Central to Buddhist philosophy are the awareness of impermanence and seeing thing as they really are. Contemplation of death is not an uncommon Buddhist practice, and you may be surprised to know that it’s not seen as morbid or dark. On the contrary, the effect can be very positive.
Larry Rosenberg of the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center says “most of us are imbalanced when it comes to death. We haven’t come to terms with the nature of our bodies, and we don’t see death as a natural process. So we have all kinds of funny reactions to it: excessive joking, or avoidance, or preoccupation in a morbid way.”
A death awareness practice can bring us into balance.
That brings me to the invitation for you to join the Buddhist Study Group, or the Gather Waters Sangha, for our next book: The Five Invitations, Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, by Frank Ostaseski.
We will start this book on May 7th (we meet the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays, 6:30-8:00 p.m. at church). We read our books over a number of meetings depending on the density of the book, and I anticipate this book to be spread out over 10 meetings, roughly two meetings for each “invitation.”
Will you join us? Just show up, or you can request additional information at gatheringwaterssangha@gmail.com.
Thank you.
Mark Miller, Buddhist Study Group Organizer