Death and the Two Tigers
The Prayer
Oh Lord, I am reaching another turning point as the winter of work here—my quiet retreat—comes to a close. The usual flutterings set in as I contemplate an unknown future full of where-tos and hows.
I know that I have entered a new phase of my life—the last phase—where the mortal horizon shrinks ominously and life is not a road stretching endlessly before me as it was in youth. I have been more assailed by grief at the prospect of losing my friends than of losing my own life, but I imagine that reality will press in too.
I can see the work ahead to forge a posture from the toes up. I suppose I say forge because I think it will take a certain strength and courage; a grave determination; a reckoning—a real reckoning, with the shadows of loss, old age and death.
But what is most important to me now is a posture for the immediate future. The shifting upheaval, uncertainty and change.
Guide me please. Prepare my heart.
The Response
"The posture of the immediate future, which is the one you will carry from the immediate present, is all you need to know. Ever. The rest is imagination. The flimsy, not the potent kind. Yet the flimsiest imaginations carry postures of their own. For every moment that you entertain images of loss, your posture is one of being bent by grief for the things that have not happened. This is really the most terrible of the prospects you face: loss of the power of life through untimely and unnecessary grief.
"When the real events happen, they come with a power of their own which will lift and aid you. As the bright events have an attendant shadow, so the dark events have an attendant luminosity. You must trust in that. And don't subscribe in advance to pseudo-events that are empty of the genuine counter-healing power. The gift.
"And now your future. I have just told you, as before, not to waste time or energy on the future's illusion. But using the power of the kind of turning point that you are facing is a genuine skill that requires your conscious application.
"In this case, your future is not something nebulous but a force that is coming at you in the present. A dying person has to have this same enlarged relation to the present; to open to the very immediate gift of the present in the full presence of approaching death. Like the man in the Buddhist story being chased by a tiger, sliding down a cliff, clinging to a thin branch, another tiger below him. And in that moment reaching to pluck a single strawberry that grows nearby. One could say that it is the tigers that make that strawberry so delicious. So ineffably sweet. One could say that if every moment were thus bordered by tigers, each one would be just so incandescent with its singularity; its fragile and fugitive blessing.
"One could say that the tigers, just for an instant, have invested life with its awesomeness. Have turned a single act into a cosmic gesture. A mudra.
"One could say that the tigers don't leave time for grief. There is this one moment, this one strawberry… The entire blazing universe bears down upon it with a laser-fine touch.
"Pluck the strawberry. Don't waste the moment between tigers!
"This is the cosmic gesture of the heroes of September 11th. This is why they are heroes—with emphasis on the are because of the deathless moment of their cosmic gesture. The deathless, lasting quality of it. They all plucked the fruit of a single moment between tigers to bestow that fruit as a gift: death behind them, death before them.
"So the future is bearing down upon you. Good! You have the tiger's power to fortify and concentrate your present. Don't look upon it as a vague event filled with anxieties. Look upon it as an evocation, a calling forth. Prepare yourself as you would for the most fateful encounter. Draw together all of your gifts, all of your skills, all of your tools. All of your weapons to ward off darkness. Not for killing. Not for destruction. But for cutting away all that stands between you and your tryst: Fear and illusion, indolence and ignorance.
"You mustn't kill the tigers, however. You need them.
"One could say that in the very last moment, as the strawberry is savored, you should bow to each of the tigers and thank them."
Sheri Ritchlin's Journal 2001
The Prayer
Oh Lord, I am reaching another turning point as the winter of work here—my quiet retreat—comes to a close. The usual flutterings set in as I contemplate an unknown future full of where-tos and hows.
I know that I have entered a new phase of my life—the last phase—where the mortal horizon shrinks ominously and life is not a road stretching endlessly before me as it was in youth. I have been more assailed by grief at the prospect of losing my friends than of losing my own life, but I imagine that reality will press in too.
I can see the work ahead to forge a posture from the toes up. I suppose I say forge because I think it will take a certain strength and courage; a grave determination; a reckoning—a real reckoning, with the shadows of loss, old age and death.
But what is most important to me now is a posture for the immediate future. The shifting upheaval, uncertainty and change.
Guide me please. Prepare my heart.
The Response
"The posture of the immediate future, which is the one you will carry from the immediate present, is all you need to know. Ever. The rest is imagination. The flimsy, not the potent kind. Yet the flimsiest imaginations carry postures of their own. For every moment that you entertain images of loss, your posture is one of being bent by grief for the things that have not happened. This is really the most terrible of the prospects you face: loss of the power of life through untimely and unnecessary grief.
"When the real events happen, they come with a power of their own which will lift and aid you. As the bright events have an attendant shadow, so the dark events have an attendant luminosity. You must trust in that. And don't subscribe in advance to pseudo-events that are empty of the genuine counter-healing power. The gift.
"And now your future. I have just told you, as before, not to waste time or energy on the future's illusion. But using the power of the kind of turning point that you are facing is a genuine skill that requires your conscious application.
"In this case, your future is not something nebulous but a force that is coming at you in the present. A dying person has to have this same enlarged relation to the present; to open to the very immediate gift of the present in the full presence of approaching death. Like the man in the Buddhist story being chased by a tiger, sliding down a cliff, clinging to a thin branch, another tiger below him. And in that moment reaching to pluck a single strawberry that grows nearby. One could say that it is the tigers that make that strawberry so delicious. So ineffably sweet. One could say that if every moment were thus bordered by tigers, each one would be just so incandescent with its singularity; its fragile and fugitive blessing.
"One could say that the tigers, just for an instant, have invested life with its awesomeness. Have turned a single act into a cosmic gesture. A mudra.
"One could say that the tigers don't leave time for grief. There is this one moment, this one strawberry… The entire blazing universe bears down upon it with a laser-fine touch.
"Pluck the strawberry. Don't waste the moment between tigers!
"This is the cosmic gesture of the heroes of September 11th. This is why they are heroes—with emphasis on the are because of the deathless moment of their cosmic gesture. The deathless, lasting quality of it. They all plucked the fruit of a single moment between tigers to bestow that fruit as a gift: death behind them, death before them.
"So the future is bearing down upon you. Good! You have the tiger's power to fortify and concentrate your present. Don't look upon it as a vague event filled with anxieties. Look upon it as an evocation, a calling forth. Prepare yourself as you would for the most fateful encounter. Draw together all of your gifts, all of your skills, all of your tools. All of your weapons to ward off darkness. Not for killing. Not for destruction. But for cutting away all that stands between you and your tryst: Fear and illusion, indolence and ignorance.
"You mustn't kill the tigers, however. You need them.
"One could say that in the very last moment, as the strawberry is savored, you should bow to each of the tigers and thank them."
Sheri Ritchlin's Journal 2001