What is real and what is unreal?

I used to say there is nothing more real than birth and death.
I stand by that.

Giving birth is a miracle, each of my 5 times, a time stopping experience. Even though the miracle actually starts 9 months beforehand.

Time just seems to stop. There is nothing else but the process in the body. Well, maybe other people’s voices too but they were in the distance and not real. And, as painful as the experience is, there is no way out but in. Well, in terms of feeling the pain, that is. To be felt as part of the experience and as part of the result.

What was real, was the transition from all the movements and aches/pains of my body to having a baby in my arms. A real live baby. A miniature human being. Not only that, but it grew inside my body and now was totally dependent on me. Oh, the responsibility. But it wasn’t heavy responsibility, because I was in love.

Being present at a death – 3 times (as I held my 4 week old baby, my mother, my ex-husband) – as well as seeing someone soon after (my mother-in-law) – brings up the realization that we are not our body.

It was so obvious that the body was just a body – empty of life. Just nothing real there. Yet the experience was real. No amount of thinking could change the situation. No control in sight.

So, is anything in between real?

Are our thoughts real? They keep on changing! So they can’t be real. Where do they come from? Are they just a result of physical neurons firing in the brain?

Are our emotions real? They also keep on changing! So they can’t be real either.

Body sensations change continuously, the body changes. There is something unfathomable about the body – it is a miracle in itself. The way it performs and coordinates all its functions independently of the mind.

So what is real? In between being born and dying?

Maybe there is something to be discovered. The essence of who we are.

Maybe that is real.