“Life is a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow, a flash of lightning, a drop of dew.” We know this, and so when the time comes, we try to push out of our minds the thought that a loved one is dying. Except that it doesn’t work.

We’re attached and we cannot let go. We cannot bear the thought that one day soon we will lose her. But it happens, and on that most terrible day our world drops away from below us.

Totally in shock and numbed, we are adrift. No longer with an option to push reality away, we come face-to-face with impermanence.

We are alone. We are in pain. We suffer.

Lifetime after lifetime, we have clung very tightly to our attachments. We know the reality, yet refuse to accept it. We prefer to live in ignorance, ensnared by our emotions and mired in our habits. This will continue into an endless future unless we change.

We need to awaken.

Now.