{"id":5094,"date":"2017-06-01T11:58:14","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T10:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/?p=5094"},"modified":"2017-08-30T10:03:47","modified_gmt":"2017-08-30T09:03:47","slug":"life-and-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/","title":{"rendered":"LIFE AND DEATH"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/h2>\n

<\/h2>\n

We Buddhists talk about death a lot.<\/span><\/h2>\n

For me, that\u2019s the main attraction \u2013 there\u2019s no shying away from the truth in Buddhism. I\u2019ve always known death. I\u2019ve always said that Life is death and death is life.<\/em> When I was 14 months old, my sister was born terminally ill and died 18 months later. In 4th<\/sup> grade, my father underwent major surgery which he again underwent in 6th<\/sup> grade. I guess he\u2019d had symptoms for a couple of years. Maybe he didn\u2019t want to imagine himself unwell. Who knows? In any case, he did what men so often do and didn\u2019t go to the doctor. He died at 46 when I was 13. If he\u2019d have gone to the doctor earlier, he would have lived longer.<\/span><\/h2>\n

The way I see it, my father wasn\u2019t one for facing facts. For whatever reason, for some people the truth is too hard to bear. Maybe we\u2019re all like that \u2013 it\u2019s just a matter of extent. Maybe that\u2019s what the Buddha is teaching us. Maybe he\u2019s teaching us that we need to face the truth. We can\u2019t see what we can\u2019t bear to see. How do we see what we can\u2019t bear to see?<\/span><\/h2>\n

The story of my sister\u2019s death isn\u2019t as simple as it seems. The story of my father\u2019s death isn\u2019t as simple as it seems. For anyone who\u2019s experienced these types of things, it\u2019s never as simple and straightforward as we like to imagine. We like to create edges around things, fill in the contents and label them. We like to see what\u2019s inside our jars, put a lid on and write what\u2019s inside. We read the jar label imagining the flavours and textures. But it\u2019s completely different when you live and breathe it. It\u2019s a bit like a reading a book. If you\u2019ve lived it it\u2019s completely different to getting a theoretical perspective. For us Buddhists, we read books about death \u2013 about bardo, life, death, books like The Tibetan Book of the Dead<\/em>. But death from the inside looking out isn\u2019t like a book describing something. It\u2019s too close. It\u2019s not orderly. It\u2019s not contained. It\u2019s visceral.<\/span><\/h2>\n

I need to go back a bit so you understand where I\u2019m coming from. Let me start with my sister.<\/span><\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the UK, there was the terrible winter of \u201963. In \u201964 along with a lot of others, my parents and brothers moved to Australia. The boys were toddlers. I came along in \u201866 (the first born in Australia), my sister in \u201867. There was no extended family in Australia. Just us. Phone calls were expensive, rare and made brief by Telecom. Letters took weeks to arrive. Travel was a long-winded experience. It was in the olden days \u2013 the days of the hideous White Australia Policy and when women couldn\u2019t get a bank loan. It was sexist, racist, patriarchal, brash, isolated.<\/span><\/h2>\n

One day when mum was pregnant with my sister, she said to her friend Hazey, Something\u2019s not right<\/em>. It must have been early in \u201868. In those days there were no tests for situations like this. It just was. When Bridget was born it was clear my mother\u2018s intuition was spot on \u2013 correct but cursed. Bridget was yellow, looked odd, the mouth was too wide, the tummy the wrong shape. My mother\u2019s father was a GP and when the diagnosis of biliary atresia came through he said it was a 1:1m disease (turns out it\u2019s about 1:10k disease). The bile duct is missing \u2013 a slow torturous death of toxicity.<\/span><\/h2>\n

As an adult, I discovered that my sister coughed and spluttered a lot and bad spells triggered hospital visits. I found out because I did a psychotherapy course. One participant coughed and spluttered constantly which always made me feel on edge \u2013 so I asked my mother about it. My ex coughs and splutters. Throughout the relationship it bothered me at my core in a way I couldn\u2019t explain. He couldn\u2019t understand the problem. It\u2019s not like he could help it. It created tension that was no-one\u2019s fault.<\/span><\/h2>\n

Life for Bridget was a bumpy ride of maladies, coughs, splutters, fear, fears, operations, hospital. She overcame meningitis. For 18 months, they tried to solve the riddle of how to save a child\u2019s life with such a low likelihood looking for a miracle. The medical fraternity weren\u2019t communicative and family-friendly back then. They heard about a magical surgery in Texas and seriously considered sending us there (imagine lugging a family of 6 to Texas in \u201868 \u2013 cumbersome to say the least). No\u2011one wanted to face the facts. No-one wanted to see the truth. In the end, my mother was too exhausted from it all. The family were too exhausted from it all. Reluctantly, my parents gave up and went with nature. Death befell us.<\/span><\/h2>\n

