Woetoe’s Reviews > The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying > Status Update

‘He who binds himself to a joy, does the winged life destroy. He who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity’s sunrise.’ — William Blake

‘Since impermanence to us spells anguish, we grasp on to things desperately, even though all things change. We are terrified of letting go, terrified, in fact, of living at all, since learning to live is learning to let go. And this is the tragedy and irony of our struggle to hold on: not only is it impossible, but it brings us the very pain we are seeking to avoid.’

‘What is born will die, what has been gathered will be dispersed, what has been accumulated will be exhausted, what has been built up will collapse. And what has been high will be brought low.’

‘The realization of impermanence is paradoxically the only thing we can hold onto, perhaps our only lasting posession.’

‘In our minds changes always equal loss and suffering. And if they come, we try to anesthetize ourselves as far as possible. We assume, stubbornly and unquestioningly that permanence provides security and impermanence does not.‘

‘Every single thing that you do in your life is recorded, even though you pass it by not thinking at the time, it always comes up later.’

‘In Tibet the word for body is ‘lii’, which means ‘something you leave behind’, like baggage. Each time we say ‘lii’, it reminds us that we are only travelers, taking temporary refuge in this life and this body. So in Tibet people did not distract themselves by spending all their time trying to make their external circumstances more comfortable.’

‘For someone who has prepared and practiced, death comes not as a defeat but as a triumph, the crowning and most glorious moment of life.’

‘Modern industrial society is a fanatical religion. We are demolishing, poisoning, destroying all life-systems on the planet. We are signing bills our children will not he able to pay. We are acting as if we were the last generation on the planet. Without a radical change in heart, in mind, in vision, the earth will end up like Venus, charred and dead.’

‘The disastrous effects of the denial of death go far beyond the individual: They affect the whole planet. Believing fundamentally that this life is the only one, modern people have developed no long-term vision. So there is nothing to restrain them from plundering the planet for their own immediate ends from living in a selfish way that could prove fatal for the future.’