It’s not a bad end.
The End
But it is the end.
(As far as I can see.)
If you’re asking me. I don’t know.
– Norman Fischer, “No Beginning, No Ending, No Fear”In what we call death, the body does not disappear. It continues its journey forth. Not a single element is lost. The body simply transforms into air and water and earth and sky.
If you want to know, don’t ask me.
T
here’s a traditional Buddhist practice to contemplate beginnings and endings, called the five reflections. The reflections gently guide the practitioner in meditating on the fact that old age, sickness, and death are built-in features of the human body and mind, that no one can avoid them. Life begins, therefore it has to end. And being subject to beginning and ending, life is inherently vulnerable.
The point of this meditation isn’t to frighten; quite the opposite: the way to overcome fear is to face it and become familiar with it. Since fear is always fear about the future, to face the present fear, and see that it is misplaced, is to reduce it. When I give myself over, for a period of time, or perhaps on a regular basis, to the contemplation of the realities of my aging and dying, I become used to them. I begin to see them differently. Little by little I come to see that I am living and dying all the time, changing all the time, and that this is what makes life possible and precious. In fact, a life without impermanence is not only impossible, it is entirely undesirable. Everything we prize in living comes from the fact of impermanence. Beauty. Love. My fear of the ending of my life is a future projection that doesn’t take into account what my life actually is and has always been. The integration of impermanence into my sense of identity little by little makes me less fearful. (ibid)
If you want ‘me,’ I don’t know me.
I am waiting for you to answer me.
Then I will disappear.
If you’re queasy, don’t look too hard.
“God made everything out of nothing. But the nothingness shows through.” (Paul Valéry, 1871-1945)
Rather, stay with the something you see as familiar and try not to look at what is not there.
SAINTS DU JOUR
Ps 62:2-9 “Ad Deum vigilat, qui opera noctis reicit.” Una sábbati, María Magdaléne venit mane, cum adhuc ténebræ essent, ad monuméntum. 2Deus, Deus meus es tu,* ad te de luce vígilo. Sitívit in te ánima mea,* te desiderávit caro mea. In terra desérta et árida et inaquósa,† 3sic in sancto appárui tibi,* ut vidérem virtútem tuam et glóriam tuam. 4Quóniam mélior est misericórdia tua super vitas,* lábia mea laudábunt te. 5Sic benedícam te in vita mea* et in nómine tuo levábo manus meas. 6Sicut ádipe et pinguédine repleátur ánima mea,* et lábiis exsultatiónis laudábit os meum. 7Cum memor ero tui super stratum meum,* in matutínis meditábor de te, 8quia fuísti adiútor meus,* et in velaménto alárum tuárum exsultábo. 9Adhǽsit ánima mea post te,* me suscépit déxtera tua. Glória Patri et Fílio* et Spirítui Sancto. Sicut erat in princípio et nunc et semper* et in sǽcula sæculórum. Amen. ... Una sábbati, María Magdaléne venit mane, cum adhuc ténebræ essent, ad monuméntum. | Psalm 62 (63) Very early on the Sunday morning, just as the sun was rising, Mary Magdalen came to the tomb. O God, you are my God, I watch for you from the dawn. My soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you. I came to your sanctuary, as one in a parched and waterless land, so that I could see your might and your glory. My lips will praise you, for your mercy is better than life itself. Thus I will bless you throughout my life, and raise my hands in prayer to your name; my soul will be filled as if by rich food, and my mouth will sing your praises and rejoice. I will remember you as I lie in bed, I will think of you in the morning, for you have been my helper, and I will take joy in the protection of your wings. My soul clings to you; your right hand raises me up. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. ... Very early on the Sunday morning, just as the sun was rising, Mary Magdalen came to the tomb. |
Hence I was introduced to the Russian novel Oblomov.
Oblomov (Russian: Обломов, pronounced [ɐˈbloməf]) is the second novel by Russian writer Ivan Goncharov, first published in 1859. Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is the central character of the novel, portrayed as the ultimate incarnation of the superfluous man, a symbolic character in 19th-century Russian literature. Oblomov is a young, generous nobleman who seems incapable of making important decisions or undertaking any significant actions. Throughout the novel, he rarely leaves his room or bed. In the first 50 pages, he only manages to move from his bed to a chair.[1]
The novel was popular when it came out, and some of its characters and devices have imprinted on Russian culture and language. (--Wikipedia)
I found an obituary of a Trappist monk, Dom Bernardo Bonowitz. Here’s what was written:
He had a keen sense of the absurd and a terrific sense of humor. Early on in his illness he began talking about “Oblamov.” Oblamov, it turns out, is the anti-hero of a 19th century comic Russian novel by Goncharov about an extremely lazy Russian aristocrat who can’t do anything or make even trivial decisions. He is the embodiment of the superfluous man. It takes him the first fifty pages of the novel to move from his bed to a chair. That Bernardo was comparing himself to Oblamov struck me as very funny—both ridiculous and yet in a way apropos. A friend of Oblamov at one point tells the protagonist he’s suffering from “Oblamovitis”—and Bernardo and I liked to puzzle his various doctors by suggesting we thought that might be his problem—what did they think: acute Oblamovitis? Had they heard of the condition? More than just an endearing personality trait, Fr. Bernardo’s sense of humor—part of what made him such a sought after speaker and retreat master— was a spiritual resource, and sometimes, at least, allowed him to transcend even very bitter anguish.
