Respect the dead but take care of yourself

Today, I received an SMS from a friend and her name was not listed in my hand phone. The message say that her mum have just passed away peacefully in the morning at 9.30 am.  Immediately, I call the number to check out who the sender was and  when the voice came over the phone, I recognised her voice and I sent my condolence to her on the demise of her mum. She told me that her mum have no complains about her health and it just happen. It was a shock to her.

My memory also jump back into my past when I received a phone call from my nephew telling me that my eldest brother was in trouble. He was staying with my second sister and she was out marketing. I  called my wife to go over to check it out and she asked me to go to my sister's house immediately.  I was at work and I took leave and drive to my sister's house. On entering, my nephew was there in the living room and he asked me to go up stairs.  Half way up the stairs , I saw my eldest brother lying on the floor, dead.  He has suffered a heart attack in the morning. We all know that he is sick and have a bad heart and he was scheduled to go for operation at the General Hospital Heart ward the following month. He never make it to that day.  I searched high and low for my second sister and finally, I manage to locate her and she rushed back home to help my sister-in-law to handle his funeral.

This memory also kick start another memory about the death of my mother and my father and subsequently, my uncle and aunties. There a sequence of death due old age or illness. The unpleasantness and discomfort of these memories can affect our mood and our outlook in life.

Like I have mentioned in my earlier article, we cannot escape the cycle of birth-old age-sickness-death as professed in the Buddhist teaching. My adopted Buddhist teacher , Ajahn Brahm have talk about this subject countless times and have given an example that when a strong wind blow in the night, the next morning , there will be a lot of  leaves on the ground. Some are old leaves and some are young leaves. All these happenings are pre-destined. It is a matter of :  if it is not now , it will be later.

A lot of the wise teachers have asked us to concentrate on the "now" or the present  and I would like to advise my friend, SF that tomorrow is never promised and what we have is now.  You have to grief but at the same time, you have to let go. What is gone , is gone and you cannot do anything about it but you can make a difference now to your self. Start living and doing the things you want to do and enjoy your life fully. Respect the dead but take care of yourself and be strong.

Namaste.