..續本文上一頁he says: it is more like a series of dice or blocks, all piled one on top of the other, one supporting the other. There is no identity between each block, but they are functionally connected. One functionally supports the other. It is more like that than it is like a permanent self or permanent soul running through all existences. There is only conditionality between the blocks.

　　If we apply that understanding right now, to this very moment, right now, we have a whole series of mind-moments, a whole series of consciousnesses. There is seeing, there is hearing, there is thinking, there is feeling. There are just these moments of consciousness, functionally connected. We just sit with that awareness, that empty awareness. There is no permanent self that threads itself through all that. We just hear it arising and passing away, each moment, right here. When we stay with that series of mind-moments Ñ and they happen so fast; the mind is happening at an incredible pace, seeing, hearing, thinking, feeling - we notice the impermanence. We are very aware of the constant flux and change. Impermanence has many gifts, but its greatest gift lies buried deep inside. The fear of impermanence that awakens in us, the fear that nothing is real, that nothing lasts, is in fact a great friend. Because it drives us to ask the question, If everything dies and changes, what is truth

　　 Is there something beyond the impermanent appearances of life

　　 Is there something that survives all the deaths of the world, all the many changes

　　 There are vast implications in this fundamental fact of impermanence. When we truly see into impermanence, we can see into the empty nature of things and we can also see that it is not-self. These three faces of the truth Ñ impermanence, emptiness, and not-self Ñ are right there in each moment.

　　Many times a friend dying can also give us a glimpse of this timeless, boundless reality. There is such an energy around birth; there is also a wonderful energy around death, around someone dying. It can awaken something in us. When someone is dying, everyone around that person has an opportunity to be touched by that life-death-life nature. It is a very precious opportunity. Life and death are not opposing enemies, but are complementary within the totality. When we are in touch with that we are touching this death-less, this change-less, that brings deep peace. But most of the time we do not bother to be conscious of our mortality and the cessation of all that we have known or lived for or loved or worked for. None of us can say how we will relate to our impending death. But if we live more conscious of death, right now, in each moment, we might greet the dawn and the bird and the stars at night with a lot more presence and immediacy. Life is nothing but a perpetual fluctuation of birth, death, rebirth. Death exposes itself each moment. Even in a single thought there is a beginning, middle, and end of the thought. There is a beginning, middle, and end of a breath. There is the sound of the bird that returns to the silence. So this moment is birth, this moment is death. This moment is rebirth, this moment is deathless. Can we embrace it like that

　　A book that everybody seems to be reading at the moment, ”Women who Run with the Wolves”, by Clarissa Pincola Estes, has a description of Skeleton Woman. She says that if we embody the old wise woman she welcomes death to her heart, death to her fire. She knows death as life-giver, as death-dealer. And women unconsciously practise these cycles of birth, death, and renewal every month, through the constant cycles of the filling and emptying of our life blood: every moon cycle. The cycles o Skeleton Woman flow deep through our bodies, throughout our entire life. This is indee…

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