Q5-19990616-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_8-43040 Leandra Tejedor

Talk: 19990616-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_8-43040 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 01:21:01 Display_question: What is the difference between the idea of death and the reality of death? Keyword_search: fear, death, ego, psychological time, Cambridge, vipassana, acceptance, Buddha, Buddhadharma, Woody Allen, peace Question_content: Questioner (inaudible) Earlier you talked about…you spoke about the distinction between the fear of the idea of death rather than the fact of dying. Larry: Yes. Questioner (inaudible) That is so powerful. Larry: Often it is, yes. Questioner (inaudible)What is the difference between the idea of death, and the reality of death. Larry: I understand. No, it's not looking at it objectively. Okay. Let's say this practice can be done by anyone, at any age. Let's say you're 25 years old, and in very good health, and you're precocious, and you realize you want to take this on. It's not just for old fogeys, this practice. And you suddenly realize a fear of death. But when you look closely, and investigate, what you see is, the mind has invented an end to that, which is known as me, which will come in the future sometime, because you're in good health, you're safe, warm, well, nourished etc. There's no…okay, so in that sense, you're not dying. In a profound way, we all are dying, from moment, to moment, and we don't know when the end could come, in a second. Break_line: Contrast that to, let's say, my mother, where you were right. It'll be a moment just like this, you know, that you and I are sharing, all of us, where you'll be breathing. There'll be some degree of cognizance. There'll be a temperature. There'll be perhaps people, or no people. The body will feel a certain way. In other words, it will be a real event, that doctors will say, you are dying. Your vital sign. Do you see the difference? Then what you're looking at is, you're much closer, although in a profound way, you're always dying for a moment. And you could die at any moment. Break_line: But a lot of the time, the fear of dying is an unexamined understanding, that the ego is created a sense of time, psychological time, and the obliteration of it. And it's terrifying to it. A world where it doesn't exist anymore. How could Cambridge exist, without Larry walking into the square? Well, it can exist, and it will exist. Do you see what I'm getting at? Now in the moment, let's say, in this practice. Are you a practitioner, sir? Do you do some kind of meditation practice? It's not... I'm not the truant officer. I just need to know how to talk. Do you have a sitting meditation practice? Questioner: No. Larry: Okay. It still could be a yes. It's fine. In Vipassana, I'll limit it to this particular tradition, but it's true, actually in all the Buddhist teaching, there's a tradition of dying consciously. Sometimes some of it may not be true. It may be romanticized of, let's say, great yogis and meditators, dying in the meditative posture, wanting to go out in the saddle, if you know what I mean. Not to die confused, and bewildered, and in denial, and all the rest of it. You see, the logic of everything that's been said here is quite different, than the logic that influences, let's say, much of the world today. Woody Allen said it the best way. He said, it's not that I'm in one of his films. It's not that I'm afraid of dying. It's just that I don't want to be there when it happens. Break_line: Okay, from the point of view of Buddhadharma, I'll speak personally. I am afraid of dying, and I do want to be there when it happens. It's completely reversed. We're willing to experience the fear of death now, while we're not literally dying, in the sense in which I just conveyed it. So that perhaps we can shed that fear, and practice right to the end. You see, one of the kinds of great fruit that can come out of practice, is to die at peace, to die at ease, to have an easy death, to die in complete acceptance. But it's not an ideological, opinionated acceptance. It's truly, and genuinely, being at peace, with the fact that you've lived fully, and now that life is coming to an end. To practice right up until, and into your last breath. Do you see what I'm getting at? Now that would be practicing right into death. Questioner: Yes End_time: 01:25:51