In this episode of the Death Dhamma podcast, we follow Mary Carol as she grapples with being ill and her assumptions around what impermanence means versus what impermanence REALLY means. Mary Carol might not be too different than the rest of us.
For now, your host, Margaret Meloni, is happy to share with you some of her reflections from conversations with our season 2 teachers. She is reminded that impermanence is not easy for any of us, we are all grieving something, and our approaches to handling it all are very similar. You might agree with her observations, or you might have other thoughts!
And it was and still is experiential that draws on compassion and also can lead us to become more compassionate toward others.
I had to extend compassion to myself. And later, as helping others became part of my path, I learned that my experience would help me be compassionate toward others if and only if I accepted that my experience was only representative of how things worked for me on my path.
And meditation and mindfulness of impermanence are both important. To really KNOW is to know suffering. And no self. Wendy explains that impermanence, suffering, and no self are really the three rings of the existence that we swim in. Or the existence that we can be stuck in.
A lesson in Tibetan Buddhism wrapped inside a compelling story. And in that story, we see how challenging it is to be a human. Even if this is the optimal rebirth, and even if you are a Tibetan Lama, none of this is easy. In my time with Jim, and in my time with his character Lama Rinzen, many thoughts have surfaced. What to focus on?
