The Art of Dying

At this point in my life, with my first set of Chemotherapy scheduled to start on 08/10/18 at 8.30 AM which will last for some six hours, I find myself again facing the prospect of my death. This does not faze or frighten me. Death is a part of life. I readily accept that one day I, as we all will, shall die. Death holds no fears for me for how can you be afraid of the unknown? Death is normal. As Lord Buddha said...

"A place to stay untouched by death 

Does not exist.

It does not exist in space, it does not exist in the ocean,

Nor if you stay in the middle of a mountain."

All that lives is born to die but before the death, the passing away from this existence comes the living. Being aware of death should make you all the more aware of living for it is living where we find joy. Living in the present. Making each day as joyful as one can. Living and loving those around us. I admit I fail to do this as fully as I'd like for there are those around me that I do not get on with. This happens in life. There will always be people you do not like just as there are people who do not like you. This mustn't distract you from embracing spiritually those you meet in everyday life. Being warm, kind, generous and gentle with them for the payback will almost certainly be that they return that spirit on compassion. In my experience they do. I meet people like this each day I am alive as equally as I do the reverse.

Many people are physically old yet still, make out they are young. They are afraid of ageing. Why? Is it the wrinkles or the aching of joints or the knowledge that the ageing process ultimately leads to death? I have met a plethora of people who insist, even though they are my age or older that they are in fact still young at heart and of mind, therefore, they are not old. This is so very foolish. Yes, I am young of mind but my body is ageing. I am sprouting hairs where I had no hair before and losing hair where hair once grew in abundance. This is Tao, the way of life. This ageing process doesn't afflict me nor prevent me from laughing out loud at the most childish of things but neither does it halt the process of time, real-time not the fictional psychological time where people either live in some past event or dream of the future where all things will be wonderful. The past has gone so let it lie and the future may never happen the way you fantasize. There is only now and right now I have cancer. Living with cancer is no different to living with Diabetes a disease I have had for fast approaching 61 years. Diabetes can only beat you if you let it. It has never beaten me even though I have had more seizures in my early years than I could number. Tongue bitten, swollen for days leaving me unable to eat. What did I do? I listened. I adopted the wisdom of Diabetes UK as given me by various doctors and one professor and then adapted their disciplines to my life. I am in control of my diabetes not it in control of me. Same with my mind, same with this cancer that is growing in me. I know its there, I took measures speedily to beat it by informing the medical profession and they, in turn, have set wheels in motion to help me beat it and by golly, I shall kick its arse so damn hard it will think again before afflicting me. I am in control of me and even in the unlikely event of losing this battle then I will go down fighting. Why? My grandsons, my granddaughter, my daughters and those friends I love. I like being alive.

Human life is now measured in about one hundred years. That means I have got at least thirty still to live. I am a tourist on this planet, we all are, and the only way to enjoy our time here is by living a life as positively as we can and not, I confess I fail here at times, in allowing those negative towards us to warp what we really are. Live, love, enjoy the stars, the sun, the wind in your hair. Live now. I intend to. You see the art of dying is the same as the art of living. As Epicurus said they are one and the same thing.