Active Laziness - Dying before Living

 

The day we were born, we are destined to die. Yet knowing so, most of us are not equipped to handle death well. We go about our lives as if we will live forever and tomorrow always come; believing our family, friends, jobs with all material possessions we hold on will be there in the future as they were yesterday and today. Death then comes as a rude shock to us when we encounter it, how we weep and wail when someone close and dear to us dies.

 

Intellectually, everyone knows that death is inevitable but majority choose to ignore it, numbing ourselves with activities that do not better ourselves or the lives of people around us. This is in stark contrast to older times when people devote time to spiritual studies, reflection and practice for actual realisation of their studies and faith. These days, we simply lose ourselves in a furry of activities, burying ourselves between work and entertainment.  

 

On page 19 of "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” by Sogyal Rinpoche, he wrote, “there are different species of laziness: Eastern and Western. The Eastern style is like the one practiced to perfection in India. It consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking cups of tea, listening to Hindi film music blaring on the radio, and gossiping with friends. Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issue.” He calls that Active Laziness.

 

I cannot agree more especially as a person living in a cosmopolitan city like Singapore, we see this sort of Active Laziness on a daily basis. We are active, constantly on the move but despite all these activities, we hardly grow in our ability to deal with death; lazy in our spiritual development. The subject is brushed aside as if it never will happen. Even on our rest days, we filled them up with things to do; places to travel and visit. If we can remind ourselves of impermanence and that life can extinguish in the next moment, we might choose to do things a little different, to be a little more mindful of ourselves and the people around us.

 

It is important to find some time for quiet moments to self reflect, be in touch with our true nature. In addition it is just as important to touch the lives of others around us positively. It can be as simple as spending a few more minutes with our family, sharing precious silent moments, simply knowing we are there for each other. For a friend or a colleague, a simple gesture to bring them a little more joy or lend a listening ear when they need them. No matter how many places we visited, no matter how much material possessions or titles we amassed, there is nothing more real than the here and now, to be mindful of the living and stop the buzzing laziness so prevalent in us who live in this city state, Singapore that we call home.