age, statistically, even in the West, such a dignified end is alarmingly rare. Sadly, according to friends of mine who work in palliative care and ER wards, most people who darken their doorways die confused, scared, and often alone. There is much suffering on the part of the dying person, because they are not prepared for death. For me, this final experience would invalidate everything up to my life at that point. For me, my practice is preparation for my death, and my life is my practice. Wealth, power, or material good can't be taken when I go, and will be of very little use to me when the moment comes. For Jane, I wasn't there at the end and I wasn't able to say goodbye. Due to my spine lacking the structural integrity to withstand a six hour coach ride to London, I wasn't even able to attend her funeral and cremation. This is something which I know is going to sting for a very, very long time, possibly the rest of my life. My relationship to the pain in general changes daily. Most of the time I'm able to give it the space it needs, but occasionally I block it out, suppress it, and it festers like a boil, waiting to burst in my mind and heart. 

This teaching of the Buddha I find astonishingly accurate and true, some 2,500 years later:
The famous sutta or teaching of the "Two Arrows". Taken from "Living Well with Pain and Illness" by my friend Vidyamala Burch, a remarkably gifted teacher and inspirational woman.

I'm generally ok now, two weeks hence. Whilst yes I feel great sadness at my sister's passing (into what, who knows?), what really concerns our family now is the welfare of her children and husband. It is now that they need us, and in the future even more so. When we encounter times such as these which will test us and challenge us, what matter is not what has lead us to this point, but how can we act with a sense of purpose and initiative now that we are here?

Jane Clegg: Aug 28th 1970 - January 26th 2014

"A cancer diagnosis is shit. There's no two ways about it. This is not a good thing. It isn't however the end. Even an inoperable diagnosis like mine doesn't mean it's all over. It feels vaguely ridiculous to say but in this instance I inspire myself. A year ago I believed my life to be over but it wasn't and isn't. I am still here. I have made plans for the future, I am part of an organisation that is making the world a better place (and not just for dogs and cats), I have a brilliant and loving family, wonderful friends and I am alive, in every sense of the word.

I am alive and it feels brilliant."

She was 43. She was my hero, my super-cool punk-as-fuck big sister, the rebel who knew how to stand firmly on her own two feet and boldly marched to the beat of her own idiosyncratic and irreplaceable drummer. She worked as a fundraiser, and was loved dearly by every person she met. She brought a little sunshine into the world wherever she went, and her vibrant energy, razor sharp wits and delightfully wicked sense of humour were beacons of hope and salvation to us all. She chose to write about her 'cancer journey', as she called it, and I know she would have no problem me giving you the link if something positive for others could come of her writing. For her incredible, inspirational blog and post-humous fundraising page, please click here. 

Like myself, she sought to allay suffering through her words and she was far more gifted and talented a writer than I. People should definitely take the time to read a few of her entries and reflections and although some of her musings are truly heartbreaking, they continue to sustain thousands the world over. The bravery and courage she displayed has helped people come to terms with and understand their own suffering in relation to cancer, although she was only concerned with helping others, not the accolades. She wasn't interested in plastering facebook with 1000's of 'selfies' or "Nandos FTW!"-style posts. She had work to do, bigger things to attend to in her life. She was a devoted and compassionate mother, and very much a woman in love. I remember her as phenomenally fun to be around, and it breaks my heart that I will never hear her laughter again, but such is impermanence. I've got it tattooed on my forearm for goodness sake, but it still shocked me. Even now I can't grasp it fully. The only thing that seems perpetual and unchanging in our world is our shock at impermanence, ironically. 

The trees afire, the dusk in the lake, the exact spot on the viaduct, at the right time... and then it was gone.

Many statistics about death are prone to raise an eyebrow. According to the World Health Organisation, in the most recent year for the figures, 2011, nearly 66% of all the 55million deaths globally were attributed to what are known as Non-Communicable Diseases such as cancers, heart disease etc. Thus it strikes me as very bizarre then that people can be so lax about looking after their bodies and yet feel apprehensive about flying. I'm more likely to be killed by 30 years of burritos than by an earthwards plummet, but this is besides the point. We must be realistic in our expectations regarding out own fate. Bowel cancer claimed my friend and esteemed teacher Pramodana in December, and my Grandmother in 1995. The fact that Jane died so young is shocking; the means, less so, regrettably.

