Letting Go of 'Me', Not Quite Yet

This morning, I yearned for more of an embodied connection with Ayya Khema, and watched these two short videos of her, on the topic of death, and no self, and wise living:

As I sat afterwards,  I could feel the familiar tightness in the body. Jaws, throat, chest, and stomach clenching in unison. And I contemplated Ayya Khema's teachings about the need to let go of 'me' idea, that which causes fundamental craving for existence, and chronic tension in the body. Her urging to "get down to the bottom of that" had not fallen on deaf ears. For now, all I could do was being with unpleasantness in the body, one breath at a time. 

This week, as I struggled with a cold, I got an inkling of what it must be like to be in a dying body, with little energy left to think, or want anything. Nothing else to do but letting go . . . The great challenge for all of us still blessed with the energy of full life, is to not wait until death to experience that relief. So simple in principle, and yet so difficult to achieve.