Episode 28 – Assumptions and Reality

The universal experiences of birth, sickness, old age, and death can serve as our teachers, interrupting assumptions that are not helpful in our journey • they can open our eyes to the ways in which we can either increase or reduce our suffering • birth refers to our literal physical birth, but it also refers to being thrust into new situations • we feel vulnerable but fresh; it is exhilarating but scary • the more rigidly we hold on to the assumption that our world should go on in a familiar, predictable way, the more we suffer • what is interrupted as we get older is the assumption of youthful vigor • another quality of aging is staleness; we begin with freshness, but eventually we lose interest • sickness challenges the assumption that we should always be able to enjoy full health • it provides the opportunity to investigate on the spot our state of mind when we encounter an illness • more generally it speaks to the sense that things just strike out of nowhere • “Why me?” What about “Why not me?” • Death refers to our literal death, and also to the fact that nothing lasts; it interrupts our assumptions of eternity • death also relates to our fear of the unknown, to the pain of wanting things to last