13 September 2010

'the fear of death and dying is not fear of the event but of the discovery that comes with death: what will i go through as i die and after my death? this fear is born of the everyday personality that we inhabit for this lifetime. it sees that death will be an end and fears it. but although your personality and form may end at death, the essence of you will not.

the fear of death is a recognition that life is fragile and that nothing lives for ever. what we have to change is the perception that this is a bad thing, for in fact it is not. the experience of death is like a filter that helps to purify our perceptions of death in order that, when we return in another life, each of us may live better lives.'



/ from the book 'the tibetan art of serenity' by christopher hansard, 2006