Immortality

A couple of days ago a friend of mine told me that her mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. Life immediately became highly focused for her, important decisions have to be made, such as choosing the best treatment options, moments becoming more precious, like taking the dreamed trip, time, or living, got a new meaning.

A stream of thought surfaced in my mind: about Si Kit, an old friend of mine who was diagnosed with lung cancer a few years ago, shortly after his retirement from the math department of the University of Hong Kong, after teaching the stuff in various educational institutes for the better part of his life. For some reasons unknown to me, his siblings had lost touch with him for decades. In his funeral ceremony at the funeral parlor, his younger sister, a Christian, told us that she stumbled into his second elder brother shortly before his cancer diagnosis. She took care of him during the last phase of his life...'I came to understand my brother much more during this short period, God brought him back to me.'

I had not heard from Si Kit for many years. The reason I came into the picture was because I gawve him a few instructions on chi kung after he was diagnosed with cancer. I was therefore included into his list of buddies, to whom he sometimes opened his inner self, which was very infrequent, if not non existent, in his younger age. I was so inspired by one that I included the gist of which into a blog post (In memory of my friend Si Kit)

What is the meaning of life? Traditional Chinese culture put a high value on longevity. Taoist sages wrote about the mythical practice of Immortality, in the classic Neidan texts. Perhaps what the sages really meant was not seeking a repetition of boring and meaningless patterns indefinitely. Rather they might mean seeking the true value of meaning in every moment in life. Immortality at every point of singularity.