Illness As Path (Link #804)

Speaker: Sharon Lukert. Sharon explores how the Buddha's teachings on birth, old age, sickness, and death can be brought directly into the lived experience of illness. Sickness brings us into intimate contact with our deepest attachment, which is the body itself. Drawing on her lived experience with Alzheimer's disease, Sharon shares how she has adapted her Dharma practice in response to this diagnosis. As outer cognitive capacities diminish, illness offers a deeper recognition of impermanence, and a tender cultivation of compassion for herself and others. She offers a line from the great Dzogchen master Jigme Lingpa for our contemplation: "Do not place the sickness on your mind, but place your naked intrinsic awareness upon your sickness."