I had a beheading dream—dreamt that my head had been severed, and not cleanly either. So I carefully aligned the jagged edges top to bottom, securing them loosely with a scarf. This was, of course, rather unstable—it kept slipping out of place and needing readjustment. Each time I realigned those ragged edges it hurt terribly, which made me irritable. Eventually I let my wife do it. She must have misaligned something, because the edges became a bloody mess, which made me so furious I slapped her like a Shandong man and told her to get lost—I had things to do.
I can't remember what happened after that. I think I was worried about dying. Dreams are strange that way—it wasn't fear of death, but worry about death, that restless feeling of having unfinished business, which then breeds doubt about life itself. With my head severed, surely this must be a dream? And just like that, I woke up.
This dream occupied my thoughts for days. I couldn't figure out what it meant. Most things in life carry some logic—sometimes you slap your thigh in sudden revelation—but when you can't figure it out, that's trouble. At middle age, one dares not leave things unknown, let alone something as momentous as a severed head.
Late at night, unable to sleep, I tried to think it through—all just platitudes, really. For instance, it's a metaphor: playing mahjong in a house on fire. The general idea being that death can arrive at any moment. Drowning in the cycle of life and death, muddling through in a daze, is like playing mahjong in a burning house—obsessing over wins and losses while forgetting the house is on fire. In other words, this was a message for me: draw close to the Dharma, seek liberation early. Is that it?
If we take this as literal—my head severed from my neck, reattached by my own hands along the jagged edges, still alive in this world but liable to die at any moment, since everyone knows a head pieced together like that won't hold—then what was I trying to do, walking around holding my neck? I couldn't quite decide, and it wasn't for lack of things to do, but because there were too many, none of them ready. That's the truly terrifying part.
A person can die at any moment, but one's subjective consciousness may not be able to accept this. Once dead, there's nothing anyone can do. But if one subjectively feels one is not in a state where dying is acceptable—this is probably not conducive to liberation.
To be ready to die at any moment—for those of us who have invested too much in this world—probably means having said what needed to be said, done what needed to be done. This requires the utmost diligence, thorough clarity, and perhaps one can barely approach it. There's also the matter of doing things as soon as they come to mind. From primary school to university, teachers droned on endlessly about "finish today's work today." The principle itself isn't wrong—the error lies in motivation. Can you die from not doing today's homework? Probably. But not having left a few words for your daughter—that won't do.
If I were to say something to my daughter, it would be this: first, try to live according to the wholesome ways of the world; second, believe that you are unique in this world—unique among all beings who are otherwise equal.