Reflections about life and death

I would like to share with You my thoughts related to "The Tibetan Book of Living And Dying".
I focus my attention on some important for me elements and stories, that are part of life.

The birth of the man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable og living in the present. CHUANG TZU

Let's Sogyal Rinpoche speaks.

Most of us do live like that - we become unconscious, living corpses. We live according to a preordained plan. We spend our youth bein educated. Then we find a job, and meet someone, marry, and have children. We buy a haouse, try to make a succes of our business, aim for dreams like a country house or a second car. We go away on holiday with our friends. We plan for retirement. The biggest dilemmas some of us ever have to face are where to take our next holiday or whom to invite at Christmas. Our lives are monotonous, petty, and repetivive, wasted in the pursuit of the trivial, because we seem to know of nothing better. (...) We smother our secret fears of impermanence by surrounding ourselves with more and more goods, more and more things, more and more comforts, only to find ourselves their slaves. All our time and energy is exhausted simply maintaining them. Our only aim in life soon becomes to keep everything as safe and secure as possible. When changes do happen, we find the quickest remedy, some slick and temporary solution. And so our lives drift on, unless a serious illness or disaster shakes us out of our stupor. (...) Think of those people who work for years and then have to retire, only to find that they don't know what to do with themselves, as they age and approach death. [page 17-18]

Everything the Rinpoche is saying, seems so well known to me.

Tibetan Buddhism

During my six month residence in San Diego I met people from RIGPA - the group who study Tibetan Buddhism. I've never had opportunity to know it better. I also thought that being catholic I should not to practice or try to understand others religions. But buddhism philosophy doesn't force you to leave own religion to switch to another. It makes me calm and peaceful. I really find it interesting and inspiring. "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche is the first position on my list of books to read.

You have to decide....

Many, many years ago I had to decide to buy or new boots for cold winter or jacket for windy days. My family wasn't rich enough to permit to buy both things. But it was many years ago and for me it wasn't any problem. It was reality and ...... I don't remember what I chose.
After 20 long years when finally we live in capitalistic country we theoreticly don't have this kind of problems. Our decisions aren't so cruel and don't base on the physiological, fundamental needs. Now we are able to buy everything what we want and "need". But when we have to decide about our life, the free-market rules doesn't help us. To much possibilities sometimes make us too much confuse then giving us freedom and indipendance.

" All our final decisions are made

in a state of mind

that is not going to last." Marcel Proust

The consequenses of important decisions are inexpectable and unpredictible. We decide in a state of mind which flow and change constantly but the successions remian a real exemplifications of mental processes.