Contemplating Life and Death 2/3

Part 1

 

The sun is a curious thing. Shining and illuminating; and at the same time creating shadow and darkness.

Looking from the right angle you can see its dualism. Both qualities caught in the same thing. Like on this tomb stone. If I were to stand a little bit to the left then I would not be able to see the light of the sun cast on the rock. A few more meters to the right and all I would see is a rock illuminated with the splendor of the sun's rays.

Our lives also seem to be caught in this duality. At times, we cherish life with all its wonders, the quality of life, its goodness almost so thick that you can feel and taste it. At other times we cannot see much more than the candle we carry in our hands, illuminating mere specks of our surroundings; doubting the very thing that we might have embraced just some moments ago.

Are life and death opposites, just like shadow and light, or like happiness and sorrow; completely separate from each other?

Perhaps, this duality loses some of its edges when we place ourselves in a more centered perspective. Similarly, when we look at that tomb stone from an angle which shows us both of its sides: the dark and the light.

As such, we could put forth a question maybe similar to this:

Would there be death without life or life without death?

Looking at the sun's rays and how it creates the vibrant patterns, scintillating streaks of light and then leaves all other places where it has not touched with darkness and shadow, it seems that both qualities--that of light and darkness--are not not much separate, but instead intricately linked with one another.

Are light and darkness not created within the same movement, the movement of light and darkness?

Where there is light, there is darkness and where there is darkness there must be light. This fact might be hard to see in its immediate surroundings, but stepping back and looking at this movement as a whole, it becomes apparent.

As such, life and death just seem to be part of the same movement. Where there is life, there must be death and where there is death, there must be life.

To think of them as opposites, like two things separated from each other results from a perspective that does not see both states--its movement--at the same time.