there was less to hold on to, she became more grim
and terrified, clenching her teeth and her hands. She
was facing a vast abyss and was going to be pushed
over into it, and she was screaming with terror, “No!
No! No!”
I understood why I practice: we can discover the
process of letting go and relaxing during our lifetime.
In fact, that’s the way to live: stop struggling against
the fact that things are slipping through our fingers.
Stop struggling against the fact that nothing’s solid to
begin with and things don’t last. Knowing that can
give us a lot of space and a lot of room if we can relax
with it instead of screaming and struggling against it.
The five strengths are instruction on how to live
and how to die. Actually, there’s no difference. The
same good advice applies to both, because if you
know how to die then you know how to live and if you
know how to live then you’ll know how to die. Suzuki
Roshi said, “Just be willing to die over and over
again.” As each breath goes out, let it be the end of
that moment and the birth of something new. All
those thoughts, as they come up, just see them and
let them go, let the whole story line die; let the space
for something new arise. The five strengths address
how to give up trying all the time to grasp what’s un-
graspable and actually relax into the space that’s
there. Then what do we find? Maybe that’s the point.
We’re afraid to find out.
Teachings for Life and Death 117