Rupa/statue purchased in Bodh Gaya last year:
"This human life is as brief as the time it takes to inhale and exhale out again" - The Buddha.

So how then can both Buddhist and non-Buddhists alike approach death? Whether one considers oneself a religious adherent, wandering truth-seeker or fundamentalist atheist (I seem to fit into all three, worryingly), these reflections are fairly universal, I'm sure. For one thing, recollection of the certainty of death, when done in an emotionally positive state of mind, can very readily breathe fresh life and impetus into the petals of our lives. None can be certain of the exact time and place of death. It strikes me that each of us has an unknown 'death anniversary', and year after year we pass it by, understandably oblivious. Sometimes I find myself wondering if today is that day? We all have a "death day". When's yours? So long as I am in a 'good place', this thought, daft as it is, can leave me feeling all warm inside, like gaining entry into a club with a very rigid and strict door policy, which is in effect what happens. Maybe not today, hopefully not tomorrow (I like having you around, a lot) but for how much longer is this corpse-to-be, this loan of a body good for? 

In truth, there is not only no time like the present, there is no time other than the present. It is our only option, and 'past' and 'future', for all beings, exist only as concepts and recollections in our minds, themselves constantly shifting. In the stark light of this solitary lamp, how much more sharply into relief our current priorities and preoccupations are thrown! Whatever your ambitions are, if you don't start laying the building blocks tomorrow, you never will. It's as simple as that. For Buddhists, reflection on the certainty of death is to be used not as a stick, but as the carrot, enticing us to reach the new, better ourselves and practice whilst we are still blessed with the opportunity to. The longer we live, and the more peaceful and kind we all are, the more good we can all do in this often sad and sorrow-filled world. This healthy and altruistic desire for longevity I find a great motivator to quit the occasional cheeky smoke. We can be of genuine, sincere and lasting benefit to other beings! We can change their lives, just by setting a good example - Rock on! It's a crazy thought: I don't need to change the world, just my own bullshit. It's really empowering, I feel. We can also reflect on the certainty of death in others, and be less cross, less judgemental, less cold towards them. Who knows if we will ever see them again for sure? It's horrible when your final words with someone are angry, and people can carry the remorse of an unresolved argument in their hearts for years. Conversely, we can also generate immense compassion towards all life, if we consider our shared fragility as a doorway to deeper levels of communication and love. We are all here for such a short time, why not make this cosmic communal carriage-ride of life a pleasant one? 

I think that one of the main reasons we struggle with death, on some level, is because the rational mind cannot comprehend itself not existing. It's actually impossible. To reveal to the ego that which is most self-evident (that it is finite) undermines it's various endeavours, plans and pomposity. On the other hand, the supra-rational mind of deep meditation can, through it's cultivation of non self-referential states of awareness, come close to understanding the true nature of things, where life and death meet and are in fact indistinguishable. According to specialists in this field for consciousness, there is in reality no one fixed point we can quantitatively call 'death', and in truth, we are all dying, every day, all 7billion of us. You wouldn't think so though, to look around, would you? We meander through life, like sticky-fingered children in a sweet shop, instinctively grasping and lusting after that which will provide temporary sensory gratification. When we start to see how fleeting, fragile and thus sacred life is, we can start to worry less and actually enjoy it more. We can develop a keener appreciation for the delight in simply 'being'. Notwithstanding, 'being' is simply not enough! I would rather be a verb, a human 'doing', as it were. We can put more into life for the sake of others, and as a result get more out of it too. If we can gradually move towards a point where benefits for others are indistinguishable from the benefits we ourselves reap (though not in a grasping manner) then we are well on our way to Enlightenment itself. If it all sounds a bit abstract, then please forgive me, but it might be worth trying it for yourself to see what I mean. The Buddhist path is based upon direct experience, after all.

Though it may not seem it, this Yukka plant responds to light and twists and turns daily to maximise it's exposure.
Yet to me it looks like it barely changes, which is how we appear to ourselves, contrary to the truth of it all. 

