On Yom Kippur, we are told:
I have put before you blessing and curse. Choose life-so that you and your children may live!
I’ve been reflecting on what this means for me, as a Jew, as a Buddhist, but very much as a person who struggles on a daily basis with clinical depression and occasional suiciality. This phrase is NOT one I can utter lightly or undertake with any sort of facile means. For me, it is indeed fraught, and a vow I must take with most solemn intent.
A bit of personal history: I have more than one suicide in my background. This makes suicide as an option imminently real, as these were both past very close relationships. One was a partner; one was a best friend. I have another ATTEMPTED suicide that I talked down from the ledge. So this is not a theoretical exercise for me. I know what it means; the reverberations it sends throughout the lives it touches, as well the sheer physical mess it leaves to be cleaned up for the unfortunate chosen ones to find your remains. I’m not working on some romanticized ideal gotten from poetry books and bad movies. This knowledge has been one of the things keeping me from it-I didn’t want to inflict this damage on anyone else. I do take personal responsibility pretty seriously, yeah? But then when I’m fighting the suicidal voice, it is saying: “But YOU’LL be dead, what will you care?” That’s when being both a Jew AND a Buddhist kicks in (good for me and the rest of you) and replies: IT MATTERS! I have a responsibility to others b/c I am in community (as a Jew) and also I am acting in a fundamentally deluded manner that will have definite negative karmic results (as a Buddhist).
So how DO I choose life? I do so by attending services and thereby being in community. (Thank you to my good friend G.S. for enabling me to join TWO shuls in this brave new connected world!) I do so by deepening my Buddhist practice. (Thank you to the two wonderful sites I use online.) I have an excellent pdoc without whom I would flounder. A therapist would be nice, but at this point is cake, thanks to my less-than-helpful insurance coverage for such things. And of course I must mention the companionship of my whippet, Miss P. Her faithful and patient love has truly changed my life, and I will be forever grateful.
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