Taking Everything in Stride

I want to share with you another passage from Zen Therapy by David Brazier.

Taking everything in one's stride means that nothing matters to oneself personally. It does not matter whether we die or not. If we are going to die, let us do it well. Life includes dying. A good life includes dying well. We are talking here, then, of a state in which the survival passion called ego is out of the way. This is the state in which our relation to the rest of the universe is as the relationship of one hand to the other. The left hand does not seek its own benefit at the expense of the right. We are all limbs of one life.

It's not unusual in my work with individuals for the subject of personal mortality to come up. It is also not unusual for there to be great fear involved. What I have discovered is that when the fear of death is relinquished other fears tend to be dissolved as well. Nothing is more liberating and supportive of personal happiness than a deep, utter acceptance of death. Meditating on impermanence will help. So will cultivating a deep concern for other beings - human and non-human. Most of all we will be released from our fear of death by giving ourselves unconditional compassion and by realizing that we are given such compassion by our Spiritual Friend, however we understand that reality. I pray for your blessing, great and completely worthy spiritual friend. I pray that you will cause love, compassion and perfect charity to arise in my mind.