 Such is the impossibility of discussing consciousness or the lack of therein. In fact, again, you can't really discuss consciousness because it isn't an object - it is that which does the objectifying! In meditation, we can raise our level of consciousness to a point where the normal pillars of reality melt away, the screen of 'I' which provides a necessary framework and delightful perspective through which we explore the world around us disappears. That's not to knock the 'self'. 'I' can be a wonderful thing: 'I' can experience many superb things through this evolutionary mechanism. It enables me to reflect on my own experiences, observe my own volitions and my body allows me to carry some of them out. It allows me to apply my intelligence and ethical acumen to any given situation, moment by moment, and make logical, compassionate and on occasions, wise decisions. Not only that, self-reflexive awareness allows us to generate compassion and love towards others. It allows us to perceive aesthetic beauty, and seek it out. We are gifted imperfection, and are able to grow and learn from our mistakes. We can become better people. We can evolve. The one thing we invariably struggle to do is to learn to let go, either of our loved ones or the lens through which we habitually view them. Reflecting on our own impermanence is learning to be less attached to this perspective, and learning to 'die' into the new you.

Unlike the plant, eddies and turbulent/flowing water are a perfect example of something being fixed in our minds ('the river', 'the waterfall' etc), in spite of being very obviously a constant flow and flux of changing atoms, processes and forces. This is closer to what the psychophysical human being is like.

Because of impermanence, we are able to have brand new experiences of body, speech and mind, every nanosecond a constant stream of new thoughts, feelings, perceptions and wills. It occurred to me that very morning, in the midst of hot and trembling, silent tears, that I had a choice; I couldn't choose to feel something different, but I could choose how I related to it, to a degree. In life, pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional. I was mindful enough to give the pain and grief some kind space, and allowed whatever chose to arise, to arise in kindness, like a parent watching a child play in an enclosure; They keep a cautious eye on the child, but they know they are safe. As suggested by Sangharakshita, I decided to consciously employ the Creative Mind over the Reactive Mind, and instinctively reached for my camera-phone. Having just joined the Instagram party (late and dishevelled, as ever), I brought up the app and glanced around the room for something beautiful; some light, a beguiling shadow or geometric curiosity I hadn't noticed before. Instead of simply reacting negatively and habitually to a painful experience, I chose to break the cycle. I wandered upstairs, and spying an opportunity, took this photo. The photos in this article are examples of impermanence captured over the fortnight that followed, from light to night, bubbles to mountains. I hope you enjoy, and I dedicate them to Jane and her memory. 

Caption reads: "My sister passed away last night. If you too are grieving right now, or have lost someone close, my thoughts are with you, just give it time, and be kind to yourself. Honour the pain, treat it with the quiet and gentle dignity it deserves. Times like this make you realise that which is truly important in this world... your friend, in Metta... xx"

Random bubble lands on a man's hand in a pub! Our lives are like this, in the greater scheme of things.
I stand as much chance as the bubble, but at least I know it. So beautiful BECAUSE it bursts.

In spite of the sensationalisation of death in the media and entertainment industry (films/gaming etc), we somehow still see death as strange, alien, and ungraspable, something to be feared and hidden from view. In reality there are 3500 people killed every DAY on Earth's roads. Literally, in the ten-minutes or so it's taken to read this far, 35 people have lost their lives, 35 families ruined for ever, or so it feels at the time. Right now I feel their pain in a way I didn't before. We treat death, and the dying as something we are ashamed of, something taboo, not to be discussed. Some may say I'm too morbid for wanting to remind myself daily of my own fragile transience, but I find that it makes life taste sweeter, and the bad times seem less intense. They too must pass away and yield to something else. Nothing stays the same forever, hence people and places feel noticably more precious to me, which is saying something, and yet at the same time, less sentimental or overly saccharine. More real, and yet less so, and visa versa. Another Buddhist paradox I'm afraid.

The original train station at Dinting, in the Peak District, where I go to work from every day. Built in 1842, it too reminds me every day that bricks and mortar are only marginally more durable than we are, in a glacial sense.

