Weeds Are Beautiful, Ctd

A reader writes:

Just the fact that you even have a video like this (the one where you and Robert Wright discuss his retreat, Buddhism, weeds, etc) on your blog, and that you discuss things like meditation, death, the meaning of spirituality, the dailyness of our physical existence and the need to let go of that, is why I like to read it.

Why can't these discussions happen every day? Why do we not see any of this in the "mainstream"?

I have always thought that death is the great elephant in every room, and that no one really wants to confront it, talk about it, deal with it. . .we pretend it doesn't exist until it happens. . . and this means that people engage in incredible folly--fighting over trivial things, sweeping real problems and real issues in relationships under the rug, misplaced ambition, putting up with miserable lives because they think they will live forever--maybe if death, this all-encompassing, all-important topic were confronted on a daily basis, if a frank and open discussion of it were part of our quotidian routine, then maybe just maybe some of this folly would end. . .

For me, this was confronted rather graphically before I turned thirty. Expecting not to live past 40 concentrates the mind and soul. I forget those lessons all the time, of course. But you never forget entirely. You remember the place where plague cannot get you. And you seek it, and God's astonishing, universal, unconditional love, for the rest of your life.