If you’re really skilled in your meditation, then you’re really safe. No matter what happens: the body falls apart, all kinds of things can happen - but there’s that secure place.

"Most people are overwhelmed by the process of dying. The body, which always used to seem to work all right, suddenly starts malfunctioning. The body, which they identified with, which they’ve invested so much time and energy in, starts falling apart. They feel lost and betrayed. And then where do they go? For people who don’t have any training in meditation, that’s a real killer, not only physically but also mentally.

If you’ve got these skills mastered, you’ve got a better place for the mind to stay. You can deal with whatever thoughts come up. And all kinds of thoughts are going to come thronging in to your awareness at that point: this regret, that disappointment, this complaint. There’s going to be a lot of negative stuff. But if you’ve got good solid mindfulness and good clear awareness in the present moment, you can just watch these things come and watch them go. You don’t have to grab onto them.

If you’re really skilled in your meditation, you will have found a place where the present moment opens up into the deathless. Then you’re really safe, no matter what happens: the body falls apart, all kinds of things can happen - but there’s that secure place. Ajaan Fuang once said that when you’re practicing meditation, you’re practicing how to die properly. And these skills that we’re working on when we’re sitting right here, they’re your survival skills, both on a day-to-day level and also when the time comes for the mind to separate from the body, to separate from all its mental events, everything associated with this life. If you do it skillfully, the awareness that’s left will separate out, will have nothing to worry about, either in the present or on into the future."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Survival Tactics"

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