There is precious little in this
culture that prepares us for the dying process, our own death,
or the death of someone close to us. This is surely the
most death-denying culture of
all.
In the east, acceptance of the
inevitability of the kinds of change which bring sickness,
decay and death, is woven into the fabric of everyday
philosophies.
When Dr. Bernie Siegel was asked
which ones of his terminally ill patients were most likely to
recover, his response was: the ones that could accept the fact
that they might die. I believe that fear of death is our core
fear; when we can change our relationship to that, we will
have radically changed our society from a fear-based one to a
more fearless one.
My approach engenders the adoption
of philosophies that heal, philosophies that are practical and
mitigate our
suffering.
