Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not.
– Yoda
It’s not unusual for me to quote Yoda; after all, I have often joked that virtually everything I know about Jediism comes from something Yoda said in The Empire Strikes Back. It’s highly unusual, however, for me to quote Yoda from any of the prequels. But this is one of the few quotes we have from the fiction on the Jedi view of death.
By this time, though, nearly six movies in, we’ve seen that at least for some Jedi, death is not the end. It’s not a consistent ability, open to all; in fact, in the original trilogy, we see only three Force users become Force spirits, and one of them was arguably no longer a Jedi. The retroactive history of how the Jedi gained this ability only makes the inconsistency worse, especially when we see so many Jedi perish over the course of the prequels without becoming Force spirits.
But let me put the fiction aside. I don’t think any of us believe that our end will come in a peaceful fading of our physical body from existence, leaving our voice and consciousness behind. Rather, I read the quote from Yoda more in the context of how Alan Watts views life:
We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.”
So how does any of this line up with our IRL doctrine? Let’s look first at the Fifteenth Teaching, which I think contains the clearest view of the reading I alluded to above:
The Jedi realise that all phenomena, including that of life itself, arise from and dissolve back into the cycles of creation and renewal of the Force. We are aware of the interconnectedness and the continuum of all phenomena, that unconditional love and compassion are central to us, and that pain is real. When we must bear witness to the dissolution of those we care for in our and their limited, incarnated, organic capacity, we must extend our compassion, our faith, and our comprehension to re-balance that which we otherwise would feel as loss. The Force only creates and renews, it does not deprive.
The first sentence here is, I think, a neat summary of not only what Watts said, but what Yoda said as well; we come from the Force, and eventually we return to the Force. But it’s the third sentence on which I want to focus. We will all have to bear the loss of a loved one, and it’s possible you already have. The compassion this Teaching tells us we must extend, extends to ourselves as well; if it feels in the raw pain of new loss that we’re not handling our grief with the complete equanimity of a Jedi, we have to be able to cut ourselves some slack. Even today, as I’m writing this, I’m coming up on a year since my beloved black Lab returned to the Force, and I have to admit that despite the work I’ve done in meditation and contemplation to view the loss correctly, I still miss my dog sometimes. Yoda’s exhortation to “Mourn them do not. Miss them do not.” is aspirational at best, or at least at first. We will mourn, and we will miss people and beings that we love. We will grieve, even as we process our grief. What we won’t do is allow our grief to overwhelm us.
There are other Teachings that inform the Jedi view of death. The Second states that we stay in balance, in clarity, by practicing meditation. The Third tells us that through this clarity, we are able to perceive and adapt to cycles of creation and renewal. And the Fourth says that because we so perceive and adapt, we can practice “non-attachment, maintaining an awareness that the cycles of creati[on] and renewal in the Force give rise to phenomena as others pass away.” Again, this non-attachment may well be aspirational in the immediate face of loss.
There’s one more thing: if you are experiencing loss or grief, you need to know that you are not alone. Every member of the Clergy is ready to listen and try to help you process these feelings. Please don’t hesitate to reach out for help.
