Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

Search Sangha Live

Illness, death, urgency and love.

With Gregory Kramer recorded on February 5, 2017.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

Yes, the Buddha repeatedly recommended that each of us contemplate our own aging, illness and death. But what gap do you feel between an abstract contemplation and the actuality of this fragile and limited life? With death rolling in like a mountain, quickly and from all sides, do you feel any samvega, or sense of spiritual urgency? Finally, are you alone in all of this? Could you truly and effectively engage this path, this fragile life, alone? And if you are engaging with others—which is taking refuge in the sangha, ordained and lay—does your spiritual urgency support the blossoming of love as an integral part of wisdom?

For a powerful reflection on aging, illness and death, Greg suggests you might read the Pabbatopama Sutta: The Simile of the Mountains. It can be found at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn03/sn03.025.than.html

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of March 20 – 24, 2023

    This week’s topic is “The Art of Embodied Listening”. This week is an invitation to explore the skill of true, deep and embodied listening. Living in a culture where people are mainly self-focused, wanting to express themselves, we can look into our capacity to listen. Rather than talking to ourselves we can learn listening with our whole body to others, ourselves and to silence in which all phenomena arises. Creating space to express, really tuning into “what’s going on here?“ enables our stress, worries, fear and insecurities to be unveiled and liberated and is a powerful tool for cultivating insights.

    Read More

  • Sophie Boyer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Sophie Boyer – Week of March 27, 2022

    This week’s topic is “Movement in Stillness”. The flow of life is unpredictable, and its instability and the changes it presents often throw us off balance. The Buddha suggests adopting an approach where beauty and freedom can emerge at the center of this “movement in stillness.” Throughout this week, we will explore the challenges that arise when facing the realities of birth, life, and death, and how open, stable attention and clear perception can support a deeper understanding of the natural flow of all things.

    Read More

  • Norman Blair

    Settling Into Your Body In Meditation

    Recorded : December 8, 2024

    Finding a comfortable body posture when meditating is a crucial element in our practice. We can use our bodies as a way of experiencing change and impermanence. In this session, we will be looking at ways to make our bodies comfortable for meditation – both standing (if appropriate for your body) and sitting. We will…

    Read More

  • James Baraz

    Insight and practices for difficult times

    Recorded : February 4, 2018

    We are in a race between fear and consciousness. Never before have forces of greed hatred and ignorance enjoyed such a platform of populist divisiveness that instills fear and separation throughout society, endangering our very civilization. And never before has there been as much caring and worldwide commitment to making this a better world. In…

    Read More

  • chris crotty

    Confidence in the Dhamma, Confidence in Yourself

    Recorded : March 24, 2019

    As we attune to the truth of impermanence (anicca) the very preciousness of life itself begins to penetrate our awareness: the flowers will not last forever, our dear friends will come and go, those we love will grow old. Even how we chop our vegetables matters if we wan’t to be touched by the the…

    Read More

  • Ronya Banks

    You Are NOT Doomed: Breaking & Replacing Old Patterns

    Recorded : March 26, 2023

    You may have noticed that sometimes breaking old patterns is hard to do! But thanks to surviving ancient Buddhist teachings, we are NOT doomed to being stuck in the rut of the same old painful behavioral and cognitive patterns, and we can create new helpful patterns. This talk explores the nature of the conditioned mind…

    Read More