Content Overview
This section has the following pages:
Meditation and Awareness Practice
Human Life Expectancy Is Uncertain.
A graveyard is a wonderful place to practice contemplation, especially an old one. Just walk around and look at the headstones and see at what age people died. But sometimes an old graveyard gives us a false sense of security; we think that since the discovery of antibiotics and of various vaccines, because of all of our recent medical advances, things have changed. They have; the average life expectancy is longer. But people still die at all ages. Just read your newspaper. Watch CNN. Talk to your neighbors. You’ll hear all kinds of stories.
This contemplation really just reflects the law of impermanence. A corollary of that law is that change happens in unexpected ways. It would be one thing if all phenomena changed predictably. It might still be difficult, but at least it would have a pattern.
But the truth is that life can snatch the rug out from under us. The floor can cave in. So can the roof. And we never know when such an event might happen.
It isn’t just death that is uncertain but also life. We all want permanent things: a permanent partner, a permanent job, a permanent family, house, income, group of friends, place to practice meditation. Permanently good weather. We do everything we can to assure permanence in all of these areas; we spend all of our time trying to assure ourselves, and it never works.
Nothing is permanent. We would spend our time much more wisely by contemplating and absorbing the law of impermanence rather than trying to repeal it. If we could learn to live with it, our lives would be much different.
(Larry Rosenberg, “The Third Messenger: Death Is Unavoidable” in Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End-of-Life Care.)