 In the East, death is more obvious, more open, more 'on view', with funeral processions every day of the week in most towns and open-air cremations. Perhaps in Britain we are still wearing the black mourning vale of the Victorian widow, but unaware of it? We can all learn from this heartbreaking tale. There are no certainties in life, no givens. We cannot be said to truly own that which is constantly changing. If I never 'owned' my sister, then how could I 'lose' her? We can feel sadness, but as I was reminded by the author of the wildly popular 'Buddhist Boot Camp', we don't have to emote sadness. Or more succinctly, I can feel sad but still be happy. It's hard to explain. 

In the Zen tradition they have an emotion of "Wabi-Sabi" or 'beautiful-sadness', and that perhaps comes close to the mark. I'm determined to make sure that I do not forget this period of my life. A lesson learned is a victory earned and I certainly now feel a deeper and more tangible sense of kindness toward others, strangers and friends alike. I have taken, edited and posted loads of photos in the two week since her passing, and taken great pleasure in the process. Were it not for this difficult time, I would not have been driven to do so. The most stunning lotuses only bloom out of the dankest swamps. I know my family, both biological and spiritual, will emerge from this closer and stronger than ever before, and that is a beautiful thing. In seeking out a greater appreciation for the timeless beauty of the everyday world, at the very least I managed to avoid drinking or smoking myself stupid, my traditional recourse in times of strife and emotional crisis. Through trying to connect with others and sharing my experiences openly and honestly, I have managed to make sense of it all, to me at least. As I said years ago, in life not everybody wins, but "everybody hurts, sometimes." It is that which unites us to all life on earth. Sincere human kindness - nothing else matters in this world or makes any sense to me. 

Home-made gold candle. The flame still burns, but are we really bathing in life's light, or just observing it?
Open your eyes to see beyond them...

Speaking of kindness and generosity of spirit, my brother-in-law, Alastair, has set up a VirginMoney page in memory of Jane for those who feel moved to donate. Please consider making a one-off or regular donation to Beating Bowl Cancer through his Remembering Jane donations page. He has managed to raise nearly £8,000 which is jaw-droppingly wonderful. He says:

"So our original plan was that Jane was going to bring [our three children] up to London to support me in the BUPA 10K.  We thought it would be a fun day out, and a chance to raise some money for Beating Bowel Cancer, a charity that had done so much to support us during the last 18 months.  We have a Beating Bowel Cancer flag and everything.

But the cancer had other ideas, and on 26 January Jane died in my arms. 

Bowel cancer's devastation of our little family was complete.

So this page is now really all about remembering the most wonderful, vibrant, inspiring person I have ever met.  Jane was, quite simply and quite literally, brilliant.  We are bereft without her.  The fact that I am pottering around a 10k course is just an excuse to set up this page.  It's now all about Jane.

Please donate some money.  The battle against bowel cancer receives far less coverage and funding than other forms of cancer and yet it is one of the nastiest and most brutal types there is.  And Beating Bowel Cancer is a brilliant charity that make a real and meaningful difference to those affected by the disease and their families.  Trust me.  I know.

And please, please, please, follow their advice about symptoms (www.beatingbowelcancer.org).  We're British.  We are squeamish and a bit silly about bowels and bottoms and stuff.  But do NOT ignore the symptoms. GET CHECKED.  (But donate money before you do!)"

Thank you.

Alastair

Thanks os much for taking the time to read a much longer article than I had planned, and I hope it was of use. Through the posting of poetry, via pics and ponderings, through engaging the creative mind, I have forged new connections to new people in new ways, and in my discourse with them, new words have I used. I have spent time bettering my understanding of the doctrine and dogma of religions and philosophies which are new to me, and watched many new documentaries. I returned to work with a new haircut, my whole attitude to life feels new, and newly-found strength is slowly returning to my aching back and legs. Each day is a new day, and I awake each dawn a new man. One day I won't, but don't tell everyone - I want it to be a new experience for them too...

Your newly humbled and obedient servant, in metta,

The Dharma-Farmer xx

For more photography search for thedharmafarmer on Instagram, or find @thedharmafarmer on Twitter.

May all beings be well, may all understand the shortness of life, and feel a new appreciation for death and life, the two sides of a coin which never stop being flipped.