Bob Dylan once wrote in a song, "That he not busy being born is busy dying."  After considering that line for some time, I decided to explore what it means to be busy being born.

Imagine contemplating leaving the comfort, safety, and warmth of the womb - pushing through a passageway that seems far too tight so that you can enter into an endless world of unknown.  Of course some part of you realizes that you have become too big for the womb; the only way to continue growing is to push and squeeze through.  In fact, as warm and safe as the womb has been, you instinctively realize you would die if you remain there.

We begin our lives with a leap towards the unknown and growth (in every sense of the word growth).  So these are two qualities that we can continue to move towards if we want to continue being born throughout our lives.  The more we grow the more we can connect with others and contribute in the world.  So why wouldn't we want to continue being born?  (Feel free to post any thoughts on this question below.)

Busy dying might simply be seen as forgetting or denying of our instinct to move towards the unknown and growth.

The unknown is not something many of us have been taught to face.  In fact, we are conditioned to hide and protect ourselves from it.  Can we get better at moving towards the unknown, until we become comfortable or excited about not knowing, and learn to skilfully find our way through the tight spots?  Why not?  With practice we may find the unknown becomes less of fearful place and more of an enlivening one.  We might even get to a point where the biggest unknowns, like death, become expansive experiences of being born.  How can we practice being with and moving towards the unknown?  (If you have suggestions, please chime in below.)

After writing the above paragraphs, I came across a piece of writing from John O'Donahue titled The Question Holds The Lantern in the November, 2009 issue of The Sun magazine, pg 37.  Just the title alone speaks powerfully to me.  I would love to quote the entire piece, but I will keep it to two excerpts, the first from midway through the piece, the second from the end of the essay:

                When your soul awakens, you begin to truly inherit your life.  You leave the kingdom of fake
               surfaces, repetitive talk, and weary roles and slip deeper into the true adventure of who you are
               and who you are called to become.  The greatest friend of the soul is the unknown.  Yet we are
               afraid of the unknown because it lies outside our vision and our control.  We avoid it by filtering
               it through our protective barriers of domestication and control.  The normal way never leads
               home.

                The journey shows you that from this inner dedication you can reconstruct your own values
               and actions.  You develop from your own self-compassion a great compassion for others.  You
               are no longer caught in the false game of judgement, comparison, and assumption.  More naked
               now than ever, you begin to feel truly alive.  You begin to trust the music of your own soul; you
               have inherited treasure that no one will ever be able to take from you.  At the deepest level,
               this adventure of growth is in fact a transfigurative conversation with your own death.  And
               when the time comes for you to leave, the view from your deathbed will show a life of growth
               that gladdens the heart and takes away all fear.

I love the idea that your journey of growth, as O'Donahue describes it, is a transfigurative conversation with your own death.  It's like having a person in your life that you detest but can't avoid, like a colleague or neighbour.  Somehow, either through persistent effort or perhaps through a shared crisis, you find kindness for this person, you come to see yourself in this person, and you end up the closest of friends.  

Certainly we all have our traumas and wounds that contribute to our ongoing challenges, but how much of our anxieties, addictions and conflicts with others are in some part because we are not having our conversations with death?

I wonder if John O'Donahue and Bob Dylan ever swapped inspiring lines and got busy being born together before John O'Donahue passed away.

Busy not knowing,
Eric

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