We can apply this attitude to all our interactions—whatever we encounter is also experiencing birth and death. From the point of view of sentient beings, the interim between birth and death that we call life, is our meaning of ‘no birth and no death. ‘ Birth and death permeate everything we are and do; therefore, for us they exist. When we are enlightened, there is no birth and no death. Enlightenment takes the expansive view, both temporally and spatially. Temporally, all phenomena arise and perish ceaselessly. If everything is forever rising and falling, can we ever say something is here or gone? Spatially up close, things may appear to come and go, but from a great distance--another galaxy, for instance--do they really go anywhere? A basic principle of physics states that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.

I told the woman whose son had died that the reality is that she had a son, and now he is gone. Her memories of him persist, but he is somewhere else. He may now even be someone else’s child. It would make things easier for her if she considered him her ex-son and move on. She said that it would be very difficult to think along that line. I told her she should nevertheless cultivate it as a method of practice.

As sentient beings, anything we encounter can generate feeling and emotion, repulsion or attachment. It is also difficult not to be swayed by relationships. A man told me his wife did not want children for fear of being overly attached to them. When her pet dog died, she grieved for a long time. When her visiting niece returned home after three months, she continued to miss the little girl. She said if she could grow so attached to a pet and a niece, how much more attached would she be to her own children! Indeed, it is difficult for ordinary sentient beings to maintain a mentality of no birth and no death, of accepting what life gives and takes away, without regret or remorse. Studying the Heart Sutra and putting its ideas to practice can help.