the nature of life

 

 

 

 

 

Earth dissolves into water. Water dissolves into fire.
Fire dissolves into air. Air dissolves into space.

Dying [Dissolving], in many cases, does not happen all of
a sudden. It is a gradual process of withdrawing from life
in form.

When I speak of the four elements dissolving, I am not
speaking exactly of physical form. Rather, I am pointing to
the ineffable but observable animating qualities...
The animating qualities also dissolve - apparently missing
when we are left only with the heaviness of the corpse
after death.

There is something beyond the four elements - 

the spirit,soul, or animating presence. 

 The inner dissolution happens simultaneously. 

 Our medical instruments and devices can
certainly measure the physical disintegration, 

but the inner dissolution that happens simultaneously

 is subtle and still...

They are all dissolving - 

the elements and their associated states and as a result,

 the self is dissolving as well. 

 

 This is happening all the time,

 we just see it at the surface at the
time of dying.

Now who are you?

Fragility and impermanence are in the nature of life.

 It's all always coming together and falling apart -

 not just the physical properties of life -

 and not just at the time of death.

Our sense of self is impermanent. 

While illness can contract us into an even smaller sense of self, 

many people who are sick and dying speak of 

no longer being limited by the previous boundaries

 of their old, familiar identities.

We come to embody much wider identities.

 The interior life and the external world permeate each other,
they commingle.

~ Frank Ostaseski
from The Five Invitations