Cycle of life

Don't let your past
determine your future

Just as I was starting to write this article, a scene of life was given. Its truth may be questioned because it's a fiction but it gave me something to look deeper to understand the essence. The scene was in the form of movie. Late at night as I rested myself after long journey to my work place, I had this movie on TV. I didn't know the title of the movie yet. It's a Chinese martial movie. And the google finally helped me to find the title; it is The Reign_of_Assassins I recommend you to watch it to understand more about what I'm going to write.

Now, what does the story get to do with cycle of life?

The story could give us a glimpse of this cycle of life that happened to any of us. And the cycle of life is about life/death/life that happened to human being. If you think this is only happened to the reformed one you're wrong. This cycle happened to every one. The difference is those who said they never went through it or do not realize that sooner or later they have to go through it, will only realize when it is too late to prepare themselves. The cycle happened at the end of their life here in this world when they experience death and about to live in different realm. Now one who do not believe life after death, can question or doubt this. It is alright. I am not about to argue with them. However, of all the information, knowledge and experience I have up to now, I am convinced that it is true.

By Definition

To talk about the cycle of life, the cycle of life/death/life, we need to start from understanding the true state of death and life. Because it could be one may think that they're alive but in truth they're dead or one think someone is in the state of dead but in truth they're alive.

And why it has to be life/death/life to tell about the cycle of life? It is as mentioned in the Qur'an [22:66] " And He is the one who gave you life; then He causes you to die and then will [again] give you life. Indeed, mankind is ungrateful."

So what is alive?

I remember when I was in secondary school, I was told in biology class the definition and characteristic of living being. That if one does not show those character, it is considered dead. And the characteristics are the needs for air, water, sunlight and sustenance, the ability to adapt, to move, to regenerate. So anything that does not show such characteristics is considered dead or non-living being. But then as I grew up and learned Sufism, Taoism, Self Knowledge and my personal experience, I realize that there is another kind of definition to the state of being alive and dead.

The shadow of life
is dead

Because what I used to think as dead was turned to be alive. Like the universe, the air, the earth and the water. They are alive in their own unique way following the command of their Creator called sunnatullah and that they are allowed to respond to human being. It is a matter whether we understand their language or not. I had talked about this in the article Mastering the Elements of Life. I may write more about each elements in another article, insha Allah. And then to human being that I thought they're alive, the scripture and the saints considered them to be dead because they don't use their heart, mind and senses to understand the teaching of their Creator.

So we have the definition of dead and alive based on biological terminology and we have definition of dead and alive based on mysticism terminology. And the true state and definition of death and alive in mysticism isn't about the ability to breath or move. It is rather in the understanding thus their proximity to the essence of Life. And that is the one that is in accordance the holy scripture.

And what is dead?

Somehow I tried to get a picture to represent this definition. The face of dead or death had been described as ugly, scary, terrible, frightening and bad. Is this how we are taught about the state of dead? No wonder,  most people are afraid of dead. Never have they realized that dead is good, kind and merciful. Can you imagine a very old man being so sick, fragile, helpless and weak had to struggle to be alive just because there is no dead? Can you imagine this earth without death? how many people will occupy the space? Can you imagine our body where there is no cell ever been allowed to die from the beginning of our time here in this earth?

So what is our definition to dead that cause us so afraid to experience it? Wiki has its several definitions of dead and most of them seem negative. Here I'd like to point out about the kindness, the goodness, the merciful of dead to human being. In Islam, when we heard someone died or some disaster strikes, we are taught to say "inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rojiuun" which means "Indeed we belong to Allah , and indeed to Him we will return." [QS 2:156] It will be much better if the saying came from understanding thus followed by the action and the feeling.

And why do we have to say that? It is so that we can be among "Those are the ones upon whom are blessings from their Lord and mercy. And it is those who are the [rightly] guided." [QS 2:157]. Because in that vulnerable moment we know that we are nothing but creation and that by resting our trust to the Wisdom of Allah, our Lord, we will find our peace of mind and heart..Because knowing the cycle of life means we know that dead is but going out from one realm and entering another realm. And what makes dead so frightening to most people is because they don't (want to) know and aren't prepared to the other realm, they've been so busy with this world that forget about the other world they will visit after the end of their life here.

So, can we see the beautiful face of death as beautiful as autumn and winter? Just like we see the beautiful face of life as beautiful as spring and summer.

