Separation Papers

My concept of death has passed through many topical gates of inquiry; past the millstone of "why"; passed the emotional moors of nihilism, travelled to and from (or through) the barren yet exhausting existentialist wastelands. Got snowblind in those, almost lost my way, on the way to finding it.

So I've matured in my concept of death somewhat.

Now, when I look at it, and this is in the light of several deaths in my life - grandparents, friends, friends of friends - natural, premature, or otherwise - now when I look at it the closest feeling I can associate it with is a separation profound and unbreakable.

My sense is that those who have passed enter into an impersonal state, where they can 'see' or 'be' with family, friends, their past - but are not attached the way to it the way they were prior to death. That, plus an absolute barrier where communication - at least in the way we think of it - cannot take place. I believe that almost all rules in life can be broken, often need to be broken, but this one - here's a way to think of it - it does not seem relative. It seems absolute. The ultimate separation papers, from who you were to what you now are.

And the sense that it is not nearly as hard for those who have passed as it is for those who are left behind.

And that is the koan that I'm wrestling with right now on some level. As well as what happens in deep sleep, and the answer there that confirms awareness as non-corporeal.

I've seen through my spiritual travels and travails that happiness is wed to sadness; anger to joy; suffering to pleasure; in the world of not-two, they are two sides of the same coin.

What then, with this feeling, this vague abstract that paints death as profoundly one-sided?