Better not to do a low deed – for one is pained thereafter.
Better to do good – which isn’t regretted, after it’s done.
– Dhammapada, verse 314. Translated by Christopher J. Ash
I look out the window. I’ve spent the day painting, and meditating. It’s raining, and the eucalypt outside my window is looking so healthy. I think, “Today is a good day to die.”
A wise explanation of this saying was offered by an Ottawa Indian woman in Michael Steltenkamp’s ‘Black Elk: Holy Man of the Oglala’: “We Indians have an expression ‘today is a good day to die.’ It means that we should be ready to die on any given day. We should always be prepared to die, and have no regrets. That’s why it’s important to begin each day fresh, and not let past problems or present distractions cloud how God wants us to live.”
Her word is ‘God.’ Substitute your own expression for the biggest meaningful holding that this life is. I’m more for saying things like: ‘the big life process’; or, the Immeasurable; or, ‘That’; or ‘This.’
The point, though, is a good one, whatever the name for the big (…..), it’s wise to measure our deeds by that; that is, to found our ethical life in relation to the whole.
“Today is as good day a day as any to die.” She mentions regrets. It’s good to be ready – that is, to have no regrets. Which is a strange thing to say, because of course, I regret having treated several people badly, as I stumbled toward some understanding of what is going on here; especially in my early to mid-twenties.
From the way my development has gone so far, I think that my knowledge that I did harm to others will be uncomfortable until I die. That’s just the way the heart is, when it understands. So, this ‘no regrets’ has a deeper meaning – which comes from being connected to life.
The thing is, that regrets shouldn’t define you; by which I mean, they needn’t feed your false-ego.Regrets can feed your false-self if you beat up on yourself about what you’ve done. There’s no point in affirming a false version of yourself – by giving free rein to your inner judge – in the hope that it will make you feel better. That’s one thing I’m absolutely sure about, if I received a terminal diagnosis of any kind, I definitely wouldn’t be feeding my inner judge. When I had my cancer operation last year, my wife said that in the months following, she’d never seen me so kind.
In that case, I have to imagine that today could be the day, and to continue disengaging from the critic, anyhow! Because the critic is a thief in disguise. It says it’s helping, but actually, it’s part of the problem. We could have a variation of the verse above:
“Better not to feed your critic – you’ll be pained afterward.
Better to be mindful – which you won’t regret afterward.”
Not that being ready is only about having no regrets. If it were only that, it’d be too close to the Boy Scout motto: ‘Be prepared,’ I think. While it’s good to be prepared for death, one can take that too far the other direction, and treat death too earnestly. You don’t have to earn a good death. It’s natural, after all; and it’s only fictions that die.
To me, it’s more like: If today is a good day to die, then it’s a good day to live without fictions; so, be awake to meet the day. How will it go, today? I want to turn up for what arrives. As Hamlet said, when he eventually came to the peaceful resolution of his torture: “The readiness is all.”