I hated my sister. It was basic logic. Before Bridget I had a mother. I thought that if Bridget died mum would be mine again. If only I knew that it doesn\u2019t work like that. The death of a child is searing. Unfathomable. Excruciating. Unbearable. The world goes numb and colourless. Lifeless. My father went to bed for 2 days. My mother was left with 3 young children and her grief. She vacated.<\/span><\/h2>\n

I once did a 26 day silent meditation retreat. My lunch rota buddy stopped appearing at about Day 15. She was in the middle of a psychotic episode. She worked at Border Control and had recently turned away a boat-load of refugees. On vipassana retreats there is no talking, no looking at anyone, no acknowledgement of another\u2019s existence. My rota buddy thought we were the walking dead \u2013 the drowned refugees haunting her because she couldn\u2019t persuade her bosses to allow these vulnerable people to live in Australia.<\/span><\/h2>\n

This is what it was like after Bridget\u2019s death. People in the depths of grief become the walking dead. There\u2019s no communication, interaction. No love. It\u2019s blank for years.<\/span><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s blank for years\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and years\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and years.<\/span><\/h2>\n

My father didn\u2019t thaw for about 5 years. My mother started thawing in her late 60s after I encouraged her to write her life story. The grief never ends. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

For a while I worked in cord blood banking. The umbilical cord stem cells are harvested for a leukaemia treatment. It took a while to understand why the work was so important to me until I realised \u2013 the babies give life, not death.<\/span><\/h2>\n

3 weeks after Bridget\u2019s death in May \u201869, my mother\u2019s beloved father died of emphysema. 1\u00a0year later, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer but had no will to live and died in \u201872. Somewhere during that time, my father\u2019s father died. He was very fond of mum. In \u201876, my father had his first major operation for bowel cancer. Given the severity he must have had symptoms for a good while. He had another operation in \u201879.<\/span><\/h2>\n

In January \u201880 we were visiting family in the UK for Christmas and my parents visited my middle brother in America on student exchange. My father promised he\u2019d be around for another 6 months. On 17th\u00a0<\/sup>March, my father returned from work in the morning. He\u2019d left something at home and looked around in his desk. We left for school and work. He didn\u2019t go to work. He sat at his desk and wrote letters to say goodbye \u2013 and left. My mother had no idea. She was baffled, enraged, despairing, bereft. We all were.<\/span><\/h2>\n

My brother was still in America. He returned to Australia 4\u00a0months early. A day after he arrived I shunned my brother. I wasn\u2019t welcoming or loving. My eldest brother and I had become completely tight-knit \u2013 like an adult\u2019s jumper gone through a hot wash which only fits a baby. The weave was tight. No stretch. No gaps. No openings. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

My father\u2019s mother said she saw a man at the end of the street who looked just like dad but couldn\u2019t get close enough to check.<\/span><\/h2>\n

On my eldest brother\u2019s 18th<\/sup> birthday on 3rd<\/sup> May we got the call at 2am. It was 6 weeks after he left. A week later the school holidays arrived and we stayed with Hazey\u2019s family. They were very supportive. They knew us. They knew our situation. They were warm. There was love. We loved that family. I dreamt my father returned. \u00a0That image of him appearing around the corner is still in my mind.<\/span><\/h2>\n

His passport shows he\u2019d been in the UK all the time (maybe grandma did see him). We found out he died at St Christopher\u2019s Hospice and had been there for 3 days.<\/span><\/h2>\n

If you wonder whether to \u2018just disappear\u2019 \u2013 don\u2019t. We can make up many stories about why my father did what he did, but stories they are. They are only projections of our mind, our own imagination. We\u2019ll never know what happened. It\u2019s been almost 40 years of pondering. For me, he did it because he didn\u2019t want to face the facts, know the truth, to see what was staring in front of him. But maybe I\u2019m wrong. I\u2019d love to know I\u2019m wrong but he\u2019s not here to ask.<\/span><\/h2>\n

In my early 20s, our GP wrote a letter of introduction to Cicely Saunders who founded the hospice. She was deeply Catholic. I spent 45\u00a0minutes with this extraordinary woman bawling my eyes out wanting answers. I felt she didn\u2019t see my skin and bones. She saw inside of me, the state of my soul, a person in immense pain. She was strong but not hard, warm but not cloying, humble but not self-effacing. We were separate people and she was entirely present to my pain. Meeting her changed my perception of what a person could be like. It was a different way of being in the world. I\u2019ve never met anyone else who had such strength of character and so much warmth and love. I have her photo on my shrine and hope one day to be like that.<\/span><\/h2>\n

