When we situate death within a vaster, more spacious context, it seems less threatening and less final.

Yesterday, I found the sun-bleached bones of an elk rib-cage lying in a large meadow, radiant with golden aspen trees.  The scene reminded me that the best way to deal with death is to view it as part of a larger, more spacious reality - represented by the golden meadow - that is an embodiment of the vastness of divine awareness.  While various manifestations of life and death come and go, the spacious backdrop of divine consciousness - out of which these elements emerge and to which they all eventually return - remains stable and unchanged.  The task of meditation is to identify ourselves more with spacious awareness, and less with the cycle of life-and death.

Photo: Elk rib-cage lying in an aspen meadow; Elkhorn Creek, Red Feather Lakes, CO; October 26, 2013

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