That is the first remembrance: “Breathing in, I know I am of the nature to grow old. Breathing out, I know I can’t escape growing old.” We are all afraid of getting old. We don’t want to think about it. We want that fear to stay peacefully down there, far away from us. This contemplation comes from the sutra in the Anguttara Nikaya III 70–71. Surely I will have to grow old. This is a truth that is universal and inevitable. But most of us don’t want to acknowledge it, so we live more or less in denial. Yet down deep in the recesses of our minds, we know it’s true. When we suppress our fearful
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