the right choice for me, and for us as a family, but it has been tough along the way and I have needed to hang on to that sense of higher purpose – not just my own personal mission in life, but the higher purpose of being the best man, husband, and father that I can.
What I hope you can see from all this is that service and duty are complex and just as present in our lives as the lives of those in Westeros or the medieval world. Duty and service can be gifts if we can embrace them that way, but we must be mindful of the costs both to ourselves or others lest we become mindless servants, or fanatics of the cause. It is this caution which enables us to intelligently embrace a warrior's path of service to a higher purpose rather than enslaving ourselves and others to a dogmatic set of rules.
Facing
Death
Chapter 6 – Facing Death
Syrio: “Do you pray to the Gods?”
Arya: “The old and the new.”
Syrio: “There is one God and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: “Not Today.”” [xliii]
Death is avoided in the modern world. That may seem a strange thing to say, or an obvious thing to do but I mean it more than just as a consequence. We mostly avoid talking about it, facing it, planning for it, or indeed embracing it when it comes. It is the one completely inevitable event of our lives and yet we work so hard to avoid it. Even though Syrio Forel in the scene I have quoted above is speaking of denying death, he does so with a familiarity. He does so with Death as his God, and a God he is familiar enough with to say “No” to! While he will keep saying “No” as long as he can, he has no fear of death and he faces it bravely, even with a sense of humour. I like this kind of relationship to death and in some ways it seems psychologically healthier to me than avoidance. Just as life is suffering (one of the core teachings of Buddhism I touched on in Chapter 2), life is also going to end. I would rather meet Death as a familiar friend than as an implacable enemy. In terms of illness, we tend to try and fend off death by any means and for as long as possible almost regardless of the quality of life that can be had. I don't think all medical professionals think this way (I've met plenty who don't) but many do, and certainly I'd say the prevailing Western cultural view is that death should be avoided at all costs. I find this sad, and in many indigenous shamanic cultures there are and were practices of healing people into death. I'm not talking about euthanasia as the monstrous abuse of authority that it is so-often painted as in the press. I'm talking about compassion. Sometimes someone is just on their way out of this world and the most compassionate thing we can do is help them to leave us with as much as possible dignity, grace, and peace. Whether they go on to another life in another form is a matter of belief, but it is my faith that death is a transformation, not an ending. That's part of how I have made my peace with it.
As with Service in the last chapter, the matter of facing death resonates strongly with Samurai culture. It is considered by some, and George Leonard [17] spoke of this, that the reason why the Samurai were so feared in battle is because they faced it as if they were already dead – they had nothing to lose. This quote from the Hagakure illustrates the mindset well:
“Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one's body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one's master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead.
There is a saying of
What I hope you can see from all this is that service and duty are complex and just as present in our lives as the lives of those in Westeros or the medieval world. Duty and service can be gifts if we can embrace them that way, but we must be mindful of the costs both to ourselves or others lest we become mindless servants, or fanatics of the cause. It is this caution which enables us to intelligently embrace a warrior's path of service to a higher purpose rather than enslaving ourselves and others to a dogmatic set of rules.
Facing
Death
Chapter 6 – Facing Death
Syrio: “Do you pray to the Gods?”
Arya: “The old and the new.”
Syrio: “There is one God and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: “Not Today.”” [xliii]
Death is avoided in the modern world. That may seem a strange thing to say, or an obvious thing to do but I mean it more than just as a consequence. We mostly avoid talking about it, facing it, planning for it, or indeed embracing it when it comes. It is the one completely inevitable event of our lives and yet we work so hard to avoid it. Even though Syrio Forel in the scene I have quoted above is speaking of denying death, he does so with a familiarity. He does so with Death as his God, and a God he is familiar enough with to say “No” to! While he will keep saying “No” as long as he can, he has no fear of death and he faces it bravely, even with a sense of humour. I like this kind of relationship to death and in some ways it seems psychologically healthier to me than avoidance. Just as life is suffering (one of the core teachings of Buddhism I touched on in Chapter 2), life is also going to end. I would rather meet Death as a familiar friend than as an implacable enemy. In terms of illness, we tend to try and fend off death by any means and for as long as possible almost regardless of the quality of life that can be had. I don't think all medical professionals think this way (I've met plenty who don't) but many do, and certainly I'd say the prevailing Western cultural view is that death should be avoided at all costs. I find this sad, and in many indigenous shamanic cultures there are and were practices of healing people into death. I'm not talking about euthanasia as the monstrous abuse of authority that it is so-often painted as in the press. I'm talking about compassion. Sometimes someone is just on their way out of this world and the most compassionate thing we can do is help them to leave us with as much as possible dignity, grace, and peace. Whether they go on to another life in another form is a matter of belief, but it is my faith that death is a transformation, not an ending. That's part of how I have made my peace with it.
As with Service in the last chapter, the matter of facing death resonates strongly with Samurai culture. It is considered by some, and George Leonard [17] spoke of this, that the reason why the Samurai were so feared in battle is because they faced it as if they were already dead – they had nothing to lose. This quote from the Hagakure illustrates the mindset well:
“Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one's body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one's master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead.
There is a saying of
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