This Mortal World: A Buddhist Physician on Life, Impermanence, and Better Ways to Die

A reflective and compassionate meditation on “death awareness” for anyone who quietly believes death is for other people.

With wisdom and humor, a palliative care physician challenges cultural taboos surrounding death and encourages us to embrace impermanence as a transformative lens for living.

Most of us live under what Dr. Leslie Blackhall calls the “immortality illusion”—pretending death won’t happen while missing opportunities for authentic living. A leading palliative care physician w...