ACCEPTING DEATH
A 23-year-old woman from Austria explained that her grandmother was old and sick. She asked how to help her grandmother as she came closer and closer to dying.
“The most important thing,” the Karmapa said, “is to accept death. As human beings, we are unrealistically selfish and want to defy nature. We want never to grow old and die. But once we are born, it is natural that we will die one day. If you do not accept this, it just brings more suffering. And anyway it will happen. It is much less troublesome if you accept it.
But we need training or exercise to help us accept death. There are lots of ways, and one is to consider one day as one whole life. When you wake up you can think that getting up from bed is like being born, and at the end of the day when you go to sleep is like dying. If you develop a habit of doing this, then you will naturally accept your final death, since you will know that it has been happening in a sense every day and you will know that it is not a final end. This is a way of training so that you do not have fear or worry about death. You can learn to see that it is just like going to sleep, and waking up to another life.”
~ 17th Gyalwang Karmapa
Photo: Germany, Sept 2015 – via Kamalashila Institut
Shared by Tarana Wesley
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