Gelong Thubten

I think we need to recognize how much we're conditioned to deny the facts of life and death

You know, we're so conditioned to have this weird sort of fantasy of immortality.

Yes.

I mean, intellectually we know everybody dies, but we don't know that emotionally.

So we're so shocked when it happens.

And we use, even in our language, we use expressions

Like, if I die, as if there are options.

The fact we can say, if I die, really does suggest that there's a part of us that thinks, well, you know, there's a side door.

Yeah, yeah.

They say they passed away.

We are frightened of death.

We are.

Understandably, of course, but I think it's worse than it needs to be, our fear of death, because of the denial.

So one of the major things in Buddhist practice is to actually sit with death as a meditation, to actually meditate on impermanence.

to think about, to sit and think about how everything is impermanent.

This body is impermanent.

We're all going to die.

Now, the phrase, we're all going to die, does that mean we have to be depressed about it?

Or could we actually use that knowledge to live better lives, knowing that time is fleeting and knowing that death comes at any time?

Could that make us more