Dalai Lama: An Appeal to the World by Dalai Lama

Author:Dalai Lama [Dalai Lama with Franz Alt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-10-12T04:00:00+00:00

Can people become happy at all in the face of death?

THAT IS CERTAINLY a fascinating question as well as a central one. There are people who do not or do not want to know that they will die. And there are people who have forgotten that they are alive. Compassion for ourselves means turning our attention to death in order to enrich our lives. If we accept death as part of life, we protect ourselves from frittering away our time with meaningless distractions. Watching the sunset, we can ask ourselves: Will I live to see the sunrise again tomorrow morning? But we can also ask ourselves: What if death is only a transitional stage and our spirits will pass through other states of being in the future? By asking these questions, we can learn to take a selfless and peaceful attitude and to let go of both our possessions and what we love. A selfless and detached attitude is the best and smartest preparation for death.

Life is short. If we succumb to negative emotions, we squander it. Whenever I feel a certain sense of frustration or too much sadness, I meditate on these lines by Shantideva, an Indian Buddhist master from the seventh century:

For as long as space remains,

For as long as sentient beings remain,

Until then may I too remain

To dispel the miseries of the world.

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