Carpe Diem Theme Week #1 epsiode 2 The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Insight 1 We are travelers

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a joy to write the first "real" episode (after yesterday's introduction) for our first Carpe Diem Theme Week in which we are exploring the depths of "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" written  by Sogyal Rinpoche.

I promised you to tell a little bit more about the Insights this beautiful book can give us to use in our (daily) life. Today I love to share the first Insight: We are travelers.

Introduction

Every post here at CDHK I start with the same sentence "dear Haijin, visitors and travelers" and that last word "travelers" I think you will interpret in a slightly different way after this first Insight. We are travelers ... that's so true. We are always on our way, which fits our modern life by the way, to our work, the office, the hospital, on a holiday and so on, but have you looked at your life as a journey, a travel?

As I started this Theme Week the only thing I knew about my own spirituality is that I am on a path to fulfill the goals which life, or spirit, or the universe, has given me. And I hope to reach those goals some day ... somewhere.

We are travelers

Reincarnation is one of the central ideas of Tibetan Buddhism and The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. I hope to explain this (with the help of Soygal of course).

Rinpoche makes a difference between our "ego", our daily personality, our "I", the form / shape our psyche has in our body in which we live our life, and the deeper, natural consciousness, which is our essence.

Credits: Veil Nebula

What happens when we die? In fact only our body dies, but our consciousness "rises" to another new state of being, another dimension maybe. That is our rigpa, the absolute nature of mind (spirit), the consciousness before thoughts and emotions occur / rise. Later it will be reborn in another body.

Death is not the absolute end. Our body doesn't exist anymore, but our consciousness travels on. The idea of dying can be paralyzing, but in this vision death is just a moment of transition. That makes the idea of death lighter: we are travelers, continuous on our way from one world to another.

My response

Finally our consciousness will reach enlightenment, maybe not in this life, but maybe in another life.

ghostly nebulae
covers the old graveyard
cherry blossom blooms

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... find your inspiration, awaken your muse and share your haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form with us all. (Or maybe a Tibetan form of poetry?)

This episode of our first Theme Week is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 17th at noon (CET). I will publish our next episode, Insight 2, later on.