[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: Death Is Real

[Carolyn Gimian]

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

June 25, 2008

DEATH IS REAL

Student: What should we try to communicate to a dying person?

Chogyam Trungpa: You see, death is a very real experience. Usually, 
we do not connect with a sense of reality. If we have an accident -- 
or whatever happens in our lives -- we do not regard it as a real 
experience, even though it may hurt us. It is real to us as far as 
pain and physical damages are concerned, but still it's not real for 
us because we immediately look at it in terms of how it could be 
otherwise. There's always the idea of first aid or some other 
redeeming aspect of the situation. If you are talking to a dying 
friend or relative, you should transmit the idea that death is a real 
experience, rather than that it's just a joke and the person could 
get better. Often people tell the dying person things like, "Life is 
really a joke altogether. The great saints say it's not real. Life is 
unreal. What is death, anyway?" When we try to take this kind of 
approach, we become jumpy ourselves, and that jumpiness is what we 
end up communicating to the dying person. We should help them to 
understand that death is real.

 From "Death and the Sense of Experience," in CRAZY WISDOM, page 138.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used 
by permission.

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Carolyn Rose Gimian

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week: teachings by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Taken from works published by Shambhala Publications,  the Archive of 
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