Sati Center for Buddhist Studies

Problems of aging, illness, and death are all too often treated as a special subset of a larger set of problems to which the Dhamma can be applied: Dhamma practice specifically for people who are old, sick, and approaching death. It’s important to remember, though, that the facts of aging, illness, and death, and the shadow they cast across health, youth, and life, were the original impetus that led the bodhisatta—the young Buddha-to-be—to look for the Dhamma in the first place. We owe the Dhamma as a whole to his desire to find a truth that lay beyond the suffering entailed in these facts.

This daylong—through readings, talks, and discussions— explored how many of the Buddha’s most basic teachings are specifically designed to help comprehend aging, illness, and death. It also explored ways in which the skills of the triple training in virtue, concentration, and discernment are precisely the skills needed to approach aging, illness, and death in a way that avoids suffering and can lead to the freedom of the deathless. Readings found at Readings in Aging, Illness, & Death

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