Once there’s birth there’s going to be aging, there’s going to be illness, there’s going to be death. These things are normal for everybody. If we want to learn how not to suffer from them, we have to keep our minds normal in their presence.

"Aging comes, illness comes, death comes. We see this all around us, and we have to remind ourselves: This is normal.

Our problem is that we see it as normal for other people but not normal for ourselves. We constantly think that we’re an exception. It’s like that cartoon in the New Yorker: Three death-figures [grim reapers]. One of them is lying on the ground on its back, and one of the other ones is saying, “You never think it’s going to happen to you.” But once there’s birth there’s going to be aging, there’s going to be illness, there’s going to be death. These things are normal for everybody. If we want to learn how not to suffer from them, we have to keep our minds normal in their presence."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Normalcy"

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