Meditation on Death

"Perhaps I did not live as I ought to have done."
(Leo Tolstoy)

When we speak of death, we have in mind two kinds of death: death in life and death after life. While we are alive, we avoid speaking or thinking about death, as though it were not part of life; we live as if we were immortal.

Death after life—such as we are permitted to conceive of it while still living—can only be imagined, and we begin to imagine it when we start to feel old, when death draws near.

Then reality begins to seem unreal, and everything we have experienced up to that point loses its tangibility, its coherence, and its shape. We begin to realise that the life in which we believed no longer exists, indeed that it never truly existed, and that the only genuine reality is death—the everlasting end of all illusions, all hopes, and everything, great or small, that we have managed to achieve within the span allotted to us.

This is death after life.

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Poetry dwells near the divine light's breath

The comparison between poetry and divine light that we have proposed HERE finds its perfect explanation in Saint Paul, Epistle to the Romans 1:19: τ ὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ φανερόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς, ὁ θεὸς γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἐφανέρωσεν — “that which may be known of God has been made manifest in them (in men), for God has manifested it unto them”. Poetry unveils within the human being the need to be human, that is, the need for Beauty, the need to feel Beauty within oneself and alongside oneself; and this feeling is sustained by divine light. Since we are influenced by the Augustinian idea of saeculum , we hold that poetry belongs to the saeculum and therefore comes to a halt upon the threshold of divine light [I] without crossing it, though perceiving the light that lies beyond that threshold. We are led to that threshold by the human feeling of Beauty that dwells within us and guides us to that point: to that door which cannot be crossed in our human condition. And yet, the mere act of stan...

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L'ombra del dharma

Può qualcuno nascondere la verità per tutta la sua vita e ingannare sé e tutti gli altri? Vi sono demoni nell'uomo, che vengono di lontano - per linee di sangue e generazioni che, se li ascolti, si fanno tuo dharma Se cerco di spiegare quello che eri Devo l' oltre e il prima guardare Dove cause ignote e foschi criteri Erano il karma del tuo andare. Di lí andavi larvato di nulla E mai il volto sincero mostravi. Di silenzio vivevi in una bolla Eppure libero a me sembravi. In pubblico e privato ti scindevi E disprezzavi me a te non pari Ma santo mi apparivi e tu sapevi. Del tuo dharma che adesso appari Eri schiavo - di quel lontano demone Tara remota e senza memoria Che nel sangue ti seguiva epigone E segnava immemore tua la storia.

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