I live in the UK these days. I got an email from mum on Thursday to say that Hazey\u2019s daughter had died. Our mothers were pregnant with us at the same time. Hazey was my godmother. Her daughter and I were 4\u00a0months apart. We were on potties together. We grew up together. We loved each other. Sadly, try as we might we had little in common as adults. We tried to connect but were mismatched. Even so, I thought we would meet again. We both just turned 50.<\/span><\/h2>\n

Those of us with a troubled heart take different paths. As an adult my friend fell into the pits of addiction. For me, addiction is a way of not seeing, not facing facts, not wanting to know the truth. She had been an alcoholic for decades and it appears that she tripped and knocked herself out on the cupboard (the autopsy will confirm the hypothesis though the circumstances mean that finding out for sure takes a month or so). It would take a bit to die from hitting your head on a cupboard so maybe she was drunk at the time? She was in and out of rehab. She crashed the car last weekend, inebriated.<\/span><\/h2>\n

My friend\u2019s death is a loss. Her brother and father are heartbroken. Her 11 and 13 year old daughters will live without a mother \u2013 just like me when dad died. Luckily, the girls were with the father when my friend was found. The only not terrible thing about the episode is that the police found her, not her family.<\/span><\/h2>\n

Photos and memories aren\u2019t the same. It\u2019s not enough. If you have symptoms, go to the doctor. If you\u2019re an addict do something about it. People love you and they want you alive. Even if you don\u2019t feel it or believe it, they do.<\/span><\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve never known what a life would be like without the shadow of death. It\u2019s difficult to understand why a career, education and long-term relationships are important. If death can happen at any time, why bother? People like me have poor outcomes across all the measures. Poor relationships, low education, low self-worth.<\/span><\/h2>\n

In therapy, I learnt Bowlby\u2019s attachment theory. It\u2019s not the Buddhist notion of attachment \u2013 the emotional hook that reveals itself when things don\u2019t go your way. For Bowlby, attaching is where a child learns that relying on others is possible because someone can comfort in times of stress.<\/span><\/h2>\n

With so many deaths early on, there was no reliable source of comfort. When love is so seldom received, it leaves the door open for others to take advantage \u2013 some attention is better than none. And there\u2019s no hope to learn to depend on others. Sometimes someone was there, sometimes not. Even if either of my parents were physically available, emotionally it was blank. This push-pull availability meant I learnt to connect to others with ambivalence. I don\u2019t function well in relationships. Early on I understood that people come and go. I\u2019m a woman and women are supposed to be good at relationships but I\u2019m no good at reading people. My intimate relationships and friendships don\u2019t last and my family relationships were strained until I met the dharma. I found it difficult to make friends at school and as an adult I always have problems with bosses and colleagues. I don\u2019t have a career. Why bother with anything if it can end at any moment?<\/span><\/h2>\n

The good bit is that recently I found purpose in the dharma (in truth I\u2019m a bit of a desperado). I meditate, practice, be with my feelings as much as possible. I wonder what bardo<\/em> means \u2013 I really wonder. Each morning I recite The 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva<\/em>. I try to apply these practical verses to daily life. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. In any case I never want to be like my father or friend. I never want to not face the facts. I never want to not see the truth. I start my sit by asking What am I not seeing? <\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

So what\u2019s the truth? Although I try to face facts and try to hear the truth, I don\u2019t. It\u2019s clear. What I\u2019ve come to understand from writing this piece is this \u2013 what I thought was death isn\u2019t death. Turns out, when it comes to death I\u2019m an outsider looking in. It\u2019s not death I know. It\u2019s grief.<\/span><\/h2>\n
\n
\n

About the author Wendy Nash.
\n<\/i>Wendy is Australian and has been living in Oxford, UK, for the past 3 years. She has been following Buddhism since 2003, took refuge with the Buddha in 2008 and in 2014 realised that although she had everything she wanted (good relationships, health and job) she was still unhappy \u2013 that\u2019s when her practice really came into its own. She has been dedicated to the White Tara group in Oxford since 2015.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

