Staging

So, apparently I leave from Pensacola on March 1st at 6:00 AM. I connect in Charlotte then complete my flight to Philadelphia, where staging takes place. We then leave for Casablanca on March 2nd, and that is where the fun truly begins. One of my final documents that I need to have witnesses to sign is the designation of beneficiary form. Details aside, I need to make sure that I am taken care of should anything happen to me while I am overseas. There's enough to bring me back and have a natural burial.

Make no mistakes - I am Buddhist. For anyone to present me as anything else would be disrespectful, not to me, but to yourselves as well. It is my belief in the Noble Truths that has led me to this point in my life. The Truth is that there IS suffering in this world. The Truth is that the CAUSE of this suffering is ATTACHMENT. The Truth is that there IS a way to ALLEVIATE that suffering. The Truth is that THE WAY to ALLEVIATE that suffering is through the EIGHTFOLD PATH. This is the basis of what I believe, for it requires no blind faith nor devotion, but observation and reason.

I am writing this not to be beligerant, I just want to make sure that any services held in my name are true to who I was in life. I am also writing because I need to show that if anything were to happen, that I am not frightened of death. In fact. there is a practice where one prepares one's consciousness for the arrival of death, called Phowa. If I am caused to leave this world, make no mistakes that it will not come as a surprise. I actually think that the exercise if a good way to train your mind to become more humble.

Everyone dies. A lot of people my age do not wish to face that fact. A lot of people my age are healthy individuals just starting their careers, their families, their lives, so why think of something like death? Well, look at it this way; just as I have to prepare for staging to get to Philadelphia and then to Casablanca, so, too, do I have to prepare for staging out of this plane of existence and into the next. Just as if I have no itinerary to get to staging for Peace Corps that I will not know what to do or where to go, so, too, if I do not prepare myself for death, I will not know what to do or where to go when the time for that comes.