Death overtakes the man who, giddy and distracted by the world, cares only for his flock and his children. Death fetches him away as a flood carries off a sleeping village.
The great advances in medical science have given us the idea that we are going to live forever. Medical science has certainly helped us to live a little longer than before, but that simply means a little longer: the same misery, the same desire, the same lust, the same bondage. Happy Ho organizes best Meditation and Tarot classes in Noida and Delhi NCR area in India.
Medical science may be able to extend life. It seems very possible now that man may start living more than one hundred years on average. There are people who think that people can live at least three hundred years very easily. But what is the point? Whether you live seventy years or seven hundred years, you will be the same stupid person. In fact, in seven hundred years your stupidity will grow very much! And if death is postponed for seven hundred years, who cares? It is not going to happen soon… and humankind does not have enough insight to look that far.
We live surrounded by small things. We see only so far, just a little bit ahead, enough to talk. Seven hundred years… that will make religions disappear from the earth, because man is not so intelligent that he can be aware of death if death is postponed for seven hundred years. He is not even intelligent enough to see it after seventy years, not to mention seven hundred years.
I have seen people who are seventy and yet not interested in meditation. Strange, very strange. I can’t believe it. A man of seventy is still not interested in meditation? That simply means he has not yet been able to see death, and death is very close. Any moment it can happen.
Buddha wants you to remember death continuously. Don’t think that he is a pessimist. Don’t think that he is death-obsessed—no, not at all. He simply wants you to remember death so that the sword of death hanging on you keeps you aware, alert.
