Banana Caramels Until You Puke

One of the Buddhist teachings that has stuck with me over the years is Ajahn Chah's admonition that 'the glass is already broken.'

Ajahn Chah drank water from an ornate tumbler as he gave his dharma talks. Sometimes, a student would warn him to be careful and not break it. "The glass is already broken" was always his reply.

What he meant by that was that the glass, like every other material object, would eventually be broken or otherwise rendered useless, and there was no point in being attached to it.

The same thing is true of our bodies. They are glasses that are already broken. They will eventually stop functioning, and on the cosmic scale of time, they will stop functioning in mere moments. There's no point in being attached to life, because it's just a brief flicker, and frankly, not that big a deal.

I upset another friend last week with the 'waiting to die' discussion. "Yes. I'm waiting to die," I told her, "and so are you." She didn't like hearing that. She thinks she'll find a way to adjust her chakras or focus her kundalini energy or align her meridians or something and live forever. Maybe Oprah will bestow immortality on her. But in the meantime, she's still waiting to die, whether she wants to face it or not.

While you are waiting to die, what are you going to do that will matter? What will you do that will outlast you? Will you build a Great Pyramid? Everyone has heard of the Great Pyramid, but who knows who built it? Few people do. Hell of a lot of good it did for Khufu, aka Cheops. Nice pile of rocks, but his glass is still broken.

Some people think the way to deal with impending death is to grab all the shit they can in the meantime. They are like a child who, given thirty seconds to snatch up treats in a candy store, stuffs his pockets with everything he can reach, then eats until he makes himself sick. He would have been better off spending that thirty seconds meditating, or blogging about the inevitability of death, instead of gorging on banana caramels until he pukes.

Well, that's all I have for now. Have a nice day.