Ending the old

Ending the old is the threshold of the preceding life in the cycle of life. This can take place in any kind of situation. I will classify this ending in two states based on the causes. The first is deliberate ending based on our wish or consciousness or intention and the second is accidentally ended by something or someone else apart from us.

One can end the old deliberately by any reasons. And the reason is almost unlimited to the mind to find, from the look, the habit, the boredom, incompetence, insufficiency, impotence, dislike, disability etc. Just name it and it will be enough to end the old. When the mind have found reason good enough to justify the action to end something, so be it. And they pray and think hopefully it will be for good.

The accidental ending happened when outside circumstance is unavoidable. It has to end for some reason. And this circumstance so often is unwanted or unwished for. That's why it called accident. And the reason is justified as the fault or carelessness of something or someone or natural disaster, random action, destiny or divine's plan. Because it is beyond the control of the person who undergo the changing.

In the movie, feeling regret after killing Wisdom and to end her past, Drizzle got her face reformed, changed her name into Zeng Jing, moved to another town and started her new life by being a common woman instead of a sword woman. She had prepared herself so well that her new neighborhood and acquaintance wouldn't know her past. She even hid her skill that was in her blood for the sake of normalcy. So did Renfeng after being saved from assassination.

Here we know that ending the old requires preparation from physical to mental to feeling. And this preparation is important, so that the reason why the person must end the old can be fully accomplished. Especially if one has made up their mind that there should be no point of return. They want to change for good.

Both Zeng Jing and Jiang Ah-Sheng thought they had prepared their old selves to disappear from the world with their new identity. But something about life can't be fooled. It is their link and connection they had with their present that will affect their future. One can start their new life and cut themselves from their old one, but something by default is made in such a way that they won't be able to get rid of it. This default is called memory, karma, consciousness. One who disagree on karma may question it, but I will talk more about it in another part. Insha Allah.

So, people can make physical preparation to end the old, like change their look, their environment, their neighborhood, their appearance, their habit, their identity. But one thing that they particularly need to prepare is their heart and mind. Because someone or something may be fooled, but not their true selves. Internally they need to resolve their turmoil to get the most they ever expected. Either for the best or for the worst.

The threshold from bad to good in religious term is called atonement. Because atonement is about understanding the fault, feeling regret and having a strong will to mend the wrong to make it right. Atonement is part of enlightenment. It is. To the accidental ending, as long as people are given a second chance, they aren't called dead. They may be dead to the old but in their moment of death find the light that lead them to good thus they follow the light to live in the new. This three consecutive process is atonement. It is why atonement requires some understanding of divinity called wisdom to accept the change as divine's plan and be in peace with something they do not want or wish for. This is important. Because physical change may take place nicely, beautifully but as long as the heart and mind aren't in peace, outside they may change but the unresolved inner business will create some disturbance in future. Ending the old will not be a cut-clean process.

Starting the new

Starting the new also require some preparation. How contrast is the old and the new? It is very contrast. As different as the dead tree to a new sprout. As different as the old machine to the latest engine. As different as the orange autumn to the green spring. As different as the old (wo)man to the baby.

The different between old and new is as different as the feeling of Ah-Sheng after he found out about the true identity of his wife to the feeling he had when he agreed to marry her in her first proposal. When he knew her wife came home injured, he learned that she had trouble from kang-ouw (martial world)  people, that he had to defend her because of what he felt for her to the point that he revealed his true identity as a skillful man in sword. He never thought that the woman he married was the assassin who killed his family and left him down the bridge. But when he learned her past identity, the love become hate. He couldn't bear to see her face because his heart and memory weren't prepared to forgive her when he decided to change his original look.

The difference between old and new was also reflected to Zeng Jing. The way she reacted to something that annoyed her, had shown how different she was and how determined she was in trying to be a better person and leave her past. The old Drizzle would show her impatience and react by taking her sword and slaying the intruder that caused her to be annoyed. But the new Zeng Jing reacted differently. She restrained herself, trying to be patience in accepting the effort of the match maker in getting her a husband.

Having such difference, showed a contrast in the quality of the new to the old. It may easy to point out the difference when we are the witness of the changes, when we aren't the subject that undergo the changes. But it will be different when we are the subject or the object or the victim of the changes.

