Facing Death, Letting Go, and Living to Tell the Tale
By Cheeseburger Buddha
On the first of May, sometime in 1981, I carried my uncle’s deceased body into his home. He had died alone in the back of his van from a stroke. Someone had placed him there, and when I arrived, I found a man who had defecated himself, his shirt torn from the struggle to breathe. My uncle died a broken man, and I would not wish that on anyone in their final moments. I still pray he had found some dignity in the afterlife, even if this world failed him.
I’ve lived through enough brushes with death myself to know its weight.
One New Year’s Eve in Corte Madera, Marin County, around 1983 or 1984, I was alone in a house on a hill. I shared the place with three others, but they were all away working that night. I was resting on a futon when I felt a sharp, constricting pain in my chest. Each breath hurt. Then, as if in surrender, I whispered, “Lord, if this is death, I accept it,” and collapsed onto the wooden floor.
Then something strange happened. I heard a whistling — it grew louder and clearer — and I realized it was air re-entering my nose. When I became conscious of breathing again and tried to take a deep breath, the pain struck even harder. It felt like I was suspended in mid-air between this world and the next. Then, a soft voice in my mind: “Do not panic. Let the breath happen. Don’t try to make it so.” I surrendered. My body shifted gently into a resting position on its own. The pain remained, but it was bearable.
Later, at the Marin County General Hospital, an X-ray showed fluid filling half my chest cavity. A Yoga accident earlier that day had ruptured the lining. The doctor inserted a long needle and drained it. That episode led me to the gates of Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, where I begged the teacher to let me stay and heal. I had come to Corte Madera to help set up a Rinzai Zen–Yoga center, and I ended up practicing Soto Zen instead. Such is life.
Another encounter with death came years later while I was driving my daughter home from her naasheq class in Kuala Terengganu. As we neared the Sultan Mahmud Bridge, I felt a wave of dizziness, and my vision dimmed. The stars ahead seemed to vanish into a veil of darkness. My breath was short, my grip weak. I heard my daughter screaming, her voice distant though she was right next to me. I uttered, “Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un,” and slipped the car into neutral. I blacked out.
I awoke to her panicked cries, realizing the car was rolling backward. People were approaching to help. I sat up, shifted into gear, and drove home. No explanations. When I arrived, I found myself soaked in sweat... and urine. Humiliated but alive.
From these moments, I’ve come to understand that the key to facing death lies not in denying it but in surrendering to its mystery without panic. Having a spiritual crutch — a belief, a prayer, an inner stillness — helps immensely. Death teaches us to breathe, not with our lungs but with our souls.
I’ve sat with the dying — relatives and strangers — as they took their final breaths. I’ve carried limp, cooling bodies from the wreckage of accidents. I saw the light fade from the eyes of a young woman whose life had just ended on the road. Death is no stranger to me. And yet... I cannot say I do not fear it.
What I fear most is leaving without being understood, and not fully understanding what life is in the first place.
There is a thread running through all this: the shift. The detachment. The letting go.
I am writing this now as I prepare to leave the apartment where I have lived for eight years — Menara Kuda Lari, “The Running Horse.” A place of good feng shui, according to a wise elderly Chinese lady who visited during the open house. I agree. I’ve loved this place. But it is time to move on.
We’re heading to Villa Emas, “The Golden Villa.” It feels like the end of a chapter. In this apartment, I brought my two children under one roof again after they had drifted off into separate lives, dangerously close to being lost to the streets. I pulled them back. I fought for them. I served them with humility. Whatever anger they held toward me — justified or not — I met it with patience and repentance.
To earn their respect, despite my own failings — especially in how I treated their mothers (yes, three) — I had to bow low. I destroyed my pride, swallowed my ego, and turned every “shit” I stepped in into fertile ground. I am breaking a cycle passed down from my father, and I pray that my effort plants the seeds of healing for generations to come.
This has been a labor of love. And a labor of healing.
If there’s anything life has taught me through every shift and turn — from living in basements and boxes in Wisconsin and San Francisco, to being kicked out of Zen centers, to near-death experiences in cars and yoga mats — it’s this:
One must learn to detach. To adapt. To let go.
One must remain genuine. Sincere. Present.
And one must surrender to the will of the Lord.
In that surrender, things move accordingly.
Even death.
#CheeseburgerBuddha #FacingDeath #SpiritualHealing #LettingGo #LifeLessons #ZenLiving #NearDeathExperience #BlogReflection #FatherhoodJourney #HealingFromThePast #DeathAndDignity #WisdomInWounds
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