Deepening Our Enduring Connections

October 2016.

Autumn leaves are turning red and gold here in New England, the High Holy Days are here and the Day of Death (Halloween) is approaching-- and my spiritual mind turns towards the poignancy of ageing and death. Perhaps it's because my Dad died in late august and my Mom in September. Or is my own later season approaching as well? Who knows? Life is tenuous. Lama says: Handle with prayer.

Life is necessarily full of change and loss; there's no way around it. To miss what we love is so very human-- the people, places and things we've come to cherish. And to grieve, enshrine, memorialize, or simply to recall and recollect is one of man's best ways to stay close and maintain the loving connection, the heartfelt feelings and enduring intimacy we have come to share.  A potent memory or tangible reminder --- word, a phrase, a picture, token, or a family anecdote can be a touchstone providing direct access to the portal of revisiting that intimate connection, like Proust's madeleine (cookie),... the smell of which opened several volumes of world class literature in his classic REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST ---     delivering him directly back to (in his heart mind) and directly into all those rich fields of memory and the actual felt experience of his ongoing precious family embeddedness and belonging.

Which leads me to the "right now". Today we grieve in much different (and more public) ways than in days of yore, thanks to the Internet and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. My local friends and colleagues at Mylestoned, here in Boston, speak to this evolution in the latest edition of their Digital AfterDeath Digest. Mylestoned is a soon to launch free mobile app that helps you maintain meaningful bonds with deceased loved ones in a safe, simple and supportive environment. It's a dedicated location for sharing moments, pictures, stories and other "micro" actives privately between family and friends or directly with the anonymous Mylestoned Grief Guide community. If you'd like to read further, check out my latest Ask the Lama blog post.

These innovative, user friendly memorials offer us the possibility to access enduring memories and meaningful connections through our chosen memory points, stories, and images, even just for a moment at any time during the day, not to mention on special days such as the anniversary of a death or other significant occasion. This can help us maintain and even further deepen our meaningful connections with those we love and have known. For love is greater than death, and endures thru our continuing bonds and most meaningful connections. As an old adage goes: To the unbeliever, death is the end; to the believer, the beginning.

With Love and blessings,

Lama Surya Das