Born Jewish, the gifted son of a troubled and demanding father, Bernardo converted to Catholicism in his teens, a decision which created a terrible rift—both with his father and within himself. One of his main preoccupations during his illness was how to reconcile his Jewishness and his Christianity. In fact in our last real conversation, just a few weeks before he died, this was what he spoke about. While he may not have been able to resolve this tension he did, many years ago, reconcile with his father, and cherished the friendship that developed between them. That he chose forgiveness instead of resentment, despite so much suffering, strikes me as a clear sign of both the grace at work in his life and his basic goodness as a man. https://www.trappists.org/2025/02/13/the-passing-of-bernardo-bonowitz/
I, too, suffer from Oblamovitus.
Have for a long time. It's not any of the illnesses, nor of the spate of pneumonia this recent month, nor of younger distraction and diversion from any settled path of work. No, it's the sense of always having been superfluous, never necessary, perhaps a bit absurd, perhaps an imposter, a Prufrockian fool having measured out my life in coffee spoons.
There's no respite from non-continuation. I have lived a life of non-continuation. A non-initiatory quasi-resignation realization of one's absurdity standing in the face of continual effacement.
Still, I enjoy coffee-milk, periodic cups of tea, seltzer-water, and Zero mixed berry Powerade. I've not much of an appetite, I lose weight faster than rain, and my oncologist sent me with his two nurses to the Emergency Department down and around warrens of hallways to be assessed and worked-up for four hours yesterday. They told me go home, try to breathe, and let the stubborn remains of pneumonia find their way out of my lungs.
The dog Ensō visits my room. He is sweet, calm, and snores.
In my phantasmagoric mind I am a novice of Anthony of the Desert (251-356), a Trappist, a Franciscan, a Benedictine, a Carthusian, a wandering nomad, and a Zen monk. In dreams before waking I am walking some variation of cloister that both confuses and comforts. I allow as how some variation of reincarnated retrieval is taking place in unconscious defusion (and diffusion). I am somehow still where I was some past ago, and now my recollective imagination interfuses what and where I do not comprehend into a phasic intertwining that reminds me of something (perhaps) once experienced and now crisscrossing the synapses of mind with alluring simplicity and solemnity.
The embodiment of the superfluous man. Millenia of monastic/eremitic wandering, never at home anywhere.
A suspicious realization that:
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;Am an attendant lord, one that will doTo swell a progress, start a scene or two,Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,Deferential, glad to be of use,Politic, cautious, and meticulous;Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—Almost, at times, the Fool.I grow old ... I grow old ...I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
(--T.S.Eliot, in Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock)
I no longer have to reside in a stable presentation of established conformity to societal or cultural expectation. I am homeless, although, for the moment, not unhoused.
Wraithlike I wander through the weather and timepieces of the day.
In silentio (perhaps sub silentio) I am given to understand that my life has been overturned:
Sub silentio is a Latin legal phrase that translates to "under silence" or "in silence." It refers to something that is understood, implied, or done without being explicitly stated, discussed, or formally acknowledged. It is commonly used when a court overrules a prior ruling or decides a legal point quietly without directly referencing or addressing. (--search.)
Or returned.
Or, coincidentally, retrieved.
Listening to chapters from:
I began hearing something familiar. About loss.
Then Shotetsu:
With every new spring
The blossoms speak
Not a word,
Yet expound the Law,
Knowing what is its heart
From the scattering
Storm winds
--Shotetsu (1381-1459)
Is loss the reality undergirding all existence?
The coming, yes; then the going?
The taking away of sin. The eradication of the three poisons. The coursing of death through all life.
Separation, divorce, attempts to substitute something (someone) new for that which is no longer there.
Entropy, the decline from order into disorder.
Buddha’s death by food poisoning. Jesus’ death by crucifixion.
The insanity of thinking that something, anything is going to last.
(Recognizable fare, eh?)
But something new arises for me, namely, "now" is really all there is.
And now is the loss of then and when.
Now, as it is, is all there is -- what is here, a coincidence of opposites.
The coincidence of opposites, or coincidentia oppositorum, is a philosophical and mystical concept suggesting that seemingly contradictory or opposing forces (like good and evil, light and dark, or finite and infinite) are interdependent, interconnected, and ultimately unified in a deeper reality. (AI Overview)
This breath
This breath
This sound
This sound
This sight
This sight
Thisness
"τὸ τί ἐστι,"
We ask, "what is it?"
τώρα, now
War with Iran
Continues
No one wants
To end it
So
Three American
Soldiers decided
To end it
For us
Over last few days
And were killed
While the president
Played some golf
And took in
a soccer game
Watched on Kanopy some NYC history.
"The Witness" --2015, 1hr 29min
The name "Kitty Genovese" became synonymous with urban apathy after The New York Times printed an article stating that she was stabbed to death during an attack that lasted more than half an hour, while 38 witnesses did nothing. Fifty years later, her brother uncovers a lie that transformed his life, condemned a city, and defined an era.
Winner of Best Feature Documentary at the Boulder International Film Festival. Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Critic's Choice Documentary Awards.
"An engrossing detective story, an enlightening sociological study, and a heartbreaking story of unreconciled grief, THE WITNESS is one of the best documentaries of 2016." - Peter Keough, Boston Globe
"Skillful, complex, and purposely understated, THE WITNESS succeeds not just as a re-examination of one of the most talked-about crimes in modern memory, but as a very touching, human tale of a brother trying to get to know the sister he lost too soon." - Alex Segura, Under the Radar
(--Kanopy)
A deeper quiet sits in this cell, this ersatz hermit room, following the credits and Rosanne Cash singing "God Is In The Roses"-- such a fitting song, complementing lyrics after the documentary.
As the silence deepens, the final lines of W.B. Yeats' "Under Ben Bulben" slide into the room:
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!
Good on her brother, William Genovese!