The Best Letter I Never Received: Mark Sweet

This letter was commissioned by Verb for Verb Festival’s showcase event on Friday 6 November 2020 at National Library of New Zealand.

My dear son,

I know you were trying to humour me, as I lay dying, when you asked me to find a way to communicate from the other side. 

You joked, ‘Be the first,’ you said, ‘It will make us famous,’ you said.  And I remember thinking, ‘fat chance - ashes to ashes - dust to dust,’ after all I’d seen in 90 years, there wasn’t much evidence of a God, let alone an after life.

Well, my son, I was so wrong. There is another side and it is so wondrous, I barely have the words.

Remember when the tipuna came the day before my body died? 

I’m sorry I had no words for you, son, sitting beside me, holding my hand. I know it upset you that I talked only to them, but you see, I was already on my way, and old language was as dead for me as my body was about to be.

The Tipuna guided me to a portal - maybe The Pearly Gates?

Next.

I saw the beginning of time, when an electron far far tinier than a pin prick, exploded, and in the blink of an eye, the Universe was born.

I have heard the groaning of bedrock forced apart as continents found their way.

I have smelt sweet acrid fire and brimstone. 

I have tasted the juice of life’s first milk. 

And on my journey, I witnessed every tipuna, in every generation, spanning back to a valley in Africa, and before that, I saw how life evolved from a single cell. 

Yes son, I met the common tipuna of all living things. It was a microbe.

It is a mystery, my son, that we must die to know who we truly are, to know that within us, is everything that has ever been from the beginning of time.

Dinosaurs roam in the depths of our minds, dolphins swim in our veins, and great flocks of birds roost behind our eyes.

Son, human beings are Gods concealed from themselves, blinded by emotional cataracts clouding the vision of who we truly are, the inheritors, and kaitiaki, of everything there has ever been.

Think how the emotion of greed can shrivel a life where there is never enough, and how anger sours the sweetness that should be. Both are bound in ego, the illusion that we are separate and individual - the me and the mine  - instead of - we and ours - which is where generosity and kindness flourish.

Greed and anger poison the soul of mankind, whereas generosity and kindness nourish the spirits of all they touch.

But you know all this son. You told me Buddha was your guide in life and non attachment the goal.

I know you struggle with this - especially when it comes to love.

Remembering this about you, son, on my journey, I joined Buddha on the road to Vasali.  Walking through a village an angry young man abused him, saying he was a fake, manipulating people to worship him. Buddha smiled and kept on walking, which angered the man even more. He was red with rage and insults flew. Buddha’s reaction was silence and a smile. After the man stomped off in a huff, someone asked him, ‘Why didn’t you reply to that rude man?’

And Buddha said, ‘He offered me a gift, which I refused to accept, so the gift stays with him.’

Later I asked a fellow follower to elaborate, and she said Buddha had told them when a person was rude to you, they revealed who they are, not who you are, and silence was the best reply.

When it came my chance to ask a question, I asked for you son, I asked the Buddha, ‘What is  love?’ And he replied, ‘Love is an attitude requiring practice.’ He smiled and invited us to join him in meditation.

What do you make of that son? 

If love is an attitude it can’t be an emotion. Perhaps that is why - it is not death humans most fear - it is love. 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

In considering, it might help you to know, I have clearly seen that, as every atom, molecule, cell and tissue, is composed of energy, so too are our thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and emotions. All are forms of energy.

And if, as a wise man said, energy is neither created nor destroyed, then every thought, word, and deed, lasts forever, in one form or another.

There is so much to discuss, my son, but I know you will want to hear about what it’s like for me now.

Well, when I say, I have tasted, and heard, and seen, it is not as it was before, because there is no me, anymore, no body, no mind.

I am now pure consciousness, a spark in a collective fire as vast as the Universe itself.

And, my son, you will want to know how this email letter is possible. Well, apparently it was not planned that evolution give the dead a voice. 

It’s something to do with 5G, encryption, and connection to a cloud.

Son, you have my full blessing to tell world and make us famous.

I look forward to hearing from you soon,

Arohanui 

Mama