"There would be no chance to get to know death at all ...if it happened only once."
Sogyal Rinpoche

+

I have been talking about death with my friend Barbro today. Death is a tabu, if you mention it to people they often want to change the subject pretty soon. Why do we avoid talking about it? Are we afraid that when we say that word, it will happen to us or someone close?

It seems that we think that if we are not talking about death it will somehow slip when we are in question, maybe we can fool death so it doesn't come to us. So berrying the thought death doesn't exist.

I have experienced death in my life, I've lost many close ones. When my mother got terminally ill, I recognised maybe for the first time my own mortality. It was horrifying, I was afraid of death. Luckily a good friend of mine suggested a couple of books for me to read, of which one of them was "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche. That was a huge eye opener for me.

Death is extremely inspiring. That might sound very odd, but when I accepted my own mortality I got so light! Of course it was hard to let go of my mom. As we both understood the situation every moment got so utterly precious. We celebrated every day that we had together, we didn't worry about what was coming.

When I heard those terrible news on the 10th 0f June 2010, I felt death. I had to die to be able to live again. Since then I've learnt how to do it when there is a critical situation. It's not something I want, but now I have the tools.

When I posted this blip today there were very few comments. I was talking about death, something very uncomfortable. The quote of Rogyal Rinpoche is something natural to me; I have died many times, but only now I'm not afraid of it. I want to learn about it, make it familiar.

Sergey asked me a question about death some time ago: "How did it feel for you BEFORE you were in your mother's womb?" That also changed my attitude towards death. There really isn't anything to be afraid of.