Chögyam Trungpa — A Mutual Embarrassment

In the conventional world,

people do not want to relate with a friend who is dying.

They do not want to relate

to their friend’s experience of death as something personal.

It is a mutual embarrassment,

a mutual tragedy that they don’t want to talk about.

If we belong to less conventional circles,

we might approach a dying person and say, “You are dying,”

but at the same time, we try to tell him,

“After all, this is nothing bad that’s happening to you.

You are going to be okay.

Think of those promises about ongoing eternity you’ve heard.

Think of God, think of salvation.”

We still don’t want to get to the heart of the matter.

We don’t talk about purgatory or hell

or the tormenting experience of the bardo.

We are trying to face the situation,

but it is embarrassing.

Though we are brave enough to say

that someone is going to die,

we say, “But still, you’re going to be okay.

Everybody around you feels positive about this,

and we love you.

Take the love that we feel toward you with you

and make something of it as you pass from this world, as you die.”

That’s the attitude [of avoidance] we have toward death.

Chögyam Trungpa

Crazy Wisdom