Death is a Perfect Insultfrom The Enlightement of the Whole Body

We live like knowers, striving toward absolute information, but death is a perfect
insult that frustrates all knowing. The death of an other convicts us of our own
death, and makes us ponder. But no ultimate knowledge comes from this
pondering. Death is the frustration of knowledge. The knowledge that another
has died is itself the frustration of all knowledge. We are not knowing in our
pondering over death. We are contemplating Mystery, the answerless Paradox of
our living existence. The death of an other and the death of "I" confound the
whole spectacle and consolation of knowledge. Death is not the attainment of any
state we can know. Death is sacrifice. The only way to come to terms with death is
to come into a harmony with its Process, its Way. And death is sacrifice, not
knowledge or a Way of ultimate knowledge. Death is the sacrifice of knowledge, of
independence, of experience, and of self.
The observation of the death of an other and the conviction of one's own
necessary death are not a means to knowledge but a means to sacrifice. Sacrifice
is the Law. Knowledge or secure independence is that which is sacrificed. If we
truly observe and feel the death of an other, we are moved to live by Wisdom
rather than knowledge. Wisdom is the presumption of alignment with the Way or
Process of existence, which is Sacrifice. But knowledge is only a reflection of or
about the way things work. The knower is independent, not a participant in the
process that is observed. But Wisdom is always already confounded, relieved of
independence, so that there is no option but to submit to the Process of
existence itself.
"I" is the whole body. But "I" does not know what a single thing is. "I" cannot inspect
the existence of any thing and know what it is. "I" is, therefore, not a point of view

toward or other than the existence of any thing or condition that arises. At the
level of very existence and very consciousness, "I" is identical to every thing or
condition that arises. The "whole body," then, simultaneously includes all that
arises (past, present, future, or eternal), since, at the level of very existence and
very consciousness, "I" is unable to differentiate itself from any arising in order to
know what it is.
At the level of the experiential body-mind, "I" can know about things arising. The
manifest body-mind or "me" appears and functions relative to all other arising
conditions. Therefore, manifest or born existence is the play of knowing about,
but it simultaneously exists as the consciousness than which there is no other, for
"I" do not know what a single thing is, and, therefore, "I" is every thing. "I" includes
the existence of all that arises. The Condition of "I" is that of which all arising is
only a modification or variationbut which is not itself ever in any sense changed.
Such is the Paradox that is "I" in the case of every one. All arising, all beings are
described by this Paradox. And the ultimate destiny of "I" is likewise necessarily
contained in this same Paradox. It is Mystery. "I" is eternal Sacrifice, without
ultimate knowledge. Realization of the Paradox of our existence is not knowledge
(a position independent of the Paradox) but it is Wisdom, or the tacit presumption
of the Way of the Paradox itself. If "I" presume the Way of Ignorance, the Law is
fulfilled, and "I" am free to live and exist prior to fear, even though "I" constantly
move in Mystery and am given no ultimate knowledge. If "I" do not presume the
Way of Ignorance, the Way of the Process of existence, but seek knowledge
instead, then fear is the motive of my life, and existence itself always appears to
be at stake.
The recent death of an other and the death of "I," which is yet to come, are a
perfect insult to all knowledge. If we rest in this insult, then we are moved to the
life of Wisdom, wherein no answer and no experience can ever possess or define
us. Wisdom presumes the Paradox and the Mystery of existence. Wisdom is moved
to the Way of sacrifice, to love, to present happiness, and not to the Way of
ultimate knowledge. Knowledge is never more than "knowledge about" and

"knowledge about" is confounded by death. There is no knowledge about things

that is senior to death. Death is the transformation of the knower. It is
fundamentally a process of the knower rather than a process of his or her
knowledge. Death is a process in which the knower is transformed, and all
previous or conditional knowing is scrambled or confounded in the process of
death. Therefore, to consider death is fruitless, since the knower is what is
changed by death.
To confront death in Truth we must be humbled and confounded. The death of
an other reminds us that in every moment we are principally confronted not by
defined objects that are independent of us but by an indefinable Process that
includes us. The death of an other reminds us that sacrifice is the Way of Life.
When we confront the death of an other we are confronted by Mystery or
Paradox, and we are confronted by the demand for participation or sacrifice
founded in the acceptance of the necessary Paradox or Mystery of existence.
Wisdom is such acceptance, and the participatory sacrifice is love or present
happiness. It is unobstructed feeling-attention in all relations. It is to dwell in the
profundity that confounds all knowing. It is to resort to the presumption of
absolute Ignorance as the Truth of our unknowable existence.
Hold on to no thing and no one, not even your self. Be certain of no knowledge.
Be the sacrifice of all conditions in every moment, and thus abide in Communion
with the eternal Truth, wherein the root of our independence is eternally hidden
and our common Identity is always already Revealed.
In this Way we will affirm and participate in the necessarily eternal Existence in
which we all appear: Let us surrender into Infinity with all our friends and hold on
to no thing or condition that ever appears. Let us forget all things in present
Happiness, and so forgive the universe for all its playful changes. Let us always
love one another, and so forgive one another for appearing, for changing, and for
passing out of present sight. So be it.