The Body with the subtitle Dhamma Reflections on ageing, sickness and death by the nuns of the Theravada Community is written and compiled by the nuns Ajahn Sundara, Ajahn Candasiri and Ajahn Metta. This collection of nuns’ talks, which were originally offered to the monastic communities and during meditation retreats for lay people, focus on two main themes. The first is obvious but, remarkably, overlooked by many people: our very existence as a physical presence – how that changes and how it ends. The second theme, the Buddha’s teaching, which he referred to as the Four Noble Truths, begins with what is obvious: ‘Life is stressful’, However, having enumerated the causes of this state of affairs, it quickly moves on to the supremely subtle remedy known as ‘letting go’.
From the book:
“How do we deal with the ageing process? Do we fear being
sick ? Do we fear death and all that goes with that aspect of our
life ? We make plans so as to put off dying, doing everything
we can not to fall sick or grow old. A lot of energy is spent on
that. You can see in our society how many gadgets just to keep
us looking young are dangled in front of us – hair dyes, Botox,
facelifts, eternal youth pills… ! We try to go against nature,
but that means paying a price and in the end it never works”
Download the free PDF e-book here (166 pages/2.7MB):
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