Alan Watts shares an insight relating to the state of being in life and death. Sleeping, waking, unconsciously and consciously living, in example, offer the realization of being. This is his suggestion. Try and imagine what it would be like to go to sleep and never wake up. However, let’s not try to interpret or label any analogy. Instead, as with every experience, being is enough. On the contrary, thoughts and feelings about the beingness of being are insignificant to the aware presence of being. What if I said to die before you live? This might seem callous. Nevertheless, this is the focus of our inquiry.
To Die and Realize the Act of Being Alive
I took this insight quite literally last month during a heart attack and head concussion. It was not possible for the heart to pump blood due to a blocked artery. This resulted in me dying five times before arriving at the hospital trauma clinic. Additionally, I fell during the heart attack causing a head concussion. The shock was too much for the body. I was in a coma for two days. The coma gave the brain an opportunity to heal due to the severity of the head trauma. So, to die and to experience a type of deep coma sleep were the experience of being for me.
Life and Death are Irrelevant to the isness of Being. Beingness within non-experience and experience became obvious as I awoke from the coma. The clarity of my isness as a living and conscious state of aware beingness was indescribable in that moment. Apparently, there is less brain activity during a coma. Therefore, upon awakening, there was a sense of pure being and of living without constrains. There was no unconscious or conscious acknowledgment of being or not being during the coma. This freed me from any mind-body interaction. Image living actively aware without any obligations or necessity to express, clarify or verify the act of being. Acknowledge that this is possible through the practice of being without attachment and dependency to anything within this isness.