As I mentioned earlier of two states of mankind in the changes, it is then affecting the way they start the new. Those who make deliberate change may find it easier to start new. They have made up their mind for whatever reason they have. And if they are determined, they will accomplish their wish in their new state. But it will take harder to those who accidentally undergo the changes especially when the changes is from good to bad.

As the movie showed the contrast reasons between the two, Drizzle and Renfeng in changing their faces, these different reason then differentiate the way they reacted when they're facing the other's past life. Drizzle changed her face because she disliked it. It reminded her of her bad temper and attitude in the past and she wanted to change to prove her atonement. But Renfeng changed his face because he wanted to tell the world (or the assassin gang) that he was dead and if he ever had a chance, he wanted revenge. These difference then affected the way they reacted toward each other at the time of disclosure.

Zeng Jing accepted the situation better than Ah-Sheng. She knew that one day she had to face result of her past deed, her karma. But she may not expect it to be like that. And she had changed. She had lived her new life well and she also had put her past at rest. The skill may still be in her blood, but not the reason or feeling that drove her action. The old Drizzle was driven by anger but the new Zeng Jing was driven by love and clarity. And to fully absolve her present, she determined to end the final connection to her past, the gang that sent her for assassination assignment.

That is the effect of enlightenment. It gives reason and determination to end the dark past and start the new life. The action may be the same but the intention is certainly different. Thus it gives different result. Zeng Jing had done the killing in her new life, but because the intention was love and clarity, the result was then different. She had her peace as well as her husband back.

Being torn in between

There was a saying of prophet Muhammad SAW that described the experience of death. He SAW said that it was like a thorn being taken from a wet cotton. In this cycle of life, anyone who read this may think that they have never experienced death so they can't relate themselves to this life/death/life concept. I'm not about to argue with their opinion. Here, I want to point out to something else.

We in our life are going through struggles. No one exempt to that. The difference is in the forms of struggles we have to undergo. In that struggles they have to make choices between holding on or letting go, between remaining the same or changing, between staying or moving. And in the struggle something have to be given up and something have to come, something have to leave and something have to enter for the life to stay alive. Otherwise when something no longer come or enter, we called it dead. Do we realize that in that struggle we are undergoing this cycle of life? The death is when something have to be emptied, to be given up, to let go, to leave and the life is when something have to fill in, to be received, to come, to enter.

The very thing that causes the pain is when we hold on to something that should be emptied, to be given up, to leave and it can also be painful because this holding on has made something inside crowded, unbearable, overweight and narrow. Eventually the vessel will be broken, burst out, spill over, overflow and no longer it can hold what is to come, to be given. And what will happen? The functionality of the vessel is no longer there. This the truest death to anything and anyone.

Because life is about growing. And to be growing, those giving up and welcoming must happen. Our body knows this well. Our cells know this very well. But we don't know this?! Because we are so greedy in accumulating things so that we can have something we called as our possession, so that we can be called rich. Yet, the Most Riches of All is also the Most Generous of All. He is the Most Creative that He named Himself with His attribute The Creator.

There is a verse in Tao Te Ching to help us to avoid being torn between life and death.

16. Decay and Renewal

Empty the self completely; 
Embrace perfect peace. 
The world will rise and move; 
Watch it return to rest. 
All the flourishing things 
Will return to their source. 

This return is peaceful; 
It is the flow of nature, 
An eternal decay and renewal. 
Accepting this brings enlightenment,
Ignoring this brings misery. 

Who accepts nature's flow becomes all-cherishing; 
Being all-cherishing he becomes impartial; 
Being impartial he becomes magnanimous; 
Being magnanimous he becomes natural; 
Being natural he becomes one with the Way; 
Being one with the Way he becomes immortal: 
Though his body will decay, the Way will not.


It is an attitude to accept things that happen in our life as natural as we can be. Whether we like it or not, it will happen. Because it is not in our hand to decide what can come and what can't. Our freedom is to choose how we should respond, act and behave to those we dislike and those we like. To the ones we like we express our gratitude and to the ones we dislike we express our patience. And Zeng Jing had learned that well. In accepting her husband she expressed her gratitude because she loved him. But when her past that she disliked and had buried was uncovered, she accepted it with patience. So when she decided to end Wheel King with the possibility to be killed, she did it in peace and clarity. She wasn't torn in between.

Being whole

In the book of Opening the Dragon Gate, a biography of Taoist Master Wang Liping, there was a chapter of Practicing the Way, it was a chapter about him returning to life after death. In this chapter was written Song on Tapping the Lines by Lu Dongbin. The ending part of this Song was important to anyone who want to learn to be whole after going through spiritual death. It said:

If you attain the source of life
But miss the original essence
That is like trying to look at your face
Without having a mirror;
An ignorant with a life as long as heaven and earth,
You have no handle on use of the family treasure.
Twin cultivation of essence and life
Is most profound of all;
Enormous waves on the ocean floor
Carry the ship of truth.
When you catch the fierce dragon alive,
You'll know experts do not teach in vain.

Returning to life after death is a very profound experience. We see how those who returned to life after temporary death either called comma, near death experience or suspended life acted differently. This is because they experienced whatever they experienced in another realm. Some may feel like having a nightmare, some may feel it was very real, some may get disturbed and some may consider it just a dream.

Now let me ask you something: Do we remember how were we when we first entered this world? Can we recognize things? Can we talk? Can we walk? To us all they seemed new. Because there was a learning process that we had to undergo from the state of unable to be able. Learning to walk, learning to talk, learning to recognize and learning to read (not necessarily scripts). Just because we learned these doesn't mean that we weren't prepared sufficiently. The Creator had prepared us with instruction as a driving force to do that so that mankind can evolve, grow and survive. Innately we are given the ability to learn, to move and to apprehend.

So being whole in the new life requires two important things. As the song above said to attain the source of life and to cultivate the original essence. For me as a Muslim to cultivate the original essence is by practicing five times praying. You will understand more about this if you read my other article of praying in Family Protection and Mastering-elements-of-life. And to attain the source of life is by practicing Self Knowledge. Actually to attain the source of life can also be done by practicing tuma'ninah during the five times praying. But one may not realize it without Self Knowledge.

To do that well, one must have patience. Only believing or do good deeds or recommend one another of the Truth is insufficient. Most important aspect is patience. As Quran relate in surah Al Ashr "By time, Indeed, mankind is in loss, Except for those who have believed and done righteous deeds and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience." [QS 103: 1 - 3]. In the logical sentence, the use 'and' word is to say that each items mentioned take important role and must exist to fulfill the premises. And the truth of this statement of combining the patience in attaining the source of life and cultivate the original essence is as mentioned in another verse " And seek help through patience and prayer, and indeed, it is difficult except for the humbly submissive [to Allah ] " [QS 2: 45]

By time, Indeed, mankind is in loss,
Except for those who have believed and done righteous deeds
and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience."
[QS 103: 1 - 3]

So anyone may have done the other three but without the last fourth i.e. patience one will still be considered in loss. Because patience isn't about letting ourselves to bear the hardship but also letting ourselves to bear the enjoyment of this world. Patience in hardship is what most people know and experience but patience in enjoyment only a few understand thus practice it. This patience is to keep our consciousness toward the Source of Life and Original Essence. As the Quran said "Fighting has been enjoined upon you while it is hateful to you. But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah Knows, while you know not." [QS 2:216]

And in the story, Zeng Jing's process of being whole happened as the movie pictured out when she decided to start her new life. And this seemed natural. But for Zhang Renfeng, as the film shot was almost at the end of film, to me it was more like a fictional kind of martial arts where he was temporary frozen out without breathing using an elixir given by Zeng Jing. This is the part in which I meant at the beginning of this article by 'you can question its truth'. Maybe in reality there is that kind of elixir but I don't know. However, the whole aspect that I write here is based on experience and knowledge which essentially the same to the story.

So there it was Renfeng saw what his wife did to save him and paid off her past debt; Zeng Jing wholeheartedly fought Wheel King. I could understand her reason when she decided to do that. Because to her there was no other choice but to do that. To put to rest the demon that haunted her husband (the hatred and the revenge) that was connected to her past. Her death was what she expected as she had learned when Wisdom were killed by her own sword in showing her very own weakness. As Wisdom had sacrificed his life for her enlightenment, she too wished to sacrifice her life for her husband enlightenment. And he did get his enlightenment.

As written in the scenario, she was still alive when her husband found her. Returning to life after death in this world is about having a second chance. And given a second chance the ending was of course is a happy ending. They went home to start living in peace with each other as husband and wife and putting their past to rest.