It All Dissolves - Frank Ostaseski

 Earth dissolves into water.  Water dissolves into fire.
Fire dissolves into air.  Air dissolves into space.

Dying [Dissolving], in many cases, does not happen all of
a sudden.  It is a gradual process of withdrawing from life
in form.

When I speak of the four elements dissolving, I am not
speaking exactly of physical form.  Rather, I am pointing to
the ineffable but observable animating qualities...
The animating qualities also dissolve - apparently missing
when we are left only with the heaviness of the corpse
after death.

There is something beyond the four elements - the spirit,
soul, or animating presence.  The inner dissolution happens
simultaneously.  Our medical instruments and devices can
certainly measure the physical disintegration, but the inner
dissolution that happens simultaneously is subtle and still...

They are all dissolving - the elements and their associated
states and as a result, the self is dissolving as well.  This is
happening all the time, we just see it at the surface at the
time of dying.

Now who are you?

Fragility and impermanence are in the nature of life.  It's
all always coming together and falling apart - not just the
physical properties of life - and not just at the time of death.

Our sense of self is impermanent.  While illness can contract
us into an even smaller sense of self, many people who are
sick and dying speak of no longer being limited by the 
previous boundaries of their old, familiar identities.

We come to embody much wider identities.  The interior
life and the external world permeate each other,
they commingle.

Frank Ostaseski
The Five Invitations

~

With thanks Death Deconstructed for the photo...