Weird thought while settling into meditation in Joshua Tree this week...

Meditation is practicing death.

I practice stilling my body in order to still my mind and stop the roof brain chatter, so as to glimpse my “big S” Self.

The first time I saw a dead person was in my late twenties. I got a call from my Cousin Eric that his dad, my uncle, was on his way out. I made arrangements and drove the long freeway to Redondo Beach and walked into the bedroom he’d shared with my Auntie Nora for so many years. There he was in the bed, his silky maroon pajamas and bed covers hiding his hideously distended belly where liver cancer just ate him up completely - trading healthy cells for insane, wildly multiplying cancerous ones. 

He looked much the same as he had a few days earlier when I brought my then two year old daughter to visit. Mosa’s delightful presence brought a weak smile to his lips that day. Uncle Bob loved me and he loved my daughter. I believe it pleased him that we came so far through the traffic to see him. He was too weak that day to lift an arm, but seeing the corners of his mouth lift was worth the drive. We stayed a while, Mosa playing quietly on my lap, then we said our Good Byes.

On the day he died, when Cousin Eric called,  I made arrangements and drove solo this time from Sherman Oaks to Redondo. I remember looking at the time near to their home, when I felt a chord played in my core. I knew with certainty, he’d gone. Sure enough, when I arrived, Cousin Debby and Aunt Nora said, “He just died.” It was precisely that moment I checked the time. Chills. Cousin Eric ushered me in to the back bedroom and quietly left me alone with his dad. There he was, eyes closed, in those same silky maroon pajamas, covers pulled up to cover the ravages of cancer. What was absent was the animation - however slight it had been a few days prior, this was STILLness, with a capital STILL. There was a sheen to his alabaster skin. There was no essence of what made him alive to us to be detected within or about his body.

I imagined his spirit hovering in the room and so, shyly, apologized for passing gas in his presence. The needs of the living are so very different from the needs of the dead. I sensed and smiled at the thought that he didn’t need an apology; that his freedom and perspective were now absolute. I could almost hear his joyous laugh of recognition: I’m FREEEEEE! Free at last!

Born December 25, 1923, Bob would’ve been 55. He died just three days shy of that, on December 22, 1978.

His brother, my dad, left his body at Long Beach Veteran’s Hospital at age 53 in 1966. I was sixteen when Howard died. I didn’t get to see him lift off, nor his inert corpse. Circumstances prevented that. Since then, I have been present at nine deaths.

It’s the stillness that smacks me every time. Absolute stillness means that the familiar movements of breathing, muscle twitches, eye blinks, and the subtle, nuanced opening and closing of pores of the skin have all ceased. The stillness is complete. It’s eerie. It begs me to watch to be sure there’s not a spec of animated presence still lingering in the “dropped robe" of the body. I keep expecting familiar movement to return.

One of my favorite dialog exchanges from Rob Reiner's filmThe Princess Bride goes something like this:

Miracle Man Max (played by Billy Crystal): “There’s a difference between All Dead and Mostly dead. All Dead, there’s only one thing to do.”

Inigo Montoya (played by Mandy Patinkin): “What’s that?”

MMM: “Go through his pockets and look for loose change. This guy, is only Mostly Dead.”

There ensues a hilarious episode of MMM making Wesley (played by Cary Elwes) a chocolate coated pill to bring him back to life.

MMM’s Wife (played by Carol Kane): “Have fun stormin’ the castle, boys.” (aside to MMM): “Do you think it’ll work?”

MMM: “It’ll be a miracle.”

While Wesley was only mostly dead, Uncle bob is all dead. Seeing the stillness up close and personal is its own miracle of trans-something-or-other: transcendence? Trans-substantiation? Trans-gentrification? Transfer to a different bus? I don't know, but that which made him alive to us is GONE from the flesh.

Meditation is intentional stillness. Stilling the body of its twitches and udgy-ness; stilling the mind of its ceaseless agitation.

Thinking sixty-seven thousand thoughts - three quarters of which are redundant - is the mind’s job; chewing on things like a ruminating cow with her cud. Four stomachs for the bovine’s grass; three brains for human thoughts. First brain: Reptilian is for survival, Fight, Flight, and Freeze. Second brain: Mammalian is center for registering emotions. Third brain is Neo-cortex for executive function and is the part that often gets us into trouble with perseverations at one, two or three a.m.

The practice of sitting to meditate helps me enter into choice-full stillness that brings possibilities for deeper listening to that part of mySelf that is in touch with more foundational qualities - like earth, ocean stardust, and the Big S Self of pure consciousness, of which everything in Universe is made. From basking in that ocean of consciousness, without the distractions of twitches and thoughts, I become more aware of what to do beyond reacting to stimuli and frivolous regurgitation of my personality. Optimally, my practice is portable: I can bring it with me off the cushion and into my day allowing  me to be less reactive, and putting me more in the flow. 

Equanimity is a big word. Stillness helps me chunk down what I react to, and opens spaces which allow me to view things from a different angle so my knees don’t jerk quite so reactively to stuff that happens around me. Like my Uncle Bob’s corpse, I’m not offended if you fart.

Terry Tempest Williams says of John Cage’s silent composition, called 4’ 33’’ , “...our capacity to listen is heightened by our ability to embrace quiet.”

What happens in the gaps between sounds, between breaths, and between life and death is voluminous. Now, I’ll keep still.