and the Art of Dying
Without looking for it, life offered me several opportunities to practice the art of dying.
And everytime that such a chance appeared, I took it with both hands.
I don’t refer to the moments in which you inadvertantly find yourself in a life-threating
situation, where your life flashes in front of you, or where you see a bright light at the
end of a tunnel. Those kind of situations I’ve known too, although I ‘ve never seen the
light, and waited in vain for the movie to start. I was still very young by then, and
there probably hadn’t been shot enough footage to edit a good film.
No, I refer to the times that I could wholly surrender myself to a premeditated action
that had the potention of ending my life, without me wanting to end it at all.
One example is that of my first parachute jump. I did it together with a few close
friends. The night before the jump, we sat together and exchanged personal stories with
a good glass of wine. Ans inadvertently, some anecdotes passed about people who had
gruwesome jumping accidents. The heart-to-heart stories about life, and those few an-
ecdotes about sudden death, made me realize that the next day a unique opportunity
would be offered to me: at the moment that I would jump out of that plane, I wittingly
would take a fair chance that my life after just a few minutes would end with a tre-
mendous blow. How did I feel about that?
The next morning offered little possibility to meditate on this, but the idea didn’t leave
me, and at the moment that, at ten thousand feet, the door of the plane opened, I was
prepared. Although I still had a whole life in front of me, at that instant I was ready to
let it all go. And with that in mind, I took, maybe for the first time, the plunge into the
here and now.
My best friend, who also jumped, told me a day later that the night after the jump she
had fallen over and over in her dreams. For both of us, our social outing turned out to
be a life-changing experience. I didn’t dream, but for a long time I stayed hypercon-
ciously aware of the moment that the here and now opened up to me.
It appeared to be a directer confrontation than any form of meditation that I had ex-
perienced in my years of spiritual training. Over the years, I had become convinced that
sitting meditation was not my thing. To sit still in an erect positon, for half an hour or
more, was a kind of back torture that my body wasn’t built for. I contented myself to
take life as it came. That was enough here and now for me, I thought.
Years later, the same friend told me that she again had dreamed, over and over, of a
life-changing experience. Only now it wasn’t after a parachute jump, but after her first
shot, at an introductory course in kyudo. And her dreams weren’t about falling, but
about opening up at that first shot. A long slumbering fascination with the spritual se-
crets of Japan came to life in me, and I registered for the next introduction weekend.
Kyudo appeared to be a bulls eye.
For the first time in my life I got acquainted to a form of meditation that my body can
handle, that eases my mind and simultaneously mirrors my inner thoughts and feelings;
confronting as well as compassionate. Kyudo absorbs me in a good way and provides a
physical ritual of positions and actions that have become my home and family.
More important however, Kyudo gave me a teacher, for whom I wasn’t prepared at all.
I don’t favour guru’s, I do not believe that one man or woman can offer complete and
comprehensive wisdom, and can guide thousands, let alone millions. So it took me a
while before I saw in Kanjuro Shibata XX the sensei, whose insights I would like to tune
my compass to. That partly happened because I got the chance to develop a personal
connection with him. And in doing so, I discovered that Sendai not only was dead sure
about his own wisdom, but also was very open to dialogue. When I once asked him why
he had given up his position in Japan to teach western students, he told me that he fa-
voured the idea of rebuttal. That gave a lot of fuss, but was much more interesting than
the servile obedience that he knew from his native country. In the years after, I always
reminded him of these words, before voicing a critical opinion. He could stand that very
well.
And it was Sendai, who let me slowly understand more about the moment that you let
it all go, and take the plunge into the here and now. This is the core of the samurai phi-
losophy, and the key to what having an open heart and mind really means. The more I
learned about the warrior spirit, the more I understood about abandoning expectations
and hope, about the sillyness of fighting for keeps, and about the futility of fear.
I am a sailor, so I am familiar with the unpredictability, as well as the force of the ele-
ments. They are always stronger than me, and I have to cope with what they present to
me. As a captain, I am responsible for the safety of my crew, but there is a limit to
what I can prepare for. In order to act adequately, I have to ‘take the plunge’: work
with the elements, in the here and now.
Like the shots you make in kyudo, that doesn’t allow you to rely on routine. Experience
helps to be prepared for what may come, but at the moment that you take that plunge,
you act in the moment. Every day I am challenged to face life with boundless curiosity,
without fear, and without any real knowledge about what waits ahead. It calls for im-
provisation, appeals on creativity, and opens a hatch to great awareness. This awareness
makes me the learning being that I am and want to be.
To me, this is what Sendai called ‘Beginners Heart’. You are never fully accomplished:
every day you get the chance to face life as it emerges, with an open mind and heart.
My few encounters with the art of dying helped (and help) me to realize that knowledge
and experience, although nice and useful, are not the first requirements for being in the
here and now. It may be one of the reasons that ‘being there’ is infinitely more difficult
than it seems.
But to that, Sendai also had a good advice: ‘Gambate!’ Never give up!
Peter Fokkens