Outline Lecture Two—Confronting Mortality: The Story of Gilgamesh

I) Mortality as the Seed of Human Wisdom

a) The Universal Enigma of Death
i) Rituals for death across cultures and human history
ii) What is the oldest, most persistent and ubiquitous questions posed by every tradition?
iii) Seed of our first spiritual consciousness
(1) The Japanese movie Departures
Cello player works at funeral home and begins to realize the relationship between death and life:
the closer we are to death the more we can be in touch with life

b) The “Wisdom” of Elders

i) Why is it that most traditions associate wisdom with old age?
(1) Practical calculations people make as they age
Learning from experience
The question how much time do I have left, the awareness of the limits of time and existence in
this life prompt us to be wiser in our time here: it forces us to reset our priorities in life
-what’s worth fighting over? (example of mother in law: it’s not worth fighting the
mother over)
-Confrontation with our own mortality… (the elderly realize that their time is finite)
-mmmmmaybe what kind of legacy to be left behind? Role-models for the young generation
(2) Acute awareness of the very fragility and finite nature of life
Their own impending death forces elderly to reevaluate their past actions (how little time there is
left for me…)
‘The invincibility of youth’ verses ‘The fragility of life and our own mortality’
Time and impending death force a sense of introspection
Choices in youth are different than what elderly might decide to do

c) The “Wisdom” of the Dying

i) When we are young, time and life may seem limitless and inexhaustible
Death or threat of death brings wisdom
‘Crashcourse on wisdom’ due to impending doom looming over the youthful. (see parental
units’ past as ref/example)
ii) What if mortality suddenly thrust upon us with onslaught of some fatal illness?
iii) Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture”
-if this were your last lecture what would you say to your students?
(three kids, a wife, a family) Randy Pausch: was invited to do this and gave a
hypothetical last lecture, diagnosed with stage 4 cancer as the date approached and
the hypothesis became reality
-because an incredibly powerful talk
The gift of wisdom came from the gift of death – the bittersweet gift of his own mortality
He talked about having the reverence and awe of life and not take it for granted
Randy Pausch is a modern representation of finding wisdom by
confronting death head on
II) The Birth of Civilization
a) From the so-called “Agricultural Revolution” to Urbanization : Revolution is a
misnomer its more of a gradual discovery and transition from hunter-gatherer to nomadic
to domestication of plants and animals along the banks of the Tigris/Euphrates
i) Gradual process starting around 8000 B.C.E.
ii) What factors compelled urbanization in Mesopotamia around 4000 B.C.?
Why go from open to tight quarters?
(1) Establish and manage major irrigation, water rights and flood control projects:
administrative centers
(2) Need for sense of security—both material and spiritual: citadels and fortresses
(3) Role of temples and priests: spiritual stability (first institutions) Protection from
natural destructive forces, provide some answers to early questions surrounding
life and death
b) The First “Civilization Experiment”—Sumerian Culture 3000-1750
i) Writing and Civilization
(1) Developed cuneiform (ancient writing of the Sumer and Akkadian)
(a) Purpose originally to record economic transactions and tax collections
(economic reasons) Amount of grains stored
(b) Once it was developed other uses were found: Celebrate and record myths and
legends
Gilgamesh is an example what was passed down, what was seen as worth being passed down

III) The Lesson of Gilgamesh

a) The Life of Gilgamesh: 2/3 divine and 1/3 man
i) Ruled Uruk between 2700 and 2800
(1) Introduced as one who had attained supreme worldly knowledge: whatever was
hidden he saw…whatever was covered he revealed – and so people hated him
because he knew everything
Example of early anxiety of people living in cities, rules laws and curfews protect but limit or
imprison – early cities had curfews
(2) Obstructed the freedom and personal ties of his subjects

ii) Creation of Enkidu (an embodiment of nature and the freedom of hunter-gatherer as
opposed to the confinement of urbanization)
(1) Symbolizes the wild, unrestrained impulses of humanity – ‘with gazelles he eats
the plants, with the animals he drinks from watering holes’
(2) Humanity’s early struggle to reconcile opposing impulses (Gilgamesh vs Enkidu)
But Enkidu is too wild so they send a woman to tame Enkidu
(passage of the taming of Enkidu)

iii) Taming of Enkidu

(1) Enkidu “forgot where he was born”
He was given over to love with the priestess
-The taming: a woman ‘lures’ ‘tames’ ‘humanizes’
iv) Exuberance of youth
 (1) Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s many adventures, achieving heroic feats along the way:
slay the monster Kumbahaba, spurns Ishtar
(2) Who do they remind you of? (fraternity pledges….?) The exuberance, stupidity
and beauty of youth
(a) Gilgamesh: “Who is the most beautiful among heroes? Who is the greatest
among men?”
(b) Enkidu: “I alone can alter fate”
b) The Confrontation with Mortality: he who is most strong is the also the most vulnerable
i) Enkidu’s dream of the underworld: death the ultimate equalizer
To die in the most miserable of places: in his own bed
Without honor, without strength, laid low by something not even the strongest can see
Not even Gilgamesh who ‘sees all’

The story takes a dramatically quiet turn from adventure and strength to introspection into
mortality

ii) Gilgamesh’s anguish at the death of Enkidu

(1) If one as vigorous and powerful as Enkidu can die, then what of his own life?
Gilgamesh’ confusion over Enkidu’s death (‘what kind of sleep is this’) one of the first records of
a person’s confrontation with death (‘must not I too lie down’)

-Grappling with the helplessness of humans in our own mortality

iii) Journey to find a way to escape mortality (grappling with death)

Gilgamesh forgets to live in his seeking of immortality
-becomes a shadow of his former self
-Sidori asks ‘what has happened to you?’ death is something no one can escape
-Gilgamesh is too stubborn
Utnapishtim: the keeper of all knowledge that is hidden, a real sage who seeks and fines the
answers to life
Gilgamesh believes Utnapishtim has the elixir, the plant that will make him immortal
Gilgamesh loses the plant: our own imperfection as humans causes us to be incapable of
immortality on this plane

Noah’s ark ‘origin story’: Point of the story is for Gilgamesh to learn to let things and riches go
in order to focus on his own life: what in life really matters? (don’t cling to how long you live,
just live)
Gilgamesh doesn’t understand (even the wisest of man and god, the most powerful, the
all-seeing, cannot understand life and death)

Sidori is the ‘cupbearer’ of wisdom: she sits on the ‘edge of the world’ looking out onto the
ocean. She’s like an oracle in the way she is presented
-She gives Gilgamesh the prescription for the important things in life (bottom of page 15,
let your wife find safety in your arms)

iv) Death as the ultimate equalizer

 (1) Story of Ishtar’s descent into the underworld
(2) Not only is death inescapable, but it is even necessary
c) The Gift of Wisdom
i) Utnapishtim—“keeper of the knowledge deep hidden”
(1) “The plant of life”—“the-old-man-becomes-young again”
ii) What is the real secret to “Life”? What is the true “knowledge deep hidden”?
d) Siduri’s Counsel
i) Siduri’s wisdom for life

Conclusions:
Gilgamesh’s strengths and weaknesses…
-stubborn
What Gilgamesh and Enkidu embody: