That distant drum

Is the essence of our being tied up in the rhythmic beat of our breathing, and  the rise and fall of our chest, symbolically an indicator that we are still alive. As we breath we  continue and whilst we do so it gives us the opportunity to contemplate our existence. It allows us to differentiate ourselves from what is happening around us, to in essence disconnect and form a unique opinion about ourselves and the meaning of our lives. 

We are not connected other than as observers with the events around us. Our influence is limited to an historical reference of what happened in a similar situation last time with no surety that it will be repeated. As for the future it is beyond our knowing and whilst we may make provisional plans to do something in the future we have no surety that we will be in a situation to do what we thought we would do.
Left with "the now" and interrogating our-selves with ritualistic subpoenas to reveal our essence, the simple structure on which we base our lives, the under laying urges which govern our survival, the characteristic subset of rules which make our inter relationship with everything around us permissible, the challenge of our impermanence. All these issues are a challenge to someone who asks the question "why".

The drama of the religious performance, the distinctive clothing, the symbols,  the need to evoke a monotheistic God to take care of things like death for which we are inherently vulnerable, not only in having it as a final destination but that in the finality of the event it clouds the reason for not being an anarchist, for not being all the things we plead of others in our desire for a good society.

The essence of our lives should be goodness. It should come from a revelation that we are both special and ordinary, in our understanding that breaking down our protective  layers, like an onion until we discover the core of who we are. Why goodness and not selfishness or avarice, why not the ugly side of what we call "nature". It simply has to do with "preservation", a willingness to accept that your best interests are favoured by being good towards others. This can only follow from the logic inherent in all of us, that we desire as a principle emotion, peace and goodwill.
Of course if it's "life's agenda" to prepare for death then the Buddhist tradition has the profile. Many of the rituals and much of the terminology was gestated in a period long gone and developed in a culture much different from our own. The symbolism and the mental discipline comes from a time when certain individuals took off to practice asceticism, to find answers in self flagellation, a principle common in many faiths. Man is worthless compared to the glory of god and therefore I must atone by suffering.

Removing ones self from society and reducing ones worldly goods to an absolute minimum, containing ones desires and limiting the amount you eat and drink as a function of proving yourself to be without need makes the belief in a ritualistic search for nirvana, such a disconnect from our comfortable lives that not many truly embark on the journey. The ones who have are seen as elevated, where their every word is grasped as special. The hushed utterance, the poignant pause the almost hypnotic mystical swaying of the upper body is unworldly as it is meant to be since, unlike Christianity this is no coming together but the opposite, it's a refinement of oneself to the nth degree.

I wish I had the discipline and the strength to begin but I am too frail, too full of my own importance to engrossed in things, for me to give up my own search, outside myself.

Never the less I find it fascinating to see people who have attained such self awareness, such discipline, such confidence in their rational, such surety in what they have discovered, such a positive position on that all too chilling contemplation, our own death