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("The Cave of Unknowing", 2012, original oil)


Talking to the Dead
(aka musings on Jacob’s Ladder)

The essential message of the Tibetan Book of the Dead
Is that the clear light of mind is revealed in death.
Due to our karma (habitual patterns of doing and viewing)
We have visions of whatever is in our mind,
Visions which range from pleasant to terrifying,
But that ultimately what matters most is the space between them,
The little gaps when we can glimpse freedom from our compulsive karmas.

When the clear light of awareness is first revealed it is peaceful, calm and watchful,
But when we resist it (because it is so ‘other’, so pervasive and penetrating)
It becomes wrathful, energetic and overwhelming.
And so we hide, back in those old safe spaces of the mind
The cave of unknowing where karma
Plays out the projected drama of the six realms.

The Book of the Dead is an allegory
For what is happening throughout Life,
Each moment we are awake or dreaming, dying or being born.
There is no escaping this clear light which illumines our vision.
There is no way to get closer to or increase it either
Since it is the given
Basic ground of being.

The Book of the Dead could have been called the Book of Life,
But then it would have gotten buried 
In all the other conflicting and confusing affairs of this life.
A book designed to liberate you at the moment of death
Could have been called 
The Book of Liberation Through Hearing in the Intermediate State,
Which is exactly what it IS called in Tibetan.

Death is the thing that hones the edge of this life
Making our appreciation vivid and sharp.
It is what gives our life purpose
While at the same time extinguishing any need for a purpose…
Death is always with us
Because in each moment all we know dissolves into the gap
Between the next,
Only to arise again reborn in the next.

If we notice and accept it
It is peaceful and beautiful
If we don’t, then we know terror.
Either way it makes no difference.
Death doesn’t care
Which way He guides us through the portal.

(7/19/24)
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