Permission to Die

Story from Ajahn Brahm:

A fellow monk had been sick with an unknown illness for many years. He would spend day after day, week after week, in bed all day, too weak even to walk beyond his room. The monastery spared no expense or effort arranging every kind of medical therapy, orthodox and alternative, in an attempt to help him, but nothing seemed to work. He would think he was feeling better, stagger outside for a little walk, and then relapse for weeks. Many times they thought he would die.

One day, the wise abbot of the monastery had an insight into the problem. So he went to the sick monk’s room.

The bedridden monk stared up at the abbot with utter hopelessness.

“I’ve come here,” said the abbot, “on behalf of all the monks and nuns of this monastery, and also for all the laypeople who support us. On behalf of all those people who love and care for you, I have come to give you permission to die. You don’t have to get better.”

At those words, the sick monk wept. He’d been trying so hard to get better. His friends had gone to so much trouble trying to help heal his sick body that he couldn’t bear to disappoint them. He felt such a failure, so guilty, for not getting better. On hearing the abbot’s words, he now felt free to be sick, even to die. He didn’t need to struggle so hard to please his friends anymore. The release he felt caused him to cry.

What do you think happened next? Well, of course, from that day on he began to recover.

Perhaps we collectively need permission to die, as a human species. Perhaps whatever attempts to “save the world” need permission to fail. Who says this life experiment called humanity must survive?

Many will recoil at the very question — especially those struggling so hard to ensure the survival of  our species, and countless others (not the planet, though — Earth will most likely outlast us regardless).

For me, this is not a grim thought. It’s a practice in acceptance. Our human life is brimming with beauty, immersed in truth even if we don’t always recognize it, and teeming with goodness — with countless opportunities to deepen these at every turn. Just tune in, it’s there to be found. But that doesn’t translate into a survival mandate.

It’s a sobering prospect, and can be a grounding one as well. As Holly Near expresses in her soul-stirring song, “Planet Called Home,” how exciting to try to shift to a life-sustaining, thriving world! And as Thich Nhat Hanh recently stated with clarity: this civilization can end, like many others before it did, but that is not an excuse for despair. It is a call to look deeply into ourselves, into why we are here; to accept what is, and also to realize what we still can do.

Maybe beyond what we’ve even imagined before.

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