Question

With the Death Reflection I find my mind can get quite fascinated with all the different ways to die, what they would be like, then it starts to want to experience them, so it would know definitely how it would feel. Is this a type of hindrance, and is there a technique to balance it?

Answer

Yes, it's a hindrance. If you like dying you'll always want to come back to the realm of Birth and Death. We don't want to develop what we call a desire for annihilation in ourselves, otherwise we may start wanting to commit suicide just to get an experience. The Death Reflection is not designed to make us want to experience the feeling. The Death Reflection is to give us some wise caution as to how to live our life better and to prepare ourselves for the inevitable Death, no matter how it comes, so when it does come, we have a more peaceful, balanced mind at that time.

To balance this, you could reflect on the preciousness of the human life, how precious each moment we are living is, and how if we develop ourselves in our precious human life, then no matter how we die, we will have lived our life for great benefit.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.