Death and Impermanence

Location: Kathmandu, Nepal
Local Time: Saturday, Oct 22, 2005 - 5:30pm

Well, I went to a teaching today, at the Himalyan Buddhist Meditation Center. I got to hear a nun speak about death and impermanence in the Buddhist tradition.

Basically (very basically, these are topics for a lifetime of study) death in the Buddhist tradition means reincarnation in another form, most of the time. If we lead a good life, the next form will be human, unless we did something bad in a previous life.

Some meditators practice their whole lives for the moment of their death, preparing so that they can use the moment of death to learn even more, and possibly affect how they will be incarnated next.

Impermanence is the recognition that most things around us, food, friendships, wealth, even our own bodies, are non-permanent, transient things. Our attachment to transient things causes our suffering as, inevitably, these things change or our friends and family die, or we die.

So, not even in Buddhism can we take it with us when we die.