Passages about life and death

Passage about life and death as heard today in a class by Prof Devdas Menon

When were you born? Most of us would say the date that is on our birth certificates. That is for practical purposes, but can we truly make sense of reality based with these documents? Where were you one day before the date on your birth certificate? No, this is not some esoteric stuff full of impressive incomprehensibility. Read on!

One day before the date you were born, you were a fetus inside your moms womb. What about a few months before - a smaller fetus. Going back, you were a single celled version of yourself. What about before that? At that point, you were in the form of a potential for yourselves inside the sperm and ova of your parents. That potential has now taken form in the form of you.

If we continue to go back, where was that potential inside your parents before they themselves were born? This potential has existed always and will always exists. You are simply a form that has potential has taken for a very brief period of time. So, the individual simply is a process that is continuously changing. While there might be a clear starting and ending point for a particular form that process may take, the process itself has no starting or ending! Sadly, most of us are totally unaware of this and are totally lost in the celebration of the start of a form the process takes and equally lost in grief at the end of the form that process had temporarily taken.

Passage about life and death - quote from memory - from the book 'Peace is every step' by Thich Nhat Hanh

I once asked a leaf if it is scared that all the other leaves in the tree are falling. The leaf smiled gently at me. It then said that all its life, it had contributed strongly to the well being of the tree. By now, it said, I have contributed my maximum and have nothing much to give. So, I live primarily through the tree and not through the left over form that is hanging precariously from the branch. It further said it is good for the leaf to now fall so that processes in the soil can utilize what is left over and put them to use for the well being of the tree. When the next gust of autumn wind came along, the tree waved me a good bye and happily left its temporary home!