Life is an Awakening

Experiencing Life of the Comma

When you are questioned about the relevance of the 'Full Stop' to life, you will most probably answer in line with its function as a punctuation mark used to indicate the end of a sentence therefore it can symbolize the complete cessation of life. Simply as death but is death the complete cessation of life? What if death has been misunderstood as a full stop all this time? Let us inquire about it at another time. Nevertheless, you will certainly agree with me if I state that life is what defines death. Defines everything that will be followed in death. 

Diverting your mind from the complexities of life and death, made still by the effect of a full stop, what would a 'Comma' mean to you? About its functions, you will simply identify it as a pause in reading and speaking by separating parts of a sentence, a break to breathe, a break to make sense of what is read or written, and a sigh of relief! from a hasty sentence? Accordingly, you will apply the grammatical purpose of the comma in language to the grammar of life. People will undoubtedly relate a comma to life as a break, a blissful break, and leisure from the competitive busy affairs of the world. A solitary seclusion with oneself, the divine? A break to reincarnate with oneself, to reprogramme and to become conscious of one's self. To become aware of life's possibilities, to rejoice in the reality that you are breathing, to come to know that it is the basic but fundamental element of breath that makes life of all possibilities. 

Hence, a Comma is a time to breathe, a break to breathe, but does it mean that you've not been breathing all your life? Isn't it what made life possible? If so, doesn't it sound absurd to say that you need a break in your life? Doesn't that mean to say that you need a break from breathing? Which accounts to death! Isn't it meaningless and worthless to believe and act according to the idea of needing a break at a break? To look forward to the weekend for a break? LIFE is a BREAK, isn't it? 

Then the question arises, why aren't your life a brief pause? a break to breathe and breathe only? to find meaning in breath? To feel grateful and content with the primary and essential act of life? 

When God, the life forces of creation according to biblical references, breathed the divine forces of life into humans, why do we fail to see the divinity (Genesis 2:7)? Isn't it what became the central practice in achieving liberation according to the teachings of Lord Buddha? To be conscious of the breath is the stepping stone to liberation (MN 118 Anapanasati Sutta). To be ungrateful of the breath is being ungrateful to life. To be unaware of the breath is to be unaware of life itself.

It is for that reason we need to give back life to the Comma of life. Not a comma to life but life to the comma. Life of the Comma. It is my experience with the life of the comma that I intend to share with you all as a reminder to breath in this brief period of life that is only a comma.

- LIFE TO A COMMA-

 කොමාවට ජීවිතයක්