She thinks that life is better with a vase of flowers nearby and mugs of teapot tea.\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We Buddhists talk about death a lot. For me, that\u2019s the main attraction \u2013 there\u2019s no shying away from the truth in Buddhism. I\u2019ve always known death. I\u2019ve always said that Life is death and death is life. When I was 14 months old, my sister was born terminally ill and died 18 months later. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[162,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-personal-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLIFE AND DEATH - Many Roads<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Albert\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"13 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Albert\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#\/schema\/person\/d65113da84d62fbc945e6ee35f823e2a\"},\"headline\":\"LIFE AND DEATH\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-06-01T10:58:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-08-30T09:03:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/\"},\"wordCount\":2556,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/files\/2017\/05\/lotus.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Articles\",\"Personal Stories\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/\",\"name\":\"LIFE AND DEATH - Many Roads\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/files\/2017\/05\/lotus.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-06-01T10:58:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-08-30T09:03:47+00:00\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/d2wipdjmobk1g8.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/22152403\/lotus.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/d2wipdjmobk1g8.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/22152403\/lotus.jpg\",\"width\":275,\"height\":183},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/\",\"name\":\"Many Roads\",\"description\":\"Bodhicharya's e-magazine\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Many Roads\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/d2wipdjmobk1g8.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/22152403\/LOGO.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/d2wipdjmobk1g8.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/22152403\/LOGO.png\",\"width\":506,\"height\":136,\"caption\":\"Many Roads\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#\/schema\/person\/d65113da84d62fbc945e6ee35f823e2a\",\"name\":\"Albert\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/74f46c48e5feb0182fa876f0c8f77833248d3054dfa77047ad6712e9c0dfa9c2?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/74f46c48e5feb0182fa876f0c8f77833248d3054dfa77047ad6712e9c0dfa9c2?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Albert\"},\"description\":\"Came to Buddhism through Judaism, Hinduism atheism and a few other isms. Currently \\\"recovering\\\" from culture shock from having re-entered the UK after travelling for the past year in various countries. Now spending most of my time raising funds for destitute children in the northern part of Nepal - Helambu region - and editing Many Roads for the Bodhicharya website.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/blowthegaff.blogspot.co.uk\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/author\/avrom108\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"LIFE AND DEATH - Many Roads","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Albert","Est. reading time":"13 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/"},"author":{"name":"Albert","@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#\/schema\/person\/d65113da84d62fbc945e6ee35f823e2a"},"headline":"LIFE AND DEATH","datePublished":"2017-06-01T10:58:14+00:00","dateModified":"2017-08-30T09:03:47+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/"},"wordCount":2556,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/files\/2017\/05\/lotus.jpg","articleSection":["Articles","Personal Stories"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/","url":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/","name":"LIFE AND DEATH - Many Roads","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/files\/2017\/05\/lotus.jpg","datePublished":"2017-06-01T10:58:14+00:00","dateModified":"2017-08-30T09:03:47+00:00","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/life-and-death\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/d2wipdjmobk1g8.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/22152403\/lotus.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/d2wipdjmobk1g8.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/22152403\/lotus.jpg","width":275,"height":183},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#website","url":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/","name":"Many Roads","description":"Bodhicharya's e-magazine","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#organization","name":"Many Roads","url":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/d2wipdjmobk1g8.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/22152403\/LOGO.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/d2wipdjmobk1g8.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/22152403\/LOGO.png","width":506,"height":136,"caption":"Many Roads"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#\/schema\/person\/d65113da84d62fbc945e6ee35f823e2a","name":"Albert","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/74f46c48e5feb0182fa876f0c8f77833248d3054dfa77047ad6712e9c0dfa9c2?s=96&d=blank&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/74f46c48e5feb0182fa876f0c8f77833248d3054dfa77047ad6712e9c0dfa9c2?s=96&d=blank&r=g","caption":"Albert"},"description":"Came to Buddhism through Judaism, Hinduism atheism and a few other isms. Currently \"recovering\" from culture shock from having re-entered the UK after travelling for the past year in various countries. Now spending most of my time raising funds for destitute children in the northern part of Nepal - Helambu region - and editing Many Roads for the Bodhicharya website.","sameAs":["http:\/\/blowthegaff.blogspot.co.uk"],"url":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/author\/avrom108\/"}]}},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"shareaholic-thumbnail":false,"gform-image-choice-sm":false,"gform-image-choice-md":false,"gform-image-choice-lg":false,"mailchimp":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Albert","author_link":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/author\/avrom108\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"We Buddhists talk about death a lot. For me, that\u2019s the main attraction \u2013 there\u2019s no shying away from the truth in Buddhism. I\u2019ve always known death. I\u2019ve always said that Life is death and death is life. When I was 14 months old, my sister was born terminally ill and died 18 months later.…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}