Sickness and Dharma. Zoom Feb 2024

Sickness and Dharma

Talk by James Low

Zoom, February 2024

Prepared by Lea Pabst

Read the transcript here.

Extract

“Since I have been sick I will say something about sickness. I’ve written down some notes. Usually, I don’t like to speak with notes, but I thought today it’s better because my mind still gets a bit tired and vague.

One of the wonderful things about being alive is that whatever idea we have about who we are, life events are going to turn it upside down. From the beginning of the Buddha’s teaching – he taught about The Four Noble Truths – he pointed to the suffering of birth, old age, sickness, and death. This is our human condition. When we are young, it’s often difficult to imagine being old, which is nice because then you can just run around and have fun. If you’re old and you imagine that you’re young, that’s when problems can arise. We have to be old when we are old, and with that comes sickness, and eventually death….”

You can watch the video here.